verb _Mens sana in corpore sano_ has certainly been
verified in the life of General Pershing.

It was Oliver Wendell Holmes who has been frequently quoted as having
said that "the foremost qualification for success is the proper
selection of one's grandparents." The forcefulness of General Pershing's
father, the inspiring words of his mother form a rare background.
"Foremost citizen," "devoted to his family," "sterling,"
"ambitious"--these are some of the words of old-time friends and
neighbors, descriptive and expressive of their estimates of his father.
All of them, however, are not more suggestive and tender than a
neighbor's description of the General's mother as a "splendid
homemaker," and "an inspiration to her children." There are many things
a son cherishes more highly than the inheritance of great riches, and
foremost is the heritage of a good name.

As the oldest of nine children naturally he learned and assumed certain
responsibilities at an early age. With the advice and help of his mother
it is said that even when he was only fourteen he was managing a farm in
the absence of his father. There was work to be done and in abundance.
There is ancient authority for the claim that it is good to "learn to
bear the yoke in one's youth." A "yoke," however, is not the burden, it
is a contrivance which enables one to bear his burden.

A prominent and successful man of business in New York City declared not
long ago that if a man does not learn to work when he is young (this man
placed the limit at twenty-two) he does not learn afterward. This was
the result of both observation and experience.

Whether or not these conclusions are correct, certain it is that in the
case of General Pershing, as it has been also in many other marked
instances, he learned not only to work but also learned how to work when
he was only a boy.

His birthplace was in the great state of Missouri. Reference has already
been made to the semi-slang expression which indicates that a man from
that State "must be shown." Not long ago there appeared in one of the
foremost newspapers of America a bit of verse applying this saying to
the present gigantic task of the Commander of the American Expeditionary
Forces in France. The following quotation (_The Evening Telegram_),
whatever it may lack in poetic flavor, is expressive of the public
conception of the meaning of the statement:

"When 'Jack' Pershing left for Europe
Wit