FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 217 



belter of them. The moment is sure to come when the way will be 

 opened to a determined purpose. There are two quite different courses 

 open to every young person who has a definite object in view, as a special 

 aim that is to give direction to a successful cause. One presupposes 

 what we call advantages, important help from others at the outset. The 

 other course demands entire self reliance, and is generally accepted as a 

 matter of necessity. For instance, one boy or girl is sent to college and 

 supported by his or her' father through the entire course, and the cost is 

 quite a little fortune. Another begins at a very early age and pays his 

 own way by hard work and close economy, and has to earn every inch of 

 advantage for himself. I doubt if the chances, in this country at least, 

 are in favor of the boy or girl who has the most done for them. 



Supply your homes with good literature, get good books, not of the 

 dime novel sort or even the sensational love story kind, but good substan- 

 tial reading of the Farm Home Reading Circle kind, histories and biogra- 

 phies. « Mothers, encourage your daughters by words of commendation. 

 They cost nothing and surely should be given at every opportunity. 

 Instead of words of reproach and fault finding, give them words of praise 

 and encouragement. 



Earlier in this pajter, I have practically gone on record as intimating 

 that AAonien do not, of necessity, require to be vested with the eJoetive 

 franchise. I mean to say that she needs other rights more than the 

 right to vote and hold political office. The wife needs better and clearer 

 rights in farm and home, and the property of common accumulations. 

 She must not continue to be. as she is now, a common creditor of the 

 estate upon the death of her husband. A husband and wife at marriage 

 form a partnership of which, so far as business is concerned, the wife is 

 usually the silent member. Is she the silent partner in the skimping 

 economy and arduous labors of getting what is called a start in the 

 world ? No. She takes up her share of the load and bears it through 

 pain and travail, and has but a few days off from drudgery. As the 

 mother of a grown up family and the wife of what is known as a success- 

 ful man, it should not be made necessary for the probate court to admin- 

 ister upon the estate, if a dispensation of Divine Providence removes the 

 husband and father. A wife ought to be acquainted with the run of her 

 husband's business. 



SHOULD STUDY POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



Farmers' girls, and all other American girls, should carefully study 

 questions of political economy and the science of government. Next to 

 physical health, the mothers of this country should have sound and pat- 

 riotic political health. Mothers and daughters, inform yourselves on 

 (questions that are the leading ones before the country, and when you 

 meet, air your ideas, be on the alert, grasp all you can though you are a 

 farmer's daughter or a tradesman's wife. 



T do not wish to seem to be ignoring the culinary art, for eating is a 

 necessity of our being, and I really cannot see how the human race could 

 exist unless some one paid attention to that important part of work. 

 Cooking may justly be considered an art. 

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