exceed a quarter and at most a half century, this growth cityward will be duplicated in every section of the United States. There are now 58 cities in the United States each counting more than 100,000 population, eight of them in excess of half a million each; there are 180 cities more each counting from 25,000 to 100,000 inhabitants.

It is hard to realize the rate of urban growth. In spite of the opening of vast tracts of land to be had almost for the asking, the total town population has multiplied in the last hundred years from 3 to approximately 50 per cent.

For the third or fourth time, the city is becoming the dominant factor in the world's history. The citystates of Greece rose and fell. Some of them became spoils of conquerors, others wasted from internal causes. Corinth once exercised sovereignty of the seas, but half a million of her population were slaves. When destroyed by the Carthaginians, Agrigentum was said to number two millions of people.

Genoa, Venice, the cities of the Hanseatic league, played their brief part in the commercial supremacy of their day. Rome once possessed a population of one million and a quarter, but though circled by beautiful villas and gardens, the common people lived congested in buildings whose floors and apartments were divided among numerous families. Famous writers have told us of the splendor and size of hundred-gated Thebes and Babylon and Antioch and Ephesus. But if there was splendor, there was vice; there was magnificence, but there dwelt squalor as well. Beauty and opulence fattening on human misery could not withstand famine, pestilence, and vice. The glories of the cities on the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Tiber are but a memory. And unless in the civic life of the

modern city there is introduced an element that shall embrace the common good, perhaps Macaulay's oftcited description of the New Zealander standing on the wreck of London bridge surveying the ruins of St. Paul's may yet become historic instead of merely prophetic.

It is perhaps but one of many evidences of the restlessness of the day that the lure of the city beckons with attraction inescapable to the youth of the countryside. Young men and young women who yield to the fascination find too late that they have sought Dead Sea Fruit,

"Which charms the eye

But turns to ashes on the lips."

The refuges and jails and lazarets and foul places of the great cities are filled with the derelicts of humanity who in less hectic atmosphere might have led lives of usefulness and contentment. Much has been done to give the life in the rural regions attractiveness and comfort; much more remains to be done, and particularly in supplying educational advantages, if the young men and women are to be made to feel that their opportunities are no less than those to be secured in larger cities of pulsing life. How wretchedly as yet this want has been met in most states, those charged with the supervision of educational activities. can testify.

There are those who in the face of present-day economic conditions contend that any attempt to stop the great trek cityward must prove as futile as the back-to-the-soil movement has on the whole proved to be. Any such admission bodes but ill for the future of this land. It means that the number of men who feel an ownership in the land, in houses, in the govern

ment must decrease. And therein lies a danger not to be lightly disregarded.

Something of the dream and Sehnsucht that comes to the dreaming country boy, Robert Louis Stevenson has pictured with his wonder touch in his idyl of the miller's boy. Something, too, he has suggested in his ending of the story:

WILL O' THE MILL

"The mill where Will lived with his adopted parents stood in a falling valley between pine woods and great mountains. Above, hill after hill soared upwards until they soared out of the depths of the hardiest timber, and stood naked against the sky. Below, the valley grew ever steeper and steeper, and at the same time widened out on either hand: and from an eminence beside the mill it was possible to see its whole length and away beyond it over a wide plain, where the river turned and shone, and moved on from city to city on its voyage towards the sea. All through the summer, traveling carriages came crawling up, or went plunging briskly downwards past the mill; and as it happened that the other side was very much easier of ascent, the path was not much frequented, except by people going in one direction; five-sixths were plunging briskly downwards and only onesixth crawling up.

"Whither went all the tourists and pedlars with strange wares? Whither all the brisk barouches with servants in the dicky? Whither the water of the stream, ever coursing downward and ever renewed from above? Even the wind blew oftener down the valley and carried the dead leaves along with it in the fall. It seemed like a great conspiracy of things animate and inanimate, they all went downward, fleetly and gaily downward, posting downward to the unknown world, and only he, it seemed, remained behind, like a stock upon the wayside.

"From that day forward Will was full of new hopes and longings. Something kept tugging at his heartstrings; the running water carried his desires along with it as he dreamed over its fleeting surface; the wind, as it ran over innumerable tree-tops, hailed him with encouraging words; branches beckoned downward; the open road, as it shouldered round the angles and went turning and vanishing faster and faster down the valley, tortured him with its solicitations. He

spent long whiles on the eminence, looking down the rivershed and abroad on the low flatlands and watched the clouds that traveled forth upon the sluggish wind and trailed their purple shadows on the plain; or, he would linger by the wayside, and follow the carriages with his eyes as they rattled downward by the river. It did not matter what it was; everything that went that way, were it cloud or carriage, bird, or brown water in the stream, he felt his heart flow out after it, in an ecstacy of longing.

"One day, when Will was about sixteen, a young man arrived at sunset to pass the night. He was a contented-looking fellow, with a jolly eye, and carried a knapsack. While dinner was preparing, he sat in the arbour to read a book; but as soon as he had begun to observe Will, the book was laid aside; he was plainly one of those who prefer living people to people made of ink and paper. Will, on his part, although he had not been much interested in the stranger at first sight, soon began to take a great deal of pleasure in his talk, which was full of good nature and good sense, and at last conceived a great respect for his character and wisdom. They sat far into the night; and Will opened his heart to the young man, and told him how he longed to leave the valley and what bright hopes he had connected with the cities of the plain. The young man whistled, and then broke into a smile.

""My young friend,' he remarked, 'you are a very curious little fellow, to be sure, and wish a great many things which you will never get. Why, you would feel quite ashamed if you knew how the little fellows in these fairy cities of yours are all after the same sort of nonsense, and keep breaking their hearts to get up into the mountains. And let me tell you, those who go down into the plains are a very short while there before they wish themselves heartily back again. The air is not so light or so pure; nor is the sun any brighter. As for the beautiful men and women, you would see many of them in rags and many of them deformed; and a city is a hard place for people who are poor and sensitive.'

"You must think me very simple,' answered Will. 'Although I have never been out of this valley, believe me, I have used my eyes. I do not expect to find all things right in your cities. That is not what troubles me; it might have been that once upon a time; but although I live here always, I have asked many questions and learned a great deal in these last years, and certainly enough to cure me of my old fancies. But you would not have me die and not see all that is to be seen, and do all that a man can do, let it be good or evil?

You would not have me spend all my days between this road here and the river, and not so much as make a motion to be up and live my life? I would rather die out of hand,' he cried, 'than linger on as I am doing.'

"Thousands of people,' said the young man, 'live and die like you, and are none the less happy.'

"Ah!' said Will, 'if there are thousands who would like, why should not one of them have my place?'

"It was quite dark; there was a hanging lamp in the arbour which lit up the table and the faces of the speakers; and along the arch the leaves upon the trellis stood out illuminated against the bright sky, a pattern of transparent green upon a dusky purple. The young man rose, and, taking Will by the arm, led him out under the open heavens.

"Did you ever look at the stars?' he asked, pointing upwards. "Often and often,' answered Will.

"'And do you know what they are?'

""I have fancied many things.'

"They are worlds like ours,' said the young man. 'Some of them less; many of them a million times greater; and some of the least sparkles that you see are not only worlds, but whole clusters of worlds turning about each other in the midst of space.'

"Will hung his head a little, and then raised it once more to heaven. The stars seemed to expand and emit a sharper brilliancy; and as he kept turning his eyes higher and higher, they seemed to increase in multitude under his gaze.

"Will went to and fro minding his wayside inn, until the snow began to thicken on his head. His heart was young and vigorous, and if his pulses kept a sober time, they still beat strong and steady in his wrists. He stooped a little, but his step was firm, and his sinewy hands were reached out to all men with a friendly pressure. His talk was full of wise sayings. He had a taste for other people and other people had a taste for him. His views seemed whimsical to his neighbors, but his rough philosophy was often enough admired by learned people out of town and colleges. Indeed, he had a very noble old age, and grew daily better known; so that his fame was heard of in the cities of the plains. Many and many an invitation to be sure, he had, but nothing could tempt him from his upland valley. He would shake his head and smile with a deal of meaning: 'Fifty years ago you would have brought my heart into my mouth; and now you do not even tempt me.'"