Literary Cadet, And Saturday Evening Bulletin

The mind, like the body, requires exercise: inaction produces similar effects in both. The individual who indulges in sloth and indolence--who, hour after hour, lolls in listless stupidity upon his easy chair, or lounges all day upon the couch of laziness, must inevitably become enervated and enslaved. The blood creeps reluctantly through its wonted channels, and the fountains of life, powerless and without excitement, seem to

'Creep and mantle as a standing pool.'

So with the mind: its latent energies must be aroused--its resources explored--and its faculties brought into active operation. Without these efforts, the human intellect lies wholly torpid--a prey to ignorance and weakness--and, like some bed-ridden hypochondriac, a fit subject to be wrought upon by knaves and imposters.