A FACTOR IN HOME-MAKING 



Out of an experience which has been derived from an 

 honest effort to test and to weigh results, I believe that the 

 family that makes the flower and the vegetable garden a 

 prominent factor in the home life will reap the reward, and 

 that right speedily, in bettered physical, mental and spiritual 

 condition. 



There are qualities which parents desire to promote in 

 the characters of their children, in the formation of which 

 garden work is of great assistance. One of the foremost of 

 these is the ability to assume and properly discharge respon- 

 sibilities. Many men and women are rendered inefficient 

 and helpless through lack of this quality. You may have 

 heard the axiom: "A child and a plant must be loved and 

 cared for every day — once in a while is of no use." Give a 

 child a small piece of ground for the care of which he is held 

 responsible. Allow no one to help him either to failure or 

 success. If you can once interest him — and you generally 

 can if you are interested yourself in your own part of the 

 garden — you will find that the daily habit of regular work 

 and an application to even this small undertaking will soon 

 exert a strong formative influence on all his habits, and the 

 knowledge that his entire failure or success depends wholly 

 on his own attention to business will be worth more than all 

 the lectures he could ever hear on the subject. 



This child-training theory applies alike to boy or girl. I 

 heard one good young father say to his mother, when discuss- 

 ing with her the plans for educatng his boys to self-reliance; 

 "Now that we live with water and gas piped to every part 



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