“I propose to apply the same rule to the first settlers of Ohio, and to show that if she now holds a high place in the nation, it is not an accident, but can be traced to manifest natural causes, and those not alone climate, soil, and geographical position.” No doubt, the admixture of races has in some cases added something favorable to the physical and mental powers of manhood; but, perhaps, in regard to the superiority of the men of the North-west, more must be attributed to the natural conditions and surroundings which secured freedom from all corroding influences of avarice, added to the alert outdoor life among Indians and savage beasts, with the rifle and attendant athletic exercises, that gave mental stimulation without subsequent exhaustion of mind or body. The rising Squirrel Hunter is no drone; he represents a bundle of activities that scorns a leisure that breeds an indolent stupidity. [Illustration: First School-house in Circleville, Ohio. Cost $10,000 in 1851. In 1879 was remodeled by the School Board at a cost of $39,300.] The facilities for the physical culture were greatly in advance of those for the development of the mental; and it is remarkable what the key to education has in its turn accomplished--the Bible, “Buckley’s Apology” and “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Most of the present educational influences were unknown to the generation that has given to the United States so many great men. In their youthful days libraries were exceedingly few, and books were expensive and not easily obtained; and little reason had any one to anticipate that the boys living in the backwoods of Ohio, shooting squirrels and hoeing corn, spring and summer; catching rabbits, foxes and coons in the fall and winter, and occasionally attending a “subscription school” in some abandoned log cabin two or three months, would ever become stars of the first magnitude in the literary canopy of the United States. From the Atlantic to the Pacific--in every city, in every town--boys of the rural districts of Ohio have marched to the front. Even in the National Metropolis it need not be asked: “Whence came Murat Halstead, Whitelaw Reid, John A. Cockerill, Charles J. Chambers, William H. Smith, Bernard Peters, William L. Brown, and others.” The New York _Tribune_, _Herald_, _World_, Associated Press, _Times_ and _Daily News_, and the evidences of success resulting from ability, integrity and business capacity, give the answer, “_Ohio_.”[15] Whatever the cause may now be attributable to, there can be no question of the inherited capacity and natural and acquired ability which has enabled the “_Squirrel Hunters_” of Ohio to give to the nation greater and more useful men during the present century than all the other states combined.