LUTHER BURBANK 



coterie of servants, and with a child always at the 

 breast and another scarcely out of the cradle, if 

 she sent the entire brood of her progeny who were 

 old enough to walk to the shelter of the school- 

 room, where at least they were out of her way and 

 out of physical danger for the larger part of the 

 day? 



Not, indeed, that the New England housewife 

 herself would have stated the matter just in this 

 way. She, in common with her husband, believed 

 that her offspring were born with the traditions of 

 the sin of our first ancestors weighing upon them, 

 and that only the most rigid intellectual discipline 

 combined with the most persistent spiritual teach- 

 ing by precept and example could release them 

 from that hereditary bondage. 



That the doctrines of the Catechism and the 

 rules of the three R's should be ground into the 

 brain of the child while it was still at its most 

 plastic stage, was accepted as unchallengeable. 



The belief that the schoolhouse on every hilltop 

 and the church in every valley constitute the land- 

 marks of civilization was an ingrained funda- 

 mental of the New England tradition. 



And so youngsters who should have been in the 

 fields gathering flowers and revelling in the sim- 

 shine, drinking in the music of the birds and gain- 

 ing strength and health for the tasks of mature life 



[26] 



