148 Musings by Camp- Fire and Wayside 



ment and beautifying of our homes." In brief, 

 they devote themselves to the purification and ele- 

 vation of home life and the success of their business 

 interests. The society has a system of honorary 

 degrees. The first of these relates to the avoidance 

 of debt. The farmer who finishes his year clear of 

 debt is awarded a diploma. If he have saved 

 twenty-five dollars he receives a more honorable 

 recognition. There are degrees for crops, stock, 

 house-building*, and the education of children. Mr. 

 Smith will mail me photographs showing the new 

 houses built under this system, compared with the 

 old. Co-operation is carried on in the style of the 

 Northern grange. 



An annex to this society is the "Woman's Barn- 

 yard Auxiliary," devoted to the rearing and market- 

 ing of poultry and pigs, the feeding of calves, the 

 making of butter and cheese, curing meats, market- 

 ing, etc. Societies at a distance send delegates to 

 the annual conferences. 



The second day of the conference in Tuskegee 

 was a meeting of the teachers and heads of schools. 

 There was the one man, always present at a meeting, 

 who imagines himself an orator, but is a cruel bore. 

 In this case our specimen was president of some sort 

 of an agricultural college in South Carolina. Inflated 

 to bursting with egotism, this man paraded up and 

 down the platform, never speaking to the subject, 

 consuming the time of other speakers, posturing 

 and strutting, a platform nuisance of the most 



