FARMERS INSTITUTES. 685 



and he whose home develops diphtheria is guilty of a crime against 

 humanity. 



To make the country home perfect in sanitation, build upon good 

 soil or protect against infection by cemented floors; keep the surrounding 

 yards clean, as clean as the housewife keeps her house; see that no vault, 

 cesspool or mass of decaying matter vitiates either the air that enters 

 the house or the water that is used for drinking or cooking; admit the 

 glorious sunlight freely to every room in the house, and see that the air 

 of the dwelling is often chang(>d, either by ventilating shafts or by open- 

 ing windows, for we can always do the latter if we are without the 

 former. 



Do not keep the blinds drawn or the curtains down for fear that the 

 sun will fade the carpets or the rugs. The darkened room may be a 

 preservative for the colors of the furnishings, but in the darkened room 

 the germs of ill-health hold high revelry and the more terrible fading 

 will be in the cheeks and eyes of the wives and daughters, whose duties 

 keep them in the infected air. 



It seems unpardonable, in this day of almost perfect knowledge, that 

 there should exist a single unsanitary country home. 



TRAINING OF THE HOME-MAKER. 



MRS. JOSEPH SAUNDERS, ANDERSON, IND. 



[Read before the Madison County Institute ] 



A lady said to me, "You have not had experience, you will have to 

 talk from observation." I answered not a word. To myself I thought 

 does it take more sacrifice, or love and patience? does it take more care or 

 sleepless nights to raise a daughter than a son? You mothers who have 

 raised both can answer. 



Some one has said, "God's best gift to man is woman." Is she? If 

 she is a helpmate, such as (4od intended, a sharer of his burdens and sor- 

 rows of life, as well as the pleasures and joys, one who cheers and encour- 

 ages the husband when clouds of adversity seem darkest, then she is. 



Home is the sweetest i)lace, or the most miseralile. Home is where 

 our loved ones dwell, f^ome of you older ones go I)ack with me in memory 

 to the log room with its two beds, and underneath these the trundle bed. 

 Oh, the trundle bed, with all its memories! The sisters and brothers gone 

 from among us. The log room with its shed kitchen and board ladder, 

 that led to the loft where the older ones slept; the fatlaer Avho by the 



