308 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTUEAL 



tion the family knew was when they were asleep, and the lives of 

 both parents and children appear to have been worse than wasted. 



I would in no sense be understood to infer that regular and ac- 

 tive employment, for both body and mind, was not absolutely neces- 

 sary to the proper development of both mental and physical strength, 

 yet in no sense should children be treated as though they had no 

 right to physical and mental rest and recreation, which parents are 

 bound to respect. There is probably no more truthful saying than 

 the old one so often quoted: " An idle brain is the devil's work- 

 shop,'' and this is well illustrated in the lives of our early ancestors, 

 Mr. and Mrs. Adam, for certainly had Eve been burdened with all 

 the cares of a modern household, with sweeping, dusting and scrub- 

 bing, cooking, washing and ironing, with making, and patching and 

 mending for Adam, Able and Cain, to say nothing of the semi-annual 

 house-cleaning, caring for the vegetable garden, sawing about half of 

 the wood, and raising the ducks, turkeys and chickens, besides milking 

 and churning and preparing five or six lunches each morning for the 

 children's school dinner, with the ruffles and tucks, flounces and frills 

 of her own wardrobe and those of her daughters, she certainly never 

 would have found time for gossip with the old horned aristocrat of 

 the lower regions, and life to us would not have been so much '' a 

 fleeting show for man's illusion given." 



As in all other things in this world, our object should be to avoid 

 the extremes. It is the extreme heat of summer and the extreme 

 cold of winter which shatters our constitutions, ruins our orchards 

 and destroys our prospect for future happiness. So it is the one who 

 indulges in extreme idleness or extreme diligence and hard labor 

 without careful, thoughtful and intelligent direction of his or her 

 efforts, who makes a wreck of life and dissipates the happiness of all 

 around them. 



And now I would like to say a word in favor of a united effort 

 in behalf of intelligent recreation for the young. There are many 

 ways in which the monotonous life of our country homes may be 

 made more attractive, more profitable, and less destructive of family 

 ties than at present. I recently heard a college student say that the 

 literary societies connected with a college were of more actual benefit 

 to the students than all the other advantages they enjoyed, and 1 

 thought that every young person in the land might certainly have 

 the advantage of such an organization. A lyceum might be estab- 

 lished and easily maintained in every school district, which would 

 serve to develope the Websters and Clays that are lying dormant in 

 the corn fields and berry patches of the great Northwest. 1 know 

 of one country neighborhood where a Chautauqua Literary Circle 

 has been kept up for a number of years, and which has been a source 

 of pleasure and profit to every one connected with it. And the guid- 

 ing star of this instrument for good has been a married lady with all 

 the cares of a large farmers' household resting upon her. A musical 



