Disquisition by Scripps, E.W., Growing old sensibly, June 13, 1922

              Ohio University Libraries, E.W. Scripps Papers, MSS 117, Series 4, http://bit.ly/scripps_mss117
GROWING OLD SENSIBLY.
Of growing old gracefully we have heard and resd enough of
this silly prattle.
:Remarks of this kind are generally made by pe ople who have
had no experience in growing old at all -- people who draw on their
imaginations exclus ively for depi cting conditions or by people who
have had some experience with age, being more or less advanced in
yea:rs t but who are not past the period when they are free from foolish
or even chil dish or, at least, adolesent vanity. Older people who
sl')eak of such methods are tile kind of .old people who maKe fools of
themselves by dressing in raiment that is only really becoming to
youth and by resorting to mBsseurs to smooth out their Wl'inkles Bnd
to manicurist 8 to have the ir finger nail s po Ii shed.
This kind of people can eVen be hea:rd to say that one is no
olde:r than he feels, and tney then p:roceed to mimic in their walk and
in their talk, in tl1eir posing and in their employment younger people
in tneir envir onme nt. They are p9-opl e who are m Vel' wise and who are
never capable of becoming wise; people congenitally affected wi th the
tendency to be continually arrested in development.
Perhaps there are some old people who do grow old gracefully.
Thst is to say, Who grow old natur ally just as 13 child grows to the
peri)d of adolescence, to mstuI'ity, naturally.
But Vihs t is commonly unde:rstoQd by growing old gracefu11y is
that one while a gtng should to a greater or 1e ss extent mimic as
much as po aaiblf:l the activi ty of' all sorts of exhibi tiona lmde by
the young.
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