n, free trade and tariff, and
discover the germs of international law and the state. The great
questions of the day, as we call them, are little more than incidents
to the working out of the great social institutions, and these are the
expansions and modified forms of the family amid its unceasing support
and activity."

29. =The Family on the Farm.=--The best environment in which to study
the family is the farm. There the relations and activities of the
larger world appear in miniature, but with a greater simplicity and
unity than elsewhere. There the family gets closer to the soil, and
its members feel their relation to nature and the restrictions that
nature imposes upon human activity. There appear the occupations of
the successive stages of history--hunting, the care of domesticated
animals, agriculture, and manufacturing; there are the activities of
production, distribution, and consumption of economic goods. There a
consciousness of mutual dependence is developed, and the value of
co-operation is illustrated. There the mind ranges less fettered than
in the town, yet is less inclined toward radical changes. There the
family preserves and hands down from one generation to another the
heritage of the past, and stimulates its members to further progress.
In the family on the farm children learn how to live in association
with their kin and with hired employees; there much of the mental,
moral, and religious training is begun; and there is found most of the
sympathy and encouragement that nerves the boy to go out from home for
the struggle of life in the larger community and the world.

30. =Physical Conditions of Farm Life.=--Every group, like every
individual, is dependent in a measure on its physical environment. The
prosperity of the family on the farm and the daily activities of its
members wait often upon the quality of climate and soil and the temper
of the weather. The rocky hillsides of mountain lands like Switzerland
breed a hardy, self-reliant people, who make the most of small
opportunities for agriculture. A well-watered, rolling country pours
its riches into the lap of the husbandman; in such surroundings he is
likely to be more cheerful but less gritty than the Scottish
highlander. The pioneer settlers of America, in their trek into the
ulterior, faced the forest and its terrors, and every member of the
family who was old enough added his ounce of effort to the struggle to
subdue it. Their descendants