saw nothing remarkable in the feat. They were used to doing things that had to be done with the material that came to hand, whether they knew anything about how it
should be done or not.—Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
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ADAPTATION If we are unable to bring our surroundings into subjection to our desires, we can often moderate our desires to the measure of our surroundings. The colonel of a volunteer regiment camping in Virginia came across a private on the outskirts of the camp, painfully munching on something. His face was wry, and his lips seemed to move only with the greatest effort. "What are you eating?" demanded the colonel. "Persimmons, sir." "Good heavens! Haven't you got any more sense than to eat persimmons at this time of the year? They'll pucker the very stomach out of you!" "I know, sir. That's why I'm eatin' them. I'm tryin' to shrink me stomach to fit me rations."
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Numerous are the animals that, escaping persecution, have adapted themselves to the altered conditions. Was this adaptation unconscious on their part? There was room and to spare when it was in progress, and did not choice enter into the problem? Or was it mere chance that they stayed near or even in habitations, and with no more volition than the autumn leaves that now filled the air? It may be mere coincidence, but the skunk that lived under the doorstep yet gave no sign of its presence; the raccoon that occupied a clothes-line box and was not suspected; the opossum that lived in a hollow tree within ten feet of the house and was discovered only by accident—all suggest to me that they considered the several situations, and realizing their advantages in the matter of food supply, were willing to take the chances; yet a fine bit of primitive woodland was not fifty yards away.—C. C. Abbott, New York Sun.
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Why should we not adapt our moral seed-sowing for character to the different types of men as carefully as agriculturists do after close study of the different types of soil? "The greatest surprize to the agriculturist," said Mr. David G. Fairchild, "and one which will throw into confusion the calculations of the economist, will come through the utilization of what are now considered desert lands, for the growing of special arid-land crops requiring but a fraction of the moisture necessary for the production of the ordinary plants of the eastern half of the United States, such as corn and wheat. "We are finding new plants from the far table-lands of Turkestan and the steppes of Russia and Siberia, which grow luxuriantly under such conditions of aridity that the crops of the Mississippi Valley farms would wither and die as tho scorched by the sirocco."—The Technical World.
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See Poisons and Medicine.
Adaptation, Lack of—See Accommodation.
ADAPTING THE BIBLE
The postulate that any portion of the
Scripture is as serviceable as any other portion
for the purpose of stimulating and
nourishing the moral and religious growth
of children, regardless of their age—the
Bible itself refutes this postulate. In 1 Peter
2:2, "As new-born babes desire the sincere
milk of the word." We have a very plain
assertion of the need of different food for
different stages of growth in the spiritual
life, the assertion clothing itself in terms of
the food for the several stages of the
physical life. In 1 Cor. 3:2, "I have fed
you with milk and not with meat," we have
the same truth set forth by another writer,
who employs the same physical analogy.
When we turn to Hebrews we find the author
employing in more detail the same
analogy to teach the same fact—Heb.
5:12-14. Here we really have granted, embryonically,
it may be, the principle that is
striving to-day for recognition at the hands
of the religious teaching world.—A. B. Bunn
Van Ormer, "Studies in Religious Nurture."
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Adding More—See Margins of Life.
Adjustment—See Unfitness.
Admiration, Unspontaneous—See Praise-*seeking.
Adolescence—See Loyalty, Spirit of.
