The True and the Beautiful 19 



coiiragement to these new-born desires ! The 

 part which the youths on the fai-m are taking in 

 this evohition leads naturally to a higher intel- 

 lectual plane, and hence to a more rational 

 undei'standing and fuller comprehension of what 

 the rural home should be. This desire to 

 gratify the love for the true and beautiful, which 

 has been growing up by reason of the better 

 education, leads directly to the securing of an 

 income sufficiently large to gratify the more re- 

 fined and newly acquired tastes. 



Taking the rural population as we find it, 

 with added wants and new asiDirations, and with 

 a somewhat better understanding of the value of 

 a more extended culture, it will be seen that a 

 more rational system of agriculture, a more 

 economic expenditure of energy, and a clearer 

 comprehension of the highest and most economi- 

 cal use of money must be secured if the objects 

 sought are attained. To secure the results de- 

 sired, it must be shown how a competence can 

 be secured without excessive toil, how the 

 results of work may be put to the best uses, 

 and lastly, but not least, it must be shown what 

 is really valuable, what real, what substantial, 

 what polite, what beautiful, what worthy of in- 

 telligent Americans. On the other hand, vulgar 

 display must be shown to be vulgar, shoddy 

 must be unmasked, the effect of aping the un- 



