“ Chbistmas is coming,” and suggestions for gifts 
which may be made at home are now in demand. We 
shall describe and illustrate several ideas which are 
suited to the average resources, and shall be glad of 
any help from our friends regarding anything pretty, 
useful and new. Be prompt in sending in your con¬ 
tributions, for time flies, busy hands have but a few 
minutes each day to give to the pleasant task of mak¬ 
ing presents, and Christmas will be here before we are 
all ready. ^ g g 
There is a man in Boston who builds houses in 
miniature for prospective builders, so that they may 
see how their ideas look when carried out. This is a 
necessary procedure in successful building. Few, if 
any, who build are entirely satisfied with the result. 
Scarcely any one but could suggest some change if 
one’s own house were to be remodeled. We all build our 
air castles, among them our ideal house. Would it not 
be interesting as well as instructive if some of us 
would picture in words our ideal houses ? Let us hear 
from those who contemplate building, as well as from 
those who have built and are the wiser for it. 
? 2 i 
Taking a walk one day, we passed a small boy driv¬ 
ing a goat. A mother, accompanied by her four-year- 
old child, called its attention to the goat carriage. 
Said the child, “Mamma, can’t I have one?” “Oh, 
no I Only little boys have billy goats. You can’t have 
one.” “ But I wantone.” “ Well, if you want a goat, 
I shall have to put trousers on you ! ” But little miss 
wasn’t frightened by the trousers bugaboo. She still 
persisted ; and it is to be hoped that she will keep it 
up through life, and insist on having a share of the 
good things of life that have hitherto been bestowed 
only with trousers. Let her accept them with or 
without trousers, as she may choose. We do not say 
that the masculine element is mostly to blame in these 
matters. The ignorant conservatism which governs a 
great many women, is the factor that is to blame in 
many matters where reform is needed. It does not 
seem to occur to some minds that the unfortunate 
party in a scheme may be as responsible for the un¬ 
equal results as the one who is so fortunate as to re¬ 
ceive the benefits. 
o EDUCATING A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 
SHALI, IT BE HIGHER EDUCATION OR NOT? 
I N educating daughters, there are two extremes to 
be avoided; they are, too much education, and too 
little. If the aim is to make them self-supporting, and 
drive them from the home nest which is perhaps full 
of younger brothers and sisters, educate them for 
some business or profession. But if it is desired simply 
to educate them so that they may live helpful, useful 
lives, and make the home life brighter and better, that 
purpose should be kept in mind, and they should be 
educated accordingly. In neither case is it the parents’ 
duty to spend more than they can well afford. For it 
would be a weakness and lack of judgment on the 
part of the parents, that might develop a spirit of de¬ 
pendent helplessness and selfishness in the children, 
be they daughters or sons, should they be given an 
educ ation costing father and mother, and others of the 
family too much self-sacrifice. 
In these days of public schools, all may obtain a 
good foundation, and often build up the first story of 
an education at the common school; and then at small 
expense, by attending a neighboring high school they 
may be able to build another story. In the building 
of country houses a two-story house with an attic 
overhead, is considered ample, especially if the lower 
story is well built. It seems to me that it is the same 
with an education; the last year or two at high or 
boarding school may be compared to building and 
storing the attic. The attic may be useful as a store¬ 
house, and the storing of the attic of the mind may be 
done in a short time by stowing away all sorts of use¬ 
less knowledge. Or it may be carefully continued 
through years so that the attics of our minds may be¬ 
come vast treasure-houses from which we can draw 
with no fear of exhausting their resources. 
I think a college education is not generally advisable 
or necessary for girls, whether they are farmers’ 
daughters, or the daughters of merchants, mechanics 
or manufacturers. I think the mothers of the present 
day are making a great mistake in allowing their 
daughters to neglect their domestic education until 
their school days are over, giving as an excuse that 
the daughters are so busy and have to study so hard. 
A school education alone is not the most important 
part of an education. It is all well enough in its 
place, but a girl needs to learn a great many things 
which no one can teach her so well as her mother. 
First of all, she needs to learn to be a woman, and 
then if she can acquire a good education, I do not 
think it will do her any harm. I am aware that 1 am 
running a risk of incurring criticism by not advocating 
higher education for women, unless they have plenty 
of time, health and money, at their disposal. If after 
a course of common school and high or normal school, 
a daughter is not capable of doing something, she 
probably never will be; or if she has talent or shows 
aptitude for some special work, it is often advisable to 
shorten the school course and devote the time and 
money which would otherwise be spent on a general 
education, to that specialty. I will not say that this 
course will make the daughter a better farmer’s 
daughter, but it is often the wisest and best. An 
educated daughter is often a better daughter on the 
farm if she has been educated to know and love the 
country and all of her surroundings ; but if she has 
never been taught the difference between Red Top 
and sorrel, or granite and sandstone, or to distinguish 
a woodpecker from an oriole, she will doubtless find 
farm life dull and uninteresting, and turn to some¬ 
thing which she understands better. Many parents 
make a great mistake themselves in dwelling on and 
magnifying the drudgery of farm life, losing sight of 
its many benefits and pleasures, until at last the 
daughters and sons make up their minds that they 
will not lead such seemingly unhappy and drudge-like 
lives as father and mother have ; thus they go to seek 
fortune elsewhere. 
The first step in educating our daughters or sons to 
love the farm and home life, should be to educate our¬ 
selves not to grumble about the farm and its work. 
We shall find this a step in the right direction, and an 
important one. Don’t educate them away from home 
if you wish them to remain in it. The mother who 
allows her daughter to board away from home while 
No. 1. NO. 2. 
Homemade Dress Trimmings. Fig. 159. 
attending school when she can board at home just as 
well, only that it is more fun to stay in town with the 
girls, is often repaid for her self-sacrifice by the 
daughter desiring to remain in town after the school 
days are over, preferring to work in store or office, 
rather than help her mother make home life pleasant 
and attractive, though there may be no need of her 
earning a penny, and her mother may need her help 
and company. 
Another instance shows us the picture of an only 
daughter shedding tears of disappointment because 
her father has declared that he cannot pay the ex¬ 
penses of another term at the school she attended last 
year. The fond but weak mother sympathizes with 
her daughter, and the result is that at the commence¬ 
ment of another term, the daughter takes her place 
in the school as usual, and later in the winter she 
is called home to attend the funeral of her father, 
who, deeply in debt, first sinned against man and then, 
to escape the law, sinned against God, by committing 
suicide. 
A happier illustration and a more sensible one for a 
girl to follow, is of a girl who, after finishing her 
course at common school, and spending a year or two 
at a more advanced school 
in his office, and from that time on she continued 
to rise in the office, and is considered quite one of 
the family by them all. 
Educate your daughters as you are able, but do not 
give them a strictly secular (or scientific) education at 
the cost of.a domestic one, which may be easily acquired 
at home, and which will be useful and may be the 
means of their obtaining a living if other means should 
fail, as well as fitting them to be useful wives and 
mothers. 
As for the parents’ motives, farmers have as many 
different ones as other people. Many, and I think 
the majority, desire to educate their daughters so 
that if they are ever thrown upon their own resources 
for a livelihood, they may be able to support themselves, 
even while they desire them to remain at home for 
the present; while some foolishly wish their children 
to be a little superior to the other young people, think¬ 
ing that they may be able to make a more brilliant 
marriage, and possibly add something to the credit 
and treasury of the family. Others educate their 
daughters because they think it is the fashion and be¬ 
cause other parents do. The result depends, not only 
on the motives, but on the daughters to be educated, 
and if they really desire this higher education, they 
must prove by their lives that it does not unfit them 
for home life on the farm. Alice e pinney. 
VALUE OF MUSIC IN THE HOME. 
HILE education is just the thing for some, it is 
the spoiling of others. For instance, take a 
young girl with not enough love for her mother. She 
goes to a finishing school or seminary, learns French, 
music, art, elocution, reads Shakespeare and the poets, 
and comes home ashamed of the plain old house, and 
the still plainer parents, who have worked and toiled 
that she might be educated. The mother is continually 
reminded that it is not proper to say “to home,” “yes, 
I be going,” and similar expressions, and ere long the 
daughter will say, “I wish you would not come in the 
room when I have company.” The mother, with 
aching heart, goes about the work that she had hoped 
her daughter would help her do after she came home 
from school. 
A thorough knowledge of physiology, arithmetic 
reading, spelling, writing, grammar and geography, 
was what that girl wanted, with music thrown in if 
she had a talent for it, I look on musie as the best 
means of refinement we have, or, at least, equal to 
good reading. Go into a home and look over the 
books read there ! They may be of the best, and most 
truly show culture or a desire for improvement; but 
go into a home and find an open instrument, and about 
it plenty of truly refining music, not opera or classical 
music, but Gospel Hymns of all kinds, with their love 
and adoration sung and felt in the very soul, and see 
the looks on the faces in that home I 
I have in mind a family who do not even own their 
own home, yet all the children are well educated, 
bright and intelligent, beloved and respected by all. 
Why has education done so much for this family ? 
Because true religion went with it. The girl or boy 
who loves his Heavenly Father must love his earthly 
parents. 
Don’t begrudge the money spent in buying an 
organ. It will be paid back more than once in work 
and a love of home on the parts of your children. If 
the children do not care for music, find their one 
special talent and help them develop it. It may be 
drawing and painting, or, perhaps, only fine sewing, 
and it may be farming. Be it what it may, teach them 
to do the least task to the best of their ability. Teach 
them that before them lies the future and they can 
make much of their time in this world if they do every¬ 
thing as nearly right as they know how. 
The grandest, noblest women of to-day are they 
who nurse their own little ones, who do their own 
housework, who administer to the comforts of their 
own loved ones ; who believe that the grandest bless¬ 
ings in the world are good homes, and help to make 
them. MABEL H. monsey. 
near home, where she 
studied bookkeeping, etc., 
accepted an opportunity 
to go into a business man’s 
family to help his wife 
about the housework and 
the care of the children. 
He very soon discovered 
that she could assist him 
with his books, which he 
sometimes brought home 
in the evening, and she 
soon was offered a position 
Highest of all in Leavening Power.—Latest U. S. Gov’t Report 
Bakincr 
Powder 
Abaolutecv pure 
