--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Eliot, Charles W. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 16 number: 2 published: 1912-12 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Charles W. Eliot, "Editor’s Table: Early Marriages," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 2 (December 1912): 167–170.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1602unse 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: improvementera1602unse start_page: 167 end_page: 170 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1912-12) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1602unse publication_year: 1912 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 1912, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Editor’s Table: Early Marriages EDITOR'S TABLE 169 to the development of your own characters and to the happiness not only of yourselves, but of the women you will marry, and of the family life which will normally result. This forelooking will bring you on to being twenty-six or twenty-eight years old at the best. But the years will fly, and soon you will find yourselves in the presence of little children every day, your own children. Look ahead to that situation. The very thought will protect you from evil-doing and will prepare you for the greatest joys of life and the most lasting. When that time comes you will see how much this happiness surpasses all other human joys, and how it is the real foundation for the enjoyment of work and the earning a living — no matter whether the way in which you earn your living be in itself satisfactory or not. He who has the domestic joys will get intense satisfaction even from the most monotonous and tiresome employment. He will have the satisfaction of earning the livelihood of wife and children. The years will go on and you will be forty to forty-five years of age. To what experiences are you going to look forward at that period, beyond the loves and joys of family life? You ought p. look forward to and plan for the satisfactions that Major Higginson has been describing, to the love of the home town or city, of the community in which you dwell, of the institutions which have served you and which you hope will serve your children, of the country whose ideals have improved and are improving the common human lot. You will see herein not only high motives for active and sympathetic co-operation in good works, but also new sources of durable satisfaction. By the time you are forty to forty-five years of age you ought to be in position to contribute largely to the welfare of the community in which you dwell. You, with your education and training, ought to be ready by that time to do what thousands of Harvard men are now doing all over this country and all around the world— to be serviceable in your day and generation to multitudes of people ; and this service may be rendered in business, in public office, in any of the responsible functions of civilized communities. The time will go on, and you will be fifty to sixty years of age. What is there in that period that you had better be looking forward to ? It is time then to be a grandfather, and so to secure an immense satisfaction to be added to the other joys of human life. Now, the time of life when a man will become a grandfather is something to be considered long beforehand, and you had better begin to consider it now. Why? Because the time at which a man becomes a grandfather is determined — normally, of course — by the time at which he marries. The postponed marriage has the great disadvantage that a man cannot begin to enjoy grandchildren till he is almost too old to do so completely. A young grandfather is a very pleasing object, and one oftener seen in the unedu- 170 IMPROVEMENT ERA cated classes and in the barbarous countries, as we call them, than among the educated men of a civilized country. Look ahead to that satisfaction in your later lives. Perhaps you are saying to yourselves, "These things are, to be sure, desirable ; but are they attainable by the average man? Is there any use in planning for them ?" They arc attainable with health and character. Those things constitute the indispensable preparation for continuous satisfaction in the kind of life we have been describing. Avoid the Vices and Stimulants Therefore, gentlemen, look ahead in regard to the care of your bodies. Avoid the vices. Avoid lust. And avoid the habitual use of any stimulating or narcotic drug. And the wider my field of observation the more firmly I believe that the best rule for the attainment of health, long life and steady vigor is to use no stimulant whatever habitually, neither alcohol nor tobacco, neither coffee nor tea. ****** Adopt the Lasting Sports With this same object of preserving a sound mind in a sound body, look ahead with regard to athletic sports. It may make some difference to you in the next four years, perhaps, if you look ahead with regard to athletic sports. Under modern stresses athletic sports are an indispensable part of young life, and indeed, of sound national life. One of the most serious aspects of China at the present moment is the absence there of all the sports we call "athletic." Neither the educated nor the uneducated Chinese have athletic sports in the open air. All their sports are of a gambling nature. They are sedentary or quiet games of chance. That is a national misfortune on an immense scale. By looking ahead in regard to athletic sports, I mean, give preference to those sports that last, and that you can pursue at thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy and I am beginning to hope eighty years of age. You know what the lasting sports are — walking, rowing, sailing a boat, tennis — any sport which can be pursued by the average individual all through life. Lord Bacon says that riding horseback is the best recreation for men who use their brains. The sports that an individual can pursue all through his life are the best ones to learn in youth. The wise choice involves looking ahead. Look Forward to an Enjoyable Life Let me mention one more point about looking ahead. It is wisest to hold a hopeful ideal of the power of sustained enjoyment as life goes on, an enjoyment which increases rather than diminishes. How common are laments about the incapacities and dis- EDITOR'S TABLE 171 abilities of advancing years and the shrinkage in pleasures ! It is true that some pleasures which require keen senses do shrink ; but, on the other hand, the intellectual and moral delights increase in intensity as life goes on, and many physical satisfactions can be held level to the end. Look forward, therefore, to a life which shall grow more and more enjoyable as time goes on. That expectation corresponds with the facts of the normal, healthy life among civilized men. It is a delight to look forward to it; to anticipate it is in itself a happiness. For many reasons, therefore, gentlemen, look ahead ! CAMBRIDGE, MASS. Messages from the Missions Elder L. E. Eggertson writes from Burnley, England, Sept. 15: "Burnley is the largest branch in the Liverpool conference, and ranks high among the foreign branches of the Church. Over one hundred Saints support us in our work, and we all have their faith and prayers. We consider them the best Saints in the world. We have a splendid choir of over thirty members, and an able choir leader, so we never lack for music in any of our well-attended meetings. We have had as high as twenty investigators attend our regular Sunday night services. We have a first-class Sunday school, and before long will begin our regular winter Mutual work. It all seems like a little ward in Zion, and many times I have thought myself in Utah during our splendid meetings. The elders are, left to right: W. H. Wheelwright, Rexburg; Orson H. Grimmett, Paris, Idaho; Luther E. Eggertson, Provo; C. R. Wing, Garland; George F. Labrum, Murray, Utah." Judge C. M. Nielsen, writing from Christiania, Norway, says: "The prospects for the spread of the truth here are quiet, although our large 172 IMPROVEMENT ERA > new meetinghouse is crowded every Sunday night. Our enemies are still continuing to lecture against us, dishing up the same old yarns. The effect, however, is only to fill our hall, in which I try to make replies as fast as they deal out falsehoods. Only few, however, embrace the gospel. They keep coming to our meetings, but that seems to be as far as we can get them." Elder M. M. Johnson, writing from Wellington, New Zealand, August 25: "We are making headway in New Zealand both among the Europeans and natives, but more especially among the latter. The building of the beautiful college erected by the Latter-day Saints at Koroongata, for the education of the Maori people, has aroused great interest among the Europeans. The government is now considering the matter of doing similar work. From a newspaper clipping from the 'Wellington Times' it will be seen that we are to be investigated, to which action we offer no objection. No specific charge has yet been placed against us, although some of the lurid tales from parts of England have been assigned as a reason why the Latter-day Saints "elders in this part should not be accorded the same privileges that representatives of other denominations enjoy in the Dominion. These same slanders have been found to be libels, by the investigation by officers of the Crown, during the time of the recent unpleasantness, and are all outsprings of sectarian savagery in England. The papers appear to prefer publishing slanders about the Latter-day Saints, and claim to be unable to find space for refutation or correction, which accounts for the prevailing ignorance on the great 'Mormon' question. But there are those who are earnestly investigating, and the future is full of promise. Elders of the Wellington conference, left to right: H. H. Jensen, Rockland, Idaho; M. M. Johnson, conference president, Salt Lake City; R. S. Stringham, Goshen, Idaho; Laura S. Johnson, Salt Lake City; J. Leo Ellerton, Mona, Utah; A. R. Ipson, Bennington, Idaho." Elders Albert J. Newman, Murray, Utah, and E. Glen Green, Kaysville, Utah, write from Trenton, New Jersey, Sept. 4, 1912: "We have