THE LIFE WORTH LIVING IN THE COUNTEY. 307 



poets and philosophers of all ages. As a child during a walk of 

 two miles each day to school, she memorized beautiful or inspir- 

 ing passages. "Thus, by intimate and living association with 

 great souls she had unconsciously become cultivated. The 

 means which she employed are available to the humblest." 



The pleasures of reading are upon the whole greater for the 

 country woman in her undisturbed hours than for any other. 

 Self denial in other things and a due sense of proportionate val- 

 ues will keep the country home supplied with books of standard 

 value, less expensive and usually more valuable than newer 

 books. 



Minnesota traveling libraries now furnish for nearly two 

 hundred communities valuable reading. The 7,800 books and 

 over now in these libraries have given over seven thousand read- 

 ers something excellent to read. When our legislature enlarges 

 the appropriation there need be no longer that cruel hunger for 

 palatable mental food which sometimes exists. Now these li- 

 braries are a boon to the country cornmunities. The school li- 

 braries should be made by the women a source of good reading 

 for the entire district. 



A group of families may well agree that each family will buy 

 one book during the winter and then lend it to others ; a half 

 score of good books read, thought over and discussed in a neigh- 

 borhood are better for stimulus and education than a hundred 

 ephemeral books read because they chance to be at hand. Dis- 

 cussion doubles the value of a book. Real conversation upon 

 worth-while subjects suggested by books on current events is 

 more possible in the country than elsewhere. The "touch and 

 go" conversations of ordinary receptions, parties and teas is a 

 poor substitute for the talk that sometimes goes on at a country 

 supper table among friends and neighbors. Why not organize 

 more circles for discussion and conversation, like the Dover 

 Circle, which seems almost ideally planned? 



These twelve or fifteen families meet once in two weeks at 

 each other's homes in the late forenoon. They spend the hour 

 before dinner in viewing the farm and house of the hostess ; after 

 a dinner together they spend two or three hours in reading and 

 discussing papers which they have written, or in orderly ex- 

 change of thought. When they leave in ample time for their own 

 evening work, their brains are quickened, they have new stores 

 of thought, life is richer and fuller. Such a fortnightly is an en- 

 viable enjoyment. 



Good talk is one of the greatest intellectual luxuries of life, 



