384 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



ing maneuvers of self -pollution,— what can be said to 

 extenuate his guilt? His is a double crime. He will 

 perish, overwhelmed with his own vileness. Let him 

 die, and return to the dust from which he sprang. 

 Let him pass from the memory of his fellowmen. 



The Race Ruined by Boys.— The human race is 

 growing weaker year by year. The boys of to-day 

 would be no match in physical strength for the hale, 

 sturdy youths of a century ago, their great-grand- 

 parents. An immense amount of skilful training oc- 

 casionally enables one to accomplish some wonderful 

 feat of walking, rowing, or swimming; but we hear 

 very little of remarkable feats of labor accomplished 

 by our modern boys. Even the country boys of to-day 

 cannot endure the hard work which their fathers did 

 at the same age; and we doubt not that this growing 

 physical weakness is one of the reasons why so large a 

 share of the boys whose fathers are farmers, and who 

 have been reared on farms, are unwilling to follow the 

 occupation of their fathers for a livelihood. They are 

 too weakly to do the work required in agricultural 

 life, even by the aid of the numerous labor-saving 

 inventions of the age. 



Wliat is undermining the health of the race, and 

 sapping the constitutions of our American men? No 

 doubt, much may be attributed to the unnatural refine- 

 ments of civilization in several directions; but there 

 can be no doubt that vice is the most active cause of 

 all. Secret sin and its kindred vices ruin more con- 

 stitutions every year than hard work, severe study, 

 hunger, cold, privation, and disease combined. 



Boys, the destiny of the race is in your hands. You 

 can do more than all the doctors, all the scientists and 

 most eminent political men in the world to secure the 



