Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1889-02-08
YOUR OWN COUNTRY.
Words of Advice Which Should BE Heed
ed by Every American Boy.

Words of Advice which Should BE Heed
ed by Every American Boy.
There is an old German legend of
| peasant who owned his hut and patch
of ground, on which grew twelve APP
pie trees that had ceased TO bear His
mind was full of schemes by which to
grow rich. One night in his dreams,
an old man came to him and babe
him travel round the world until he
should meet his good angel, who would
instruct him where to find hidden
treasure.
lie set forth, and visited every coun-
try in the world, but nowhere found a
good angel or treasure. When he
returned home, despairing, he told his
story to his old mother, sitting in the
chimney-corner.
why should you put faith in
dreamsP" she said. 81 dreamed once
that under one of our apple-trees was
hidden a pot of gold"
The man seized a spade, rushed out
and began to dig. He made a great
hole under the roots of the first apple
tree, and, finding no treasure, filed it
in with fresh loan, and went to work
at the second. In a week he had dug
under each tree, but had found moth
ing. In the spring the trees, for the
first time in years, were laden with
bloom. The fruit was of a rare kind,
and sold high in the market at Vienna.
In few years our peasant was rich.
The old legend has a meaning which
every American boy should take to
heart Each lad who reads is begin
ming to form plans for the future. how
he too, may win fame and fortune.
He will succeed sooner and more sure
ly If, in these plans, he identifies him
self wholly with his own country and
its life. Many young Americans are
educated in Europe, and acquire, in
the repose and picturesqueness of an
older civilization, the habit of looking
with contempt and pity on their own
country, which is mighty field of
struggle and endeavor. The feeling is
becoming prevalent even among our
educated young people at home
Among the pictures offered to the
Paris salon three years ago, there
were probably twenty by American
artists, representing Norman peasants,
Italian Sunsets and French models,
that had all of them been painted ten
thousand times before. But the crowd
gathered about two pictures, one of
a cotton-feld with negro pic1ers. the
other of an Omaha woman and her
child. These were declared, by crit
les and connoisseurs alike, to be the
most picturesque and novel subjects
treated in the exhibition.
Germany had no art nor literature
as long as her educated classes despised
their own country, and only read the
books and bought the pictures sent to
them from Paris. AT last Goethe and
Richter and Schiller taught them the
greatness and the meaning of their
own language and life. The ruling
class in Russia initiated the French,
studied French literature, spoke French
as the language of the court, and hence
Russia had no place in the world of
books or arts until Tourgenieff Tolstoi
and Gogol in their own tongue paint
ed the life of Russia as it is, and COM
manded the attention of the civilized
world
If the American artist and writer
can not find material in the scenery
and conflict of human nature, races
and creeds of his own country, the
fault is in himself. Let our boy read
err remember that the orator, the
writer, the painter, who has held the
attention of the world has always
been he who best understood and ex-
pressed his own time and his own
country. The pot of gold for all of us
lies under our feet, if we will dig for
it YOUTHS Companion.