dx/dy = 0.”
But the Whispering Pine books were written for other purposes than simply to depict the life of the college or to let us into the escapades of the students. The dictum that “all art must amuse” did not go far enough for Mr. Kellogg. With all his fun and “frolic temper” he was too much of a Puritan to make amusement the chief end of his writing. All of his stories were written with the avowed purpose of making boys more robust and genuine and manly, of giving them redder blood and broader chests and larger biceps, and at the same time making them hate gloss and chicanery and love straightforward, courageous, Christian dealing. So imbued was the author with this purpose that he wrote his books, as he expressed it, “while upon his knees.” Often at first he felt that he should be preaching rather than writing stories; and it was not until letters came to him from all over the country that he realized he was reaching more boys with his pen than he could possibly have reached with his voice.
Although written with a purpose, it is noticeable that his books are not of the wishy-washy type. His boys are not Miss Nancies and plaster saints. They do not die young and go to heaven; they live and make pretty companionable kind of men. Mr. Kellogg was too much of a story-teller and too strong a believer in truth to distort life for ethical purposes.
One does not have to delve deep, however, to find the lessons which this author would teach. To college boys his advice is, choose your chums well. College is not simply a place where learning is bought and sold, where you pay so much money and get so much Greek or so much philosophy. Not all college lessons are in your books, neither are they all taught in the class-rooms. You will learn them on the college paths, in your sports, in your dormitories; and generally it is your chums who teach them to you. The set of fellows with whom you cast your lot may make or mar you. College ties are strong. The boys with whom you eat and sleep, those with whom you solve the difficult problems and pick out the tangles in Greek and Latin, with whom you stroll of an evening to the falls or a Wednesday afternoon to the shore, to whom you tell your future plans, your love affairs, and your religious doubts, whose sympathies mingle with yours “like the interlacing of green, summer foliage,” those fellows are going to mould your ideals and determine your character.
Again, he believed that boys must not be afraid to lock horns with an obstacle. A difficult job may be their greatest blessing. Richardson coddled at home feels himself a weakling by the side of Morton whom difficulties have made self-reliant. William Frost, who begins a business career with good looks, good clothes, and parental influence, returns to his home in disgrace because he “disregards the claims of others, esteems labor drudgery, and expects recompense without service rendered”; while Arthur Lennox, who sets out from his Fryeburg home barefoot and penniless, his only inheritance “a strong arm and a mother’s blessing,” wins success by unflinching toil. “Hardship,” said Mr. Kellogg, “is a wholesome stimulant to strong natures, quickening slumbering energies, compelling effort, and by its salutary discipline reducing refractory elements.” The boy who is always dodging difficulties will make a gingerbread man. Only by grappling can we gain power to achieve. Only by having tough junks to split can we learn “to strike right in the middle of the knot.”
The value and dignity of labor is the ever recurring burden of these stories. They teach boys to work as well as to play. Through them all resounds the merry music of labor. The ring of the axe, the crack of the whip, the song of the teamster, the screech of the plane, the ring of the anvil, the swish of the scythe, the chirp of the tackle, the creak of the windlass, the shout of the stevedore—all in these books make a happy harmony and witness that man’s primal curse has become his choicest blessing. Mr. Kellogg believed with Carlyle that all work is divine, that to labor is to pray. Especially did he wish to get out of boys’ minds the false notion that only mental work is honorable. He thought that often it is as honorable to sweat the body as to sweat the brain. As honorable and as necessary; for he believed that it is only by keeping the lungs full of fresh air, and the pores open by perspiration, and the limbs strong by activity, that a man can keep his vision from being distorted. “The essence of hoe handle, if persistently taken two hours a day,” would, he believed, cure many diseases of the mind and heart. The devils of fretfulness and fault-finding are not always to be cast out with prayer and fasting. Often it requires labor in the fresh open air,—a good pull against the tide, a long ride on horseback, or an hour’s chopping with the narrow axe. Many a disheartened preacher who now mopes in his study and who “takes all his texts out of Jeremiah,” would get “Sunday’s harness-marks erased from the brain,” and preach glad tidings of great joy if he would only start the perspiration by healthful, outdoor exercise. Mr. Kellogg thought a boy should learn to work with his hands as well as with his brain. All wisdom, he knew well, is not in school and college. He appreciated the value of book learning; but democrat as he was and well acquainted with common people, he knew that an illiterate Jerry Williams or an Uncle Tim Longley can teach scores of valuable lessons to many a schoolman. The boy who is too lazy to do some of the practical duties of life, who thinks it disgraceful to work with his hands, can have no part or lot in his kingdom. His boys are always able “to cut their own fodder.” His ideal college boy is Henry Morton, who is a keen debater, a good writer, a lover of the classics and a lover of nature, but who, at the same time, can hew straight to the line, cut the corners of many a farmer, and take the heart of a tree from many a woodsman.
Elijah Kellogg gave to the boys of America, at a time when they needed them most, fresh, wholesome, stirring stories of out-of-door life. With these stories he both entertained and taught the boys,—entertained them so well that they never suspected they were being taught,—taught them endurance, pluck, integrity, self-sacrifice. He stimulated them to effort, inspired them with a respect for labor, taught them to despise effeminacy, showed them that “the manly spirit, like Dannemora iron, defies the fury of the furnace, and even beneath the hammer gathers temper and tenacity,” that “pure motives, warm affections, trust in God, are by no means incompatible with the greatest enterprise and the most undaunted courage.” Such was his work as an author, and it was a work worth while.
View of the Kellogg Homestead at Harpswell, Maine.