Vermont Dairymen's Association. 63 



men. It will not be necessary to offer an explanation for having 

 your help eat at the same table ; your guests will readily under- 

 stand that it is your usual custom, and one best suited to your 

 conditions. Have a dignity and manner of your own and it 

 will be respected. Do not strive to imitate ways unsuited to your 

 means or mode of life. 



"honor thy i^ather and thy mother." 



Yet, I have known of cases where fathers and mothers had 

 toiled and saved and planned all the best years of their lives in 

 order to give their children advantages of which they themselves 

 had been denied. They had sent them to academy or college to 

 obtain the education that should prove a potent passport to the 

 esteem of all men, and these young people had returned vain- 

 glorious enough to feel the knowledge acquired had raised them 

 superior to those who through long years of self-denial had 

 made this educational training possible. 



I have known these young men and women when entertain- 

 ing some college friend to say : "Let's get father to wait." Per- 

 haps father likes to eat in his shirt sleeves, or with his knife. 

 Well, what of that? Isn't it father's home? And such breaches 

 of etiquette are mere trifles compared to the sneaking ingratitude 

 of a nature that would postpone father's meal in order to cater 

 to the good will of a stranger. 



Now is the time to show father the true value of a creditable 

 education. Let him see that the money obtained by many sacri- 

 fices on his part was not misapplied ; that it had helped to make 

 a man of you and not a contemptible snob. Place him at the 

 head of the table with the unmistakable air, you are honored today 

 by being permitted to eat with my father. 



The man or woman, young or old, who is too good to sit at 

 father's table and eat father's bread in father's company is not the 

 person for you to cultivate. Cut the acquaintance at once and 

 let your aim in life be to move in a better grade of society. It 

 may be your father's clothes are not the latest cut ; possibly they 

 are sunbleached and shiny at the seams. Still, if you will stop 

 to think, he may have been so occupied in his efforts to pay the 

 bills for your improvement that there was little time for thought 

 of his own apparel. Remember this and that your filial obliga- 

 tion is a lasting debt of gratitude. See that it is paid in full and 

 with usury, for if his son does not show him deference you can- 

 not expect others to do so, 



