The country boy often bemoans his lack of a chance as did Clay, Webster, and thousands of others, and thinks his youth among the rocks, the mountains, the forests has been almost thrown away; and he longs for the time when he can shake off his farm fetters, and flee to the city where there is opportunity. But years after, in some great legislative emergency perhaps, in some contest with the city-bred youth, the rocks, the mountains, the streams, the granite hills which had unconsciously entered into the fibre and stamina of his life, rush to his assistance, and force his city opponent to the wall. No, these grand schoolmasters of his youth have not taught their lessons in vain, but they have become a part of his very life. "At the call of a noble sentiment, again the woods wave, the pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, and the cattle low upon the mountain, putting the spells of persuasion, the keys of power, into man's hand. Bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you from every object in nature, to be tongue to the heart of man, and to show the besotted world how passing fair is wisdom." The best part of our education comes from Nature, and she makes us pay a heavy price for shutting ourselves up in the city where we cannot breathe her sweet breath, nor learn lessons from her birds and streams and flowers, her mountains, her valleys and forests, her meadows and hills. She keeps the great school of the world; she is the developer of mankind, the unfolder of life, the invigorator of the race. She holds the balm for all our ills, and he who shuts himself out from her influences must pay the penalty. He must forever be dwarfed in some part of his manhood, his horizon limited, his education incomplete. The muscle and sinew, the nerve, the stamina, the staying powers, the courage, the fortitude, the grit, the grip and pluck of the world, have ever come mostly from the country. The tendency of city life is to deteriorate the physical and the moral man. There is more refinement,

but less vigor; more culture, but less stamina; more grace, but less hardihood; more sentiment, but less sense; more books, but less knowledge; more learning, but less wisdom; more information, but less practical ability; more of the ethereal, but less of the substantial; more gristle, but less backbone; more newspaper reading, but poorer memories; more society, but less sincerity.

"What a grand sight! how soul- inspiring and thought-producing!" exclaimed John Marshall, as he gazed on the mountains of Virginia. "No wonder Patrick Henry was an orator, no wonder he was eloquent; how could he have been otherwise, reared amid such sublime scenes as these!"

"I could not help thinking," said Stephen Allen in his reminiscences of Daniel Webster, "as I stood with some of his neighbors and kinsmen upon the spot where Webster first saw the light of day, that those wild bleak hills amongst which he was cradled, and those rough pastures in which he grew, had left their impress upon his soul."

The geography and history of the United States are mapped and stamped upon the Congress at Washington. If we had power to analyze a senator, we could reproduce the mountains, valleys, lakes, meadows, and ocean scenery of his native town from the effect they have had in modifying and shaping his life. The story of his State, its legends and poetry are all interwoven in the tissue of his mind. Their influence is seen in every fibre of his being. You can distinguish the man of the old Granite State from the blithe representatives of the sunny south. You can trace the rugged climate and granite in a Webster, the sunshine in a Calhoun or a Clay.

The universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own. peculiar lesson. The mountain teaches stability and grandeur; the ocean immensity and change. Forests,

lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes,- every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man. Even the bee and the ant have brought their little lessons of industry and economy.

"You curse and swear at such an ungodly rate that I tremble to hear you!" exclaimed an old crone noted for vulgarity and cursing. "You are the ungodliest person for swearing I ever heard in my whole life!" The sinner stands thunderstruck at such a reproof from such a source, but his voice is soon heard preaching Christ. Bigots hunt him from pulpit to prison, where he is kept twelve years for daring to preach the gospel. But from that dungeon, cold and dim, John Bunyan, the converted tinker, sends forth the "Pilgrim's Progress," the allegory of the ages.

"I am indebted to my father for living," said Alexander the Great, "but to my teacher for living well."

A man who heard Lincoln speak in Norwich, Conn., some time before he was nominated for the presidency was greatly impressed by the closely knit logic of the speech. Meeting him next day on a train, he asked him how he acquired his wonderful logical powers and such acuteness in analysis. Lincoln replied: "It was my terrible discouragement which did that for me. When I was a young man I went into an office to study law. I saw that a lawyer's business is largely to prove things. I said to myself, Lincoln, when is a thing proved?' That was a poser. What constitutes proof? Not evidence; that was not the point. There may be evidence enough, but wherein consists the proof? You remember the old story of the German who was tried for some crime, and they brought half a dozen respectable men who swore they saw the prisoner commit the deed. 'Vell,' he replied, 'vat of dat? Six men schwears dot dey saw me do it. I prings more nor two tozen goot men who schwears dey did not see me

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do it. So, wherein is the proof? I groaned over the question, and finally said to myself, Ah! Lincoln, you can't tell.' Then I thought, 'What use is it for me to be in a law office if I can't tell when a thing is proved?' So I gave it up, and went back home, over in Kentucky.

"Soon after I returned to the old log cabin I fell in with a copy of Euclid. I had not the slightest notion what Euclid was, and I thought I would find out. I found out; but it was no easy job. I looked into the book and found it was all about lines, angles, surfaces, and solids; but I could not understand it at all. I therefore began, at the beginning, and before spring I had gone through that old Euclid's geometry, and could demonstrate every proposition like a book. Then in the spring, when I had got through with it, I said to myself one day, 'Ah, do you know now when a thing is proved?' And I answered, Yes, sir, I do.' 'Then you may go back to the law shop,' and I went."

No individual can develop into the largest manhood or womanhood alone. Society is to the individual what the sun and showers are to the seed. It develops him, expands him, unfolds him, calls him out of himself. Other men are his opportunity. Each one is a match. which ignites some new tinder in him unignitible by any previous match. Without these the sparks of individuality would sleep in him forever.

The moment man cuts himself off from living connection with the human race and its needs, he begins to die from poor circulation. He may barely live, but he is ever after a cold-blooded animal, with low vitality. Such lives become marbleized and unsympathetic. We long ago had to give up solitary confinement continued any length of time in our prisons, as it led to insanity, imbecility, and death.

Real power is not found alone in the study, the library, or the lecture hall, but in the field, in the forest, in the

market, in the store, on the busy street, in actual contact with men and things.

The world is self-taught in a thousand cases where it is college bred in one.

An ambition to get on in the world, the steady strug. gle to get up, to reach higher, is a constant source of education in foresight, in prudence, in economy, industry, courage; in fact, is the great developer of many of the strongest and noblest qualities of character. Were it not for this struggle to get on, living would be intolerable in any community. No one can imagine the direful effect of its absence. It would be like the loss of gravitation in the physical world. Everything would go to destruction. Indolence, shiftlessness, would run riot everywhere. There would be no enterprise, no progress. The world would rush back to barbarism. This struggle educates the whole community in a thousand ways.

"Were the question asked," says Stearns, "what is at this moment the strongest power in operation for controlling, regulating, and inciting the actions of men, what has most at its disposal the condition and destinies of the world, we must answer at once, it is business, in its various ranks and departments; of which commerce, foreign and domestic, is the most appropriate representation. In all prosperous and advancing communities advancing in arts, knowledge, literature, and social refinement — business is king. Other influences in society may be equally indispensable, and some may think far more dignified, but Business is King. The statesman and the scholar, the nobleman and the prince, equally with the manufacturer, the mechanic, and the laborer, pursue their several objects only by leave granted, and means furnished, by this potentate."

What an education there is in the honest pursuit of wealth! The discipline of labor, frugality, self-denial, and self-control which money-making gives are worth a thousand times more than money. One is constantly