No. 7. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 721 



your children are in good hands if 3'ou never go to see? How can 

 jou help along what the teacher is doing, if you never go to hear? 

 You go by what the children say. Would you allow them to make 

 a business transaction for you? Yet how much more important 

 is this. Drop into school, if only for half an hour. See what they 

 are doing, get acquainted with the teacher and then encourage and 

 help your children. But above all things, discuss nothing but her 

 good points before the children. When parents tell everything they 

 hear that is detrimental to a teacher, the children lose all respect 

 for her and she can do them no good at all, even if a teacher is not 

 quite what she ought to be. I beg of you, do not criticize her before 

 the children, at least, not while she is their teacher. 



In concluding, let me quote from a book I have read: '*The young 

 and tender tv/igs are easily bent and given direction. Youth is the 

 time for education. Home influence liae more to do with forming 

 the character of children than all other things combined." 



There is truth in the saying that "the foot that rocks the cradle, 

 rocks the world." 



"Think truly, and thy thoughts 



Shall the world's famine feed; 

 Speak truly, and each word of thine 



Shall be a fruitful seed; 

 Live truly, and thy life sliall be, 



A great and noble creed." 



CONVENIENCES FOR THE FARMER'S WIFE. 



By MRS. T. M. COOLY, Sandy Lake, Pa. 



We can make either work or labor of the things we find it neces- 

 sary to do. Work is the natural and proper employment of human 

 hand and brain. Labor is toil, and toil is grievious and not joyous. 

 It is making brick without straw; it is singing the Lord's songs in 

 a strange land. 



It is almost impossible to give any directions except in a general 

 way, regarding the kitchen, as there is an endless variety of plans 

 and arrangement. In no other room in the house are sunlight and 

 fresh, pure air so indispensable as in the room where the most im- 

 portant work must be done. A long,, narrow, dark kitchen is an 

 abomination. Always furnish the kitchen well, first, and if there 

 is anything left to spend on the parlor, well; if not the money has 

 been spent wisely. The main point is to systematize everj^thing, 

 grouping such things as belong to any x^articular kind of work. For 

 instance, in baking do not go to the china closet for a bowl, across 

 the kitchen for the flour, and to the farther end of the pantry or 

 store-room for an egg, when they may all just as well be within easy 

 reach of each other. Study and contrive to bring o^'der out of the 

 natural chaos of the kitchen, and the head will save the hands and 

 feet much labor. Let me say here that the Stafford Kitchen Cabinet 



46—7—1904 



