1905.] THE RESERVE POWER IN HOUSEKEEPING. II7 



send the son to college. The burden doesn't come upon the 

 woman in the city as it does upon the woman on the farm. 

 Many a boy or girl who goes to the agricultural college says 

 that it is possible from the efforts of his father or mother, for 

 they are staying at home and attending to the work so that they 

 can be away, and that is the woman who has the care, who is 

 taking the responsibility, making it possible for the farmer's 

 boys to be the great men of the country ; and are they not ? It 

 is an oft-discussed proposition and nothing new to you, that it 

 is the boys who have come from the farms who are making 

 their way in the world, becoming our statesmen, becoming our 

 lawmakers, becoming our clergymen and substantial men in 

 the community. Let the time come when we shall go back to 

 the farm and make farming one of the greatest professions in 

 the world. Now, if that woman has that care in company with 

 her husband, she is the woman who needs to learn to relax. 

 There is a large responsibility resting upon her. Is it not a 

 difficult thing when a woman's health gives out, when a woman 

 has lost her strength, is it not a difficult thing to find any one 

 to come in and take her place? Then she needs to conserve 

 her strength, needs to add to it, for it is a pretty difficult thing 

 for a man to run his farm without his wife. It is almost 

 impossible for her to give up, therefore she needs relaxation 

 more than most anyone else. She needs to rest part of the day. 

 We can relax without going farther than our easy chair, with- 

 out lying down to do it. What do you do when you go to the 

 dentist's? Do you relax? We Americans have a peculiar 

 habit. Do you know what a German physician said when Jie 

 came to this country? He said, "Americans have a terrible 

 disease. It is written on every face," and he called it "Ameri- 

 canitis." You may call it ambition. Perhaps it is ambition, 

 it grows out of ambition ; but has it not become to a great 

 extent, as the German physician said, "Americanitis " ? It is 

 written in our faces. When you go to the dentist you grasp 

 the arm of the chair, you push your feet against the bottom of 

 the chair, and you shut your teeth together until the dentist 

 pries them open, and you suffer more in the anticipation than 

 you do in the participation. What do you do when you think 

 the train is late, when one is waiting for the train? You get 

 anxious. What do we do when we get on a street car going to 

 make an appointment? Watch the people upon a street car 



