Show MEN E OF gr f X I 1 ae Is THE CITIES intellectual GIANTS COUNTRY BORN AND BRED Lemlin ff men stud anil Lr I aiding ideas idea not irr by tile catl easily explained by satural sa tural cabisca talents talent away it in excitements Excite ments experience teaches tea clies us says mr re ieni that the great centers of population tire are marked by it i lamentable sterility in tile the production of men of genius genins precisely lis as the city with its inhabitants would have to starve it if it did not receive its regular supplies ot of fowl food from tile the country so it would atwould inter tel starvation it if its mental supplies were not in ill all essential points provided from the country sometimes we find a miserable obscure obscures country town producing clu eing more men inen of 0 original power than half a dozen large cities everything ou on which our century prides itself everything that has made nii de the ago age what it is ha has conic come from the country the statesmen and the soldiers the artists and the in the nien men of learning and the nien men of enterprise have all mi migrated rated from some obscure corner of the land to tako take possession of the cities as their barbarous ancestors migrated from savage wildernesses wilder nesses to take possession of tho the seats of civilization in paris berlin and vienna the natives are largely in the minority and the immigrants fill all tile the streets and houses aw ana occupy all the public places so it ts is with the leading rien inen and ill the leading ideas they all come from the country A reasonable TION well this seems a remarkable state ment to make but I 1 think the author 1 is 13 3 right and that his proposition will hold good not only in Ela europe rope to which his article seems chiefly to safer efer but in ahli country make adako out at a list lis of eminent americans and you will find that ver ven few of them wore were born in the cities how can this bo be explained mr gemni lias bas no explanation to osier offer lie has no theory regarding it ic has always been so hesayo he says landfill and land will always beso be so the city governs the fashions bu but athe the village governs the nation I 1 think however it cn ca c n be explained by natural causes in the first place there are in every nation about six times as many people in ili tb the e country and in the country towns as there are in the large cities this Is a very striking fact of which everybody is nit not war ware many city dwellers imagine that the majority of the population of the na tulon ton live in the cities like dihe themselves for alien lien they go to the country they see so few feir people there it seems hardly baldly at all in the next place the ten tell dency of talent in every country is toward the city because like the cabbages and potatoes it finds the best market there the young pain painter ter poet sculptor orator or writer naturally bravi gravitates tates toward those centers where Ws his talent sare most mimsi valued and command the highest reward it the city dwellers are themselves riot nut so richly endowed with genius they know best how to appreciate it and they pay the best price tor for it excitements EXCITE MENTS fcC RAMBLES inthe in the next place the inhabitants of 0 cities are so absorbed in multitudinous occupations in ili ambitious pursuits and extravagant Z pleasures so crazy h iii the ot of wealth and so cranky in the spending of it so full fall of news nev raper e ex x cite ments and so foni fond of outside show and glitter so bent upon picking up ii a little of everything and much 0 of nothing that it is impossible they should have the same chance for study for large mental growth as those who enjoy the sow scow teady fleady quiet leisurely life of the country their talents tire are frittered fritt ered away in the ex cite ments and scrambles of the hour and serfdom does one of them think of becoming anything more than a ea clever ever fellow or a good fellow it Is the old story of the slow but steady going tortoise beat ir ing the smart but superficial hare I 1 know from froin my own experience that when I 1 was in paris I 1 found nearly every po position stion of any importance or responsibility filled not by parisians Pari who had too much amour and plaisir in their heads tor for business but by young germans ot of good education whose bu perlor abilities commanded good pay and positions in spite ot of the prejudices of 0 the brench genius needs time pains patience to develop many many of the richest fruits grow in the shade and the finest talents mature in obscurity lastly the proposition Is 1 not universally true tor for there are many many men ot of genius especially among the poets who n i ci ere born aad ii cities dante Dant ewas was born a and aid id breil bred in florence lopo lope do de vega in madrid milton hilton and spenser in lon sou voltaire volt birc and mollere lol lere in paris and anra an to homer I three cities claimed him lul tho the city seems indeed more bom ablo to poetic genius than to any tor for it affords the best held field for the ob tion of man in lill all ranks and con lotions lii lit ions robert walters in new kew york litimo journal Jc Jo arnal |