"Shun the New England conscience!" is one of the ten rules for avoiding nervousness laid down by Dr. Austen Fox Riggs in the current number of "Mental Hygiene." The New England conscience, he says, is a form of egotism that makes a moral issue of every trivial thought or feeling. It takes the adventure out of life and puts in its place all manner of safety-first devices which warp the mind of the possessor.

This is probably the first time that the New England conscience has been thus publicly pilloried by a medical man writing of mentally overwrought conditions. Those who have suffered from this peculiar inheritance often have inveighed against it privately and have fought against it as hard as their ancestors fought for it. But they so far have had few champions to take up the cudgels in their behalf. Those psycho-analysts who have studied New England cases have recognized some of the evils of this strange mental heritage, but they have given little comfort to its victims.

The New England conscience is an ever-present lash, working relentlessly against all natural inclinations and all repose. It it the father and mother of inhibitions, wise and unwise. It is first cousin to all kill-joys and gloom. It is forever stepping up and saying "No!" and tends to associate a sense of guilt with all innocent amusement. It fights against idleness as against one of the cardinal sins. It considers all rest as probably wrong and seeks to drive its victims to incessant mental activity.

Fortunately the New England conscience is possessed only by those of New England blood or subjected to New England training. The sufferers from it are therefore few in number. But these few, spread far and wide throughout the country, will welcome Dr. Riggs's suggestion to shun it and will join in urging all who are afflicted with a New England conscience "to shake it off!" The New York Tribune.