196 BOAED OP AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



the quiet of country homes; they have more knowledge of that 

 which relates to nature; are keener observers of nature, and take 

 more kindly to the study of the sciences. 



The boy of the country does not live in excitement, particu- 

 larly the excitement of ''a crowds He learns to enjoy the quiet 

 pleasures of home. He is more alone, and learns to find sources 

 of entertainment in himself. He is not so dependent on others. 

 With the city boy, without " the crowd " and noise, the world is 

 tame. "The crowd," "we boys," the dependence on others for 

 pleasure, is a most marked feature. In winter his sled and his 

 skates are useless unless as an element in " the crowd " or with 

 other boys. No torture like that of being quiet or alone. 



Now, we know what must be the necessary and inevitable effect 

 of all this. Study is an affair of the individual, not of the crowd. 

 The very "crowd" stimulates to idleness, incites to acts of mis- 

 chief, drives study from the head and love of home from the 

 heart. 



The country boy may sit down and read undisturbed for the 

 evening with the other members of the family. The city boy, if 

 he tries, has scarcely got his book in hand before he hears a well- 

 known signal from the street, from " the other boys." It may not 

 ]:)e noticed by the parents from the other noises of the street, but 

 to him it is a loud call to "come out with us." Is it any wonder 

 that the book loses much of its interest, and that the education of 

 the street more than supplements that of home? Consequently, 

 the country boy, as a student, is as a rule more diligent, more 

 studious; has a certain kind of persistence often lacking in the city 

 boy; is greener in his ways, but has more gejaeral knowledge, 

 because he is a greater reader. I have known a boy old enough 

 to think himself a young man and sufficiently schooled to be in 

 college who confessed that never in his hfe had he read a book 

 before he entered college. 



Then, too. the sports of childhood in country and city are suffi- 

 ciently unhke to be an important element in education. The 

 boy of the city is earlier and ahead of him in the country. The 

 country boy learns to fly kites after he has learned to make them. 

 He of the city buys his kites when much younger, and gets 

 throuo-h with that sport before he learns to make one; and so of a 

 host of things; and he calls the country boy "green" who enjoys 

 sports at an age when he has passed that sport by. The city boy 



