affected by all these things. The fire that destroys a place of work throws workers out of employment to compete at lower wages with other workers. Because there is one less building to tax, the tax on the other buildings must be increased, which in turn raises rents and makes profits less. The snowdrifts on the sidewalks of a great city affect the life of distant towns and cities by delaying important telegrams, letters, checks, or goods.

If Americans today go about their work and enjoy their homes without understanding how the government of town, state, and nation helps or hinders them, the United States will soon become a backward nation. There is no mysterious power that makes government efficient. Either the people must attend closely to it for the good of all or else some small group of people will attend to it for their own profit and not for the welfare of all the people.

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES

1. For your first lesson read the whole chapter through, then make an outline of it.

2. What is the largest country in North America? in South America? in Europe? in Asia? in Africa? Compare each of these with the United States in area, population, favorable agricultural features.

3. Some countries would be more prosperous if they were smaller. Can you tell when size is a handicap? Is the size of the United States an advantage? In answering these questions consider the ideas that some of our early statesmen had about the nation.

4. Has the United States any deserts, mountains, or swamps that are a handicap? Do any countries that you know about have large areas which are a handicap to them?

5. At one time Aaron Burr planned to set up a separate government west of the Mississippi. Consult your textbook of history and the encyclopedia to learn about this plan. Do you think that it could have succeeded? Why?

6. If you have studied the history of your own state, reread the part which tells about the early settlers of your county and of the other parts of the state. Be able to tell or to write, as the teacher

decides, "How our State was made by Hard Work." Select the person among the early settlers who seems to you most deserving of honor because of the hardships he overcame and learn all that you can about him.

7. In some states Pioneers' Day or Founders' Day is celebrated. Does any part of your state have such a celebration? In many states schools, colleges, patriotic societies-sometimes whole communitiesgive pageants showing "America's Making" or scenes of the early days of the state. Have you seen any such pageant? If so tell what was depicted. If no such historical celebration or pageant has been given in your community, let the class draw up a plan for one.

8. What statues or tablets have been erected in your state in memory of the early settlers? Are there any houses or buildings still standing that are connected with the early people? In California there is still preserved one of the wheels of the first wagon to cross the mountains from the East. Perhaps there are some such relics in your statehouse or one of your museums.

9. Did the men and women who obtained land in the "Land of Last Chance" get something for nothing? Is there any idle land in your neighborhood or state? If part of this should be given to you, what must take place before you could get anything from it?

10. Make a list of the ten principal kinds of work in your state. Select one of these and learn as much as you can by observation and asking questions about the inventions which made these possible.

11. Explain what is meant by the statement that inventions would be valueless without men who have the ability to organize. Did Alexander Graham Bell or Eli Whitney or Robert Fulton have anything to do with the manufacture of telephones, cotton gins, and steamships?

12. Who have been some of the great organizers of work life in the United States? Select one such person to investigate. Perhaps one or two members of the class will investigate and report.

13. Find out about some of the present-day inventors, discuss the value of their inventions, and show how these may affect the future work life of the nation.

14. There are many discoveries besides inventions that affect work life. The means of destroying the boll weevil, of preventing fungous growth on trees and plants, of making a fertilizer, are some of the many ways in which work life is changed. What discoveries of this kind affect your neighborhood? What still needs to be done?

15. What is an invisible worker? The next mentions some of the ways that the people have been helped by invisible workers. Suppose that a girl employed as a telephone operator loses her position because the company has installed an automatic system by means of which each person secures his number without the aid of an operator. What could you tell her to show that everybody is in the end benefited by such inventions?

16. Some people have feared that a time would come when there would be so many invisible workers that most of the people would have too much leisure. Do you think such a time can come? There has never yet been a time when there were enough people to do the things that needed to be done. Think of some of the kinds of work and service for which there are never enough people.

17. Has there ever been and can there ever be something for nothing? If you own anything that has cost you nothing in time or money or effort, it has cost someone some or all of these. Find out whose hard work made this possible.

18. A celebrated American recently said that the country was suffering from too much prosperity. He meant that some people secured food, clothing, and the things they wanted too easily. What do you think of this statement?

19. When is an idea valuable? Show how an idea that is to benefit workers is closely related to manual workers, organizers, and savers. Can you think out what would happen if inventors and organizers should drop out of the life of the nation?

20. Show that every kind of worker is dependent on the savings of the people.

21. What are the names of some of the organizations (perhaps you call them societies) in your community that are doing useful, helpful things?

22. Show that very little can be accomplished speedily and well without an organization. During the World War what would have happened if each town had made bandages and hospital supplies for the soldiers without reference to what was needed or what other towns were doing? 23. What things are you doing or planning to do with other people? Are any of the groups simple organizations?

24. Explain how government has been made. Do you know of any private organizations or undertakings which in a few years may become a part of government?

CHAPTER III

THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF WORKERS AMERICA HAS

1. What is a Nation? Centuries ago a Greek general said to his army, "Men, not walls, not empty ships, are the city." A rear admiral of our navy, when asked whether our ships were superior to those of other nations, said: "A navy isn't ships. A navy is men." What the Greek general said of the city and the American naval officer said of the navy is also true of the nation.

2. The Chief Difference in Nations is in the People. The greatest difference between nations is not in size or kind of continent, but in people. The United States, with all its natural wealth of rivers, fertile plains, and minerals, might still have been a backward nation. That the United States is today one of the great nations is due partly to the things we have described and partly to the character of the people. What has taken place in the United States never can happen again—a nation was formed out of a new piece of continent. Only the brave and adventurous could succeed at such a task. Therefore for more than two hundred years most of those who came to America were braver and more eager than those who remained behind. The convict, the laggard, the shirker, also came involuntarily, but even they were transformed by the magic effect of the vast new world or else were lost in the current.

The timid, the easily satisfied, are always those who will take no risks. Crossing oceans, pushing frontiers westward, enduring loneliness, appeal only to the hardy. If by some chance there were still a new continent to be settled, it would be the more adventurous men and women of every nation, including America, who would rush to it. Then would take place what happened in America: the people of the new nation would work

John Alexander, a famous American artist, has painted on the walls of the great Carnegie Library at Pittsburgh throngs of workers with faces turned toward work. In these faces he has shown the spirit of eagerness of the true American

a little harder and accomplish more difficult tasks than the older nations. But there can never again be the same kind of testing that this nation has had. Inventions and hard work have filled the world with tools for cutting forests, tilling the