HOME BUILDING 271 



in the country to stand up. All stood up but less 

 than two hundred. 



Line up the city business and professional men 

 of any of our cities and ask them from whence they 

 came, the majority will say from the farm. Ask 

 them why they left the farm, they will answer, to 

 secure the greater opportunity. Ask them if this 

 greater opportunity was not out upon the farm, 

 and they will answer that if it was, their training 

 and education had obscured it, and their vision 

 did not catch it, but their education and observa- 

 tion pointed it out to them in the city. 



The author obtained his early education in a 

 small country town which depended entirely upon 

 the country for its support. He went through the 

 several grades of its schools and graduated from 

 its high school. There never was a time in all his 

 schooling in this town, depending for its very ex- 

 istence upon the business of farming surrounding 

 it, that he ever heard so much as an intimation that 

 the business of farming was a desirable one to 

 follow. 



But the business of the professions, especially 

 that of the law, were being constantly held up as 

 the most honorable and the most worthy for which 

 the young man should aspire. Is it any wonder 

 that he and his country boy associates so easily 

 drifted into city life? On his way to school he 

 passed the pretentious homes of the city editor, 

 merchant, lawyer and doctor, and dreamed of the 

 time when he too might be an editor, a merchant, 

 lawyer or physician, and occupy such homes which 

 seemed to him then as great mansions. 



Those were the days of bad country roads and 



