Home Makers' Conference. 349 



need of father or mother. The home should be made pleasant, and if 

 there is education and work going hand in hand, with out-door sport 

 and in-door attractions, their lives will be made both pleasant and profit- 

 able. Children require regular work in order to more fully enjoy them- 

 selves at play. The mixture of the two render children happier and 

 healthier and better prepared to win in the battles of life. I certainly 

 l)elieve in higher education. If possible, give both our daughters and 

 sons college educations, so necessary to success later in life. We should 

 feel encouraged to do so because from the farm have come most of our 

 statesmen, and presidents as well as most successful men in all lines of 

 work. It has truly been said that agriculture is the foundation of our 

 nation's greatness. Without the farm there could be no city; for states- 

 men have said that if our farms were deserted the streets of our cities 

 would grow over with grass. 



The most valuable productions of our farms are our sons and 

 daughters. Their characters are stronger, their energies more endur- 

 ing, their chances for success in this life, for salvation in the life to 

 €ome are greater for having known the farm. 



RECREATIOX IX THE RURAL COMMUNITY. 



(Miss Alice Kinney, New Franklin, Mo.) 



The subject of Recreation seems most timely at this season when 

 €very heart should have laid aside its cares and made merry with the 

 abandoned spirit of our childhood days. 



Americans, as a nation, seldom relax from their strenuous daily 

 routine, so we must turn to other lands for a leader ; and from Germany, 

 with her many festive holidays, we get our best object lessons. 



Some one has aptly said that the children are the nation's best 

 asset, and while we are busying ourselves on the ways and means to con- 

 serve our forest and waterways, we should not forget the child, the most 

 important factor of all. 



Perhaps there has been no subject in the minds of the people more 

 prominent during the last few years than the playground. At first the 

 newspapers treated it as a sentimental fad, others thought a workground 

 for children would be of far greater benefit — for the public has been slow 

 to realize that adequate facilities for recreation were as necessary to the 

 peace and to the high development of society as the opportunity to earn 

 living wages. 



The normal growth of the child is through specific forms of activity, 

 •which are embodied in certain plays and games. You have often heard 



