72 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



Mr. Latlirop — If we can get the Hatch liill it is better than no 

 bill, hence I favor it. 



Mr. Robison — I do not oppose. I only ask that the bill be 

 amended, so as to fix the stations only where the people want them. 

 It may not always be best to have them established in connection 

 with our Agricultural Colleges. 



President — The Society will now have the pleasure of listening 

 to a paper on 



HOME ADORNMENT. 

 BY MRS. A. G. RANDOLPH. 



With the products of the garden adorn the home. Make it 

 it beautiful with God's lovely gifts. 



To make a thing beautiful to others as well as to ourselves, is to 

 make it restful and pleasing to the eye and grateful to the fancy. 

 To gain a degree looking towards perfection in this art we must 

 study to combine color to the best advantage, and to pay attention 

 to form and perspective. The requisites of mind are observation, 

 patience and painstaking, with a reasonable degree of that delicacy 

 of perception we call " taste.'' 



Home is where the greater number of mankind live, move and 

 have their being; where clusters everything sacred to our earthly 

 affections. It is a nursery for that which is good or that which 

 is evil, and in the degree that we are able to make it attractive for 

 them we love, to introduce pleasure without trespassing upon danger- 

 ous grounds, puts into our hands one of the most powerful agencies 

 for Ijaffling the wiles of the Evil One. 



Such a home acts like a great moral magnet, drawing the mind 

 from the scenes of life's combat with a gentle influence w^iich is irre- 

 sistible. The poets of all countries sing of the " Home of our Child- 

 hood,'' and if with this song of the soul can be linked the memories 

 of things good and beautiful, two things that are never forgotten, 

 there is laid away a store of good things, " Like pictures hung on 

 memory's walls," for many an hour's pleasant thought for our exiled 

 ones. 



In securing this love for home in those around us we are laying 

 the foundation for true patriotism, for without love of home there 

 can be no true love of country, and, at the same time, we are admin- 

 istering a powerful antidote for the migratory, restless spirit of 

 youth, which is such an enemy to a thorough education and true 

 refinement. 



Then let us make our homes beautiful by all the art that our 

 Creator has given us, using his gifts with ready hands and thankful 

 hearts in profusion. 



