402 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



only at home and by study. Home instruction is the best of all instruction. 

 All who have children have pupils. The winter evening is the chosen time to 

 instruct them, while they are passing through the tender years of childhood 

 and youth. Those who are learning school-tasks will be encouraged by the 

 presence and aided by the superior knowledge of the parents. How much 

 weariness and perplexity may be avoided by a little assistance and sympathy ! 

 Stern and stormy as they may seem, the winter evenings may well be called 

 the friends of wisdom, the patrons of literature, the nurses of vigorous, 

 patient, inquisitive, untiring intellect. 



From the quality of home instruction will grow the language, conversation, 

 and manners of domestic life. Very few children use their mother tongue 

 correctly, and the fault is not in the text books of grammar they use nor of 

 their instruction in school. For the general debility and awkwardness of the 

 English used by children, the teacher may as well stop prescribing. A boy 

 who successfully parsed a complicated sentence was heard to shout an hour 

 later at the school-room door, "Him an' me's goin' afishin' ; us boys haint 

 got no more lessons to git till to-morrer." And when he was called in for 

 correction, he persisted that ''he didn't do nothin'." 



The only successful treatment which can be given for this sort of speech 

 must be in the general conversation at home. Mere knowledge of rules will 

 never make a child speak, correctly, unless the knowledge imparted is made 

 familiar by constant practice. So if parents do not teach good language in 

 chaste conversation on topics of interest, it will never be taught. 



In connection with the subject of bad English, another and most inexcus- 

 able habit may be mentioned, the use of slang words and phrases. The fol- 

 lowing is reported as dropping from the ruddy lips of two stylish young ladies. 

 One tells how she brought her lover to the point: "Nobby, you've been 

 fooliu' 'round this claim for mighty near a year, an' hev never yet shot off 

 your mouth on the marryin' biz. I've cottoned to you on the square clear 

 through, an' hev stood off every other galloot that has tried to chip in ; and 

 now I want you to cotton down to business or leave the ranch. Ef you're on 

 the marry, an' want a pard that'll stick rite to ye till ye pass in your checks 

 an' the good Lord calls ye over the range, just squeal, an' we'll hitch; but ef 

 that ain't your game, draw out an' give some other fellow a show for his pile. 

 Now sing yer song or skip out." Then the other shies up and modestly 

 remarks: "If Jeu Smitli gits there, she's got to be A No 1, toe the 

 mark, and be less highfalutin. You bet your head on that; she can 

 talk like a book and spin street yarn, but I tell you as long as she plays 

 so mighty fine, and sticks up her nose at common folks, she can't come to 

 tea. Maybe she's handsome, but she can't come in. She might as well 

 cave in and absquatulate, for she Ccin't put it through, any way she can 

 fix it." And the other genteelly replies: "Come now, you're mashed. If 

 Jim don't come up to the scratch, let him slide, and catch on somewhere 

 else. If he's got a sneakiii' notion that he's such a regular brick, and he can 

 cotton up to everybody and feed taffy, by the jumping Moses, I'd just tell him 

 to dry up and cut stick. I'd give him particular fits and make him evaporate. 

 If I didn't I'd titter to ejaculate. Gracious!" It may be added that these 

 young ladies wore ulsters and Derby hats, had their hands in their pockets and 

 walked with a manly stride. 



People must talk, and conversation will be on topics within common knowl- 

 edge and of common interest. In homes lacking that culture which furnishes 



