Smyrna times., 1888-03-28
MEN OF GENIUS.
THE CITIES INTELLECTUAL GIANTS
COUNTRY BORN AND BRED.

Leading Men and Leading Ideas Not Pro-
duced by the City-EasiIy Explained
by Natural Causes-Talents Frittered
Away In Excitements.
Experience teaches us, - says Mr.. Re-
menyi, ''that the great centers of pOpu-
lation are marked by a lamentable ster-
ility in the production of men of genius.
Precisely as the city, with its 100000 in
habitants would have to starve if it did
not receive its regular supplies of food
from the country, so it would suffer inter-
tellectual starvation if its mental supplies
were not, in all essential points, provided
from the country. Sometimes we find a
miserable, obscure country town pro-
ducing more men of original power than
half dozen large cities. Everything on
which our century prides itself, everything
that has made the age what it is, has
come from the country. The statesmen
and the soldiers, the artists and the in.
ventors, the men of learning and the
men of enterprise, have all migrated
from some obscure corner of the
land to take possession of the
cities, as their barbarous ancestors mi
| grated from savage wildernesses to take
possession of the seats of civilization. In
Paris, Berlin and Vienna the natives are
largely in the minority, and the immi-
grants fill all the streets and houses and
occupy all the public places So it is with
the leading men and the leading ideas;
they all come from the country"
A REASONABLE EXPLANATION.
Well, this seems a remarkable state
ment to make; but think the author is
right, and that his proposition will hold
good, not only in Europe, to which his
article seems chiefly to refer, but in this
country. Make out list of eminent
Americans and you will find that very
few of them were born in the cities. How
can this be explained? Mr. Remenyi has
no explanation to offer; he has no theory
regarding it, cit has always been So
he says, ''and will always be so; the city
governs the fashions, but the village gov
erns the nation l think, however, it
can be explained by natural causes.
In the first place, there are in every ma
ton about six times as many people in the
country and in the couRtry towns as there
are in The large cities. This is very
striking fact, of which everybody is not
aware. Many city dwellers imagine that
the majority Of the population of the ma
ton live in the cities, like themselves; fol
when they go to the country they see sc
few people there it seems hardly popu
J lated at all. In the next place, the ten
, dency of talent in every country is toward
! the city, because, like the cabbages an(
2 potatoes, it finds the best market there
! The young painter, poet, sculptor, Orato
4 or writer naturally gravitates toward
f those centers where his talents are mos
: valued and command the highest reward
$ If the city dwellers are themselves not s
oh will IrraOv
/ best how to appreciate it, and they pa
s the best price for it.
u EXCITEMENTs AND sCRASBLEs
4 In the next place, the inhabitants q
e cities are so absorbed in multitudinou
occupations, in ambitious pursuits an
extravagant pleasures; so crazy in tn
e pursuit of wealth and so cranky in th
/ spending of it; so full of newspaper el
/, elements, and so fond of outside sho,
d and glitter; so bent upon picking up
a little of everything and much of nothing
t. that it is impossible they should have tE
n same chance for study, for large mentl
e growth, as those who enjoy the SLOW
n steady, quiet, leisurely life of the countr,
q Their talents are frittered away in the e,
g elements and scrambles of the hour, an
n seldom does one of them think Of becon
a ing anything more than "a clever fellow
4 or "a good fellow" 1t is the old stol
a. of the slow but steady going tortoise bea
n ing the smart but superficial hare
r know from my own experience tn
IS when 1 was in Paris 1 found near
er every position Of any Importance or I
he sponsibility filed, not by Parisians, WI
or had too much amour and plaisir in the
o, heads for business, but by young &c
il mans of good education, whose superi
ne abilities commanded good pay and /
to stions in spite of the prejudices of
tn French. Genius needs time, pains, /
tience, to develop; many of the richt
of fruits grow in the shade; and the int
it's talents mature in Obscurity.
"a Lastly, the proposition is not univ
lis sally true; for there are many men
at genius, especially among the poets, W
n, were born and bred in cities Dante v
he born and bred in Florence, Lope de We
IN in Madrid, Milton and Spenser in Lt
nv don, Voltaire and Moliere in Paris, a
he as to Homer, "Three cities claimed b
ey dead" The city seems indeed M
ras favorable to poetic genius than to a
ss- other, for it affords the best field for
Try observation of man in all ranks and c.
re- ditions.-Robert Walters in New Y
an Home Journal.