LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 337 



judiciously expended in assisting your wife to make the living rooms of your 

 house not only comfortable but even cosy and elegant. I fear it is more from 

 lack of taste in this direction than lack of means, that many fail to do this. 

 A nice front yard with shade and ornamental trees; a well kept flower and 

 vegetable garden, aside from their desirableness in other respects, also aid to make 

 home attractive and have a silent but powerful influence as educators. The 

 refining and elevating influence of music also, -as well as its social power, can 

 hardly be overestimated ; and now-a-days almost every farmer can afford an 

 organ . 



Much may be accomplished by spending your evenings, a portion of them at 

 least, with your children. Any effort on your part to make the home circle 

 pleasant and interesting will bring a tenfold reward. By early getting your 

 boys in the habit of reading good books you are providing them with a means 

 of improving their minds, and at the same time occupying those spare moments 

 which are most liable to be misapplied. You know that when you once get a 

 crop well started it will cover the ground and smother the weeds of itself. So 

 if you fill a boy's time and thoughts with what is good the devil will hardly 

 get a chance to put a word in edgewise. I firmly believe as the result of my 

 own experience the best time to implant this interest in books is from two and 

 a half to four years of age, before they have learned to read at all. When 

 you return from your work in the evening you will (if you are as fatherly as 

 you ought to be) always find "the expectant wee things toddlin' to meet their 

 dad," and ready to climb on his kiiee and look and listen while he shows them 

 the pictures in some book and talks about them, or reads some of the delight- 

 ful child stories with which our juvenile literature so much abounds. And 

 here, while on the subject of books, let me suggest that every farmer ought 

 to provide for himself and family a cyclopedia, a Webster's Unabridged Diction- 

 ary, and a good, live agricultural journal, if he has to sell his best cow to do it. 



Occasional participation with the children in innocent games, or the per- 

 formance of any little simple experiments in natural philosophy, or the 

 construction of scientific toys (if you have any faculty that way) will add 

 much to the home feeling. The perfect confidence and clinging affection you 

 will thus gain will be of immense value to you in the future management of a 

 child, and may save him many a sharp reproof and yourself many a severe 

 heartache. By showing that you can take an interest in the child's affairs, 

 you are preparing the way to get him thoroughly interested in yours, when he 

 gets a little older. 



At an early age children should be accustomed to the regular and systematic 

 performance of labor in some form or other. The farmer's boy, even when 

 he is attending school, should have his '* chores" to do night and morning. 

 This might be called breaking him to the yoke; it accustoms him to the 

 burden of responsibility and the thought that labor is a duty. With a little 

 supervision and training he will in this way acquire that manual skill and 

 dexterity which enables him to do certain things well and also leads him to 

 take some pride in being really a help. A little praise and an occasional 

 reward will act as useful stimulants if not overdone. I would deprecate any- 

 thing in the shape of regular pay or wages to children as tending to develop a 

 too selfish and mercenary spirit in them, as likely to become somewhat burden- 

 some to the parents. I should consider it good policy to encourage them to 

 cultivate a small patch of ground, or raise fowls, or in some other way, 

 which their own taste or genius may suggest, earn for themselves a little pocket- 

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