And What We Gain 235 



sive clothes and talks about the price of lard or 

 leather instead of the fish and the tides. As 

 to the essentials of intellectual culture, the 

 fisherman with a taste for reading and his long 

 winter evenings has by far the greater oppor- 

 tunities. 



With regard to the physical advantages of 

 country life modern science has brought statis- 

 tics to bear. Not a physician can be found 

 who does not preach the value of better air 

 than can be found in cities. 



Upon this subject Dr. G. B. Barren, in a 

 paper entitled "Town-Life as a Cause of De- 

 generacy," read at a recent meeting of the 

 British Association, at Bath, England, said : 



I venture to advance the proposition that the 

 " vital force " of the town-dweller is inferior to the 

 " vital force " of the countryman. The evidence 

 of this is to be found in a variety of ways. The 

 general unfitness and incapability of the dwellers in 

 our large hives of industry to undergo continued 

 violent exertion, or to sustain long endurance of 

 fatigue, is a fact requiring little evidence to estab- 

 lish; nor can they tolerate the withdrawal of food 

 under sustained physical effort for any prolonged 



