FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 375 



FARMERS' HOMES. 



BY E. G. BAIRD, SECRETARY OF STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 

 [Read at Greenville, Traverse City, Ypsilanti, and Hillsdale Institutes.] 



It is hardly possible to name a subject so far removed from human sympathy 

 as not to be capable of being made interesting \vhen touched by the magic wand 

 of a writer's genius ; while without that touch themes in tiiemselves of great 

 interest and importance are dull and uninteresting in their presentation. 



It is ray good fortune on the present occasion to have a theme to present in 

 which it may be presumed that we are all deeply interested, and to which the 

 speaker, without any claim to the magic power of genius, may hope to hold 

 your attention during the time allotted to its discussion. For what is there on 

 all this wide world of greater interest to us than our homes? How important 

 is home, even in its material aspect. The air we breathe, the water we drink, 

 the food we eat, the rooms in which we sit, the grass and liowers among which 

 we walk, these and a thousand other more or less subtle influences are promot- 

 ing to a beautiful and healthful symmetry, or dwarfing and disabling the body 

 in which the soul lives and through which it acts. In view of the intimate rela- 

 tion between the physical and the spiritual, how important becomes every item 

 of home convenience and comfort. Witii what a dignity it invests even its 

 mechanism and furnishing. Physical comforts and conveniences do not, how- 

 ever, constitute a home. Amid these the inmates may live, and in the ripeness 

 of their years die, Avithout having had any experience of a home in its truest and 

 best sense. These must be transmuted into life and love to constitute what is 

 worthy to be called a home. 



We"^are doubtless interested in the various associations with vdiich we are 

 connected and desire their prosperity. 1'he man who feels no responsibility 

 with reference to his social relations, who would not give of his time and money 

 and personal influence to help forward the religious, educational, and other 

 organizations by which he may be helped and in turn be rendered more helpful in 

 the development of all that pertains to a true manhood and womanhood, is a 

 very poor specimen of a citizen, certainly not such as we are likely to find at a 

 Farmers' Institute. Yet these social organizations do not lie so near our hearts 

 as do our homes. AVe love them none the less because we love our homes more. 



Some one has suggested that the three words in our language which call up 

 the most tender and endearing associations are the words "mother, home and 

 heaven." Did it ever occur to you how intimately these words are associated 

 together. For "what is home without a mother" as its very soul and center, 

 making it the one spot on earth where youth can unburden all its sorrows, and 

 to which memory recurs in after years with a throb of joy, and will recur as 

 long as memory endures. 



Then the words "home" and "heaven" are hardly less intimately associated, 

 for when He who spake as never man spake drew that matchless picture of heaven 

 which takes hold of us as no other ever did or can, it was in these words : "My 

 Father's house." How suggestive of what our homes should be and of what 

 heaven is. The former to be the school of all excellence, a place where dissatis- 

 fied looks and angry words should never come, where no kind office is left unper- 

 formed, a place where the sky is always clear and the sun ever bright ; the latter 

 a place where all the best things of earth shall be fully realized. 



