e unkindly, where the soil yields
nothing save to the diligent hand, and life itself cannot be supported
without incessant toil, man has reached his highest range of physical
and intellectual development.

The most beautiful and the strongest animals, as a rule, have come from
the same narrow belt of latitude which has produced the heroes of the
world.

The most beautiful as well as the strongest characters are not developed
in warm climates, where man finds his bread ready made on trees, and
where exertion is a great effort, but rather in a trying climate and on
a stubborn soil. It is no chance that returns to the Hindoo ryot a penny
and to the American laborer a dollar for his daily toil; that makes
Mexico with her mineral wealth poor, and New England with its granite
and ice rich. It is rugged necessity, it is the struggle to obtain, it
is poverty the priceless spur, that develops the stamina of manhood, and
calls the race out of barbarism. Labor found the world a wilderness and
has made it a garden.

The law of adaptation by which conditions affect an organism is simple
and well known. It is that which callouses the palm of the oarsman,
strengthens the waist of the wrestler, fits the back to its burden. It
inexorably compels the organism to adapt itself to its conditions, to
like them, and so to survive them.

As soon as young eagles can fly the old birds tumble them out and tear
the down and feathers from their nest. The rude and rough experience of
the eaglet fits him to become the bold king of birds, fierce and expert
in pursuing his prey.

Benjamin Franklin ran away and George Law was turned out of doors.
Thrown upon their own resources, they early acquired the energy and
skill to overcome difficulties.

Boys who are bound out, crowded out, kicked out, usually "turn out,"
while those who do not have these disadvantages frequently fail to "come
out."

From an aimless, idle and useless brain, emergencies often call out
powers and virtues before unknown and unsuspected. How often we see a
young man develop astounding ability and energy after the death of a
parent or the loss of a fortune, or after some other calamity has
knocked the props and crutches from under him. The prison has roused the
slumbering fire in many a noble mind. "Robinson Crusoe" was written in
prison. The "Pilgrim's Progress" appeared in Bedford Jail. The "Life and
Times" of Baxter, Eliot's "Monarchia of Man," and Penn's "No Cross, No
C