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قراءة كتاب The Scrap Book. Volume 1, No. 2 April 1906
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
will ever be replaced by children of better parents reared in better ways.
A much greater danger, according to Dr. Reed, is overpopulation. As influences inimical to the American family he classes "everything that tends to the early and wide dispersion of its members," such as—
The development of residential schools, the extension of far-reaching transportation facilities, the diversification of industries, the industrial employment of women, the popularization of hotels and apartments for residential purposes, and, finally, the development of clubs for both men and women at the expense of the home.
WORTH WHILE TO LIVE IN A LARGE CITY.
The Real Blessings of Urban Life Have
Been Too Much Neglected By
the Apostles of the Country.
City life has been more or less maligned—unintentionally. Unhealthful crowding, lack of the inspiration of outdoor life, and greater immorality are the principal charges. Lately, however, people have begun to believe that the city is little if any more immoral, proportionately to its inhabitants, than the country; that the absence of outdoor life has compensations, especially when one can spend part of the year in the country; that most of the dangers of crowding can be averted by improved sanitary methods and a greater number of parks. Edward S. Martin, writing in Appleton's Magazine, states the case attractively:
After all, there is an unrivaled attraction about human society, and it is considerably wholesome. It takes superior people to thrive on solitude even with quiet thrown in. Feebler folk have been known to regenerate even in the blessed country. It is no more possible in these days to stop the country people from coming to town than to stop the rivers from flowing to the sea.
The cities offer the best opportunities to the people who are qualified to improve them. The cities are the great markets for talent and skill, as well as for commodities. They would be badly off if the energy that makes them hum were not perpetually re-enforced out of the great country reservoirs. The country would be a worse place if the superfluous vigor that is bred there had not the cities in which to spend itself.
To get to some town is the natural and legitimate aspiration of a considerable proportion of the sons and daughters of American farmers. But as the waters that run to the sea are carried back by the process of evaporation, so there must be, as our cities grow greater, a return current out of them countryward for the people for whom town life is no longer profitable, and whose nerves and thews need nature's medication.
There is such a current as it is. People who get rich in town promptly provide themselves with country homes, and spend more and more of the year in them as their years increase and their strength declines. But for the people who don't get rich, the combination, or the transition, is not so easy. A due proportion of the people who are game to stand more noise, canned food, and struggle in their lives, and who ought to get to town, will get there.
The other process—to get back into the country the families, and especially the children, who have had more continuous city life than is good for them—needs a good deal of outside assistance, and gets some, though not yet as much as it requires.
MAKING MONEY IS A RELIGIOUS DUTY.
John D. Rockefeller Recounts His Own
Early Struggles and Shows to Young
Men the Virtues of Economy.
It may be, as sometimes has been said, that more is to be learned from the mistakes of other men than from their successes. If that be true it is because the reasons for their mistakes can hardly be concealed. Whether or not successful men betray the secrets of their successes, however, usually rests with themselves. In studying success, it is the occasional intimate disclosure that bears value rather than the superficial record.
John D. Rockefeller has addressed to the Bible class over which his son presides a pamphlet entitled "First Ledger of a Successful Man of Affairs." In it he tells of the ledger he kept as a young man, in which all his receipts and expenditures were most carefully recorded; and starting with this reminiscence he gives his advice to the young men of to-day. He begins with the dictum that "it is a religious duty to get all the money you can"—that is, "honestly and fairly"—and he sings the virtues of rigid economy. Speaking of his own efforts to "get a footing," he says: