est successes of the world have been based. On this, Abraham Lincoln stood splitting rails, and wedged himself to the highest office in the gift of the Republic; on this, Shakespeare stood weaving wool, and wove for himself a fame immortal; on this James A. Garfield tramped a tow-path with no company but an honest mule, but that tow-path led on to the White House in Washington. Do not be lazy. I saw a man once who really looked so lazy it seemed to rest me to look at him. But the man or woman who lives in this age of the world and lives in idleness should have been born

in some other age. Carlyle says: "The race of life has become intense: the runners are treading on each other's heels. Woe be to the man who stoops to tie his shoe strings."

Take care of your principles, and to do this start right and keep right. I heard of a traveler who said to a wayside farmer, "How far do you call it to Philadelphia?" The farmer replied, "About twenty-five thousand miles, the way you are going; if you turn and go the other way, it is fourteen miles." There is wonderful difference in the ways of life. If you start right and keep right, no matter where you start from, you will end right. Go find me the poorest boy in this city; let him lay his hand on his heart and pledge me he will be industrious, honest, economical and sober, and in twenty years hence you will find him honored and "well to do" in life. Boys, are any of you poor? Never mind poverty. The rich men of to-day were poor boys thirty years ago.

The great men come out of cabins as a rule. Columbus was a weaver, Hally was a soap-maker, Homer was a beggar, and Franklin, whose name will live while lightning blazes on a cloud, came from a printer's desk. Not long since, I rode horseback through Hardin and La Rue Counties, Kentucky. We call that the land of ticks and lizards. The soil is very poor, so poor that it will not raise black-eye peas unless you take them without the eyes. Riding along that day I came upon a spot of rank weeds where the soil had been made rich by the decay of an old cabin that once stood there. Out of that cabin years ago came a lean, lank, white-headed boy. If ever a boy came from abject poverty that one did. When only seven years of age, he would walk to Hodgenville with a basket of eggs to sell. The boys laughed at him. They said his clothes were like Joseph's because so many colors. But he was industrious, honest and sober. After a while he was old enough to leave home, so he went down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers on a flatboat. Then he returned and crossing over into Indiana-he there split rails a while; then on to Illinois, where he practiced law; then on to the presidential chair, and in his death he bore the shackles of four million slaves and linked his name with that of Liberty.

I thank God we live in a land where a boy can go from a tow-path, a tanyard, or a rail-cut to the presidency of a Republic.

Scientific Farming

Irving Bacheller

This is an extract from a speech delivered at a banquet of the New England Society of New York City, 1909. Note and express the flavor of humor it contains. Bring out the climax in the last paragraph with feeling and force.

THERE are some who say that the "higher education" has gone too far, but I want to tell you that the up-to-date American farmer is a far-seeing man. He has observed the hordes of human oxen pouring in from Europe, men who can sleep in a pigsty and dine on an onion and a chunk of bread, and he has been unwilling to enter his sons in that sort of competition; and so he has sent them to college. Scientific farming has begun to pay. I know a farmer whose income would excite the envy of high finance. He said to me: "Don't be afraid of education; the land will soak up all we can get and yell for more."

My friends, if I knew half the secrets in ten acres of land I believe I could make my fortune off them in five years. We have sent the smart boys to the city, and we have kept the fools on the farm. We have put everything on the farms but brains. Anybody can learn Blackstone and Greenleaf, but the book of law that is writ in the soil is only for keen eyes. We want our young men to know that it is more dignified to search for the secrets of God in the land than to grope for the secrets of Satan in a law-suit. One hundred thousand young men will be leaving college within a

year from now. If the smartest of them would go to work on the land with gangs of these human oxen we could make the old earth lop-sided with the fruitfulness of America.

Ladies and gentlemen, the "hayseed" is no more. I propose the health of the coming farmer, who is to be a gentleman, a scholar, a laird, a baron. I propose the health of the many who have taught and shall teach him

"To sow the seed of truth and hope and peace
And take the root of error from the sod,

To be of those who make the sure increase
Forever growing in the lands of God."

Ambition

Jerome K. Jerome

This is an extract from the author's "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow." The conversational style is best fitted for the delivery of this selection, for the most part. The last paragraph affords an opportunity for a change to a more elevated tone, expressive of the enthusiasm which comes from the zest of the game.

Is it, forsooth, wrong to be ambitious? Are the men wrong who with bent back and sweating brow cut the smooth road over which humanity marches forward, who use the talents their Master has intrusted to them for toiling, while others play?

Of course, they are seeking their own reward. Man is not given that Godlike unselfishness that thinks only of others' good. But in working for themselves they are working for us all. We are so bound together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalf

helps to mould the universe. The stream in struggling onward turns the mill wheel; the coral insect fashioning its tiny cells joins continents; and the ambitious man building a pedestal for himself leaves a monument of posterity. Alexander and Cæsar fought for their own ends, but in doing so they put a belt of civilization half around the earth. Stephenson, to win a fortune, invented the steam engine, and Shakespeare wrote his plays to keep a comfortable home for Mrs. Shakespeare and the children.

Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable audience for the active spirits to play before. I have not a word to say against them so long as they keep quiet. But they should not go strutting about, crying out that they are the true model for the whole species.

If you are foolish enough to be contented, don't show it, but grumble with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal. Because if you don't, you won't get anything. In this world it is necessary to adopt the principle pursued by the plaintiff in an action for damages and to demand ten times more than you are ready to accept. If you can feel satisfied with a hundred, begin by insisting on a thousand; if you start by suggesting a hundred you will only get ten.

What a terribly dull affair, too, life must be for contented people. They never know the excitement of expectation nor the stern delight of ac