TWO slender saplings were planted on the same day—one before the house of a rich man, and the other at a poor man’s door.

The summer passed, and winter came. Then, as the rich man saw his young tree tossed to and fro by the storm, he was afraid it would be broken; so he went to it and built a fence around it and spread a roof over it. But the poor man, because he had to labor out in the storm himself, never thought of sheltering his tree.

Season followed after season; the rich man was still nursing his tree, and, as it grew, building his fence up[379]
[380] higher and higher. But the poor man’s tree was left to the sunshine, the wind, and the rain.

And now long years have gone; youth has fled, and age has come. The rich man can no longer keep up his watchful care, nor the poor man go forth to his labor. But, as they sit resting at their doors at the close of the day, the poor man sees, towering above him, a strong oak in its prime, spreading its protecting branches over his roof; while the rich man sees a weak and unhealthy trunk that is already decaying at the root, and destined hardly to outlast himself.

Parents who shield their children from the hardships which they ought to bear in youth, unfit them for the hardships which they must bear in maturer years.