ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 91 



with perfect confidence, and instead of receiving a legitimate an- 

 swer to a legitimate question, the father says, ' *Oh, go along,. 

 I can't bother with any such questions as that." You do that 

 half a dozen times and your boy won't come to you at all, he 

 will go somewhere else though, and it may not be to the pure, 

 sweet, strong, clean source of father and mother to find out 

 these questions that pertain to his very being. Keep your boy's 

 confidence; mothers, keep your girl's confidence. 



I hesitate a little in bringing the next thought to you, but I 

 hope you will take it kindly. I believe that in the farm home 

 and in every home children should be taught honesty. It sounds 

 unpleasant, but I feel that it is needed. Is your word just as 

 faithfully kept between yourself and your child as it is in any 

 business relation.? If it is not, you are giving to your child such 

 a lesson as it will never forget. I know of a boy who was once asked 

 as to his father's integrity. For a moment he hesitated and 

 and then he says, "Do you mean is my pa true.?" Said he, "My 

 pa is as true as God's truth." Fathers and mothers, can your 

 boys and your girls say that of you.? They are measuring you 

 every single day. And not only your own boys and girls are 

 measuring you, but your neighbors' boys and girls are measur- 

 ing you. When I go into any community and ask the average 

 bright boy of ten years to measure to me the men and the wo- 

 men in that community morally, in nine times out of ten he will 

 measure them correctly. Friends, most of us farmer folks won't 

 be able to leave our children a great deal of property, not many 

 broad acres nor much bank stock, but there is one thing every 

 one of us can leave them which is better than either, and that is 

 the legacy of a clean, honest, pure name. 



I come to another point, and approach it with a great deal 

 of delicacy, but I think that it needs to be spoken of, and that 

 is the farm home table. Now, I have no doubt there are many 

 of you who will say, "What is wrong about my table.?" I do 

 not know of any place in the family, unless it is the family altar, 

 that makes a more lasting impression upon the child's life than 

 the family table, when father and mother and children and per- 

 haps the dear old grandfather and grandmother gather around 



