368 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[September. 
rm roiosimem, 
For other Household Items see “ Basket ” pages. 
Clothes Dryer for Fireplaces. 
Fireplaces are still used in many houses, 
and a handy means of drying towels, etc., 
before them, is a great convenience. Mr. P. 
C. Waring, Essex Co., Va., sends a sketch of 
a clothes-rack for the fireplace, from which 
the accompanying engraving is made. It 
consists of two light strips fastened by screws 
to the sides of the mantle, and bearing cross¬ 
A CLOTHES DRYER FOR THE FIREPLACE. 
bars to hold the articles to be dried. When 
not in use, the dryer can be quickly turned 
up and secured by a small wooden button, 
and is then entirely out of the way. 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
T© School Again, 
With September the school question comes 
to the front, for in this month most of our 
schools begin their active operation for the 
year. In what condition are our children, 
physically and mentally ? How do we hope 
to find them at the close of the school year? 
We cannot afford to leave this school busi¬ 
ness entirely to the teachers and the School 
Committee. Perhaps they would “educate” 
our children to death. What is the proper 
object of education ? To develop the human 
faculties, and to put a person into posses¬ 
sion of those powers with which Nature has 
endowed him, so that he can have them for 
use and enjoyment all through life. Not 
long ago it was generally believed that the 
object of education was the acquisition of 
knowledge, and I once heard a School Super¬ 
intendent tell the children, that their minds 
were like baskets, which they were to fill as 
full as possible with facts while they were 
young. Ideas of this kind are passing away, 
and we no longer hear the memory lauded 
as the most important faculty of the human 
mind. We are more inclined to heed and 
assert the oft-repeated advice of King Solo¬ 
mon: “ Get understanding,” and “Get wis¬ 
dom.” How trifling, comparatively, is any 
amount of mere knowledge or information 
about things, if in gaining it the faculty for 
study and investigation, and right thinking, 
is used up or broken down ? This not unfre- 
quently occurs. The bright scholar, who is 
the pride of his teacher and the hope of his 
parents, breaks down in the race, used up 
before the real battle has begun. I have 
known this to befall children of naturally 
strong constitution, and the danger seems so 
wide-spread, and the calamity so great, that 
parents need to be thoroughly warned. 
The Duty of Parents. 
In the first place, the children should be 
sent to school in good physical condition. If 
they are sick they should not go at all. They 
must have full hours of healthy sleep, ‘ ‘ early 
to bed” habitually, and not very “early to 
rise,” if they seem to need more sleep. I 
feel as though I am committing a sin when 
I awake a child in the morning from sound 
slumber, even when I have been begged by 
the child to do so. It seems necessary to do 
this sometimes, in order to break a child of 
night wakefulness and late morning sleep. 
But sleep is literally “ tired nature’s sweet 
restorer .” Brain repair and healthy physical 
growth take place best during the hours of 
sleep. The brain uses up by its work certain 
portions of the nutriment which comes from 
our daily food, and these must be supplied in 
our food from day to day, or the brain will 
work feebly or break down easily. I believe 
that many dull scholars are made so by poor 
food, much poor food being misnamed ‘ ‘rich. ” 
I feel condemned when my children have 
to hurry to school, worried by a fear of being 
late. The home arrangements ought to be 
such that the children can easily be ready in 
season, and walk calmly to school, with no 
anxiety about tardiness. The teachers do 
well to try to promote punctuality, both for 
the good order of the school, and for each 
child’s education in a good habit. But when 
children get such a dread of being late that 
they much prefer to be absent, the matter is 
overdone. More than once when my little 
daughter found herself starting so late that 
she wished to run most of the way to school 
(more than a mile), I have told her not to do 
so, that the tardy mark on the monthly re¬ 
port, and the staying a little while after 
school hours where not half so bad as a head¬ 
ache for the day, and the necessity for 
studying while over-heated and tired. This 
is a part of her physical education and a 
very important one. 
If some children need urging to their 
studies, others need holding back quite as 
much. This little girl, finding herself 100 in 
most of her studies at the early spring 
examination, announced her intention of 
being 100 in all at the close of the year. Not 
long after she asked me seriously, “Which 
would you rather have me do? — study at 
noon-time and so be 100 in all my studies, or 
go out and play and not be above 95.” Of 
course I did not hesitate in my reply. I 
said : “Play by all means, even though you 
barely pass (the lowest average for passing 
from one grade to another being fixed at 75), 
and if you study at poon recess instead of 
playing, I should want to punish you, as 
nature surely would, by making both mind 
and body suffer for mental over-work.” So 
the little girl and her companions played ball 
and “Run, sheep, ran,” and examination 
found her fresh and calm, and apparently 
not at all worried until she was more than 
half through the exercises, which occupied 
the forenoons of one week. Then she re¬ 
ceived a letter from a very dear friend who 
had just passed her examination in another 
place. The writer said (not at all in a boastful 
spirit), “I was 100 in every study, which is 
no uncommon thing for me.” Then our 
little girl was roused to emulation, as I could 
plainly see, and she was full of anxiety about 
the remaining examination, wishingto study 
both early and late which I discouraged. 
When she came home and announced her 
high average, she thought I was not properly 
glad. I told her I had been glad all of the 
time to see her finely and in excellent health 
and spirits, but within a few days I had be¬ 
gun to fear that she might gain a triumph at 
too great a cost. Her high average did not 
please me so much as the sincere regret she 
seemed to feel that she was marked higher in 
reading than a little friend who really is a 
better reader than she is—for this too, is an 
important part in her education. I tell all 
this by way of illustration, I might also tell 
of the efforts I have to make to induce 
another child to pay decent attention to study,, 
so full of play is the child’s mind. I am not 
at all sure that the latter mentioned will not 
some day outstrip all the others, even in 
mental achievment, but it does not now 
seem probable. Every one knows that pre¬ 
cocious children seldom do the best in later 
life, and I never envy the parents of unusu¬ 
ally “ forward scholars.” 
Too Young Graduates. 
A friend writes me that the Principal of' 
their High School wishes to have her daugh¬ 
ter, aged fourteen, graduate from the High 
School next year, doing the work of two 
years in one, in order to accomplish this. 
The mother will not allow it, for she has 
some time ago put a stop to all study out 
of school, having seen some signs of failure 
in the health of her child. She wishes her 
girl to take the school easily, and she says 
besides, very truly I think, “M—. is too 
young to take the later studies of the High 
School course to the best advantage.” This is 
something I have often thought of. I see little 
girls of ten and twelve years working over 
examples in arithmetic that can have little 
practical meaning for them, or committing to 
memory scientific facts in which a child can 
have not a particle of interest. The teach¬ 
ers of some of our best Seminaries and Col¬ 
leges protest against the youth of many of 
the pupils sent to them, and often advise a 
year’s absence before graduating, for the 
sake of greater maturity of mind, in those 
who take the higher branches. But ambitious 
teachers push the brighter ones forward 
through the lower grades as fast as possible, 
and parents seldom see the danger and the 
folly of this unhealthy zeal. Children should 
learn as early as possible, that only a small 
part of their education can be carried on in 
the school-room, and that if this interferes 
with health or moral qualities, it is mis- 
education. More watchfulness on the part 
of parents about night study and wholesome 
food would make a change in the statistics 
concerning the growing evil of myopia, or 
near-sightedness, among school-children. 
Home-made Stocking Suspenders. 
I went shopping, the other day, with a 
long list and a lean purse. On the list was 
“ 2 pairs of stocking suspenders,” but it soon 
became evident that the list would have to- 
be cut down. So, instead of the patent 
stocking suspenders, which cost more than I 
supposed, I bought a yard of good elastic for 
ten cents. I cut this in four pieces, and 
bound each end. Before binding one end of 
each piece I sewed a loop of strong doubled 
and twisted twine, stoutly to the elastic, and 
drew the loop through a hole punched by the 
scissor’s point through the tape binding. This 
made a well finished top-end of the suspen¬ 
der, with a loop to fasten to a button on the 
waist. The other end of the elastic strap- 
