High breeding will come reversion. From pedigrees and plumed hats and
ruffled shirts come not men, but pygmies--things which in the real fight
of life are but mice to the eagles which have come up from the soil with
the grit of it in their craws and the strength of it in their talons. We
stop in wonder--balked. Then we see that we cannot breed men--they are
born; not in castles, but in cabins. And why in cabins? For therein must
be the solution. And the solution is plain: It is work--work that does
it. We cannot breed men unless work--achievement--goes with it. From the
loins of great horses come greater horses; for the pedigree of
work--achievement--is there. Unlike man, the race-horse is kept from
degeneracy by work. Each colt that comes must add achievement to
pedigree when he faces the starter, or he goes to the shambles or the
surgeon. Why may not man learn this simple lesson--the lesson of
work--of pedigree, but the pedigree of achievement? The son who would
surpass his father must do more than his father did. Two generations of
idleness will beget nonentities, and three, degenerates. The preacher,
the philosopher, the poet, the ruler--it matters not what his name--he
who first solves the problem of how to keep mankind achieving will solve
the problem of humanity. And now to Helen Conway for the first time in
her life this simple thing was happening--she was working--she was
earning--she was supporting herself and Lily and her father. Not only
that, but gradually she was learning to know what the love of one like
Clay meant--unselfish, devoted, true. If to
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