276 Missouri Agricultnra} Report. 



complete, something will certainly be lacking. And this tender life must 

 begin with the parents themselves. If gentleness and affection mark 

 their attitude toward each other the same spirit will rule the family 

 life. 



How can we as parents, as mothers, undertake and expect to ac- 

 complish the great- task set for our life work, without Divine aid ? Can 

 we afford to meet the solemn responsibility of parenthood in our human 

 weakness'/ May we seek the aid of the Great Leader and with His 

 presence, help and guidance, even this work of training our children 

 will not weight us down, but we shall come out more than conquerors, 

 having for our reward a great army of noble men and pure women 

 who sooner or later are to take our places. 



TEXTILE ADULTERATION. 



(Miss Charley Tidd, Department of Home Economics, University of Missouri.) 



A woman who has spent quite a number of 

 years in working for pure food legislation remarked 

 the other day, that twenty years had been spent in 

 investigating the subject before there was any 

 legislation on it. She said that people had worked 

 in laboratories, getting technical knowledge, and 

 presented this information to the people, but that 

 it took this length of time for public opinion to be 

 aroused sufficiently to cause laws to be enacted. It 

 Miss Tidd. secms Only reasonable that if this subject, which 



lom o a pic ure.) affected not only the economic condition of the peo- 

 ple but their ver}^ lives as well, was not attended to for twenty years, 

 that the question of textiles M^hich affects only the economic side, will 

 take at the least as long a time if not longer. Our problem, then, is to 

 see what the women of the country can do in the meantime, to see 

 how they can come to their own aid and protect themselves against the 

 frauds which are . being forced onto them. 



The adulteration of textiles is chiefly in that of the quality. "We 

 buy woolen, or silk, or linen material, supposing that it is "pure," and 

 then we find that it may contain a large amount of cotton, or hemp, or 

 shoddy. But by the time that we make this discovery the goods is 

 worn out and all we can do is to go to the store and buy more. As a 

 matter of fact, even if we discovered the fraud in the first place we have 

 no means of redress. We can either buy the material or we buy some 



