THE COUNTRY HOME [chapter 



cold-storage of facts. In this way a parent is often 

 the very best possible teacher — because compan- 

 ion. I would not have lost the lessons learned 

 from my father, as together we went about the 

 fields, for all that I gathered at academies and col- 

 leges. Froebel says, "Let parents become chil- 

 dren with children, and all together go to school to 

 Mother Nature." Give every boy and girl such 

 books as "Hodge's Nature Study and Life," and 

 "Comstock's Insect Life," and keep them well 

 supplied with the Bulletins from experiment 

 stations. Be sure that your laboratory is furnished 

 with a good microscope and other appliances 

 for accurate investigation. With your boys and 

 girls not only grow crops, but test, examine, inves- 

 tigate, and compare. Above all, let every child be 

 educated to understand that there is no glory supe- 

 rior to that of creating a better cereal or fruit, and 

 in general terms carrying creation forward toward 

 perfection. This glorifies a country home as noth- 

 ing else can — to make it, and all about it, face the 

 future, to hold it in trust for those coming gen- 

 erations which shall inherit, not only its present 

 worth, but that increment of betterment which we 

 have been able to bring about. 



[382] 



