Books

Many critics and some friends of Mahatma Gandhi have found fault with his desire to introduce simpler methods of spinning and weaving and to do away with much of the complicated machinery of Modern Civilisation. The reason why they object is that they fear such methods mean not progress towards a higher state but relapse into a primitive condition of civilisation or even of barbarism. His denunciation of the age of machinery and of the Industrial System has been criticised by many as the ravings of a visionary and of one who is merely an impracticable idealist. This is a strange criticism to come from those who give their allegiance to a form of civilisation or ‘Culture’ which has led to the unprecedented horrors of the late European War and the century-old disgraces [pg x] of the Industrial System. Is this present modern civilisation so very desirable that we should wish it to continue in perpetuity?

The Anabasis of Alexander or The History of the Wars and Conquests of Alexander the Great

Inaugaral Addresses of the Presidents of The United States, from George Washington to George W. Bush (1789-2005)

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen–the seven masks I have fashioined and worn in seven lives, — I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.”
Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.
And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, “He is madman.” I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. and as if in a trance I cried, “Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.”
Thus I became a madman.

To one who has been an eye-witness of the wonderful achievements of American medical science in the conquest of acute communicable and pestilential diseases in those regions of the earth where they were supposed to be impregnably entrenched, there is the strongest possible appeal in the present rapidly growing movement for the improvement of physical efficiency and the conquest of chronic diseases of the vital organs.

How to get and keep it. The hygiene of dress, food, exercise, rest, bathing, breathing, and ventilation.

Whether the British race is improving or degenerating? What, if it seem probably degenerating, are the causes of so great an evil? How they can be, if not destroyed, at least arrested?—These are questions worthy the attention, not of statesmen only and medical men, but of every father and mother in these isles. I shall say somewhat about them in this Essay; and say it in a form which ought to be intelligible to fathers and mothers of every class, from the highest to the lowest, in hopes of convincing some of them at least that the science of health, now so utterly neglected in our curriculum of so-called education, ought to be taught—the rudiments of it at least—in every school, college, and university.

This edition has been completely revised and much of it rewritten, and, while the essential principles remain unchanged, some slight departures from previously expressed opinions may be noted; for in the years that have elapsed since the first edition saw the light, some notable advances have been made in rational therapeutics and dietetics, and no one can afford to lag behind the car of Progress.

Whether you are the perfect embodiment of a business man or the ideal disciple of a certain profession, you cannot possibly reach the highest or even most lucrative grades of your calling without health, happiness, and their logical consequence, longevity. They will prove trusty lieutenants. Without them the battle of life will draw to a close in retreat and end in defeat.

For a considerable number of years I had been a resident in London, which city I regarded alternately as my Paradise and my House of Bondage. I am by no means one of those who are always ready to fling opprobrious epithets at London, such as ‘a pestilent wen,’ a cluster of ‘squalid villages,’ and the like; on the contrary, I regard London as the most fascinating of all cities, with the one exception of that city of Eternal Memories beside the Tiber. But even Horace loved the olive-groves of Tivoli more than the far-ranged splendours of the Palatine; and I may be pardoned if an occasional vision of green fields often left my eye insensitive to metropolitan attractions.

This book is intended for children. There is no subject in the presentation of which object-teaching may be employed with greater facility and profit than in teaching Physiology, and none which may be more advantageously impressed upon the student’s mind by means of simple experimentation than the subject of Hygiene. Every teacher who uses this book is urgently requested to supplement each lesson by the use of object-teaching or experiments. A great number of simple experiments illustrative of both Physiology and Hygiene may be readily arranged. Many little experiments are suggested in the text, which should invariably be made before the class, each member of which should also be encouraged to repeat them at home.

When it was all over Mr. Sam came out to the spring-house to say good-by to me before he and Mrs. Sam left. I hated to see him go, after all we had been through together, and I suppose he saw it in my face, for he came over close and stood looking down at me, and smiling. “You saved us, Minnie,” he said, “and I needn’t tell you we’re grateful; but do you know what I think?” he asked, pointing his long forefinger at me. “I think you’ve enjoyed it even when you were suffering most. Red-haired women are born to intrigue, as the sparks fly upward.”

Fat individuals have always been considered a joke, but you are a joke no longer. Instead of being looked upon with friendly tolerance and amusement, you are now viewed with distrust, suspicion, and even aversion! How dare you hoard fat when our nation needs it? You don’t dare to any longer. You never wanted to be fat anyway, but you did not know how to reduce, and it is proverbial how little you eat. Why, there is Mrs. Natty B. Slymm, who is beautifully thin, and she eats twice as much as you do, and does not gain an ounce. You know positively that eating has nothing to do with it, for one time you dieted, didn’t eat a thing but what the doctor ordered, besides your regular meals, and you actually gained.
Book with the right methods of gaining weight, as well as those for losing weight.

How often do we hear women exclaim, “Oh dear, what shall I have for the next meal?”
This little book will aid you in answering that troublesome question. The recipes are carefully selected and we hope you will find them helpful. More important to you than the question of food is that of health. Therefore, in this book we show you many letters from women who have received great benefit

Among the smaller forces, which operate upon the mind and tend toward strengthening and exalting the best ideals, are little books like this. They are especially valuable when so much of the author’s own experience forms a thread upon which are suspended jewels of thought and illustration serviceable to those who would see and know the best things.
The book is recommended to all those who would become more familiar with “the key to that cabinet of character, in which nature conceals not only the motive power of every-day life but those latent talents and energies that through a knowledge of self can bear upon our lives.” This book will help many who have small opportunities in the form of time and money to expend in larger volumes.
-Preface by Charles Stewart Given

The average young man is apt to think that success is not for him. To his mind, it is a gift to the few, not to the many. This book aims to remove the misconceptions of success from the common stereotype that only the rich and the fortunate gets it. It has no other purpose save to show that success—and the truest and best success—is possible to any young man of honorable motives. It is written to young men by a young man to whom the noise of the battle is not a recollection, but an every-day living reality. He thinks he knows what a fight for success means to a young fellow, and he writes with the smoke of the battle around him and from the very thick of the fight.