Chapter II: Part 2

We must, therefore, always consider two distinct forces when
we are concerned with a body which is kept in motion, namely,
the _propelling force_ due to some active agent such as
a horse or an engine, and the _dragging force_ due to
surrounding bodies. Newton pointed out that when a body is
moving steadily along a straight path, the propelling force
is always equal and opposite to the dragging force. Therefore,
_The forces which act upon a body which is stationary, or
which is moving uniformly along a straight path, are balanced
forces._

Many hesitate to accept as a fact the complete and exact
balance of propelling and dragging forces on a body which is
moving steadily along a straight path in the open, but
direct experiment shows it to be true, and the most elaborate
calculations and inferences based upon this idea of the
complete balance of propelling and dragging forces on a body
in uniform motion are verified by experiment. One may ask, why
a canal boat, for example, should continue to move if the pull
of the mule does not exceed the drag of the water; but
why should it stop if the drag does not exceed the pull?
Understand that we are not considering the starting of the
boat. The fact is that the conscious effort which one must
exert to drive a mule, the cost of the mule, and the expense
of his keep, are what most people think of, however hard one
tries to direct their attention solely to the state of tension
in the rope that hitches the mule to the boat after the
boat is in full motion; and most people consider that if the
function of the mule is simply to balance the drag of the
water so as to keep the boat from stopping, then why should
there not be some way to avoid the cost of so insignificant
an operation? There is, indeed, an extremely important matter
involved here, but it has no bearing on the question as to the
balance of propulsion and drag on a body which moves steadily
along a straight path.

Let us now consider the relation between the forces which act
upon a body which is changing its speed, upon a body which is
being started or stopped, for example. Everyone has noticed
how a mule strains at his rope when starting a canal boat,
especially if the boat is heavily loaded, and how the boat
continues to move for a long time after the mule ceases to
pull. In the first case, the pull of the mule greatly exceeds
the drag of the water, and the speed of the boat increases; in
the second case, the drag of the water of course exceeds the
pull of the mule, for the mule is not pulling at all, and
the speed of the boat decreases. When the speed of a body is
changing, the forces which act on the body are unbalanced. We
may conclude therefore that _the effect of an unbalanced force
acting on a body is to change the velocity of the body,_ and
it is evident that the longer the unbalanced force continues
to act the greater the change of velocity. Thus if the mule
ceases to pull on a canal boat for one second the velocity of
the boat will be but slightly reduced by the unbalanced drag
of the water, whereas if the mule ceases to pull for two
seconds the decrease of velocity will be much greater. _In
fact the change of velocity due to a given unbalanced force
is proportional to the time that the force continues to act._
This is exemplified by a body falling under the action of the
unbalanced pull of the earth; after one second it will have
gained a certain amount of velocity (about 32 feet per second),
after two seconds it will have made a total gain of twice as
much velocity (about 64 feet per second), and so on.

Since the velocity produced by an unbalanced force is
proportional to the time that the force continues to act, it
is evident that the effect of the force should be specified as
so-much-velocity-produced-per-second, exactly as in the case
of earning money, the amount one earns is proportional to
the length of time that one continues to work, and we
always specify one's earning capacity as
so-much-money-earned-per-day.

Everyone knows what it means to give an easy pull or a hard
pull on a body. That is to say, we all have the ideas of
greater and less as applied to forces. Everybody knows also
that if a mule pulls hard on a canal boat, the boat will get
under way more quickly than if the pull is easy, that is, the
boat will gain more velocity per unit of time under the
action of a hard pull than under the action of an easy
pull. Therefore, any precise statement of the effect of an
unbalanced force on a given body must correlate the precise
value of the force and the exact amount of velocity produced
per unit of time by the force. This seems a very difficult
thing, but its apparent difficulty is very largely due to
the fact that we have not as yet agreed as to what we are to
understand by the statement that one force is precisely three,
or four, or any number of times as great as another. Suppose,
therefore, that _we agree to call one force twice as large as
another when it will_ as _produce in a given body twice as
much velocity in a given time_ (remembering of course that we
are now talking about unbalanced forces, or that we are assuming
for the sake of simplicity of statement, that no dragging forces
exist). As a result of this definition we may state that _the
amount of velocity produced per second in a given body by an
unbalanced force is proportional to the force._

Of course we know no more about the matter in hand than we did before we adopted the definition, but we do have a good illustration of how important a part is played in the study of physical science, by what we may call making-up one's mind, in the sense of putting one's mind in order. This kind of thing is very prominent in the study of elementary physics, and the rather indefinite reference (in the story of the little tasseled tadpole) to an inward growth as needful before one can hope for any measure of success in our modern world of scientific industry was an allusion to this thing, the "making-up" of one's mind. Nothing is so essential in the acquirement of exact and solid knowledge as the possession of precise ideas, not indeed that a perfect precision is necessary as a means for retaining knowledge, _but that nothing else so effectually opens the mind for the perception even of the simplest evidences of a subject_[G].

We have now settled the question as to the effect of different
unbalanced forces on a given body on the basis of very general
experience, and by an agreement as to the precise meaning to
be attached to the statement that one force is so many times
as great as another; but how about the effect of the same
force upon different bodies, and how may we identify the force
so as to be sure that it is the same? It is required, for
example, to exert a given force on body _A_ and then exert the
same force on another body _B._ This can be done by causing
a third body _C_ (a coiled spring, for example) to exert the
force; then the forces exerted on _A_ and _B_ are the same if
the reaction in each case produces the same effect on body
_C_ (the same degree of stretch, for example). Concerning the
effects of the same unbalanced force on different bodies three
things have to be settled by experiment as follows:

(a) In the first place let us suppose that a certain force
_F_ is twice as large as a certain other force _G,_ according
to our agreement, because the force _F_ produces twice as much
velocity every second as force _G_ when the one and then the
other of these forces is caused to act upon a given body, a
piece of lead for example. Then, does the force _F_ produce
twice as much velocity every second as the force _G_ whatever
the nature and size of the given body, whether it be wood, or
ice, or sugar? Experiment shows that it does.

(b) In the second place, suppose that we have such amounts
of lead, or iron, or wood, etc., that a certain given force
produces the same amount of velocity per second when it is
made to act, as an unbalanced force, upon one or another of
these various bodies. Then what is the relation between the
amounts of these various substances? Experiment shows that
they all have the same mass in grams, or pounds, as determined
by a balance. That is, a given force produces the same amount
of velocity per second in a given number of grams of any kind
of substance. Thus the earth pulls with a certain definite
force (in a given locality) upon _M_ grams of any substance
and, aside from the dragging forces due to air friction, all
kinds of bodies gain the same amount of velocity per second
when they fall under action of the unbalanced pull of the
earth.

(c) In the third place, what is the relation between the
velocity per second produced by a given force and the mass in
grams (or pounds) of the body upon which it acts. Experiment
shows that _the velocity per second produced by a given force
is inversely proportional to the mass of the body upon which
the force acts._ In speaking of the mass of the body in grams
(or pounds) we here refer to the result which is obtained by
weighing the body on a balance scale, and the experimental
fact which is here referred to constitutes a very important
discovery: namely, when one body has twice the mass of
another, according to the balance method of measuring mass, it
is accelerated half as fast by a given unbalanced force.

The effect of an unbalanced force in producing velocity may
therefore be summed up as follows: _The velocity per second
produced by an unbalanced force is proportional to the force
and inversely proportional to the mass of the body upon which
the force acts, and the velocity produced by an unbalanced
force is always in the direction of the force._

* * * * *

"We advise all men," says Bacon, "to think of the true ends of knowledge, and that they endeavor not after it for curiosity, contention, or the sake of despising others, nor yet for reputation or power or any other such inferior consideration, but solely for the occasions and uses of life." It is difficult to imagine any other basis upon which the study of physics can be justified than for the occasions and uses of life; in a certain broad sense, indeed, there is no other justification. But the great majority of men must needs be practical in the narrow sense, and physics, as the great majority of men study it, relates chiefly to the conditions which have been elaborated through the devices of industry as exemplified in our mills and factories, in our machinery of transportation, in optical and musical instruments, in the means for the supply of power, heat, light, and water for general and domestic use, and so on.

From this narrow practical point of view it may seem that there can be nothing very exacting in the study of the physical sciences; but what is physics? That is the question. One definition at least is to be repudiated; it is not "The science of masses, molecules and the ether." Bodies have mass and railways have length, and to speak of physics as the _science of masses_ is as silly as to define railroading as the _practice of lengths,_ and nothing as reasonable as this can be said in favor of the conception of physics as the science of molecules and the ether; it is the sickliest possible notion of physics, whereas the healthiest notion, even if a student does not wholly grasp it, is that physics is the science of the ways of taking hold of things and pushing them!

Bacon long ago listed in his quaint way the things which seemed to him most needful for the advancement of learning. Among other things he mentioned "A New Engine or a Help to the mind corresponding to Tools for the hand," and the most remarkable aspect of present-day physical science is that aspect in which it constitutes a realization of this New Engine of Bacon{6}. We continually force upon the extremely meager data obtained directly through our senses, an interpretation which, in its complexity and penetration, would seem to be entirely incommensurate with the data themselves, and we exercise over physical things a kind of rational control which greatly transcends the native cunning of the hand. The possibility of this forced interpretation and of this rational control depends upon the use of two complexes: (a) A _logical structure,_ that is to say, a body of mathematical and conceptual theory which is brought to bear upon the immediate materials of sense, and (b) a _mechanical structure,_ that is to say, either (1) a carefully planned _arrangement of apparatus,_ such as is always necessary in making physical measurements, or (2) a carefully planned _order of operations,_ such as the successive operations of solution, reaction, precipitation, filtration, and weighing in chemistry.

These two complexes do indeed constitute a New Engine which helps the mind as tools help the hand; it is through the enrichment of the materials of sense by the operation of this New Engine that the elaborate interpretations of the physical sciences are made possible, and the study of elementary physics is intended to lead to the realization of this New Engine: (a) By the building up in the mind, of the logical structure of the physical sciences; (b) by training in the making of measurements and in the performance of ordered operations, and (c) by exercises in the application of these things to the actual phenomena of physics and chemistry at every step and all of the time with every possible variation.

That, surely, is a sufficiently exacting program; and the only alternative is to place the student under the instruction of Jules Verne where he need not trouble himself about foundations but may follow his teacher pleasantly on a care-free trip to the moon or with easy improvidence embark on a voyage of twenty-thousand leagues under the sea.

What it means to study physical science may be explained further by mentioning the chief difficulties encountered in the teaching of that subject. One difficulty is that the native sense of most men is woefully inadequate without stimulation and direction for supplying the sense material upon which the logical structure of the science is intended to operate. A second difficulty is that the human mind is so in the habit of considering the practical affairs of life that it can hardly be turned to that minute consideration of apparently insignificant details which is so necessary in the scientific analysis even of the most practical things. Everyone knows the capacity of the Indian for long continued and serious effort in his primitive mode of life, and yet it is difficult to persuade an Indian "farmer" to plow. Everyone knows also that the typical college student is not stupid, and yet it is difficult to persuade the young men of practical and business ideals in our colleges and technical schools to study the abstract elements of science. Indeed it is as difficult to get the average young man to hold abstract things in mind as to get a young Indian to plow, and for almost exactly the same reason. The scientific details of any problem are in themselves devoid of human value, and this quality of detachment is the most serious obstacle to young people in their study of the sciences.

A third difficulty which indeed runs through the entire front-of-progress of the human understanding is that the primitive mind-stuff of a young man must be rehabilitated in entirely new relations in fitting the young man for the conditions of modern life. Every science teacher knows how much coercion is required for so little of this rehabilitation; but the bare possibility of the process is a remarkable fact, and that it is possible to the extent of bringing a Newton or a Pasteur out of a hunting and fishing ancestry is indeed wonderful. Everyone is familiar with the life history of a butterfly, how it lives first as a caterpillar and then undergoes a complete transformation into a winged insect. It is, of course, evident that the bodily organs of a caterpillar are not at all suited to the needs of a butterfly, the very food (of those species which take food) being entirely different. As a matter of fact almost every portion of the bodily structure of the caterpillar is dissolved as it were, into a formless pulp at the beginning of the transformation, and the organization of a flying insect then grows out from a central nucleus very much as a chicken grows in the food-stuff of an egg. So it is in the development of a young man. In early childhood the individual, if he has been favored by fortune, exercises and develops more or less extensively the primitive instincts and modes of the race in a free outdoor life, and the result is so much mind-stuff to be dissolved and transformed with more or less coercion and under more or less constraint into an effective mind of the twentieth-century type.

A fourth difficulty is that the possibility of the rehabilitation of mind-stuff has grown up as a human faculty almost solely on the basis of language, and the essence of this rehabilitation lies in the formation of ideas; whereas _a very large part of physical science is a correlation in mechanisms._

The best way of meeting this quadruply difficult situation in the teaching of elementary physics is to relate the teaching as much as possible to the immediately practical and intimate things of life, and to go in for suggestiveness as the only way to avoid a total inhibition of the sense that is born with a young man. Such a method is certainly calculated to limber up our theories and put them all at work, the pragmatic method, our friends the philosophers call it, a method which pretends to a conquering destiny.

THE DISCIPLINE OF WORK.

The first object of all work--not the principal one, but the first
and necessary one--is to get food, clothes, lodging, and fuel.

But it is quite possible to have too much of all these things. I know a great many gentlemen, who eat too large dinners; a great many ladies, who have too many clothes. I know there is lodging to spare in London, for I have several houses there myself, which I can't let. And I know there is fuel to spare everywhere, since we get up steam to pound the roads with, while our men stand idle; or drink till they can't stand, idle, or otherwise.

RUSKIN. {5}

Two generations ago school was supplemented by endless opportunity for play, and children had to work about the house and farm more and more as they grew to maturity. Play and work were in those days as plentiful as sunshine and air, and it is no wonder that educational ideals were developed taking no account of them. But we cling to these old ideals at the present time when children have no opportunity to play, when there is an almost complete absence of old fashioned chores about the home, when boys never see their fathers at work, and when the only opportunity for boys and girls to work outside the home is to face the certainty of reckless exploitation! What a piece of stupidity! Our entire educational system, primary and secondary, collegiate and technical, is sick with inconsequential bookishness, and school work has become the most inefficient of all the organized efforts of men.

Yes but we have our Manual Training Schools and our college courses in Shop Work and Shop Inspection. Away with such scholastic shams! The beginnings of manual training must indeed be provided for in school; paper cutting, sewing and whittling. But from the absurdity of an Academic Epitome of Industry may the good Lord deliver us! And he will deliver us, never fear, for the law of economy is His law too.

_The greatest educational problem of our time is how to make use of
commercial and industrial establishments as schools to the extent
that they are schools._

The first object of all work is indeed to get food and clothes and lodging and fuel, but the essence of work is a human discipline as kindly and beneficent as the sunshine and the rain, and the greatest need of our time is that the discipline of work come again to its own in our entire system of education.

_This book is dedicated to the kind of education that is proving
itself at the University of Cincinnati._

* * * * *

To face page 60

and whittling. But from the absurdity of an Academic Epitome of Industry may the good Lord deliver us! And he will deliver us, never fear, for the law of economy is His law too.

_The greatest educational problem of our time is how to make use of
commercial and industrial establishments as schools to the extent
that they are schools._

The first object of all work is indeed to get food and clothes and lodging and fuel, but the essence of work is a human discipline as kindly and beneficent as the sunshine and the rain, and the greatest need of our time is that the discipline of work come again to its own in our entire system of education.

_This book is dedicated to the kind of education that is proving
itself at the University of Cincinnati._

* * * * *

PART OF AN EDUCATION.

Prairie born;
Once his feet touch the slope of Western mountain
The level road they ever more shall spurn.
If once he drink from snow-pure crystal fountain
His thirst shall, ever more consuming, burn
With deepened draughts from common stream.

Once his eye catch glimpse of more substantial glory
Than prairie horizon high piled with clouded foam
His quickened yearning shall inspire old story
Of unbounded, deathless realms beyond the sunset--Home!

There were two of us, a prairie born tenderfoot in the person of a sixteen-year-old college sophomore and the writer. After months of anticipation and planning we hurried away at the close of the college term, leaving the prairies of Iowa to spend a short vacation in the mountains; and we arrived in Denver on a perfect, cloudless morning in June.

Since early daylight we had kept an eager watch to westward across the even plains to catch a first glimpse of the great Front Range of the Rocky Mountains with its covering of summer snow, and after making some purchases of camp supplies we climbed to Capitol Hill in Denver to see the foothills soften to purple and the snow fields melt to liquid gold as the crystal day turned to crimson glory with the setting of the sun.

"This is the land that the sunset washes,
Those are the Banks of the Yellow Sea
Where it arose, and whither it rushes
This is the western mystery."

Late in the evening we took the train for Loveland from which place we
were to start on a walking trip to Laramie, up in Wyoming.

In Loveland we purchased a pony and a pack-saddle. The pony had never been broken to the saddle, and inasmuch as the art of packing has always to be learned anew when one has not practiced it for several years, both of us were, in some respects, as green as the pony, and naturally somewhat nervous when we started from Loveland. The pony served us well however and at the worst only gave us a name for the Bucking Horse Pass when we crossed the range of the Medicine Bow Mountains from the waters of the Grand River to those of the North Platte.

From Loveland we reached Sprague's Ranch in Estes Park, thirty-five miles away, in two days of easy travel over a good stage road, encountering a snow squall in the high foothills which left us cold and wet at sundown of the first day. In Estes Park we stayed three days, fishing, running up to timber line as preliminary exercise, and writing letters. The writer had spent two previous summers in Estes Park near Sprague's Ranch in company with friends from the University of Kansas.

CAMP ACCLIMATIZATION
June 21st.

_My dear little Friend:_--

D. and I reached this place day before yesterday. I saw Fred Sprague yesterday. He had already learned of our presence in the Park, having seen our characteristic hob-nail tracks, and, as his mother tells me, he remarked upon seeing them that "God's people had come," meaning the Kansas boys with whom he became acquainted in '86 and '89.

We have passed thousands of flowers since leaving Loveland, white poppies, cactus, blue bells, columbine and others more than I can tell. The blue bells are of the same kind that you and I found near Bloomington several weeks ago. It would be very nice if you and I could make some of our Saturday excursions in this country.

I wish I could tell you more of our trip. Of course it is scarcely begun as yet, but I know pretty well what it will be; hard, for one thing, and lonesome, but strangely fascinating. We are beginning already to have that attitude towards nature which I imagine Indians have, namely, the desire to get something to eat out of everything we see. [M. had written her brother D. at Moraine post office of the pies and cakes they were making at home.] This is by no means greediness, for a measured appetite is essentially incompatible with the conditions of Indian life. In fact the only wild animals which are not gourmands on occasion are those which eat grass. Of course, we are at best only Agency Indians, but we shall soon be off our reservation.

Few people realize the utter desolation of many parts of the Rocky Mountains; and often on my mountain trips, hungry and foot-sore, my fancy has turned to what my friend 'Gric[H] has told me of the utterly desolate Funeral Mountains that border Death Valley in southern California, and of the infinite sunshine there. What would _you_ think, my little friend, even now amid the comforts and joys of home, if you could hear a trustworthy account of an actual trip over those dreadful Mountains and into that awful Valley?

I hope that the map with the accompanying description will help you to a knowledge of the geography and geology of this country. I send kind regards to your father and mother.

Your friend, F.

Starting from Estes Park for the Grand River country we stopped over night at _Camp Desolation_ in Windy Gulch, an enormous amphitheater rising above timber line on the north, east, and west, and opening to the south into Big Thompson Canyon. The mouth of the Gulch is dammed by the lateral moraine of an ancient Thompson glacier and behind this dam is a level, marshy stretch with a few green spruce and thickets of aspen, black alder and mountain willow. Near timber line also is a scattered fringe of green with dots of white. All the rest is a desolate stretch of burned timber.

Trailing to the head of Windy Gulch in the morning we gained the summit of Thompson Ridge which we followed in a northwesterly direction for about twelve miles; then we circled around the head of Big Thompson river and went down to Camp at the head of the Cache la Poudre river, precisely on the Continental Divide in Milner Pass about two hundred feet below timber line with Specimen Mountain immediately to the north of us.

SPECIMEN MOUNTAIN CAMP,
June 24th.

_My Dear B:_--

D. and I are going to run down to Grand Lake settlement to-morrow for bacon and flour so I write this today. I have been in camp all morning cooking and mending while D. has been looking for sheep up in the crater of Specimen Mountain. He saw two and shot without effect. Specimen Mountain is an extinct volcano and sheep come to the crater to lick. I have seen as many as a hundred and fifty sheep there at different times during the four trips that I have made to this region, but I have hunted them only one day (the first) of the twenty-five that I have spent in this camp--without success, of course.

Flowers in profusion are found at these altitudes already where the shrinking snow drifts have exposed the ground to the warm June sun, but under the drifts it is yet the dead of winter. As the season advances the snow recedes, and each newly uncovered strip of ground passes with exuberant haste through a cycle of spring.

We came over from Estes Park yesterday and the day before. At one point I carried the horse's pack about a quarter of a mile on account of steepness of trail and depth of snow, leaving the pony under D.'s guidance to wallow through as best she could. We shall, no doubt, have some hard work getting out of the Grand River valley to the north over the Medicine Bow but we intend to keep at it. We are, of course, likely to get cold and wet, tired and hungry. In fact, I am neither very dry nor very warm now as I write, for it is half snowing and half raining; nor hungry (?) for I have just eaten three slices of bacon, half a corn cake eight inches in diameter and an inch thick, with bacon gravy made with flour and water, and nearly a quart of strong coffee of syrupy sweetness. I do wish D. had killed that sheep this morning! We hope to get some trout to-morrow out of Grand River, but to see the sheets of water which are being shed off the range from rain and melting snow makes one feel uncertain of the trout fishing. I will close for this time and put this into my knapsack. To-morrow D. and I will get our "walkins" on bright and early, and pack it to Grand Lake. This is a tough country beyond imagination.

Yours sincerely, F.

When trailing above timber line on our way to Specimen Mountain and subsequently we were on snow much of the time; below timber line at high altitudes we contended about equally with snow and fallen timber; and at middle altitudes where the timber is heavy and where fires have been frequent and disastrous the fallen timber alone is quite enough to make travel troublesome. Mud and water, fallen and falling, we encountered everywhere, but without much concern. The greatest vexation to the amateur traveler in the Rockies is to slip off a log in trying to cross a stream, and thus get wet all over, when if one had been reasonable, one might have been wet only to the middle. An awkward comrade of '89 did this so many times that it became a standing joke; but 'Gric,{7} as we called him, that is to say _Agricola,_ after his father "Farmer" Funston of Kansas, developed grit enough to take him through Death Valley in southern California, to take him, all alone, 1,600 miles down the Yukon River in an open boat and across 200 miles of unexplored country during the winter night to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, to take him into the Cuban army, where he received three serious wounds, and finally to take him through the Philippines with our Volunteer Army where he captured Aguinaldo.

From _Specimen Mountain Camp_ in Milner Pass we made our way to Grand River over an extremely difficult trail, nearly breaking our pony's leg in the fallen timber, and, finding it impossible to reach Grand Lake by the river trail without wetting our pack, we went into (_Mosquito_) camp and did our week's washing. The next day we left our pony, and made a flying round trip of thirty miles to the settlement. The next morning, hoping to escape the mosquitoes, we moved camp several miles up stream and in the afternoon we climbed to the summit of one of the high spurs of a nameless[J] peak in the range of the Medicine Bow. We got back to camp late in the evening in a sharp rain, which continued all night.

The next morning promised fair weather, and after some hesitation, we packed up for the trip over to North Park. Starting at eight o'clock we reached the deserted mining camp, Lulu, at eleven, having forded Grand River seven times, the water of it ice cold and swift as an arrow. We then began to climb the range, the summit of which we reached at three o'clock at the pass of the Bucking Horse far above timber line. At four o'clock we began the descent into the valley of the Michigan fork of the North Platte. The rain, until now fitful, became steady and we, determined to reach a good camping place, kept our pony at a half-trot until eight o'clock, when we found a deserted cabin. We were too impatiently hungry to make biscuit, which we ordinarily baked in the frying pan before cooking our bacon, so we made our supper of graham mush, bacon, bacon gravy and coffee. Next morning we found to our dismay that our baking powder had been left at the Bucking Horse--and no wonder, for our pack had been strewn for a quarter of a mile along the trail--so we were reduced to mush again for breakfast.

GOULD'S RANCH,
July 7th.

_My Dear B:_

We have just returned from a week's hunt in the Medicine Bow Mountains east of here. We saw elk, killed a deer, and spent the Fourth of July on a prominent but nameless peak from which we got a splendid view.

* * * * *

After breakfast at Camp _Mush,_ Mr. E.B. Gould, a neighboring cattle rancher who has no cattle, was attracted by the smoke of our campfire, and coming up to see us, he invited us to his shanty to eat venison. We went. We have now been with him a week and we are starting on our second carcass.

Gould lives by hunting and trapping, and by odd work in the Park during the haying season. He came to this country years ago with a hunting party and has been hunting ever since. Several years ago he took up a claim in the extreme southeastern corner of North Park conveniently near to hunting grounds in the Medicine Bow. He gave up his claim, for good, a year ago, and made an overland trip to New Mexico. That did not satisfy him either, so now he is back in his old shanty again. He thinks we are the toughest "tender-foots" he ever saw. He approves of us, there is no doubt about that, and he has pulled up his stakes to travel with us just for the pleasure of our company! He takes great interest in D.'s knowledge of bugs, and D. and he are both real hunters each according to his experience. Before we fell in with Gould I could persuade D. to wanton exertion in the way of mountain climbing but now I am in the minority, but the hunters propose, with a flourish, the scaling of every peak that comes in sight.

I had a spell of mountain fever just before the Fourth and Gould dosed
me with sage brush tea, the vilest concoction I ever had to take.

Gould is not accustomed to walk except when actually hunting, so he has a riding horse, and a trusty old pack animal whose minimum name is "G---- d---- you Jack," and whose maximum name (and load) is indeterminate. Gould is going with us to spend a week in the Range of the Rabbit's Ear, far to the west across North Park. He has an old wagon which, if it holds together, will save D. and me some tedious steps across the desert, for indeed this "park" is a desert. We shall pass through Walden, the metropolis and supply station of the Park.

Yours, F.

FROM D.'S MOTHER

_My precious boy:_

I trust you will excuse me for using this paper but I am up stairs, and no one [is] here to bring me any other. They tell me I need not wonder that we do not hear from you and I shall try not to be disappointed if we do not hear for a while. Nevertheless my dear boy, the uncertainty I feel in regard to your safety will make a letter very welcome indeed. Perhaps I would have more courage if I were strong. For five days I have been very uncomfortable. I am sitting up some today for the first [time] and hope soon to be well as usual.

We were exceedingly glad to hear from you from Grand Lake. I cannot, however, say that the account of your experience by stone slide[K] and river have lessened my anxiety. I am writing now, Thursday, in bed. I have been quite poorly again. We shall not look now for a letter from you but hope to see you face to face before many days. May God bless and keep you! Give our love to Mr. F. All join me in tenderest love to you.

Your devoted mother.

At Walden we laid in a fresh supply of flour and bacon, and canned goods, especially canned fruit, to last us while we stayed with the wagon. We then pushed on to the west, striking camp on the West Fork of the North Platte, where we stayed two nights. Here we tried hard a third time for trout without success, but we turned off the water from an irrigating ditch and captured a large number of "squaw fish" (suckers).

From _Camp Chew_ we made our way well up into the foothills of the Range of the Rabbit's Ear, and then packed our animals, minimum Jack and our pony, and pushed up the range over the worst trail we had yet encountered, through an absolute wilderness of fallen timber. Rain with fog set in as we approached timber line, and we were forced to go into camp early to wait for morning. Morning came with fog and rain, and we spent the entire day hunting trail, only to go into camp again towards evening. The next day, however, came clear and we made our way over the range, through Frying Pan Meadow, and reached camp down on Elk river towards evening without difficulty. We found good fishing here at last and great numbers of deer but no elk. After three rainy days in _Elk River Camp,_ one of which was spent jerking venison of D.'s killing, we packed up and made the return trip over the range in one day of hard travel, going into camp by the shore of a shallow pond well out on the barren level of North Park. The next morning we parted company with Gould, and in two days we made sixty stage road miles across North Park and over the northern portion of the Medicine Bow Mountains to Woods post office at the edge of the Laramie plains, twenty-five miles from Laramie.

We had intended walking through to Laramie, but ninety miles and two mountain ranges in three days, not to mention the writer's terribly blistered feet, had temporarily taken some of the ambition out of us, and after some fine diplomacy D. and the writer each found that the other was willing to descend to stage coach riding. We accordingly sold our fine little pony for five dollars, packed our outfit in a compact bundle which we wrapped in our small tent (which had been used as a smoke-house for curing venison at _Elk River Camp_), and took the stage for Laramie.

At Laramie we took the train for home, and with eyes eagerly awake we watched for hundreds of miles an increasing luxuriance of vegetation which reached its climax in the marvelously rich, endless, undulating fields of eastern Nebraska and Iowa:

This is the land that the sunset washes
These are the Waves of the Yellow Sea;
Where it arose and whiter it rushes,
This is the western mystery.

We had been away from home for thirty-three days, and in the mountains for thirty-one nights--Indians reckon by nights; and we had tramped more than three hundred and fifty miles from Loveland to the edge of the Laramie plains. A large portion of the time was spent at high altitudes where the weather is not lamb-like in June, and no small portion of the three hundred and fifty miles was mud and water, snow and fallen timber, through a country as rough, perhaps, as is to be found anywhere, and as interesting. The only way to study Geography is with the feet! No footless imagination can realize the sublimity of western Mountain and Plain. Nothing but a degree of hardship can measure their widespread chaos and lonely desolation, and only the freshened eagerness of many mornings can perceive their matchless glory.

We reached home weather-beaten almost beyond recognition, but in robust health, especially D., who had actually gained in weight during the trip. From the railroad station we carried our outfit, and venison, two miles to the college grounds, reaching D.'s home about midnight.

Here our madly exuberant spirits were suddenly checked by finding that the illness of D.'s mother had become extremely serious. However she was determined to see us both--to give a last approval.

"We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies.

"The heroism we recite
Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the cubits warp
For fear to be a king."

After four days D.'s mother died. It fell to B. and F. to make a sculptor's plaster mask, and photographs; and to F. to watch overnight--and hasten to the woods in the morning.

"The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth.

"The sweeping up the heart
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity."

A beautiful Campanile now stands on the college campus erected in memory of D.'s mother by the state of Iowa; and from this memory-tower a chime of bells

Greets
Those who pass in joy
And those who pass in sorrow;
As we have passed,
Our time.

"Superiority to fate
Is difficult to learn.
'Tis not conferred by any,
But possible to earn
A pittance at a time,
Until, to her surprise,
The soul with strict economy
Subsists till Paradise."

THE USES OF HARDSHIP.

Did you chance, my friends, any of you, to see, the other day, the 83rd number of the _Graphic,_ with the picture of the Queen's concert in it? All the fine ladies sitting so trimly, and looking so sweet, and doing the whole duty of woman--wearing their fine clothes gracefully; and the pretty singer, white-throated, warbling "Home sweet home" to them, so morally, and melodiously! Here was yet to be our ideal of virtuous life, thought the _Graphic!_ Surely we are safe back with our virtues in satin slippers and lace veils--and our Kingdom of Heaven is come _with_ observation!

RUSKIN.

Ruskin has said that the children of the rich often get the worst education to be had for money, whereas the children of the poor often get the best education for nothing. And the poor man's school is hardship. {8}

It is generally admitted that wealthy American parents are too indulgent towards their children. However this may be, many an American father is determined that his sons shall not go through what he himself went through as a boy, forgetting that the hardships of his youth were largely the hardships of pioneer life which have vanished forever. No boy with good stuff in him and with a fair education unmixed with extravagant habits of living can possibly have more hardship nowadays than is good for him. Every young man must sooner or later stand by himself; and hardship, which in its essence is to be thrown on one's own resources, is the best school.

But the most alluring school of hardship, a sort of Summer School of the University of Hard Knocks, is a walking trip into the mountains to the regions of summer snow, carrying one's whole outfit on one's back as did the Kansas boys of '89, or indulging in the ownership of a pack-pony and a miner's tent as did D. and the writer in '95. The hardships of such a trip are of the old old type, the facing of all kinds of weather and the hunting for food, and they waken a thousand-fold deeper response than the most serious hunt for a job in a modern city.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL

DENMARK HILL, April 1st, 1871.

_My Friends:_

It cannot but be pleasing to us to reflect, this day, that if we are often foolish enough to talk English without understanding it, we are often wise enough to talk Latin without knowing it. For this month retains its pretty Roman name, which means the month of Opening; of the light in the days, and the life in the leaves, and of the voices of birds, and of the hearts of men.

And being the month of Manifestation, it is pre-eminently the month of Fools;--for under the beatific influence of moral sunshine, or Education, the Fools always come out first.

But what is less pleasing to reflect upon, this spring morning, is, that there are some kinds of education which may be described, not as moral sunshine, but as moral moonshine; and that, under these, Fools come out both First--and Last.

We have, it seems, now set our opening hearts much on this one point, that we will have education for all men and women now, and for all girls and boys that are to be. Nothing, indeed, can be more desirable, if only we determine also what kind of education we are to have. It is taken for granted that any education must be good;--that the more of it we get, the better; that bad education only means little education; and that the worst we have to fear is getting none. Alas that is not at all so. Getting no education is by no means the worst thing that can happen to us. The real thing to be feared is getting a bad one.

RUSKIN.

The recent exchange of visits between Pennsylvanians and Wisconsinites has resulted in the organization of an association for the carrying out of the Wisconsin Idea in Pennsylvania; but the New York _Evening Post,_ in commenting upon the Pennsylvania version of the Wisconsin Idea, calls attention to the fact that in Wisconsin the idea is carried into effect by public agencies, whereas the Pennsylvania version is to be executed privately! The _Evening Post_ did not, indeed, say execute; I, myself, have introduced the word, because it so exactly conveys the meaning of the _Post's_ criticism.{9}

Why is it that so many good people take up things like the Boy Scout movement, privately, never giving a moment's thought to our rusting school machinery? Why are we so privately minded as to enthuse over Mrs. so-and-so's out-of-the-city movement for children, never thinking of the _potentialities_ of establishments like Girard College? The trouble is that we Americans have never learned to do things together; we still have the loyal but lazy habit of looking expectantly for a King, and, of course, we get a Philadelphia Ring, the lowest Circle in the Inferno of the Worst; and all the while our might be doers of good affect a kind of private Kingship, and sink into a mire of idiotic[L] impotence.

The seven wonders of the world all fade into insignificance in comparison with one great fact in modern government, a fact so fundamental that we seldom think of it, namely, the great fact of taxation. Funds sufficient to meet every public need of the community flow automatically into the public treasury. This is indeed a very remarkable thing, but it seems almost ludicrous when we consider that wasteful expenditure of public funds is the universal rule, and that good people everywhere are struggling to do public things privately! Was there ever before two such horns to a dilemma? Fog horns, grown inwardly on every Pennsylvanian's head! When a city of 10,000 people has an annual school budget of $60,000, it is evident that everything can be done that needs to be done for the schooling of children.

I believe that the school day should be increased to 8 hours, the school week to 6 days, and the school year to 12 months; with elastic provision for home work and out-of-town visiting. I believe that school activities should include a wide variety of simple hand work, and a great deal of outdoor play, with ample provision for the things that are done by Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls; and when children are old enough and strong enough to begin their vocational training, their school activities should be combined with work in office and factory. Let no one imagine that such a program is impracticable; for in the city, school is the sum of all influences outside the home, and the school day is now more than eight hours, the school week is more than six days, and school lasts the whole year through; these are the facts, say what you will; and everything is in a dreadful state of confusion--excepting only book work. _It is time for us to think of the public school as including everything which makes for the efficient organization and orderly control of the juvenile world._ The Junior Municipality, which has been recently proposed, added to existing school work with provision for simple manual training and outdoor play would constitute a fairly complete realization of this wide conception of the public school, and any narrower conception is hopeless in a modern city.

As to educational values there is a widespread misunderstanding. Imagine a teacher taking his youngsters on a hike two or three times a week all winter long! Every parent, _hoping for his children to escape the necessity of work,_ would howl in stupid criticism "Is that what I send my children to school for?" Or the School Superintendent might have the point of view of the excessively teachy teacher, who, in a recent discussion of the Boy Scout idea, admitted that cross-country hikes would be a good thing, provided, something were associated with them to justify them, and this something was understood to be bookish! As to vocational training, on the other hand, we must reckon with the manufacturer who will not train workmen for his competitors but who expects his competitors to train workmen for him. And we must also reckon with the ministerial member of the school-board who meets a proposal for vocational training with the question "How then will you educate for life?"

"Ich ging im Walde
So fuer mich hin,
Und nichts zu suchen
Das war mein Sinn."

The youngster who goes on a hike for nothing will get everything, and
to be fit for service is to be fit for life.

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To face page 98

As to educational values there is a widespread misunderstanding. Imagine a teacher taking his youngsters on a hike two or three times a week all winter long! Every parent, _hoping for his children to escape the necessity of work,_ would howl in stupid criticism "Is that what I send my children to school for?" Or the School Superintendent might have the point of view of the excessively teachy teacher, who, in a recent discussion of the Boy Scout idea, admitted that cross-country hikes would be a good thing, provided, something were associated with them to justify them, and this something was understood to be bookish! As to vocational training, on the other hand, we must reckon with the manufacturer who will not train workmen for his competitors but who expects his competitors to train workmen for him. And we must also reckon with the ministerial member of the school-board who meets a proposal for vocational training with the question "How then will you educate for life?"

"Ich ging im Walde
So fuer mich hin,
Und nichts zu suchen
Das war mein Sinn."

The youngster who goes on a hike for nothing will get everything, and
to be fit for service is to be fit for life.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES