SELECTED SAYINGS 



to accident, or training, or climate, or inheritance? Blood and 

 racial characteristics are a wonderful heritage, but training is the 

 great item which fashions a race. The seed of the cotton may be 

 thoroughbred and- of choicest selection — it will not produce the 

 fleecy bolls if the plant is allowed to stand in the grass. The blood 

 of a noble ancestry goes down before inherited wealth and a dis- 

 solute training as the tender grass before the whetted scythe." 



"Most of the rich men of the United States were bom poor. 

 They rose above their fellows, not by superior genius, but by greater 

 thrift." 



"Training can do much towards making a people so prompt 

 and alert that the baneful word to-morrow will cease to be a part of 

 our business language." 



"I am ashamed of the young man who is afraid of toil, and I 

 pity the girl who keeps soft, white hands. Let the young man 

 glory in his rugged physique and let the young woman be proud of 

 the common things she can do and not of her delicate hands." 



"Everywhere throughout the country there is a shocking lack of 

 mechanical knowledge and skill. It is shown in the buildings, the 

 fences, in the general farm arrangements and in the machinery. For 

 success upon the farm a knowledge of mechanics is second in import- 

 ance only to a knowledge of agriculture. Mechanical knowledge and 

 skill should come like common sense through absorption by placing 

 engines, machinery, and tools in the hands of children. Some of the 

 most skillful engineers and carpenters and blacksmiths never con- 

 sciously served an hour of apprenticeship. No farmer can afford to 

 send for a mechanic to attend to the minor repairs — they must be 

 done by the men on the farm. Attached to every country school- 

 house should be a room for the practices of mechanics. The use of 

 tools is a necessary part of common education. It will give mental 

 direction as well as skill. 



"Not to know the thing with which we come in daily contact is 

 dense ignorance." 



"I know a professor, who for twelve years walked through a 

 small pasture where a choice herd of Jersey cattle grazed, and 

 never noticed an animal. At the end of that period he inquired of a 

 friend what kind of cattle they were and who owned them. He 

 probably would never have noticed it he had not run against a cow/' 



[255] 



