42 STATE P05I0I.0GICAL SOCIETY. 



the things they ought to know, are disciplined to do, dare and bear, are 

 trained to lieep their expenses within their income, which is a matter of 

 vast importance at this time when the extravagant ideas of the young 

 are such a hindrance to tlieir financial success and a barrier to marriage. 



'I'he farmer and his wife are always in partnership in their business. 

 Although they are ever conscious that many of the opportunities of life 

 and society are lacking, yet they are in a measure recompensed by the 

 gradual strengthening of mutual affection, the result of close comrade- 

 ship, as the j-ears pass bj'. One of our needs as a people is, to dignify our 

 profession more and more, to make it not onh' well paying, but more and 

 more popular every year. Let no chance slip by unimproved when by 

 etiort we can in any waj^ help our work to a higher level in public recog- 

 nition. How shall we save this American home? Sometimes we are 

 fearful it may become a thing of the past and nothing can take the place 

 of refined and lovely homes, not homes for show and name, but real 

 homes. This is an age of intellectual activity. Perhaps we need to 

 understand some of the facts involved. Physicians tell us that the third 

 and fourth generations born on the soil have degenerated; that women 

 have deteriorated. They also tell us at the same time that women can 

 be developed intellectually, and brought to as high a standard as men ; 

 in fact, are able to go bej'ond them, but then, as a rule, they cease to be 

 able to reproduce their iiind in health and strength. Mental effort 

 exhausts as much as manual labor without the recompense of exercise. 

 When girls are over-scimulated at an age when they ought not to be, and 

 then are crammed and jammed until their lives go out at their eyelids the 

 whole nation must suffer the effects sooner or later. As the American 

 woman only can produce the American man we certainly should be 

 interested in making and preserving these farm homes as one saving 

 factor in American sociology. 



While women of foreign blood are paying strict attention to making 

 homes, rearing children, etc., the American women are putting aside 

 maternal instincts and refusing to do their best work. The call for a 

 higher education is an inspired call, let no one dispute it; but education 

 is only a means to an end, that end being a higher, happier and better 

 living for ourselves and help extended to those nearest us. Who can 

 predict precisely what the result of any new method will be? AVe can 

 say only what common sense and a knowledge of natural laws would 

 seem to indicate that the education which most surely puts us in posses- 

 sion of our best selves physically and gives us the knowledge of how and 

 the manner bj'^ which we can most surely utilize ourselves, is the best 

 way by far. The path of wisdom and understanding is so broad and 

 leads up to such heights that if we do the best we are able we can leave 

 the imprints of but few footsteps therein. All that we can possibly learu 

 in any direction, compared with what there is to know, is as one drop of 

 water compared with the vast ocean. Therefore with our limited time 

 for work let us choose the most helpful and beneficial. Domestic science, 

 the culinary art and sanitation embrace all the natural sciences and will 



