ANNUAL" MEETING AT LEXINGTON. 135 



1:0 many a storm-tossed soul, enabling it to ride, fearless, upon the 

 rough billows of discouragement, achoring a last in the heaven of rest. 

 Thus fortified, manhood has in its possession a charm no wizard can 

 dispel. 



The uses of beautiful things in the formation of character should 

 not be overlooked, as every plant, or leaf, or blossom is a silent lesson 

 to him who reads — a constant reminder of a ruling care above us. Con- 

 trast the appearance of the children of such a home with the semi-sav- 

 ^ages of the gutter and the noisome alleys. The childhood of our 

 gixeatest minds was spent amid the cool, green county scenes, and they 

 learned to look upward though nature's patient teachings. Some of 

 the finest books in the world have never been printed, yet are spread 

 on all sides of us — open alike to prince or pauper. I 



If pecuniary results alone sre to be considered, this love of the 

 beautiful is powerful to coin gold out of the world's heart. Beautiful 

 things, in whatever guise, are eagerly sought after, and command high 

 prices in all markets of the world. Everywhere this fact is taken ad- 

 vantage of, as seen in the ornamenting and embellishing, by gay colors 

 and beautiful designs, of almost every article of utility. Individuals 

 have made immense fortunes by catering to this growing demand. 

 Fruit and flowers are in almost all designs — nowhere can be found 

 models of greater loveliness. 



In the sick room, beautiful things exert an untold influence for 

 ^ood, and many an endangered life owes recovery to the cooling fruits 

 and fragrant flowers of the horticulturists. 



Life can never be what it should be made, so long as the home has 

 no higher pretensions than of a workshop or a boarding house. It is 

 not that the farm work is more laborious than others, that the children 

 :flee to the city. Trades and professions are but other names for toil 

 — much of it the most slavish, yet we find everywhere the farmer's 

 sons and daughters seeking positions in shops, stores or offices. Too 

 many farmers live like the animals they tend. They eat and sleep and 

 ■wake to eat and sleep again. If the wife or daughter ask for a tree or 

 shrub or flower, they are refused — because — well, because there is no 

 time to set it out or attend to its wants. And yet, there are so many 

 hardy, beautiful things which only ask a chance to brighten j'our little 

 w^orld. Home must mean more than a house, and life more than a bare 

 animal existence — a constant drudgery of the muscular system to the 

 utter starvation of the mental — if you would keep the children on the 

 farm, and this can be, in a measure, brought about by the introduction 

 of beautiful things— domestic and social — into the lonelv seclusion of 



