234 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



I remember so well when I was a girl that I told my girl friend "that 

 I just went and told my mother what some young man had said to me.'* 

 She says, "Do you tell your mother everything your beau says to you?"^ 

 I said, "Yes, I did." She said, "I would give the world if I could tell my 

 mother, but she will not listen; she sends me off, and I feel so bad; I want 

 mother to know, I think she ought to know, but if she will not listen how 

 can I tell her?" 



I think these young men would be quite careful what they said if they 

 knew our girls would come and tell us; if they knew there was perfect 

 confidence between us, and that they were guided by their parent's 

 counsel. 



It is these girls that don't tell their mothers, either because their 

 mothers will not hear, or because they are so smart they think there is no 

 need to tell them, they know as much or more than they do, that have 

 hard times, see sorrow and trouble. 



A MOTHER'S VIEW. 



MRS. A. O. SMITH, GRAND RAPIDS. 



I believe you all agree with me that the ideal relationship between 

 mother and daughter should begin before the conception of the child. 

 We talk glibly about the holiness of motherhood, but if we read the 

 daily news, we know that is a thought that has never reached a large 

 proportion of mothers. 



A little soul should never be summoned into this world to sin and 

 suffer, and perhaps enjoy, unless the father and mother have duly appre- 

 ciated their responsibilities. Here is where ideal motherhood begins. 

 Let us not fear to tell our daughters what many have learned through 

 bitter experiences, that holy motherhood means responsible motherhood. 

 We summon a little life into this oftentimes hard world; shall we not 

 begin with the very first independent breath our baby draws to fit the 

 little one for the struggle? 



There are many, mothers only in name. To give birth to a child is 

 the smallest part of motherhood; it is only when the spiritual mother- 

 hood has been developed in us, that true motherliness begins. When 

 we feel ourselves and our little ones as necessarily parts of the great 

 throbbing, pulsing life of the world, then only will we feel, the impor- 

 tance of the relationship of mother and child. What the mother will, 

 she can make of the tender, impressionable life intrusted to her. She 

 will study that she may make herself the guide, and inspire toward all 

 that is best. She will not care for a career apart from her child, but 

 only for great things, that they may help on the development of the life 

 so near her own. 



All the wisdom, all the accomplishments in the world, will not be too 

 much for one ideal mother to possess, and she will learn that true secret 

 of motherhood, to live "with" not "for" her children, to enter into their 

 lives and try to see with their eyes, and feel what they feel, always striv- 

 ing to help on toward complete rounded individuality, yet never losing 

 sight of the equally important fact of interdependence. 



