SOCIETY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 273 



The home life is the nucleus around which all life has its growth, 

 and that the tone and coloring is transmitted not to one generation 

 alone, but to many generations, is an indisputable fact. 



A recent writer has said, each member contributes his or her 

 share towards the making of home; but the principal presiding 

 spirit is the wife and mother. She is, or should he, its heart and life 

 and center. An old writer says of the wife and mother, that "she 

 holds the key of the soul, and she it is who stamps the coin of char- 

 acter and makes the man, who would be, but for her gentle offices, 

 a savage." Then cmwn her queen of the home, and place the badge 

 of citizenship in her haiuls, creating thereby a moral social and polit- 

 ical equality. We should make our homes as tasteful as possible, 

 and beautify them with all the adornments which nature and our 

 ]>urses provide. 



Adorn your grounds with those natural attractions which the 

 good Creator has so profusely spread around us, and especially adorn 

 the family circle with the noble traits of a kind disposition; fill the 

 atmosphere with affection, and thus induce all to love and not to 

 fear you. 



The ideal home is not made up simply of furniture and fixtures 

 and decorations. The furnishings may be elaborate and luxurious; 

 the decorations of the most artistic character; the arrangments per- 

 fect in every respect, still if it lack the sunshine and warmth of love 

 and affection, it is not an ideal home; it is cold, inert and without 

 life. It is marvelous, too, if the home lacks this sunshine and 

 warmth, how soon it will be manifest, it pervades the very atmos- 

 phere. 



There are homes, however, whose memory is a perpetual joy, and 

 to which we always turn with emotions of pleasure and gladness. 

 Neither statuary or paintings may grace nitch or wall, they are plain 

 and unpretentious, lacking everything but the necessities of life, yet 

 they are filled with beauty, because the spirit of love and affection 

 abide therein. It is the duty of every father and mother to make 

 liunie attractive. Make the living-rooms |)leasant; give them the sun- 

 niest side of the house. The plant that lives in the shade is sickly 

 and unsightly. 



One of the indispensable conditions of home is to preserve or- 

 der; have a place for everything and everything in its place. " Or- 

 der is heaven's first law." 



(cultivate a habit of reading, if we have it not. We all need a 

 little mental food daily: we need it as we need air and sunshine, 

 sleej) and food. How refreshing to be able to lose ourselves, even 

 for a short time, in the page before us. Let a volume lie beside the 

 work-basket, and, if there is a spare moment, improve it by peeping 

 at its contents. 



The humblest country boy,"or'*girl may. if|they will, with the 

 aid of a carefully selected library, use the eyes and ears and brains 



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