mud-swamp of one's existence, like an ever-deepening river there, it runs and flows;-draining-off the sour festering water, gradually from the root of the remotest grass-blade; making, instead of pestilential swamp, a green fruitful meadow with its clear-flowing stream. How blessed for the meadow itself, let the stream and its value be great or small! Labor is Life: from the inmost heart of the Worker rises his god-given Force, the sacred celestial Life-essence breathed into him by Almighty God; from his inmost heart awakens him to all nobleness, to all knowledge, "self-knowledge" and much else, so soon as Work fitly begins. Knowledge? The knowledge that will hold good in working, cleave thou to that for Nature herself accredits that, says Yea to that.

CONTENTMENT ON THE FARM

HORACE GREELEY

Is agriculture a repulsive pursuit? That what has been called farming has repelled many of the youth of our day, I perceive; and I glory in the fact. An American boy, who has received a fair common-school education and has an active, inquiring mind, does not willingly consent merely to drive oxen and hold plow forever. He will do these things with alacrity, if they come in his

way; he will not accept them as the be-all of his career. He will not sit down in a rude, slovenly, naked home, devoid of flowers, and trees, and books, and periodicals, and intelligent, inspiring, refining conversation, and there plod through a life of drudgery as hopeless and cheerless as any mule's. He has needs, and hopes, and aspirations which this life does not and ought not to satisfy. This might have served his progenitor in the ninth century; but this is the nineteenth, and the young American knows it.

Any American farmer, who has two hands and knows how to use them, may, at fifty years of age, have a better library than King Solomon ever dreamed of, though he declared that "of making many books there is no end; any intelligent farmer's son may have a better knowledge of Nature and her laws when twenty years old than Aristotle or Pliny ever attained. The steam engine, the electric telegraph, and the power-press have brought knowledge nearer to the humblest cabin than it was, ten centuries since, to the stateliest mansions.

A small library of well-selected books in his home has saved many a youth from wandering into the baleful ways of the prodigal son. Where paternal strictness and severity would have bred nothing but dislike and a fixed resolve to abscond at the first opportunity, good books and pleasant surroundings have weaned many a youth

from his first wild impulse to go to sea or cross the continent, and made him a docile, contented, obedient, happy lingerer by the parental fireside. In a family, however rich or poor, no other good is so cheap or so precious as thoughtful, watchful love.

Most men are born poor, but no man, who has average capacities and tolerable luck, need remain so. And the farmer's calling, though proffering no sudden leaps, no ready short-cuts to opulence, is the surest of all ways from poverty and want to comfort and independence. Other men must climb; the temperate, frugal, diligent farmer may grow into competence and every external accessory to happiness. Each year of his devotion to his homestead may find it more valuable, more attractive than the last, and leave it better still.

THE HEART OF THE TREE

H. C. BUNNER

What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants the friend of sun and sky;

He plants the flag of breezes free;

The shaft of beauty, towering high;
He plants a home to heaven anigh

For song and mother-croon of bird

In hushed and happy twilight heardThe treble of heavenly harmonyThese things he plants who plants a tree.

What does he plant who plants a tree?

He plants cool shade and tender rain, And seed and bud of days to be,

And years that fade and flush again;
He plants the glory of the plain;
He plants the forest's heritage;
The harvest of a coming age;

The joy that unborn eyes shall see-
These things he plants who plants a tree.

What does he plant who plants a tree?

He plants, in sap and leaf and wood,

In love of home and loyalty

And far-cast thought of civic good-
His blessings on the neighborhood

Who in the hollow of his hand

Holds all the growth of all our land—

A nation's growth from sea to sea
Stirs in the heart who plants a tree.

THE JOURNEY SOUTHWARD

FRIDTJOF NANSEN

On Friday, June 12th, we started again at 4 A. M. with sails on our sledges. There had been frost, so the snow was in much better condition again. It had been very windy in the night, too, so we hoped for a good day. On the preceding day it had cleared up so that we could at last see distinctly the lands around. We now discovered that we must steer in a more westerly direction than we had done during the preceding days, in order to reach the south point of the land to the west. The lands to the east disappeared eastward, so we had said good-by to them the day before.

We now saw, too, that there was a broad sound in the land to the west, and that it was one entire land, as we had taken it to be. The land north of this sound was now so far away that I could only just see it. In the meantime the wind had dropped a good deal; the ice, too, became more and more uneven,-it was evident that we had come to the drift ice, and it was much harder work than we had expected. We could see by the air that there must be open water to the south; and as we went on we heard, to our joy, the sound of breakers.