34:8 Report of Farmers' Institutes 



with no comment and to learn long chapters ; but I am confident 

 that no person who, as a child, has heard the Bible stories lovingly 

 told by father or mother and has had as an especial Sabbath treat 

 the privilege of looking at the pictures and reading the stories 

 in the big f amilv Bible has ever come to the time when he found 

 Bible reading wearisome. It belongs to all ages, to all times. 



It may perhaps not be amiss to refer briefly to a few of the 

 excuses that people make for not reading. We hear people say, 

 " But books are so expensive, we cannot afford them." This is 

 no longer strictly true. Good books are being published at prices 

 that put them within the reach of every one. The only case I 

 can think of where books are too great an expense is when a person 

 buys a book of the hour, and the hour passes. Within the last few 

 years there have been j)ut upon the market nearly eight hundred 

 of the best books of the Avorld at the very low cost of thirty-five 

 cents per volume. And the list contains books suitable for chil- 

 dren and grown-ups, for the story lover and the man of scientific 

 mind. If one feels that he cannot afford to buy, let him write to 

 the State Library at Albany and find out if it may not be possible 

 for him to arrange for one of the circulating libraries to come into 

 his neighborhood or his grange, and' by so doing provide books, not 

 only for those of his own house, but for his neigh1x)r. Merely the 

 cost of transportation will bring a library of fiity books, which 

 may be retained for three months and then exchanged for another 

 set. 



There is also the excuse of lack of time. If a person really 

 wants to do a thing, he will contrive to find the time for it. By 

 a little care and thought, time can be found for reading. I have 

 known a busy woman to keep a book in the kitchen and take a 

 peep at it as a stray second came her way. Another booklover 

 had a rack made over her kitchen sink, which did not give her, 

 through a window, an outlook beyond the dishpan, and in this 

 rack she slipped an open book and read as she worked. This is a 

 good check to a tendency to read too rapidly. 



In "Adventures in Contentment" is this sentiment: "There 

 should be in every farm home, along with the other implements, a 

 shelf of good books that are not allowed to grow rusty with dis- 

 use." Place on this shelf a good dictionary; a simple book of 



