380 STATE BOAED OF AGRICULTUEE. 



little and yield a large return in tlie influence Avliich tliey silently but constantly 

 exert. 



I do not know that we can do anything that will be more effective in the 

 promotion of public virtue than to cultivate the love of home, and in order to 

 accomplish this we should do all in our power to make home lovely. Beauty 

 being a recognized form of ix)wer, we would therefore say make your homes 

 beautiful. Do not neglect those charms which good sense and refinement can so 

 easily secure. It costs but little to have some flowers and shrubbery in your yard 

 and to surround your dwelling with those simple beauties which deliglit the eye 

 far more than many costly objects. If by preparing the soil and putting in the 

 seed you will, as it were, furnish the canvas on which dame nature can work, 

 with dew and rain, and light and heat, she will do more to adorn your yard than 

 all the artists that ever lived. She loves to brighten the landscape by throwing 

 her mantle of beauty over many an unsightly thing. She hangs ivy over the 

 ruin, and twines the vine gracefully around the withered tree. Over the vege- 

 tation of the past now decayed upon the ground she spreads her green carpet of 

 moss. She practices a thousand arts to awaken the senses and to please the 

 mind. Let us follow her example, and do for ourselves what she is always labor- 

 ing to do for us. God has chosen beauty as one of the forms of power. We 

 never see creative energy without something which looks beyond mere existence, 

 and hence the whole universe is a teacher and inspirer of beauty. 



We should encourage all those innocent sports and amusements which shall 

 contribute to the joyousness of home. Much has been written on the subject 

 of amusements, and I do not know that it is possible to name a single form of 

 them that has not been condemned by meft who seemed more anxious to avoid 

 little sins than to develop great virtues. 



Public places of amusement are generally fraught with danger in consequence 

 of their bad associations, and we think one of the best safeguards Ave can throw 

 around our children will be found in such a recognition of their joyous instincts 

 as will lead us to provide liberally for the gratification of those instincts at home, 

 where we can control the selection of their company and prevent unseasonable 

 hours. 



Some may be ready to ask, "What sort of amusements are admissible in our 

 homes?" I do not attach as much importance to this question as many do ; 

 because of the amusements likely to be indulged in at home one is about a& 

 harmless as another. In my estimation it is not the minor details of conduct, 

 but the supreme objects of human life and the broad principles of purity, integ- 

 rity and honor that should receive our chief thought. With regard to particu- 

 lar forms of amusement opinions are constantly changing. What one generation 

 prohibits another sanctions. 



I do not suppose that novel reading would be considered by any of you as a 

 questionable indulgence. Devout people of the past generation almost unani- 

 mously excluded novels from their homes. But the character of novels has so 

 changed that their condemnation has been pretty generally, and ought to be 

 universally canceled — , a coudemnatioii that never would have been uttered if 

 Charles Dickens, George McDonald, George Elliot, Mrs. Stowe, Miss Muloch,. 

 and others of their class had written such novels in their day as they have in 

 ours. There are, however, a tevf people yet living who do not know that Sir 

 AV alter Scott regenerated fiction, and they still regard with distrust some of 

 the noblest and brightest creations of modern genius on the ground of what was 



