"It's going to be great fun for us old fellows to sit back and watch you young ones," the elder man ejaculated. "There are several good-sized jobs waiting for you."
"That's a good thing," said Dick. "When there's nothing to do, nobody'll do it."
"And it will be a tame sort of a world, eh? Well, thank the Lord, it's none of our responsibility any longer. You've got to tackle it. The new phases of things are too much for me, with a brain solidified by years."
"You might at least help us by stating the problem," said Norris.
"You see, it's like this. Until a few years ago every census map of the United States was seamed by a long line marked 'frontier.' That line is gone. That's the situation in a nutshell. Our work, the subjugation of the land, is about done, and the question is now up to you; what are you going to do with it? You know the old story of the man who said he had a horse who could run a mile in two-forty. And the other fellow asked, 'What are you going to do when you get there?' We've done the running and our children are there. Now what? You must develop a whole set of new talents--not trotting talents, but staying talents."
"I suppose," said Norris slowly, for Dick was silent, "circumstances bring out abilities. That's the law that operated in the case of the older generation, and we'll have to trust to it in ours."
"That's true. But I sometimes wonder if, after all, we are helping you to the best preparation. We send you back to get the old education. The tendency of old communities is to rehash the traditions until they become authority. New communities have to face problems for themselves and solve them by new ways. The first kind of training makes scholars. The second brings out genius. The old makes men think over the thoughts of others. Heaven knows we need men who will think for themselves!"
"Well, 'old and young are fellows'," said Dick. "To-day grows out of yesterday."
"Yes, if it grows. The growing is the point. It mustn't molder on yesterday. You must have enough books to get your thinkers going, but not more. You must not feast on libraries until you get intellectual gout and have to tickle your palate with dainties. A good deal of stuff that's written nowadays seems to me like literary cocktails,--something to stir a jaded appetite. That's my friend Early's specialty--to serve literary cocktails. But the appetite you bolster up isn't the equivalent of a good healthy hunger after a day out-of-doors."