Pushing to the Front

en to-day the physical stature of the average Frenchman is nearly h

eriorated by the softening, emasculating influences of the city, until the superior virility, stamina and sturdy qualities entirely disappear in two or three generations of city life. Our city civilization is always in a process of decay, and would, in a few generations, bec

ination clothes it with Arabian Nights possibilities and joys. The country seems tame and commonplace after his first dream of the city. To him it is synonymous with opportunity, with power, with pleasure. He can not rid hi

. The country boy is constantly thrown upon his own resources, forced to think for himself, and this calls out his ingenuity and inventiveness. He develops bette

moment registering their mighty potencies in his constitution, putting iron into his blood and stamina into

bed from the soil, it certainly comes from very near it. There seems to be a close connection between robust character and the soil, the hills, mountains and valleys, the pure air a

the perpetual influence of the suggestion of our surroundings. The city-bred youth sees and hears almost nothing that is natural, aside from the faces and forms of human beings. Nearly everything that confronts him from morning till night is artificial, man-made. He sees hardly anything that God made, that imparts

e extravagant carvings as to threaten the safety of the structure, so the timber in country boys and girl

aximum in those who live close to the soil. The moment a man becomes artificial i

ple, but less vigorous. The whole tendency of life in big cities is toward deterioration. City people rarely live really normal lives. It is not natural for human beings to live far from the soil. It is Mother Earth and country life that give vi

pen his eyes without seeing a more magnificent painting than a Raphael or a Michael Angelo

ture's laboratory, mixing and flinging out to the world the gorgeous colorings and marvelous perfumes of the rose and wild flower

y of thought and application. His reading is comparatively superficial. He glances through many papers; magazines and periodicals and gives no real thought to any. His evenings are much more broken up than those of the country

les, often reading them over and over again, while the city youth, in the midst of newspapers and libraries, sees so many boo

d to the persuasion of the moment and follow the line of least resistance. It is hard for the city-bred youth to resist the multiplicity of allurements and pleasures that bid

one unwavering life aim, which we often see so marked in the young man from the country. Nor do city-bred youths store u

e is not so superficial as the city boy. His perceptions are not so quick, he is not so rapid in his movements, his thought action is slower and he does not have as

ol, nature's kindergarten, constantly calling upon the youth's self-reliance and inventiveness. He must make the implements and toys which he can not afford to buy or procure. He must run, adjust and repair all sorts of machinery and farm utensils. His

is always in evidence in great emergencies and crises? Just stand a stamina-filled, self-reliant country boy beside a pale, soft, stamina-less, washed-out city youth. Is it any wonder that the country-bred boy is nearly

and his outdoor work tends to build up a robust constitution. Plowing, hoeing, mowing, everything he does on the farm gives him vigor and strength. His muscles are harder, his flesh firmer, and his brain-fiber partakes of the same superior quality. He is constantly bottling up forces, storing up energy in his brai

ng. It has been found that the use of tools in our manual training schools develops the brain, strengthens the deficient faculties and brings out latent powers. The farm-reared boy is in the best manual training sc

visit the great art centers and see the famous masterpieces, when they have really never seen the marvelous pictures painted by

ay of our lives and they become so common that they make no impression upon us. Think of the difference between what a Ruskin sees in a landscape and the impression conv

fruit, for example! How she packs the concentrated sunshine and delicious juices into the cans that she makes as she goes along, cans exactly the right size, without a particle of waste, leakage

s to be no loss to the soil, and yet, what a marvelous growth in everything! Life, life, more life on every hand! Wherever he goes he treads on chemical forces which produce greater marvels than are described in the Arabian Nig

nds to set the boy thinking, to call out his dormant powers and develop his latent forces. And what health there is in it all! How hea

t into day is of itself health-undermining,

harged with physical force by natural, refreshing sleep, away from the distracting influence and enervating excitement of city life. The country youth does not learn to judge people b

ting for those who were not good for much else. Farming was considered by many people as a sort of degrading occupation desirable only for those who lacked the brains and education to go into a profession or some of the more refined callings. But the searchlight of science has revealed in it possibilities hitherto undreamed of. We are commencing to realize that

it means to go into partnership with the Creator in bringing out larger, grander products from the soil; to be able to co-operate with that divine creati

rship with the great creative force in nature. Mr. Burbank says that the time will come when man will be able to do almost anything he wishes in the vegetable kingdom; will be able to produce at will any shade or color he wishes, and almost an

hows that there is a disadvanta

at libraries, brought up in an atmosphere of books, of only a small fraction of which he could get even a superficial knowledge, would he have had that

h Abraham Lin

a nation; to know the history of his country? Whence came that passion to devour the dry statutes of Indiana, as a young girl would devour a love story? Whence came that all-absorbing ambition to be somebody in the world; to serve his country with no self

e come the motive which led him to struggle for self-development, self-unfoldment? If he had been born and

uch eminence? Imagine a boy of to-day, so hungry for an education that he would walk nine miles a day to attend a rude frontier school in a log cabin! What