FARMERS^ INSTITUTES. 379 



of rooms ; people's ideas tuid tastes are so varied that almost any plan will have 

 some who will admire it and some who will not. If you are going to build con- 

 sult your wife if you have one, and if you haven't one, get one. Somebody 

 has said that God first made a man and then He made a woman to tell him 

 what to do. I think this is eminently true about the plannins; and arrangins: 

 of a house. How frequently we hear men discourse eloquently on the duty of 

 wives to make home pleasant for their husbands, poor afflicted mortals (the 

 husbands, I mean). I do not think there is any less necessity to remind hus- 

 bands of their duty in regard to building houses with a view to the comfort and 

 convenience of their wives. The husband probably spends but a small portion 

 of his waking hours in the house, but there the wife and mother spends her life. 

 Her work is there, and while money is freely spent for whatever will facilitate 

 and lighten labor outside, how often is it withheld or grudgingly expended for 

 working conveniences in the house. Not only is the house the woman's work- 

 shop, and as such she has a right to plan and arrange it, but it is also the scene 

 of her pleasures and the seat of her power ; there she radiates those influences 

 which are fixing the habits and moulding the characters of those who are soon 

 to mould the destinies of the world. Every thing in the home and its surround- 

 ings that can contribute to its brightness and its joy Avill tell through the 

 mother beneficially upon the children from the earliest beginning of life on- 

 ward. 



There is one thing more I wish to say on this part of my subject. Do not 

 spoil your home comfort by a foolish extravagance in the building of your house. 

 Some people do not seem so much to think of their necessities when they are 

 going to build as they do about the new house their neighbor built last year, 

 and they must build a little nicer than that, so we sometimes see houses that 

 remind us of the preposterous ostentation of the Eoman Cenecio, who to show 

 his affluence walked the streets in shoes large enough for two. Build for shel- 

 ter; build for comfort; build that you may exercise hospitality; build to illus- 

 trate your artistic longings, if you have any ; in sliort, build according to your 

 tastes and your necessities, but do not go to the utmost possible limit of expendi- 

 ture in order that passers by may stare and say, "^'see what a grand rich fool is 

 living here !" The same love of show is sometimes as manifest in the furnishing 

 as in the construction of a house. Darkened parlors whose windows serve for no 

 other purpose than a setting for lace or damask, an elegant reserve of walnut 

 and rep carefully protected from the dust and the children ; a veiled monument 

 to be uncovered only on great occasions and to delight the astonished gaze of 

 distinguislied visitors. I like a house to be in evei'y part of it a home, to have 

 the air of being lived in all over, I do not want to have a room so fine or grand 

 that the gladsome sunlight and the laughing, boisterous children must be shut 

 out of it. 



A house with the necessary conveniences, and also attractive in appearance, 

 both as regards its construction and furnishing, need not be very costly. Most 

 of us are not wealthy, and the joractical question with us is how to make home 

 cheerful and beautiful with the means we can legitimately devote to that object. 

 In order that every room in the house may be charming and home-like, expen- 

 sive furniture is not essential. A carpet on the floor, a few pictures on the 

 walls, and such ornaments as daughters of taste and refinement can readily 

 make, a window full of plants with the light of heaven gilding their fresh green 

 leaves and gay blossoms, a hanging basket, an aquarium ; these tilings cost but 



