MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS 171 



allowed to be cognizant of the methods of business his father uses. Under 

 modern conditions, school life gives the boy very little business knowledge 

 and, at the end of his school education, when he enters business, he is 

 obliged to begin at the bottom of the ladder without knowledge of many 

 things that the farm boy has learned in connection with his daily home life. 

 To my mind this is the fundamental reason why boys brought up on the 

 farm appear to make better successes in their after business life than 

 do city boys who have not had the advantages of a similar business train- 

 ing in their earlier days. 



President White, of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Po- 

 tomac Railroad Company, in discussing the effect of life on the 

 farm, says : 



It is preeminently, in my judgment, an experience which develops in- 

 dependence and self-reliance and, therefore, I think, the spirit of achieve- 

 ment, more than any other I know of. 



Another railroad president remarks: 



I believe that farm life lays a good and broad foundation for a healthy, 

 vigorous manhood in both mind and body. 



Another noted railway man, who never spent a day on the 

 farm, says : 



I am inclined to think boys brought up on the farm have better con- 

 stitutions and are less liable to temptations. 



President L. W. Hill, of the Great Northern Railway, says : 



My present home is on a farm and my principal reason for making my 

 home there, rather than at some of the lakes or in the city, is that I have 

 three boys of my own I am trying to give a fair start in life. I believe 

 there is no end of arguments that living on the farm gives the best chance 

 for a growing boy. While my making the farm my home sometimes 

 works an inconvenience to me, I realize that the benefits to my children are 

 well worth the inconvenience to me of getting in and out between my 

 office and the farm. 



I have always contended that the value of farm rearing lies in 

 the fact that on the farm there is a chance to place responsibility 

 on the growing boy. I firmly believe that it is possible to work 

 out a system of education that will give our schools all the ad- 

 vantages of the farm life. This is being done, to a certain exlciit, 

 in the cities, and I believe that this fact has something to do with 

 the increasing number of strong men who come from the city. 



