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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 16 



Our Homes 



By a. I. Root. 



And God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruit- 

 ful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue 

 it.— Gen. l : 28. 



oAfr. A. I. y?oo/.— Having been a reader of your writ- 

 ings in Gleanings for about fifteen years I shall take 

 the liberty to differ with you in regard to some things 

 you say in your article on "race suicide " in the Sep- 

 tember 1st issue, and hope you will be kind enough to 

 have this printed. Life is all very nice for your grand- 

 children who can have all the automobiles, bicycles, 

 and every thing else they can wish for, as their parents 

 received a good education, and every advantage to 

 equip them for their battle with the world, and stepped 

 right into a business which enables them in turn to 

 give all these and more advantages to their children; 

 but how about the poor laboring class who can scarce- 

 ly furnish their families with bread and butter, to say 

 nothing of the luxuries of life? And think of the thou- 

 sands of poor mothers who, perhaps, have to go out 

 and work to obtain food, having this additional burden 

 of child-bearing thrust upon them every year or two— 

 for, as a general thing, this is the class of people who 

 have the largest families. It is my opinion that a bet- 

 ter Quality of children instead of a larger quantity is 

 what we need, even if Mr. Roosevelt is so much wor- 

 ried over the question of race suicide. The population 

 of the United States increases so rapidly as it is (al- 

 though, of course, partially through immigration) that 

 there is not enough provision to supply the demand, 

 and the prices of the common necessaries of life are 

 soaring higher each year. Even now they are far be- 

 yond the reach of the laboring classes who have large 

 families. What we most need is the education of the 

 people to be temperate in all things, and then children 

 will not be brought into the world under such condi- 

 tions, and with no thought of what is to become of them 

 after they are here; then there will not be so much 

 need of finding homes for them. I, for one, if you will 

 pardon me for being personal, although I have lost two 

 children of my own, and am as fond of children as 

 any one, do not think, as you say, that it is always the 

 duty of people who are childless to adopt one at once. 

 I think there might be a great many reasons why it 

 would not be for ihe best to do so. There is a very 

 sensible article along this line, entitled " Reluctant 

 Parentage," and written by a physician, in the Septem- 

 ber number of The Woman 's Home Companion. If con- 

 venient I should like very much to have you read it. 

 Union Center, Wis. Mrs. G. W. B.-vrge. 



Thank you, my good friend, for your kind- 

 ly criticisms. No doubt / may have made 

 some mistakes; but I think you, too, are 

 making a mistake in your second sentence. 

 Is it really fortunate and better for a child to 

 have autos, bicycles, etc., as well as advan- 

 tages for education? Permit me to say that, 

 when Mrs. Root and I were married, the 

 boots on my feet were not paid for; and I 

 am afraid that, if I had been compelled to 



Cay cash down for said boots, I should have 

 een badly cramped. Mrs. Root's parents 

 were but little better off than my own in the 

 backwoods. They managed to give the 

 young couple starting out in life a pretty fair 

 cooking-stove; but, so far as I can remem- 

 ber, that is about all we got from our parents 

 to begin with. More than that, I was not a 

 strong nor robust young man at the time of 

 my marriage, by any means. A good friend 

 of Mrs. Root — a woman of age and experi- 

 ence — made the remark to her that she fear- 

 ed I had not " vitaliij^ " enough to take care 

 of and support a wife. Under the circum- 

 stances mentioned above, many people of 

 food common sense and experience might 

 ave thought it unwise for us to get mar- 

 ried. I think the shoemaker who trusted 

 me for my boots did so because I had not 



only always been busy at something, but I had 

 thus far paid my debts promptly as I had 

 agreed. Let us now look at the situation. 



Would it have been a good thing for us if 

 our parents had bee.i able at the time to give 

 us a college education, and financial help in 

 other ways? I think the majority of people 

 at the present time, and you too, my good 

 friend, will recognize that itwas a good thing 

 for us that we were obliged to go right to 

 work and "hustle" to make a living. My 

 health improved by hard honest wor^; and 

 as Mrs. Root inherited a good constitution 

 from her ancestors in good old Merrie Eng- 

 land she has always been able to do her part 

 in the battle of life. Yes, we two talked it 

 over, and decided we could not take care of 

 children, or, at least, give them good care, 

 until we got a little start in the world; but, 

 alas for all our plans! Man proposes, but 

 God disposes, and soon a comical curly-head- 

 ed little chap came into our home almost be- 

 fore we knew it. He was of an inquiring 

 turn of mind, like his father, and looked at 

 the pictures in the Scientific American long 

 before he could read, and pulled the big 

 clock down from its shelf over on his head 

 on the floor, because of his habit of "look- 

 ing into things." Where would the A. I. 

 Root Co. be just now had not that baby boy 

 come into our home almost the first thing? 



Again, you seem to take it for granted that 

 both Mrs. Root and I had a college education. 

 Neither of us ever set foot inside of a col- 

 lege. It was talked about, and the good pas- 

 tor of our church was so anxious that / 

 should go to college (and graduate) that he 

 proposed to my father and mother that a sub- 

 scription be raised, as they could not think 

 of furnishing the means while there were 

 six other children in the family. My good 

 father (blessings on his memory) said no to 

 the proposal, and my mother seconded it. 

 This good minister, however, offered to lend 

 me any of the books in his library, and took 

 quite an interest in my welfare. Now comes 

 the question. Was it a misfortune or the re- 

 verse that my parents were so poor that I 

 was obliged to dig my way through difficul- 

 ties? Our children and grandchildren have 

 worked hard, and raked and scraped to get 

 the money to buy their bicycles, automo- 

 biles, motor cycles, etc. Of course, with the 

 facilities round about us now it is an easier 

 thing for them to earn money than it was for 

 me when I started in life. Our five children 

 have all been to Oberlin to school more or 

 less; but their father and mother raked and 

 scraped to get the means to send each one 

 of the five, one after the other. But the most 

 that worries me is that our grandchildren 

 are going to have too easy a time. 



It is true that, in some cases, there is diffi- 

 culty about procuring bread and butter for a 

 large family of children I distinctly remem- 

 ber the time in my childhood when the whole 

 family had a spell of ague and fever that so 

 reduced our finances that for a while we ate 

 our bread without butter, and I can not re- 

 member that it hurt us a bit. My good friend 

 Mrs. Barge, has it never occurred to you that 



