126 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ing lullabys or telling bed-time stories to the little ones. Let both 

 parents share the ministry to their children, if they would gain the soul- 

 culture the Lord intends as the reward of parenthood. 



The Spanish have a proverb, "An ounce of mother is worth a pound of 

 clergy," which may be translated to mean that a mother's influence 

 counts for vastly more in moral training than pulpit exhortation. 

 Hence 



PARENTS NEED TO BE WHAT THEY WISH THEIR CHILDREN TO BECOME. 



Do you wish your child to be honest and truthful, genuine and sincere? 

 Live the truth as well as speak it. Would you have children with en- 

 gaging manners, gentle, courteous, considerate of others, reverent and 

 upright? Such must their parents be. Said Emerson: "What you are, 

 thunders so loudly in my ears that I cannot hear what you say," which 

 is but a poet's way of saying: "Example is better than precept." 



What shall the home stand for? Not physical comfort merely. It 

 must mean more than a boarding place which furnishes food and shelter; 

 more than the guardianship which clothes and feeds the body but neg- 

 lects the mind and heart. Many a daintily fed, beautifully dressed child 

 endures a perennial soul hunger which leaves him a helpless starveling 

 when obliged to combat the world and its temptations. To be able to 

 fortify her child and prepare it for life and usefulness, the mother needs 

 to have her natural human maternal 



INSTINCT CHANGED INTO INSIGHT. 



This larger faculty divines the greater needs of the mental and moral 

 nature. Instinct narrows -ife to the animal plane, insight enlarges and 

 enriches every phase of being. Insight supplies sympathy, inspiration, 

 appreciation, sows seeds of aspiration, reverence for authority, love of 

 knowledge, and moral rectitude. Instinct is prime minister to selfish- 

 ness; insight blossoms continuously in all beneficent endeavor. . 



Mothers need the cooperation of their children's father. A home with 

 divided interests is a perilous place for moral well-being. A strong argu- 

 ment against many secret societies is this division of interest between 

 husband and wife. With absorbing devotion, father goes one way, 

 mother another, and the children are left to get on as they can. 

 "Together" is the watch-cry of the hour. Let parents consult together 

 aoncerning the home nurture of their little ones, and as they value the 

 happiness and comfort of their declining years, let not one antagonize 

 or undermine the influence of the other. Like the eagle with broken 

 pinion trying to save its nestlings from harm, is the mother who has 

 not the cooperation and moral support of her husband in the training of 

 her children. 



Home-makers need to 



UNDERSTAND HOW TO ORGANIZE FAMILY LIFE, 



SO that symn^etrical development and growth for all may be possible. 

 System leads, hurry drives; only where order and promptness prevail 

 is there harmony and progress. A wider recognition of the possibility of 

 so adjusting one's time as to give each faculty a chance, is a great need 



