SELECTED SAYINGS 



"Agriculture in most sections consists simply in a series of 

 motions inherited from Adam." 



"Agriculture cannot be acquired from a book nor from object 

 lessons. These may be illustrative and helpful, but are insufficient. 

 Instead of object lessons where the teacher demonstrates and ex- 

 plains, there must be doing lessons where the pupil demonstrates 

 by his own labor." 



"An idle saint only differs from an idle sinner in a coat of 

 paint and direction. He does not harm, but is full of the virus of 

 nearly all wrong doing, idleness, and the time is liable to come when 

 the direction will be mistaken or forgotten and the natural rottenness 

 of leisure will have its sway. Abolish idleness, and we have struck 

 at the root of vice. Every man should be employed. The idle should 

 be treated as criminals. Every woman should have full occupation, 

 and every child over six years old should have a little work in pro- 

 portion to his strength and all labor should be of the useful kind 

 and helpful to the family, or the community, or the world. I see 

 about the towns boys 16 to 18 years old who know nothing of plants 

 or tools and have never done a real day's work. It was not thus in 

 the olden times." 



"The lessons in domestic science should be such as are directly 

 applicable to the farm; the better home should be the farmhouse; 

 the better cooking should be the simple, homely but nourishing 

 dishes of the farm. I recall an instance where an effort was made 

 years since to establish a school of domestic economy in connection 

 with an agricultural college. The lady in charge made a preliminary 

 report, by items, showing that it would be necessary to expend twelve 

 hundred dollars for kitchen equipments. The simple foods she ex- 

 pected to prepare to demonstrate her work could only be afforded 

 by the rich, and, if eaten regularly, would kill a bear. Plain, 

 sensible women who understand the requirements of rural homes, 

 should be placed in charge of domestic economic instruction. Such 

 a woman in every township could be of infinite help to the people. 

 While she lectures to the pupils about foods and clothing and the 

 laws of health, she could be a means of infinite good to the farm- 

 houses by suggestion and direction." 



"Equal facilities should be afforded girls in the lines that will 

 fit them to take charge of a household." 



[263] 



