92 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



one table. I believe that one of the ways to make strong, beau- 

 tiful characters and to bind those children to the farm home, is 

 to give the greatest care and attention to the spreading of the 

 table. I do not speak particularly about the food, but about 

 the arranging of the tables. I know that in a good many of 

 these farm homes you are using the same old white dishes that 

 you had when you were first married and that you have proba- 

 bly got, better ones, or, if you have not, you are able to buy bet- 

 ter ones, but you keep your better ones carefully put away until 

 company comes. Now, I don't know of any better company 

 than wife and husband and children, so I say take down the very 

 best you have in the house and use them every single day. Use 

 your silver forks and your pretty dishes and silver, and, oh dear 

 friends, if there is an old grandmother or father in the home, 

 give them the best place at the table, the warmest place in your 

 hearts, and do not let the children any more than yourselves 

 make them feel that they are in the way. 



Then, another thing, I was in a farmer's home once and he 

 was boasting to me of the money he had in the bank and while 

 I was there the daughter came to me and begged to coax her 

 father to buy her an organ. She had to ask an almost stranger 

 to go to her father and that brings me to a vital matter in the 

 home, the reading matter. I have listened to a great deal of 

 talk here about the feeding of calves and cows and this is a 

 dairyman's association, and it is all right, you should feed so as 

 get the very best results, but don't forget that your children 

 need mental food, you yourselves need it; it is the child's right 

 in the home to have reading matter and of the right kind. Oh, 

 I know what you will say right straight off, "Can't afford it." 

 I tell you you cannot afford not to do it. Every child should 

 have its paper and its books, those children are going to be fed 

 mentally with something and you must put the right kind of 

 mental food within their reach, and there is no excuse because 

 the very best literature is so very cheap now. There are many 

 ways in which enough money can be saved, the children's candy 

 and ice cream and oranges and some of the father's cigars. 

 Pinch a little somewhere else but have plenty of good reading 



