of folks and to get the most out of life we must learn to enjoy people to 

 get something and to give something as we meet our friends and neighbors. 

 We want to have a good time in the family, have a good time in our social 

 group, in the small club, in the church, in the Farmers' Institute, farm 

 bureau, home bureau, have a good time when we come in contact with 

 people. 



I think one splendid thing that the farmers institutes do, (I have 

 realized this very much in the last year or two) is creating that fine inspi- 

 ration that comes from folks getting together and doing something for 

 somebody. Institutes give us a chance to try our hands at being members 

 of a community organization; and, my friends, as we perfect the way of 

 having a good time in our own communities, with all of us working to- 

 gether, singing, conferring, discussing, as we learn how to do that, we 

 will get a little higher, and a little nearer, an understanding of how 

 nations, which are merely larger communities, can work together under- 

 standingly. In this community training lies the solution of international 

 problems. 



Then there is another thing that leisure can give us besides physical 

 improvement and the social contacts, it can help us toward higher ideals. 

 How can we get those? Through our church, through listening to good 

 things, we grow to higher thinking. But in the quiet evening at home, 

 we have a beautiful opportunity of reaching out to high ideals and better 

 understanding by reading together, perhaps reading aloud, perhaps each 

 one reading by himself or herself both ways are good and have their place. 



BOOKS FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



We need to think carefully about what kind of things we select to 

 read. Speaking broadly, there are three types of books and we want to 

 have a good many well chosen volumes in our homes. There is the type 

 of book, we will call a book of direction; that is, a cook book, a book about 

 sewing, a book about the soil, about crops, poultry, anything that tells us 

 how to do something. 



Perhaps you will say this sort of book increases our power or earning 

 a living and isn't something to be read in leisure time. Maybe so. Opinions 

 differ. But some of us like to read such a book in the evening. Occa- 

 sionally we choose to use some of our leisure that way. 



There is another type of book, the book that we read for facts, and 

 if we want to know more about the world around us we must have that 

 sort of book at hand, an encyclopedia, a history and a biography. That 

 is the book that tells us briefly and accurately about the world around us. 

 I like to read that sort of thing but I never realized how little I knew 

 about the other side of the world until early this last week. I had an 

 order for twelve stories for a child's magazine, each story to be about a 

 different country, Siam, Alaska, India, the Philippines all around the world 

 those twelve stories were to go and each story was to be about a child in 

 his own home in his country. Maybe that sounds easy, but when I began 

 to write I found that I did not know enough, not anywhere near enough! 

 I had to go to the library and bring home several books, for careful study, 

 and what an interesting study that was! I found out for one thing how 

 easily our Siamese sisters keep house. Some of them live in houseboats 

 on the river because they haven't money enough to own land. They make 

 a raft of bamboo, on which they set four posts supporting a thatched roof 

 of palm leaves. Then there are thatched shutters that fold up and during 

 a storm can be dropped down for shelter. The thing that interested me 

 most was the way the Siamese mother keeps the floor clean. With her 

 bare foot pushes dirt or rubbish through the cracks in the bamboo floor 

 into the river. That is pretty easy housekeeping, isn't it? 



Then the Chinese story is about a Chinese farmer. Do you know how 

 he carries his stuff to market? No flivver, or car of any kind for him. 

 He has a great big wheelbarrow with a wheel this (4 or 5 feet) high, that 

 comes right up through the middle of a flat platform. He carries such a 



