Address. 6 



city young men. The out-door work of the farmer gives them health, 

 and they learn to bend themselves down to toil. They learn how to 

 work, and to work is the royal road to success. Frugality they also 

 acquire, for the environment of farm life naturally promotes it. But 

 there are several things to be remembered here. The country boys 

 who go to the city cannot all stand at the head. My figures show 88 

 prominent country-bred men in a population of 40,000, or one coun- 

 try bred man in 400. Not all of the farmer boys in Springfield are 

 included in this list. Many of them are making only a miserable liv- 

 ing and are in straightened circumstances. There are hundreds of 

 country boys in the cities who are earning but a little in stores and 

 shops and who would do better were they on farms working for $12 

 or $15 a month, with board and washing. The prizes are few, the 

 competitors are many. Only the strongest even of the country boys 

 succeed. The law that rules is the survival of the fittest. 



Farm life does not always develop the strong qualities which we 

 have mentioned as necessary for success, but it tends to develop them. 

 Many, indeed, go to the city because they are not willing to subject 

 themselves to work. Such are no better off than the city boys ; they 

 are not half so well off, for the city boy knows 'how to get at the op- 

 portunities for success. Not one in one hundred country boys can 

 be successful. Probably one-half of the country boys who go to the 

 city are less prosperous in a material point of view than if they had 

 remained in the country. The question now comes up, are the ele- 

 ments of power we have been talking of, the highest kind of power 1 

 The man with physical power, with will and frugality, is fitted to push 

 his way in any calling. But are these men the best men ? Take the 

 eighty-eight men on my list ; how would their characters weigh ? Some 

 are good, but many are ignorant ; many are close and selfish. I do 

 not think that they are the men who enjoy life most. There are wide 

 realms of thought and beauty which they do not enter. The universe 

 is a sealed book to them, and so are most other books. Into the great 

 realm of literature they do not often venture. Travel affords them 

 little pleasure. How much more suggestive travel would be to them, 

 were they acquainted with books describing the places they visit. 

 They lack sympathy with the world. The man who does not know 

 the rewards of general philanthropy, does not know the good of life. 

 The habit of these men is competition and they regard others as ri- 

 vals. As a rule the men who carry off the prizes, usually lack the 

 highest enjoyment of life. As men, such men are not successes. 



And now we have come to the point on which we wish to lay stress. 

 It is that country training is more apt to fit men for successful com- 

 petition than for better things. In the best things there is no com- 

 petition. They are the things the more of which each man has, the 

 more there is for all men. Farm life gives a man force, equips him 

 for successful struggling. But more than this is needed. It can 

 make a man a great boss or money maker, but it does not cultivate 

 character or give great breadth or depth of mind. The training now 

 given the boy on the farm tends to send him off from it. He acquires 

 a force that enables him to go away. He says to himself, I have force, 



