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Image provided by: South Dakota State Historical Society – State Archives
Newspaper Page Text
Forward. BY L. A. LINCOLN, Day School Teacher. the human race have arrived at our present place in the development of things because we had to go forward or perish. Ever increasing in numbers we have been forced to the necessity of inventing new means of getting food, clothing and shelter for the reason that the demand was greater than the supply. There are but two ways of getting food from the earth, viz., hunting and tilling the ground. The ancestors of the race hunted for wild fruits and wild animals They ate of the fruits and flesh, tanned the hides for clothing and houses. "When our ancestors wanted food and clothing they went hunting for bear tracks. The bear was followed until the two were within reach of each other and then there was an argument. If the bear got the better of the argument, the man went home with him. Otherwise the bear went home with the man. The argument with the bear is typical. It is merely an exam ple of how man has ever contrived to overcome nature to supply himself with the material necessities. Nature never did anything to supply man of itself. It had to be fought, wrestled with, overcome. As the human race increases the fight must be more scientifically and persistently waged for the same old reason, lest we perish. As the crowded population of the world exhausted the supply of wild fruits and wild animals, so is the crowded conditions of today taxing the resources, that we are master of, to the breaking point. We must contrive, persist, invent. Each acre must produce more each man must think more each inventor invent more each man, woman and child must know more. It is the old way that the human race has ever saved itself, and it will be done now. It is the iron hand of progress forcing us steadily on. It is the one thing in man that substantiates the divine, the one thing that differentiates him from the dumb animal. He progresses only when he has to, but when face to face with the real situation of going forward or al lowing himself to be exterminated, he procedes to the task with con- 11.