394 STATE BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



concourse of lawgivers, judges, and jurists; tlie rise of arts and industries; 

 the triumphs of literature and science; the frivolities of fashion; the magnifi- 

 cence of architecture; the prerogative of nobility and royalty, — in this seven- 

 fold narrative through eighteen centuries, domestic life within the peaceful 

 cottage, advancing in purity, power, and intelligence, has not been accorded a 

 place among those influences which mould national life. Yet here men and 

 women are trained for life's solemn duties and large responsibilities; its lofty 

 aims and vast endeavors. Here poets receive their lyres. Here chieftains are 

 girded for victorious conflict. Here rulers are inaugurated for the obedience 

 of mankind. It may be denied by some that Adam was the first man ; woman 

 suffragists confer that distinction upon Eve; evolutionists on the anthropoid 

 tailless ape ; but some things taught in the standard book from which we get 

 the notion that Adam was the first man, and which is the source of all that is 

 worthy in our civilization, cannot be argued away. Among these is the sanctity 

 of the home relations. In the quality of the homes of a nation abides the 

 nation's destiny. If they are the nurseries of manly and womanly virtue, 

 schools of thrift, economy, and culture, their natural outcome and expression 

 will be a just and free government, and pure, liberal, social institutions. The 

 loves and delights of such homes afford the best rewards and sweetest consola- 

 tions of life. But few persons will deny their indebtedness for all that is 

 valuable in their condition or character to the influences clustering around 

 their cradles. Wherever is planted a true home there is a bulwark of the 

 State and a conservator of the best interests of society. J^othing can be sub- 

 stituted for it. The nation rises and falls in character as its homes rise and 

 fall. In the struggle after ideal home life is to be found the solution of more 

 of the itgly problems, social, moral, and political confronting this generation 

 than anywhere else. 



Now, to one who has no off-hand, fluent, authoritative opinion on beet- 

 sugar, ensilage, Russian politics, hog-cholera, predestination, potato bugs, or 

 the presidential prospects for '84; — while specialists are showing you the 

 profits of short-horns, long-horns, and no-horns, (skipping horns behind the 

 screen); the best way to cultivate blue-grass, bog-grass, quack-grass, and grass 

 widows ; the sure way of turning earth, air, water, and smoke into wealth ; of 

 getting to congress and bossing the railroads; it occurs to one whom the 

 State Board of Agriculture sends out to address you, whether he can or not, 

 that a few homely, home-made thoughts on the exceedingly homely theme of 

 '*Home Life" will not be inappropriate. It is an old subject. It may have 

 been the theme of vigorous discussion immediately after the devil stole into 

 Adam's and Eve's primitive but luxurious abode, and that enterprising pair 

 gave up gardening and went out into the world to engage in general agricult- 

 ure and raise Cain. It has been a topic common to press, pulpit, and rostrum, 

 undying and exhaustless. It has created more fiction, sung more songs, 

 uttered more maxims, and inspired more eloquence than any other topic ; still 

 we never tire of it. Love is renewed every day, and home is renewed with it. 

 Yet with all the literature and talk on home, few have any adequate idea ot 

 what it really is, as an institution. Certainly, it is to a few, a reminder of 

 life's purest joys, best friendships and holiest aspirations. But it is recognized 

 by many, merely as a house divided into apartments, containing a suitable 

 number of tables and chairs, chamber furniture, and edibles, — a place to eat 

 and sleep in, and that only : a sort of private lodging-house where, for con- 

 venience or economy, people board themselves. This conception of a home as 

 a convenience, however charming, as a comfort however delightful, as a luxury 



