The Beautiful and True in Amebican Homes. 121 



a bonfire of bis miniature steamboats and machinery, ana set 

 him to casting horse shoes ? 



The world has muscle enough, what it needs is brains and time 

 and leisure to develop them. To this end every fireside should 

 own its library ; a book or two hid up in a good library brings in 

 more than four per cant, to its owners ; it is an inheritance in chan- 

 cery which may one day net its millions to the heirs at law, 

 whether they be peasant or patrician. Says Kobert Collyer : 

 " Give a boy or girl a passion for books or business, painting or 

 architecture, mechanics or music, and you give him thereby a 

 lever to lift the world, and a patent to nobility, if the thing he 

 does is noble." 



These thoughts may seem foreign to the subject in hand, that 

 of " Beauty in the Ilome," unless we consider our children as 

 David did, as " olive plants round our table," and " stately trees in 

 the garden of the Lord," and such it is ours to make them if we 

 do not deny to them that broad development of soul which this 

 progressive age holds out to them. It is thus that we should build 

 up our homes, not only for this but for future generations, singing 

 as we go — 



" Dark may the night be, aad fitfal and drearily 

 Rush the cold winds like the waves of the sea, 

 Little care I, as here I sit cheerily, 

 Wife at my side, and my baby on knee. 



Richer than miser with perishing treasure. 

 Served with a service no conquest could bring ; 



Happy with fortuae that words cannot measure, 

 Light-hearted I on the hearthstone can sing : 



King, king, crown me the king ; 



Home is the kingdom, and Love is the king." 



Messrs. Wood and Plumb regarded the sentiments presented in 

 the paper read as of great importance, and that a general observ- 

 ance of them would not only add much to the beauty and at- 

 tractiveness of our home life, but the beneficent influence would 

 be felt long after the old home was broken up and the inmates 

 scattered, in the usefulness and happiness of the children. 



