64: 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February, 
their earliest and most impressible years. A “ care¬ 
ful education ” does not mean a deal of molding 
and binding, and hacking and hewing of the young 
immortal, but it means at least a healthful and 
happy atmosphere for soul and body both, and sim¬ 
ple nourishment suited to the needs of both soul 
and body, and freedom for natural exercise of all 
the developing faculties in a manner promotive of 
the private and public welfare. 
For the best success in this business of educating 
the young, associated effort is certainly necessary. 
“All are needed by each one.” Young parents 
with only one child can hardly appreciate this fact. 
They mean to do their duty by their child, and they 
love it so dearly that they imagine themselves 
ready and able to supply all its needs. Family in¬ 
fluences are strong, but they are by no means all- 
powerful. Few fathers and mothers exert an en¬ 
tirely wholesome influence upon their children, and 
there are besides neighbors and schoolmates of 
every variety of character. Our children have to 
be educated for life in the world as they find it, and 
so contact with society is as necessary as it is 
natural. For children, is needed a society of their 
equals, or the companions of school and the play¬ 
ground, and these exert an influence upon our 
children’s habits, opinions, and aspirations, too 
strong to be disregarded in our account of educa¬ 
tional influences. So, for very love of those de¬ 
scendants whom we call “our own,” if for no 
broader or more humane reason, we must labor for 
the general education or for the establishment of 
free schools adapted to every age. At present you 
and I may not be able to find public primary 
schools where we dare to place our tender little 
ones; the public schools are sometimes too crowd¬ 
ed, too low in their social tone, and badly managed 
in sanitary regards, as well as deficient in wise in¬ 
tellectual culture and wholesome moral stimulus. 
But no pareut can afford' to withhold sympathy 
from the public schools. When the kindergarten 
is at last a part of the public school system, all over 
the country, we shall have taken a long step toward 
“peace on earth and goodwill among men.” It 
is a great thing to accomplish, but it will cost far 
less than our present reformatories, and prisons, and 
various police arrangements for preventing and 
punishing crime. All the effort used to establish 
good schools for children of all ages and conditions 
tends to make less and less expenditure necessary 
for restraining and reforming bad men and women. 
miss bailet’s paper cutting. 
Reforming old sinners is a slow and difficult task— 
we must lay the ax at the root of the tree of evil, 
and work earnestly to train up the young—all of 
them, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile—in the way 
they should go. If you and I cannot do anything 
in particular to push forward the kindergarten 
movement, we can serve the cause by waiting 
patiently for it, ready to take hold of the good work 
whenever it comes our turn, doing our own work 
meanwhile with the little ones around us as best we 
can, in the absence of the various helps and fa¬ 
cilities which we know to be most desirable. 
Home Tailoring. 
If every wife would make her husband’s coats, 
vests, and trousers, what a nice sum she might 
earn him each year ! But then, why ought she any 
more than he should make her shoes and bonnets ? 
No, my brethren, not one of you must expect 
that, as a matter of course, your wife will always 
make even your shirts, and you surely must not 
expect that a woman, who has never served an ap¬ 
prenticeship as tailoress, will make you stylish 
outer garments. In a spasm of economy I decided 
that, considering our circumstances, including the 
fact of my possession of a sewing machine, it was 
my duty to learn to make the “ everdy ” clothing 
of my husband. He brought home an unmade 
coat and trousers cut by a good tailor. By study¬ 
ing his best tailor-made suit 1 was able to get the 
trousers together properly, but I gave up the coat 
in despair, first spending some precious hours in 
the study of a coat which I thought to use as a 
model. I at length gave it up, and the coat went 
to a tailor to he made up. I had thought to line it, 
and make it for a winter coat, but since I have 
ripped up an old coat, and discovered the wadding, 
and stiffening, and stuffing used in its manufacture, 
I am glad I did not persevere and spoil the gar¬ 
ment. A tailor would have charged nine or ten 
dollars to have made the coat as I intended. It was 
finally made for spring without a lining, and, sim¬ 
ple as the modest sack appeared in its construction, 
four dollars were paid for stitching those seams, 
hemming the bottom, and making three or four 
button-holes. I doubt whether the cloth cost 
more. I think I could make such an unlined sack- 
coat as that now, haying practiced on boys’ cloth¬ 
ing with Butterick’s patterns, but if a tailor thinks 
the job worth four dollars when the garment is all 
cut, I need not feel ashamed if I cannot rival him 
when I have served no apprenticeship. There is a 
knack about the pockets and the collars which the 
uninitiated can hardly expect to attain. In making 
our own frocks we often leave the pocket till the 
last thing, but pockets are of the first importance 
in a man’s equipment, and you must get the pock¬ 
ets all right the very first thing. But one thing I 
can do, which I consider a valuable accomplish¬ 
ment in present circumstances. I can take a well- 
worn pair of grown-up trousers and make them 
over for a boy of ten, with very little labor, and so 
that they will do considerable service for home or 
school wear. Rip them apart and rip open the in¬ 
side seam of each leg. Then lay your patterns 
upon each leg close to the unripped seam. At the 
top, you can cut them so as to retain the pockets 
and band, while cutting away the worn fronts. If 
the back has worn thin, the patches set in come so 
low down on the new and smaller pair, as to attract 
little notice. The knees are probably the worst 
part, and it is the easiest way to amputate the leg 
at the top of the worn portion, and, cutting it off 
again just below the bad place, sew the top and 
bottom together, matching the seam, of course. 
Possibly the same straps and buckle may be used 
behind without altering their former position. 
Cliildren’s Teeth. 
I have been looking at my little girl’s teeth, and 
neither she nor I can tell exactly which ones be¬ 
longed to the first and which to the second set. 
This leads me to regret that I have not kept memo¬ 
randa of all such matters pertaining to my chil¬ 
dren’s development. 1 have seen a book adver¬ 
tised, especially designed for this purpose, and I 
think young mothers would do well to provide 
themselves with one on the first appearance of “a 
babe in the house.” It should be kept private, and 
every important physical change noted, with its 
date. Facts of this kind are sometimes of great 
service To the family physician, when called upon 
to prescribe for a member of the family. Parents 
often try vainly to remember just when some acci¬ 
dent happened, or some childish sickness, which 
proves to have far-reaching and unforeseen results. 
It is interesting to observe the dental changes of a 
child. The coming of each little tooth in the first 
set is a great event in the family, but to the child 
itself, the process of second teething is deeply in¬ 
teresting. Here is a little girl by my side who feels 
more pride over a vacant place among the front 
teeth of her lower jaw than over any other feature 
of her face. She is sure now that she is growing 
up like other Children, and she watches every day 
for the coming of her first “ second tooth.” Her 
Fig. 1. window-shelves for plants. See next page. 
sister, who never had any difficulty at all about 
getting her first set of teeth, used to complain a 
year ago of great uneasiness in her jaws when the 
new double teeth were pressing through. You 
know, probably, that the first set of teeth has only 
eight double teeth, (or molars), and the child gets 
one more of these grinding teeth on each side of 
each jaw, or four new molars, when it gets its sec¬ 
ond teeth. The “wisdom teeth” come later in 
life, and sometimes with considerable pain. Some 
dentists and physicians think it a matter of great 
importance that children should have a plenty of 
bone-forming food all through the growing years, 
and investigation has convinced them that children 
fed on a plain diet, consisting largely of milk, oat¬ 
meal or graham, with lean beef, (if any meat), and 
vegetables and fruit, and little or no cake and 
sweet-meats, have better teeth—less trouble with 
the teeth every way—than children who eat con¬ 
siderable molasses, sugar, cake, and candy. 
I saw a good dentist removing tartar from a 
lady’s teeth after having filled several cavities. He 
used simple pumice-stone, which he said was the 
basis of many tooth powders. This he applied with 
a small pine stick, so scouring the teeth. After¬ 
wards I treated the teeth of two little girls in the 
same manner. Their teeth had been neglected un¬ 
til they had a dark yellowish border next the gums. 
Simple washing with a tooth-brush would not re¬ 
move this, but after one scouring with the pum¬ 
ice-stone, they were easily kept clean by the daily 
use of a tooth-brush. Well kept teeth do not need 
“ scouring,” and powders of all kinds should be 
cautiously used. Children should be taught to 
take care of their teeth, to keep them clean, and 
to avoid all abuse of these useful, members- 
Art with Scissors. 
As we were leaving the Women’s Pavilion at the 
Centennial Exhibition, one evening, a lady, promi¬ 
nent in horticultural matters in the West, met us, 
and insisted that we should go back to see some 
beautiful flower work, cut out by a lady fre-n pa¬ 
per. Not having much admiration for paper flow¬ 
ers, we turned back with some reluctance, and were 
introduced to a lady who, with scissors, was “ evolv- 
