the individual. Society is subordinate to its units. It exists for its units. If one individual is left unregarded and unprotected society has so far come short. Every hobo and every fallen women is an indictment against society-is the bad fruit of the tree. The failure is not in the fruit, but in the tree. "If the tree bear not good fruit, let it be cut down and cast into the fire." That is the divine command. "I would not work at that occupation," do you say? But I must live must work or starve, and so am forced into that employment, no other being available at this time; or this employment failing to support me, I go out to hunt other work and so become a tramp. Whatever may be the native talent, without opportunity nothing can be achieved and the surroundings afford the only opportunities. What should be done? Improve the surroundings. To do this there must be co-operative effort. The surroundings should be such as not to hinder the individual in honorable effort. He must be free to do as he will in high endeavor. He must not be held to the traditional. That is the baneful fruit of criticism. It founds its rules on the past. Genius will not conform to tradition-does not walk in beaten paths. It founds new schools, makes obsolete old canons of art and literature. Shakespeare discarded ancient rules in the production of his plays. Great men make rules for themselves. Napoleon set the old military order aside. He studied not tactics-but reached for results. By activity he won and not by the book. He wrote his own book of military rules. He was original. What fascinates in the old masters of literature and art? It is their originality. This is the fruit of individuality. Given a fair field the individual that would write his name above all that have preceded him must let go precedent and shake off the trammels of environment. That is what Tolstoi has done. The man of that make is a prophet. We have come upon a time when prophets are in demand. Old things have passed away. The new must replace them. That is as yet unbuilded. Who are to be its architects? Original thinkers; for the new edifice will be grander than any structure hitherto planned or built. No line that is true will be ignored, of the old designers, but new ones still more aesthetic will be drawn. Phidias will be outdone. Nothing that old Egypt, or Persia, or Greece, or Rome ever builded will bear comparison with the glorious temples that will arise in the New Time near at hand. O young men, ye are the builders. Swear that ye will never submit (as did the Russian and Japanese youth) to be food for gunpowder and shot and shell. Swear that wars have come to an end; that peace on earth and good will shall prevail universally henceforth and for evermore. Swear that only as friends and helpers will ye be found in any foreign land and not as invaders and destroyers. The positive individualism of George Fox and Count Tolstoi held fast by each and all will lift the burdens from the shoulders of all mankindof war, cruelty and tyranny-will bring in God's Kingdom of peace, plenty, equality and fraternity and will transform society into a brotherhood and sisterhood as it should be and, ere long, will be. YE 15TH LESSON. An Ideal Town. An ideal town of the twentieth century. What is its make up? No man or woman lives in it that can be spared without loss any more than a brick from the walls of one of our dwellings. Each fills an important and necessary place. Of course we of that town do not expect the aged or blind or lame to work with their hands. They are our wards, as are the widows and orphans in our midst. We care for these most tenderly, as for the sick. Our town is the same as a school. There was never before but one such town as ours in this respect in the world, and that was old-time Athens. She was not a city of many thousands, but she was great in the character of her citizens. She raised up many men whose renown reaches down to the present time: Demosthenes, Phidias, Aeschylus, Socrates, Plato, Xenophon and many others. We have good institutions: Churches, fraternities, women's clubs, reading circles, free libraries and free schools. We have play-grounds and parks. We have nothing that injures or blasts in its effects. If any one strays from the path of rectitude among us we bring him or her back. That one institution that we are most proud of is our Industrial School, which employs remuneratively the otherwise unemployed. No business not elevating and beneficial to society may be Icarried on in our midst. If tramps come among us, they are given remunerative work to do. There are no gambling or liquor hells or evil resorts of any kind here; for we have liberty and not license. All that fail morally are compelled to enter the Industrial School, where they are instructed-educated in right doing-the most essential part of an education, yea, the essential part, the only essential part. All else is subordinate, inconsiderable, unobservable compared with good character, industrious habits, elevated purposes, and more especially altruistic aims; for, as St. Paul says: "Though I understand all mysteries and all knowledge and have not love I am nothing.' I give utterance to the greatest truth when I say: The education of the future will have but one end in view, viz: inspiration to do good deeds so that the educated man will live and labor for the common welfare alone and with the self-sacrificing zeal of St. Paul. Yes, all who gain admittance to our Industrial School work short hours and they are fully compensated for their work. Evil is overcome of good, and no punishments are inflicted; for punishment does no good. All believe in the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man, and each serves all, as did the Master. They are pre-eminently self-respecting. No young woman would accept the courtesies of a young man so wanting in self-respect as to befoul the "temple of God" (his physical manhood) with tobacco, to say nothing of strong drink. No one is ever seen on our streets smoking except strangers not civilized. No little boy of our town would think of following the example of one so disgusting as a cigar or cigarette fiend. The little girls at school are so self-respecting that they would shun him if he did so would not come near him in play-ground, on sidewalk or in the park. Such is the self-respect of the youth of our town. The behavior of our young people toward one another is in all respects admirable, especially the respect shown the young women by the young men and that not just formal like lifting the hat, but genuine. Α young man, yes, every young man, would give his life to protect a young woman from insult. Let no one dare make disparaging remarks about any young lady. "She is my sister," says the young gentleman of our town who overhears it, no matter if he be not acquainted with her. "Take that back!" he says, "and make apology or❞——well, it is taken back quickly and due apology ensues. Yes, the young people all hold the same esteem for each other as do sisters and brothers. And our young men and boys as well as our young women and girls have great respect for old people, calling the aged man "father" and the aged woman "mother." No one in our town was ever heard to call his mother the "old woman," or his father the "old man." Respect for parents and for the aged is the corner-stone of religion. He that has no respect for father, mother and the aged can have no reverence for God. Yes, our young ladies are ladies indeed and our young gentlemen are gentlemen truly. The lady is ladylike and the gentleman gentlemanly. Talk of loveliness! No loveliness can exceed that of our IDEAS AND IDEALS. young women and no manliness that of our young men. 39 Thus does the aged writer's heart fondly picture the grandeur (present or to come) of his native town. There, by her beautiful lake, he was born and there by his mother's grave, he would be buried. YE 16TH LESSON. Ideas and Ideals. Ideas are omnipotent, which is the same as saying "God is truth." "The truth will make you free" is another New Testament expression that should be made the guiding thought of everyone. What brought our Puritan ancestors to Plymouth? An idea. What made Lincoln one of the greatest of men? An idea. Devoid of an idea (or ideal, the same in the writer's meaning) one drifts-floats like a stick on the surface of a swollen stream; no aim, no pre-determined destination, instinct and passion the propelling force, going on and on, landing in the saloon, taking up with every senseless inticement: cigarettes, cigars, cards, horse racing, whatever attraction that comes in the way; no wisdom, no looking forward, no purpose or end in view, absence of an ideal. The idea expressed in the one Latin word "Excelsior""More Excellent"-would have made him like a grand and mighty ship, forging its way to a pre-destined port. The little boy, Abe Lincoln, in the Kentucky cabin, knew no philosophy; but this idea, “more excellent," had come into his mind as an ideal aim-inherited, it may be, an instinctive impression or force, the same as pushes the plant upward to symmetry, efflorescense and fruitage. But, if not inherited, this impulse to greater excellence, this ideal, this reaching outward, upward and forward, may be an acquirement. Every soul is tinder. Touch a match to it and it blazes; the result, a benefactor to the world rises from the flame; a winged eagle or Aetna of energy, a Columbus, a Washington, a Webster, a Clay, a Garfield, a Lincoln. A child what may it become? "I never see a child." said Franklin, "without an impulse to take off my hat to it; for who knows but that barefoot, hatless, ragged boy may be a future Washington?" Like saying has also been accredited to a noted teacher of the medeaeval age. What is required for the future greatness of every child-boy or girl? An ideal. Ideas cannot be seen. But they are more valuable than all things that can be seen. I will give you, dear boy or dear girl, a present worth a million of dollars if you will accept it. It is an idea. Here it is: "Strive to make the world the better, the wiser and the happier for your living in it." This is the idea the one supreme idea that the Master had. It is the idea that every good man has-and it is the grandest of ideals. The boy on the farm or in the village or city takes a notion to go to college or his father wants his boy "educated." He goes to college. He has no idea of what an education is. He is put to studying Greek, Latin, geometry, etc., etc. To acquire mastery of certain dry studies -is that an education? He thinks it is; and few college men in or out of school have any different opinion. But, in fact, it is no education at all. A parrot learns to speak a great many words. The man who has gone only a short time to the common school and to none higher, with an ideal aim as had Horace Greeley, and Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln, and Henry Clay, and James A. Garfield, and George Washington, and every other man who has ever amounted to anything, is far better educated than the college graduate with no lofty ideal aim. YE 17TH LESSON. “Climbing to the Top.” I have heard men talk of "giving" their children an education. It is a thing impossible to do. It must be won. I noticed a picture in "Judge" (if I remember rightly) of a young sprig starting off to college loaded down with golf, baseball, football and other regalia and traps. That kind of student will never be read of in history. His education will be perfunctionary-merely formal-not genuine. His interest is centered on "having a good time,” like the Earl of Fitsdotterel's eldest son celebrated by the English poet Brough: "My Lord Tomnoddy to college went; In two years' time a degree he took, A railroad is carrying tourists to the summit of the Jung Frau. Who want to go up now? Only globe-trotters and curious sight-seers. But the old-time "Alpine climber" who took his life in his hands to make the ascent will go there no more forever. It was the struggle to "get to the top" that lured him to make the trial. An education that costs little endeavor is no education at all; for no good thing is ever won without great endeavor. The student who has to work his way through college is the more fortunate. The Rhode's scholarship, given to a post-graduate who has worked his way through an American college, will be to him a boon to be appreciated. But given to a millionaire's son who has reached the top of Jung Frau in a palace car, he will reap no benefit from it. He will have a good time in the English university, as he has had at his own alma mater in America; that is all; for a "good time" is all he lives for, all he knows, all he wants to know and all he ever will know. And the world will never hear of him except for his follies, it may be. "Who has ever seen corn grow?" the teacher asks his pupils. All hands are up. All cry "I." "Did you take sight and see it going up?" the teacher says. "No," is the reply from all the school. "Then," continues the teacher, "you have seen that it grew, but you have not seen it grow. It goes up too slowly for that. But in one short season maize-Indian corn-rizes to the height in Kansas of fifteen or twenty feet or more-away up like her sunflower stalks. So is education-mind growth consummated by every day a little knowledge gained, a little growth secured. In time it amounts to a tall stalk. There is no going to the top of the Jung Frau of knowledge in a palace car-no "royal road," as Euclid of old informed the king. One must with difficulty climb the rugged height. So only is reached the temple of Athena. "Oh," says the unsophisticated youth, "if I only could have a chance I would climb to the top of Parnassus' Mount; I would enter the temple of the goddess of wisdom." If you had a chance! You have a far better chance than Franklin, in his youth, had-as good as any boy has ever had; for the more difficult it is to obtain the crown of wisdom and learning the more certain will it be, as a rule, that you shall obtain it if you will. Determination, patience, perseverance, readiness to do and dare and suffer and die will always bring success. So will you outstrip all competitors as did Franklin. "Seest thou a man diligent in his business; he will stand before kings." This was a true prophecy in Franklin's case. He stood, in most honorable position, before several august kings. If one would have an education and write his name THE RICH AND THE POOR. 41 on the sacred scroll of fame he must "go in to win" as does the football player, and with all his vim. He will then "win out." "If thou canst death defy, If thy faith is entire, YE 18TH LESSON. The Rich and the Poor. "He is rich who has enough," says Seneca, "and he is poor who wants more than he has." But what is enough? It is (ye old schoolmaster says) indifferent what any man has if all men have sufficient. And natural wants abundantly supplied is sufficient. But every man would live in a castle if he could ten times larger than he has any need for, and for the same reason that he would ride in an automobile of elephantine size and costing ten thousand dollars, and that diamonds have a market value so much above quartz crystals, that is to say, vanity. If he cannot build a huge edifice of hewn stone, it will be of brick or pine. The forests are needlessly disappearing on account of this vanity; and if a market could be found for the lumber there would not be a tree of any sort large enough to make a foot-thick sawlog left standing on the American continent ten years hence. We forget that there will be any need for timber after we are dead or any need for coal or for anything that we can get a dollar out of by its destruction. We have no regard for posterity or for common sense. Ninetynine-hundredths of the men of the United States are money mad and ought to be confined in asylums for the feeble minded; for their madness is the result of imbecility. In the "Encyclopedia Britannica" we may read the history of the counties of England. You will see in every county that one or two men own thousands of acres of the land, some as high as twenty and thirty thousand-an Earl of Scotland several hundred thousand, while the usual size of a homestead of the common people-the "untitled nobility" of Great Britain is a quarter of an acre-very seldom of ten or more acres, and we may say never one as large as an ordinary prairie farm in Iowa. On the greater holdings, like that of "Lord Tomnoddy," is a castle built in the dark ages or an immense house in imitation of a castle and of as great dimensions. In the dark ages there was need of castles-great forts; for anarchy prevailed and highway robbery and petty wars were the rule. Now there is no more need for those great buildings than for mailed knights. Americans visiting England behold those immense structures, and the oil magnate, or railroad king, or manufacturing king, or insurance president, with his hands in the pockets of his dupes and a salary of one hundred and fifty thousand a year, must be like an English lord. He goes into western New York or into North Carolina, buys thousands of acres of land, wipes out old time villages, breaks up industries, forces men to sell their homesteads to him whether they will or not, and builds a castle. Other men see these giant structures go up, their own heads swell and they go as far as they possibly can to imitate the very rich; build great big houses of pine, draw in their latch strings, pay five thousand or more apiece for automobiles, and lean back in the seats self-satisfied, until by some wrong turn of the guide-wheel they plunge down an embankment, or off a bridge, or strike a tree, and so go off the world's stage forever, for the world's good. It goes without saying that, as a rule, all men ought to have common sense at least. They have not, or they would say "It is glory |