Show OW aoe no T im 10 mrs finding useful work Is formula for 11 happiness ap by BAUKHAGE news analyst and commentator washington latest figures from the census bureau have revealed that the postwar period has produced a record baby crop 3 est mated for 1946 almost a million more than were born in 1940 but it will take more than this belated burst of re juvena uvena tion to keep the united states from beco becoming an old nation old in he sense that the average i age will be high with a heavy proportion of oldsters there are two reasons for this nowa days people live much longer thanks to medical science and the size of the american family has shrunk in 1860 when the population was about 31 5 millions persons were over 65 in 1945 when the population approached millions 9 OW persons were over 65 by 1970 there will be 16 million over that age out ot of an estimated populate on of more than millions million sl this situation poses a number of problems for the nation and also emphasizes the personal problem the problem of growing old like many of our troubles real or imagined the best cure is to bring this one out into the light give it a good shaking the result in many cases will be that it digap pears or that it shrinks to tance if that t so psychia try wouldn t be such a highly re warded profession wise men have known this for a long time and lived to a happy old age others who didn dian t know it have worried their friends and themselves to early deaths by sitting down and weeping over their lost youth instead of getting up learning to take old age in their stride and liking it recently I 1 read a very up to date baukhage Bauk hace little pamphlet called when you grow older written in straightforward english based on modern scientific deas the pam ahlet outlines methods which make that famous poem by browning so often regarded as wishful thinking by the skeptical ring true grow old along with me said brown bro wn ing s rabbi ben ezra the best is yet to be when I 1 grasped the theme ot of this pamphlet it stirred classic J L LJ 0 1 00 k A qa t just hanging around memories I 1 remembered that a gentleman who considerably predated browning had said the same thing in his essay on old age written in the year 44 B C I 1 refer to marcus tullius cicero he ile said among other pertinent things qui autem omma a se iasi eis ni in lul hil potest quod naturae which it if ou 11 pardon my freedom with the text means that those who seek their happiness from with in can never regard nature s in evit abilities as bad cicero wrote that essay aten wl en he tie was 63 years old and I 1 have no doubt he be would have lived what be preached tor for another decade or two t f his vigorous old age had not produced the resounding phillip against anthony which resulted in h s being purged roman etyle while still hale and hearty at 14 4 like cicero george law ion ton and maxwell stewart authors tit bf the pamphlet I 1 mentioned stress the psychological problems of old age the pamphlet is issued by he the public affairs committee inc i non profit educational hon 22 east st new york city ity 20 cents old age comes with a shock because we haven t prepared tor for it mabe we are ready for the last day at the office or at the work bench or when we sell the farm and move to the vil lage or city or in other ways break a lifetime lifetimes s routine but we may have tailed failed to lecog nize the need to feel imbor tant a need which we must satisfy one way or another not important in the sense that we have somebody kowtow kow tow to us but necessary to somebody or some thing some business some undertaking maybe not a big cog but something that helps the wheels of life go round avocations help to retain youth anybody can develop an avoca voa I 1 tion of some kind in many cases these avocations have turned into baying paying vocations vocation s after retirement in any case they are literally life savers when it comes to mak making ing life livable various skills permit varying pe nods of activity r IP many farmers are self elf supporting at 70 or 73 75 perhaps this Is partly because of their environment environment environ men mental and physical cicero says farmers are not hindered to any extent by old age and seem to me to approach the ideal wise man s life most jobs abs are of such a character that ability to perform them de dines clines with the years when you grow older cites as an example speed work like the assembly line youth excels in this type of work but age does almost as well as youth in the type classified as power work the kind of job ob where skill is important there is not space here to develop the theme of when you grow old er as its authors do so compactly n the r 30 pages they d escuss the quest ons personal and political of old age security they offer a host of other specific examples to illus the statements some of which I 1 have quoted here I 1 have attempt ed to review rather than a sum mary moved to comment partly be cause of the valuable suggest ons offered and also partly because these pertinent paragraphs of when you grow older offer a per f fact ct example of bow how modern ence and experience confirm the verities expressed by poets and philosophers of the past it is still the habit of many critics to praise the style of cicero s de tute but to toss its message aside as wish ful thinking even montaigne who said frankly that reading the essay made one long to grow old pessimistically lim cited what he considered a useful to lo a mere 50 years and thought it wrong to content plate further existence cicero s physical world was bounded by the frontiers conquered by rome s plodding legions but his view was long in time today the ee men of our scientific age echo the request in the last paragraph of fhe phe great statesman s immortal essay when he prayed th that a t you put my words to practical test |