WARSAW HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 323 



less capable of retaining those impressions. So, if we wish to attain 

 to the highest and most perfect mental condition, we must cultivate 

 the most perfect physical system. 



The history of nations is, that as they advance in wealth and 

 luxury, and labor-saving, effeminacy results, and decline and fall fol- 

 lows. Other and more vigorous strains of human vitality come on, 

 go through the same evolution, and pass away. And it will be so 

 on through countless ages to the end of time. 



Evolutionists, or those who advocate the development theory, 

 of which they place the human as the highest type, claim that in 

 proportion as primitive man ceased going on all fours, his arras grew 

 shorter and his legs longer and stronger; and for thousands of years 

 after attaining his present stature he got his bread by the sweat of 

 his brow, multiplied and replenished the earth, builded monuments 

 in the various branches of art and science, wealth, luxury, and indo- 

 lence, followed by enervation. Development of faculty lessened, 

 and in that way nation after nation passed into oblivion, history or 

 tradition. It took Rome three hundred years to die; — at one time 

 mistress of the world, at the end nothing but her brilliant history. 

 All traceable to luxurious, riotous living and indolence: the theolo- 

 gians would say to wickedness. We, as a nation, are fast drifting in 

 the same direction, and should lose no opportunity of seeking a rem- 

 edy — that is, if we care to avoid the ruin of the nations who have 

 gone before. If we were not constantly importing vigorous blood 

 from foreign or labor countries, it would take much less than three 

 hundred years for us to dwindle into an insignificance that would 

 place us at the mercy of many a nation that has preferred to develop 

 brawn rather than brain. This may sound like the assertions of a 

 dreamer, but if any one will take the pains to look into the history 

 of nations, they will observe that as soon as they gave themselves up 

 to indolence and luxury their doom was sealed. More vigorous, 

 probably more barbarous, peoples came to the front, went through 

 the various stages of development called progress, and wound up in 

 luxury, indolence, and vice. 



Some may ask: Is there no remedy for so great a calamity? 

 None that will be listened to or followed. 



The fond, and of ten foolish, mother, says her daughter shall not 

 work as she used to. The daughter willingly accepts the situation, 

 sits in the parlor and spends her time on airy nothings, and com- 

 plains of her back; and tens of thousands of them are invalids be- 

 fore they reach their teens. The boys get a little more outdoor and 

 other exercise, and do not deteriorate quite so rapidly. As an evi- 

 dence, the farm is producing the brains of the country. The pro- 

 prietors of them may not be so exquisite and tony, but they win the 

 prize. At the beginning of this, our first century as a nation, a 

 household of stalwart sons and daughters was the pride of more than 

 a majority of homes; at its close we find thousands of homes child- 

 less, and the physical system of the mothers rapidly degenerating. 



