No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 719 



again some day to have some more fun. Oh, sacrifice what you must, 

 but let your children attend school regularly. 



Then, when your children do attend faithfully, they may often 

 grow tired of the daily routine. Here again you can help by showing 

 an interest in their work. Don't send them off at eight, scold if they 

 are not home early, and let that be the extent of your knowledge of 

 their school life. Find out what they are studying. If they are 

 doing work at school that can be brought home for your approval, 

 encourage them to bring it, look at it, let them explain it, praise it if 

 it is good — not to fill them so full of conceit that they imagine they 

 have nothing more to learn, but to stimulate their desire to do more 

 and better work. 



Why not have a children's hour just before bed-time, when you are 

 free to listen to the stories and songs they learned, give them sym- 

 pathy and loving counsel in their small sorrows, and encourage them 

 in their ambitions. How easv it is to teach children who want to 

 learn and what child will not want a good record to bear to father 

 or mother. The younger children should not study at night, but 

 the older ones should, and the most encouraging thing when study- 

 ing is when father or mother ask the questions or hear you read 

 or help you with the arithmetic. I know this by my own experience. 

 But, by the way, when helping with problems, don't do all the work. 

 Ask questions which will lead them to reason out things alone. 

 When pupils come to school with questions all nicely worked out on 

 paper and then cannot do them on the blackboard, there is something 

 wrong. Remember, parents, you cannot go through life with your 

 children, and it is only by making them independent that you are 

 really helping them. You ought to be good teachers in order to 

 properly train your children. Especially is the parents' sympathy 

 needed when a child is not bright. He soon realizes that others are 

 ahead of him and if parents and teachers are constantly reminding 

 him of how stupid he is, all the life is crushed out of the poor fellow. 

 Instead of doing that, encourage and help, praise him for every bit 

 of progress he makes, and you may find to your delight that he will 

 get his lessons more thoroughly and remember them longer than the 

 brilliant pupil. 



Again, cultivate a taste for reading in your children. Take some 

 good papers. Have good books for them to read. What a paradise 

 it is to children to lose themselves in a good story. And so much in- 

 formation relating to school subjects and other facts which will 

 broaden their minds, may be gained in this way. Beecher once said: 

 ''A home without books is like a room without window^s. No one has 

 a right to bring up children without surrounding them with books." 

 Yet it is here that so many parents grow economical. I know people 

 whe never go to the store without bringing their children candy, 

 which will cause ill-health, yet who get nothing but a county news 

 paper. Surely this is very poor economy. 



Also lead the children to love nature. A teacher can do very little 

 in this way, because she cannot be out with the children to see things, 

 But how much can be learned while working in the field, about the 

 birds, their songs, how wisely they build their nests; and the flowers; 

 the beauty in every one, no matter how small, their habits, the beau- 

 tiful shapes of trees; the gorgeous coloring of sunrise and sunset. 



