FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 599 



the work that her mother has done. She would much prefer a life in town, 

 where to her unsophisticated mind every one is dressed in their best and is 

 having an easy time. How often we hear some mother remark, "I don't 

 wish my daughter to marry a farmer. The work is too hard. She couldn't 

 do it," It is the maternal instinct to shield her child, but often it is lov- 

 ingly unwise. "Life is checkered shade and sunshine," and too much sun- 

 shine will kill as surely as too much shadow. 



It is right of the young to enjoy a social hour. Too often is it the case, 

 that there is absolutely no effort put forth along this line in our country dis- 

 tricts. The boys and girls demand it, it does not come to them, and they 

 go to seek it. Where? In the city, of course, which is all things to all 

 men, instead of staying at home and making a society life for themselves in 

 the country. 



There are some girls, I am sorry to say, who would resort to almost any 

 extremity to keep their hands white, their hair curled and their hats set at 

 the proper angle. These long for the city life where they may do work in- 

 doors that requires no uncleanliness of person, and where they may ape the 

 "four hundred" in walk and dress. There natures have been so dwarfed 

 that they can see nothing but the tinsel on the surface, and when they 

 gather the glittering baubles in their hands, they are satisfied. As one girl 

 remarked to an acquaintance of mine, "I just hate to come home. Every- 

 thing is so weedy and at loose ends in the country. You can't keep your 

 dress clean, and after you ride to town in the wind your hair is hanging in 

 strings over your collar and your hat is blown off over one ear." To be 

 sure these inconveniences are met with, but isn't there something far better 

 than these in the country that the girl had missed entirely. Boys are usually 

 not quite so frank upon these subjects, but I venture to suggest that there 

 might be some few of the masculine sex who whould prefer patent leather 

 shoes and tall silk hats to the rough old plow boots and wide brimmed sun- 

 shades with a quarter section of land attached to them. 



Too many of our boys and girls have become inoculated with the ' 'get- 

 rich-quick" disease and it has deluded them into believing that in the city is 

 the place where you can get something for nothing, or at least approximate 

 that condition; and that is the only place where you can see ' 'life," as the 

 boys put it, get among " 'the fellows" and the girls say "be quite a swell." 

 They are not content to ' 'run the same course that their fathers have run," 

 but must, at least sow their wild oats, which is only another way of saying 

 they must dabble in all the vices but call a halt before they are utterly 

 ruined. 



Many times the desire for a higher education than that offered by the 

 district school induces the boys and girls to leave home. Tney feel that 

 they are at a disadvantage unless they graduate from a high school and 

 then take part, at least, of a college course. It is a commendable desire, 

 surely, and all honor is due to the one who succeeds and comes home to 

 make wider and brighter the home life of father and mother. But two often 

 the result is that they leave the farm home never to come back. The girls 

 become teachers, office girls, etc. , and finally marry among their city asso- 

 ciates; the boys frequently enter the professions thus spoiling many a good 

 farmer for a third-rate doctor, lawyer or minister. Sometimes, alas, they 

 return home too full of ''high ideals" and "large conceptions of life" and 



