disease and deformity. The country admits of a happy medi- 

 um — a tranquil, middle life, where there is an abundance for 

 the support of physical nature — thought enough for tlic ma- 

 turity of mental powers, and associations that lift the soul 

 heavenward — 



" he can speak tho vigorous joys of health — 

 Uncloggod tho body, unobscured the mind; 

 The morning rises gay, with pleasing stealth, 

 The temperate evening falls serene and kind." 



On the other hand, all things in the city are in extremes — 

 wealth and poverty, luxury and starvation, refinement and bar- 

 barian degradation, education that sharpens the wit, and idiotic 

 stupidity that makes man the easy prey of his fellow, who has 

 no more love for his kind than though he had been born of 

 brutes and suckled by she-wolves. On one side religion ends 

 in bigotry, and on the other liberality of opinion in Atheism. 

 Trades, callings, classes, war upon each other, and life is like 

 a great amphitheatre filled with savage beasts and warring men. 

 In body and mind and spirit the equilibrium of humanity is 

 lost, and we are like the waves in a tempest. The physical 

 result is given in the annual vital returns of the State. The 

 average duration of life in Boston is twenty years, and but for 

 the influx from the country its streets would in a few years be 

 deserted, and its houses tenantless. In the country the aver- 

 age of life is more than twice as long. So, we compare the 

 classes and occupations. The life of the farmer is more than 

 sixty years, of shoemakers and ordinary mechanics from forty 

 to fifty years, and of printers, editors, operatives in factories, 

 from thirty to thirty-five years. And here, mark you, that 

 physical inferiority is invariably and quickly followed by men- 

 tal inferiority. The mind is the measure of the man, it is 

 true ; but the body as well represents the character of the mind 

 as the tenement will the tenant who occupies ; hence we find 

 that in all powerful nations, physical culture has been the foun- 

 dation of education. The golden age of Greek history was 



