No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 711 



Beauty, The Birds Christmas Carol, In His Steps, Black Rock, Old 

 Curiosity Shop, and we might mention many more and then ask, 

 where is the heart, young or old, that has not been made better by 

 such reading. But to make a long story short, good books are plenty 

 and most of them so cheap that we should not deny ourselves or the 

 young people the pleasure of reading. 



I have heard mothers say: "My children will read anything; they 

 are just crazy for books; but they must pick up what they can find 

 for books cost money and we can't ah'ord to buy." I wonder if those 

 mothers ever take note of the kind of reading their children hold in 

 their hands, or consider the harvest that may follow such a course of 

 reading. Can we afford to let our children lind their own reading? 

 Let us think about it. It is my candid opinion that if boys and girls 

 were given plenty of wholesome, instructive and interesting read- 

 ing matter, suited to their age, tastes and natural intelligence, they 

 would never in later years be found burning midnight oil over dime 

 novels or the trashy demoralizing literature that may be had for 

 the picking up. 



That boy who is worrying the life out of you, get him Henty's 

 books or Cooper's Leather Stocking Tales, complete and see if you 

 don't have less trouble keeping him by your own fireside through the 

 long winter evenings. If he has been "running wild," and his mind 

 feeding on the contents of the Detective Ledger, do not expect him 

 at once to sit quietly evening after evening and read only the Bible, 

 or Pilgrim's Progress, or Shakespeare. It may take years of patient 

 endeavor on your part to get him interested in the kind of reading 

 that will make him the man 3'ou want him to be, but once fairly 

 started on the right and royal road, there will be little danger of his 

 turning back. 



"Heaven is not reached by a single bound, 



But we build the ladder by which we rise 

 From the lowlj' earth to the vaulted sky, 



And we mount to its summit round by round." 



We parents should not always read to ourselves alone, but read 

 aloud to the little ones; not once a week, but often. I venture to 

 say that there is not one child in a hundred that has not at some 

 lime begged some one to read to it. While yet in our arms is none 

 too soon to awaken in the little mind a liking for books, a liking that 

 if properly cultivated will grow into a love for good reading in the 

 years to come. 



Let us raise high the standard of intellectual excellence for our 

 farmer boys and girls, and so far as lies in our power see to it that 

 fhey have a training that will fit them to feel at ease in the most cul- 

 tured society. They deserve, and should have the best we can give 

 them. It is a poor recommend to the farm to hear some one say: 

 If you put notions of books and reading into the children's heads 

 they'll do no good, soon become discontented and leave the farm. I 

 do not believe it. The ordinarily intelligent boy will soon learn 

 that there are times and seasons, when, practically, his whole time 

 is needed for the work on hand, and realizing that fact he will, for 

 the time, willingly forego the pleasure of reading and enter heartily 

 into the work of the day. If he can't adjust himself to those condi- 

 tions, we'd better make a lawyer, doctor or something else of him 

 for it would seem evident that he was not intended for a farmer. 



