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much attention to, beautifying our own homes. I want to describe an 

 ordinary home in California. I will select a man with probably $15,000 

 to $20,000, and this man lives perhaps within a quarter of a mile of one of 

 the best railroads in the United States, and has for a great many years. 

 Nature has done a great thing for him and his neighborhood, and as we 

 pass along the road where this man's mansion is, the first evidence we find 

 of a home is a huge pair of bars; boards some of them, or half boards, and 

 part of them broken; that is the magnificent entrance. We step inside of 

 the pair of bars and walk along, and have to look down to see where we 

 step for fear we may make a mistake, for his front yard is inhabited, and 

 with what? The first live creature I saw there one day, was a great big 

 spotted hog who had rooted up the ground — remember this is a man of 

 wealth. Well, we escape the pitfalls and approach the house; we rap at 

 the door, and hear a terrible fluttering around, and it is some time before 

 anybody comes. They have to take hold of the knob of the door at the 

 base, and what is the matter — one hinge of the door is off. Before this we 

 endeavored to look into the window, but we failed in that because the glass 

 of the lower sash of the window have all been broken out and are sup- 

 planted by shingles, and bits of boards, and one thing and another to stop 

 the crevices, and as we look up a little distance there are two glasses left, 

 and we see the remnants of curtains that have hung there for years, and 

 from the looks of them they are actually torn from their hangings. The 

 house stands in a beautiful place, but it is right flat on the ground, hardly 

 the height of that step to get into the house. At the rear of the house we 

 see a chimney composed of rocks, sticks, and stones. I suppose there is a 

 fire inside because there is smoke coming out. We pass into the house, a 

 floor uncarpeted and unwashed, perhaps for years. Now, to think that 

 there is a woman there with a family of six children to be brought up 

 among such surroundings; to think that a woman has been imprisoned 

 there in that place and compelled to bring into this world children, to 

 bring them up under these influences; what can we expect of children 

 raised under such circumstances? This picture may be an extreme one, 

 but you will find it throughout different parts of California. There is one 

 little girl in that family, she has the innate desire to be somebody and do 

 something, but she has to battle against the influence of a shiftless and 

 indifferent father and careless mother. In this front yard she has trimmed 

 sticks and raised up a little platform above the pigs, an old box such as 

 they send fruit to the cannery with, and placed there a little scrambling 

 stump of a flower, and preserves and tends, and I believe that is the only 

 redeeming influence that has ever surrounded that girl's life. 



And so I feel the force of that saying to-day — that exhibition should be 

 given to encourage the beautifying of our homes in this beautiful country 

 of ours. This is not an isolated case; you can go around the country and 

 find it, particularly among grain growers, not horticulturists, because they 

 are a step in advance. Is it any wonder that boys and girls, as soon as 

 they can get away from the restraints of such homes, will leave and go to 

 the city or somewhere else, we know not where? I believe that the culti- 

 vator of the soil, having the fortune to get this beautiful land, should com- 

 mence a home; if you can't build a house, the first thing to do is to make 

 a home ready to build a house, and suitable for our wives and children 

 to live in; instead of having bare walls, cover them with perhaps a little 

 canvas; plaster those houses, and protect them from the heat, and put on 

 those walls beautiful pictures, and the room with books, and educate our 

 children in this way, and we shall bring up a generation which shall be 

 an honor to those who come here, and then we can keep our sons and 

 ll h 



