396 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



dependent farmer executes his own plans, at the end of the year the 

 clerk has payed his assessment on his life insurance policy and the 

 farmer has made a payment on his farm. 



The girls, who should stay with their parents and be educated and 

 trained to become cultured women and makers of homes, attracted 

 by the wages and seemingly easy life of the city stores and offices, 

 leave home before they have learned even the rudiments of good 

 housekeeping, and if in time they form attachments and attempt to 

 make a home, their reluctance to let anything come into their life 

 that will confine them at home and their meager knowledge of the 

 essentials necessary to the making of a home, namely, the care of a 

 house and the proper preparation of food, soon bring about discord 

 and the end is too often, the divorce court. For with Owen Meredith 

 we may say: 



"We may live without poetry, music and art: 

 We may live without conscience, and live without heart; 

 We may live without friends, we may live without books; 

 But civilized man cannot live without cooks. 



"He may live without books, — what is knowledge but grieving? 

 He may live without hope,— what is hope but deceiving '. 

 He may live without love, — what is passion but pining? 

 But show me the man that can live without dining." 



The trend of educators and of many periodicals have been to en- 

 courage the education of young women so that they may earn an 

 independent living; but it has worked for evil instead of good, inas- 

 much as it has unfitted them for home life, because of impaired health 

 and love of dress and excitement. The young man must compete 

 with cheaper female labor and accept, such w r ages as will not justify 

 him in asking the girl of his choice to give up her independent life 

 and share such a home as he can provide. The result is unnatural, 

 and detrimental to good morals. It seems to me that one reason 

 <our boys and girls are so ready to leave the farm, is that we give 

 so little attention to the beauty of our homes. Ride through the 

 country where you will and you will see homes built as plainly as the 

 architect could devise, not a vine to hide its bareness, not a tree to 

 relieve its bleakness, no thought given within or without to the 

 aesthetic side of our nature. Again you find homes that nestle 

 among the hills as beautiful pictures surrounded by well-kept lawns, 

 trees and shrubs. The vine covered porches tell of rest and content- 

 ment, the whole place showing that the comfort and enjoyment of his 

 family was ever in the owner's mind. Doubt you for a moment that 

 that home has a stronger hold on the boys and girls than the bare 

 cheerless farm house, no matter how large the bank account? If 

 we train our children to think money is the only measure of success, 

 when the town offers more money, the farm has no charm for them. 



Rather teach success as defined by another: "He has achieved 

 success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has 

 gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; 

 who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left 

 the world better than he found it, whether by an improved flower, a 

 perfect poem or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of 

 earth's beauty or failed to express it, who has always looked for 

 the best in others and given the best he had; whose life w T as an in- 

 spiration, whose memory a benediction." 



