character. Such a man is recognized at once to
have his place among "the heirs of all the ages in the foremost files of
time." Any people claiming leadership among nations must depend upon its
representatives of such a fully equipped body of men for that leadership.

_From savage to enlightened._--The increasing importance of such full
manliness, as society becomes more complex in both wants and efforts, is
easily seen. In ruder life muscular energy and endurance, with some slight
ingenuity, are sufficient to meet the ruder needs, with some chance of
saving for future wants of a growing family, which will continue the same
round of muscular contest with savage conditions.

The American Indians have given the fairest exhibition of the kind of
welfare which such exertion and accumulation afford. The weak disappear
quickly, because the strong have too little surplus of energy to care for
them. Among those left, both burdens and means of satisfaction are quite
equally distributed, because of essentially equal powers of exertion. But
in older and more civilized communities large portions of the people are
dependent upon the rest for knowledge, ingenuity and skill to keep the
very much larger supply of material needed for maintaining the
civilization. At this stage of progress a man with only muscular
development finds himself entirely dependent upon some one else for the
plans by which all must live. A savage cannot share equally with the wise
man either in the burden of caring for the community or in the welfare
which the community enjoys.

It is easy to see that the relative importance of accumulated wealth in
the shape of capital or of skill or of the character which results from
generations of training, becomes more and more distinct as the community
becomes more developed. Any man, then, who is lacking capital, skill and
morals, or all three, is in some respects like the savage, and will find
his equals among the savages. For this reason a pioneer country affords
opportunity for a youth without skill or personal attainments of any kind
"to grow up with the country;" and the famous advice, "Go west, young man,
go west," applies strictly to such a youth, and with less and less
directness in proportion as the young man has control of himself and of
accumulated wealth.

A simple diagram (Chart III) may illustrate the progress of civilization
from the general poverty and inefficiency of rude pioneer life to the
power of a