--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Barnes, Claude T. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 11 number: 7 published: 1908-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Claude T. Barnes, "The Use of the Idle Hour," *Improvement Era* 11, no. 7 (May 1908): 514–518.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1107unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1107unse start_page: 514 end_page: 518 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1908-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1107unse publication_year: 1908 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1908, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Use of the Idle Hour THE USE OF THE IDLE HOUR. BY CLAUDE T. BARNES. If seems strange that the Greek word for "school" meant a place where pleasure is enjojed; and yet that fact, seriously con- templated, suggests the means toward the acquisition of the truest- culture. Man is so constituted that change is essential to his welfare: they whose minds never leav^e the worrying scenes of business are, in their way, as far from the true lines of culture as- is the professor whose intentness causes him to appreciate only the- narrow sphere of his own selection. The idle hour is, then, th& choicest time for improvement, for it not only opens the way to- wards new knowledge, but also, by being merely a diversion, pre- vents a loss of that breadth and equilibrium characteristic of the most highly cultivated mind. On account of the diversity of in- clination and occupation the idle hour is, however, a matter of great study; and the few suggestions made here must be meagre- and unsatisfactory. The history of intellectual development proves the assertion^ that many of the masters of art and science were men whose edu- cations were of insignificant developing power in comparison with natural inclinations favored by opportune idle hours. Notice, for instance, the science of geology and we observe that its leaders- have been men who devoted only their spare time in its cultiva- tion. Steno, Guettard, Pallas, Fuchel and many more were physi- cians; while Giraud-Soulavie and Michell were clergymen. Murchi- son was a retired sol^lier; and Alexander Brongniart was a super- intendent of a procelain factory at Sevres. Desmaiest was an overworked civil servant, who diverted his mind from the drudg- ery of official duty by rambling over the hills in search of geologi- THE USE OF THE IDLE HOUR. 515 cal knowledge. Playfair and C'uvier were teachers of other branches of science, who were drawn into the study of geology on account of the refreshing change it afforded. Hutton, De Saus- sure, Hall, Von Buch, Byell, and Darwin were wealthy men who, scorning a life of slothful ease, sought happiness in a study of nature. William Smith was an engineer; and, in fact, in the whole list of geological scholais, Werner, Sedgwick and Logan are the only ones who made its study their profession. Strong as these facts may be, in evincing the great use of which the idlf hour is capable, let us look at another branch of the world's attainment— Literature. Shakespeare was withdrawn from the Stratford grammar school when he was thirteen; and, if our information concerning him be correct, his immortal poetry is the result of a judicious use of his idle hours. Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, attended a boys' school at Stoke Newington, London, im- mediately afterward working on a paper for his living. Pope was withdrawn from school at twelve; but the fact that he read everything he could lay his hands on, made his idle hours the benefactors of classical literature. Burns was the son of a farmer; and he had no education except such as his father gave him. In the family, however, they were constantly reading from Shake- speare, Pope, The Spectator, Locke's Essays and Harvey's Medita- tions. The life of Burns is, therefore, astonishing, as from no education there issued forth poetic greatness. He will live for- ever, because he knew how to live his idle hours. Keats left school at fifteen and Cowper at eighteen. Dickens' school days had ended when he was fifteen; but, in his idle hours, he taught himself shorthand and studied in the British Museum. Through his assiduity, he became so proficient at shorthand that he was ap- pointed Parliamentary reporter, and, by the time he was twenty- four, he had already published the first book of the Sketches by Boz. All masters must, sooner or later, rise above their teachers; for instruction brings forth what is already known, while genius produces the unknown. Instruction at school or college is, there- fore, more or less stereotype, and, to one gifted with an abundance of observational power, not altogether necessary. To some it 516 IMPRO VEMENT ERA would seem, for instance, impossible to excel in literature without a thorough preparation in the studv of grammar. That this im- pression is erroneous appears from the fact that much of the world's classical reading was produced before grammars were known. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio produced their imperishable works two hundred years before an Italian grammar was thought of. Shakespeare, Milton, Dry den, Addison, Pope, Young, Thom- son, Johnson and Burns learned no grammar in their childhood. Sorneille, Moliere, La Fontaine, Pascal, Bossuet, Boileau, and Ra- cine produced their immortal works long before a French gram- mar appeared. In fact the most illustrious masters of language — Demosthenes, Seneca,, Malherbe, Clarendon, Montesquieu, Fene- Montaigne, Boileau, Dante, Galileo, Frank- lon, Voltaire, Rosseau, lin, Gibbon, Pope, Burns, and Moore — acknowledge, as you can prove by reading their works or their biographies, that they ac- quired their excellences of style by. the private study and imitation of the best models put before them. It is in the idle hours when one is all alone, that one's thoughts reach their loftiest develop- ment and that culture is most easily acquired. Some men will whittle boards on the street corner and talk to companions that know little capable of instructing or improving, while, at home, they could, if they would, talk with such men as Montaigne, Emerson, Hawthorne, orMacaulay. The United States government distributes, free of charge, bulletins on every phase of agriculture; and if they were carefully read, in the evenings, by the youth of the country, many a boy would soon be a scientific farmer. The man who is always discontented with his powers and de- termined to gain further knowledge, regards the idle hour as merely an opportunity for change of employment, not for ease. He is a wise man who so arranges his life that, whether working or play- ing, he is gathering in more of the world's knowledge and culture. Dr. Francis Wayland once gave an interesting address before a scientific audience at Union College, N. Y.; and though the dis- course was on a technical subject, the following excerpt is appro- priate here: THE USE OF THE IDLE HOUR. 517 Everyone, whatever his position, may well be supposed to possess the means of developing his own powers, and arriving at the standing of an intellectual man. There is nothing in the nature of an occupation that renders such an expectation extravagant. The uncles of "Hugh Miller were highly cultivated men, reading the best books, concerning one of whom he remarks; "there are professors of natural history who know less of living nature than was known by Uncle Sandy;' and yet one of them was a harness maker and the other a atone mason; each laboring in- dustriously at his calling, for daily bread, for six days in the week. There is no field so wide in its opportunities for self-culture, as nature. If you are interested in mines and minerals, procure a standard work on mineralogy, and seek the hills in confirmation of all that you read. If you would like to be able to converse, intel- ligently on the various insect pests to agriculture, get in touch with the Department of Entomology, at Washington, and begin a scientific collection of your own. If you would know the names, the habits and characteristics of over a hundred varieties of birds that sing and fly over you every day, purchase the proper books, a pair of field glasses, a scalpel and other ornithological tools, and, then, seek the woods in commencement of a study which will take you years to master. The same might be said in regard to botany; oology, the science of bird's eggs; helminthology, the science of worms; herpetology, the study of serpents; ichthyology, the study offish; paleontology, which investigates fossil remains; dendrolo- gy, the science of trees, and mycology, the study of fungi. If you do not care for any of these sciences, there are hun- dreds more from which to choose. No man will ever make a great success at something he doesn't like. The industrial sciences can all be mastered by individual study and effort. Some may complain that they live in cities too large to afford opportunities for any systematic study of nature. In winter es- pecially this contention is forceful; and, therefore, we cannot do better than follow the instructions of Edward Forbes F R S given , . . . , in a lecture before a London audience. His topic was, "The Edu- cational Use of Museums;" part of the address follows: Museums of themselves, alone, are powerless to educate. But they can in- and excite a desire for knowledge in the ignorant. The struct the educated laborer who spends his holiday in a walk through the British Museum, cannot fail of knowledge pos- to come away with a strong and reverential sense of the extent 61 mm YEMEN T ERA f essed by his fellow-men. It is rot the objects themselves that he sees there and wonders at, thatmake this impression so much as the order and evident science which he cannot but recognize in the manner in which they are grouped and ar- ranged. He learns that there is meaning and value in every object however in- significant, and that there is a way of looking at things common and rare distinct from the regarding of them as useless, useful, or curious— the three terms of classification in favor with the ignorant. He goes home and thinks over it; and when a holiday in summer or a Sunday's afternoon in Spring tempts him, with his wife and little ones, to walk into the fields; he finds that he has acquired a new in- terest in the stones, in the flowers, in the creatures of all kinds that throng around him. He can look at them with an inquiring pleasure, and talk of them to his children with a tale about things like them that he had seen ranged in order in the museum. He has gained a new sense — a thirst for natural knowledge, one promis- ing to quench the thirst for be3r and vicious excitement that tortured him of old. If his intellectual capacity be limited and ordinary, he will become a citizen and a happier man; if in his brain there be dormant power, it may waken him up to make him a Watt, a Stephenson or a Miller. This is an age of wonderful opportunity. Magazines contain- ing instructive matter can be procured for a few cents a year; and nearly all of the masterpieces of science can be purchased for twenty-five cents a copy. Everyone has access to books; and if a child, able to read, remains ignorant it is either his own laziness or the fault of parents who are so avaricious that they do not give him time to do anything but work, eat and sleep. The Bible, for instance, is in every home; and its literary beauty is not excelled by Milton, Shakespeare, Goethe or Homer. It is one book that teaches by example as well as by precept. Whoever you are, and whatever you are, you are missing life's biggest opportunity if you are not wisely using your idle hour. Salt Lake City, Utah. IT ALL DEPENDS. John and Pat were two friendly workmen who were constantly tilting, each one trying to outwit the other. "Are you good at measurement?" asked John. "I am that," said Pat, quickly. "Then, could you tell me how many shirts I could get out of a yard?" asked John. 'Sure," said Pat, "that depends on whose yard you got into." — Tid-Bits.