CHAPTER V 



CONSTRUCTING THE COUNTRY DWELLING 



MUCH has been written in books, and more has 

 been spoken from platform and pulpit, relative to 

 the patriotism of the American people. In addition 

 to all this the public schools of city and country have 

 been consciously instructing the children with a 

 view to laying a permanent foundation in their lives 

 for love of the native land and for defense of the 

 national ideals. But it seems to me that the best 

 word on the subject of patriotic instruction has never 

 as yet been given wide publicity. So long as a boy 

 has to grow up in a home where there are meanness 

 and turmoil and strife and hatred and degradation, 

 one may point a thousand times with pride to our 

 great nation, display again and again before his 

 eyes the proud banner of freedom, sing with him 

 numberless times the patriotic songs eulogistic of 

 the fatherland and its national heroes, under such 

 circumstances a boy can never be expected to de- 

 velop into anything other than a superficial patriot. 

 But give him a good home, simple and unadorned 

 though it may be, where love reigns, where his child- 

 ish needs are thoughtfully ministered unto, where- 



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