222 HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



the most insignificant are good for. I would let 

 each one have a hobby of his own and should rather 

 expect that he would. 



Not very unlike this plan is that which has been 

 recently suggested and urged, that one half of each 

 school day be given to books and the other half used 

 in a school garden and orchard, applying the facts 

 obtained from books and securing new ones. At all 

 events you are bringing along muscular power with 

 brain power, and are at the same time making home 

 something exceedingly attractive to your boys. Apart 

 from the cash problem, which we shall consider an- 

 other month, we are getting a very different sort of 

 country home from that which follows the ordinary 

 method of sharply dividing school and home. 



With a laboratory and shop attachment for every 

 country home, I think we should not hear again from 

 Secretary Wilson that the city is draining the country 

 of its best brains and blood. At any rate do not 

 feed your boys and girls on that false and shallow 

 literature which teaches that the country boy who can 

 escape from the farm is rising in the world. He is 

 at the top of the heap who does his duty and uses his 

 faculties for the best purposes, making the most of 

 the world about him and living temperately. 



We have come across the effort to use wind power 

 in our discussion of the shop. No country home can 

 be anywhere near complete without the control of 

 some power supplementary to man power and woman 

 power. Even the old dog churn served a good pur- 



