Senescence : the last half of life / by G. Stanley Hall.

  • G. Stanley Hall
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Senescence : the last half of life / by G. Stanley Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    erage length of human life is increased and there are more and more old people, a fact that marks the triumph of science and civilization, there is more need of study¬ ing them, just as in recent decades children have been studied, for medically, at least after the climacteric, they constitute a class in the community that is somewhat alien, its intrinsic nature but litle known, and the ser¬ vices it was meant to render but little utilized.1 As my horizon changed and I became more at home with myself, and personal problems grew nearer and clearer, I realized that I must make a new plan of life, in which both tasks and also a program of renunciation played a very prominent initial part. This began with a literal house-cleaning. My home, from attic to cellar, and even the large barn were more or less full of dis¬ used articles of every kind—furniture and even wearing apparel, still serviceable but displaced by better ones, which it was now plain could never be of use to us but might be so to others. About some of these so many old associations clustered that it was a pang to part with them, but it was selfish to keep them longer. And so, by distribution to persons and institutions, then by sales, and finally by dumpage, they were rigorously got¬ ten rid of, room by room, and we all felt relieved phys¬ ically, mentally, and morally, by this expropriation, even though a few heirlooms were sacrificed. This process has many analogies with those by which the body is rid of waste material. Next came books, of which my purchases, when I was enthusiastic and had a passion for ownership and completeness in my favorite topics, had been extrava¬ gant for my means and which, by many hundreds of publisher’s gifts for review in my journals, had over- 1 In the preceding paragraphs I have incorporated, with minor changes, parts of my anonymous article on “Old Age” in the Atlantic Monthly of January, 1921, with the kind permission of the editor.
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