No. 4.] NATURE STUDY. 201 



It is a law of biology, of general application, that the 

 struggle for existence is severest between species most 

 nearly related, — species that require the same or similar 

 foods and other means of subsistence. In this way connect- 

 ing links between related species have been broken up and 

 lost, — have become " missing links." Gaps have been made 

 wider and wider, and the higher we rise in the animal scale 

 the wider the gaps become : that is, lowly organized crea- 

 tures live along without much struggle ; species that are 

 higher in the scale, and are rising, growing, chan^ino-, 



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developing and evolving, are struggling hardest. As long 

 as this contest remains on the plane of brute force, there is 

 no possibility of sentiment or even of a moral code step- 

 ping in to mitigate its severity. The moment we cross the 

 threshold of the moral law, which works for the greatest 

 good of the greatest number, the old struggle is transformed 

 into the mutual effort to help one another. But the " white 

 man's burden" is no idle fancy. It is a law of life, and 

 between the civilized and the uncivilized there is no middle 

 ground. Walls or rivers, mountains or oceans, avail nothing. 

 Between savage and civilized, between men who do and 

 men who do not accept the moral law, the struggle has 

 always been, is now and ever shall be, until every spot on 

 the green earth is a safe place for a good man or a good 

 woman to live. 



"Well, you ask, what does this have to do with nature 

 study? It is the bottom of the whole matter. In other 

 words, I find the foundations of civilization in the relations 

 to nature that mankind have found necessary to develop. The 

 need of agriculture in a system of public education I trace 

 directly to the role agriculture has played in the process of 

 becoming civilized. And it is certainly the part of wisdom 

 to attend to the barbarism within our own borders before 

 trying to cope with that in the uttermost parts of the earth. 

 What, then, has been the influence of agriculture in the life 

 of the race? 



Biologists sometimes ask us to begin farther baek, with 

 an agile and highlv crafty animal that lived chieflv in the 

 trees ; but I shall not expect you to go with me as far back 



