Regular Institute Work . 3i3 



Recapitulation of Women's Work 

 June 15, 1915, to Jime 30, 1916, inclusive 



Number Total 



sessions attendance 



Special women's sessions 346 13, 305 



Regular sessions, mixed audiences 330 25, 798 



Special meetings 44 2, 888 



Totals 720 41, 991 



Learning to Read 

 Mks. Orra Parker Phelps 

 Farmers' Institute Lecturer 



Althoiigh reading heads the list of the " three R's " upon which 

 onr whole system of education is built, yet in these days of intense 

 living, when the world's latest news is handed to us fresh every 

 hour, hastily written because it is to be hastily read, there is 

 danger that reading Avill become a lost art — not that w^e will cease 

 to peruse the printed page, but that we will lose the power to read 

 thoroughly ; to taste the flavor of the author's wit ; to appreciate 

 his choice of words ; to follow his line of thought to its logical 

 conclusion. 



In order that as a people we may not lose this wonderful power 

 of benefiting by the years of study and research of another, of 

 walking with him as he wanders in lands we can never hope to see, 

 of heeding the life lessons he learned — all set forth in well- 

 written biographies — we must choose books carefully, especially 

 v/hen selecting them for children. It is a delicate and difficult 

 task to select the most suitable books for the foundation of the 

 child's literary taste. On the one hand is the desire of the mature 

 mind to insist upon books of a serious type ; on the other, the very 

 human distaste of the child at being told that he must, or ought, 

 to read these books. Happy and fortunate indeed is the child 

 born of book-loving parents into a home where he has access to 

 the best books from his youth up. A child exposed to good read- 

 ing is sure to " catch it" ; and, unlike other things that are 

 " catching," he never gets over it. 



In selecting books for children it is well to remember that a 

 normal child demands quite different types of stories, told or read, 

 as he develops. The first interest a child shows in books is in 

 looking at the pictures. Before he can talk plainly he will be 



