Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1905-01-13

less. i heard a mother a short time
ago say that she would have to move
to town to educate her children.
Deluded creature. She would sharpen
their wits, no doubt, but educate
them, never! Human stalagmites
they might become, taking DIT here
and bit there by contact with their
surroundings, taking upon them
selves the style, and form, and look,
and speech of those that surround
them; but education, in the broad
sense, they cannot get. Education
is growing from withln-s bringing
out. Man is creature of Nature.
tie is part and parcel of its elements.
His growth after his kind is no wise
different from the plant after its
kiud-"First the blade, then the ear,
after that the full corn in the ear"
Education is the growth of man. If
you would have the breadth and
scope of intellect, the strength of
nerve and bone and Drawn to cope
with the affairs of the world, you
must seek them in the green fields
and sunlight of Nature. There are
no dark alleys nor vapor-riddden
cellars, nor reeking, crowded tene-
meuts there. There is no shade SO
dense in the fabric of nature that
some sunbeam does not penetrate,
nor gorge so deep and dark that
some oxygen-laden stream does not
permeate. lnstill into your children
the simple truth that the only
honest gain on earth is the increase
of Nature. $50, then, neither is he
that planteth anything. neither he
that watereth, but God that giveth
the increase. Teach them that
trading in margins, ana speculating
in futures, diyerting the current Of
trade to your own corner, may in
crease your own pile, but it as
assuredly decreases your neighbours;
that nothing is added, nothing is
gained; that you have only taken
what Nature has bestowed on some
one else and have not gwen value in
return; that 1t is a form of robbery,
pure and simple; that it is sin, and
that it is written, "The wages of sin
is death"-not only death to physi-
cal man, but death to that enobliug
sentimentality that lifts the soul
above the things that creep and
crawl.
The cure for most Of the evil that
exists in our social fabric today does
not lie in the hands of politicians,
nor is it contained in laws of their
1t is a disease of public
sentiment, and the remedy is Nature
Cure. We must come out from it
all, and live close to Nature and be
mindful of its wondrous ways. IfI
the same energy that is now being
bent to rear the lofty structures in
the cities, or to tunnel their under
ground railways, was bent to making
life more tolerable in the country-to
improving its highways, and to
tightening the labor Of its homes; to
facilitating social intercourse, and to
improving the products of the soil,
that mankind might be induced to
come out from the crowded haunts
where shrewdness and cunning are
substituted for thought and fair
dealing, policy for principal, and
foot-lights and tawdry tinselry for
sunshine aud the glory of Natures
would reach nearer to
that human happiness which is the
true aim of all social and political
government.
The way of Nature with man is
instructive. Art satisfies best when
it most truly portrays nature. Why,
the scientest does not say. We look
upon work Of art, and the highest
we can pass upon it is that
1t looks SO perfectly natural. Would
you know why Shakespeare is the
greatest name in our literature? 1t is
because he is so human, so true to
life, so perfectly natural. Would
you know why Abraham Lincoln
was esteemed by friend and foe alike,
and sometimes called the greatest of
Presidents? Because he
was man without artifice, 80 per-
fectly natural, SO
"Rich in saving common-sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime"
Would you know the secret charm
by which the maiden captivates her
lovers heart? Ask him. He will
reveal the handspring of his devo-
ton when he says, "She is so unaf-
fected, so perfectly natural"
These are some of the wondrous
ways of nature working round us
every day. That they are the COM
monplaces of life makes it none the
less true that all that is pure and
sweet and uplifting in life comes
from a just appreciation of them.
The Unconditional philosopher, the
material man of science will tell us
that all nature is in state of per-
petual warfare, that daily and hourly
this struggle goes on, and only the
httest survive. To him the delicate
and tender emotions of love and life:
the ties of home and hearth; the un-
measurable devotion of motherhood.
and the bloom of youth and glad
some beauty in the maid; the win.
someness OF woman, and the chiyalry
OF man are but counterparts of hun
ger and thirst and are only rallying
calls in this struggle for existence.
10 him the gorgeous and fragrant
blossom represents but the efforts of
the plant to keep alive and perpetu-
ate It's species, offering food and
shelter to bee and bird in retnrn Cor