CONDUCTED BY MRS. AGNES E. M. CARMAN. 
WHY? 
A SYMPOSIUM THAT SHOULD EN¬ 
LIST THE ATTENTION OFCOUN- 
TRY GIRLS IN PARTICULAR AND 
OF PEOPLE THROUGHOUT THE 
COUNTRY IN GENERAL. 
HOME INFLUENCES: GOOD AND BAD. 
As the Twig is Bent, so is the Tree 
Inclined, 
BOW ARE YOU BENDING YOUR 
1 WIG ? 
COUNTRY LIFE vs. UIY LIFE. 
Choose according to your Tastes and 
Talents. 
QUESTIONS. 
1. Wliy do fanners’ daughters often pre¬ 
fer employment in the city to remain¬ 
ing on the farm ? 
2. Whose fault is it that the lion's share 
of the domestic drudgery of farm life 
falls upon the mother ? 
3. What is there about city young men 
that enlists favor with country maids, 
and why do so many of the latter asse t 
that they will never marry a farmer ? 
Communications from T. H. Hoskins, Henry 
Stewart, Fred Grundy, James IT. Griffith, 
Alice Brown, Annie L. Jack, Mrs. C. J. 
Spear, May Map'e, Sarah E. Howard.Rena 
Ross, Gladdys Wayne, Fanny Fletcher, 
Mary Mann, Mrs. W. C. Giffard, Mrs. P. 
A. Crozier, and others. 
“An old farm house with pastures wide, 
Sweet with flowers on every side: 
A restless lad who looks from out 
The porch with woodbine twined about. 
Wishes a thought from in his heart— 
Oh, if I only could depart 
From this dull place the world to see. 
Ah me, how happy I would be! 
Amid the city’s ceaseless din, 
A man who round the world has b»en, 
Who mid the tumult and the throng, 
Is thinking, wishing all day long,— 
Oh, could I only tread once more 
The field path to the farm-house door; 
The old green meadows could I see, 
Ah me, how happy would I be!” 
-»+-«- 
THE BRIGHT AND DARK SIDES. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M.D. 
In reflecting upon this much vexed subject 
of the bright and dark sides of farm life (or of 
any other kind of human life) there must be 
consolation in the thought that there is no 
side which is wholly dark. Some gleams of 
brightness shoot through the darkest lives, 
and often when there seems to be almost no 
brightness, a more intimate knowledge reveals 
the fact of the existence there of pure, unselfish 
love, capable of shedding more and more real 
light upon life, than may fall to the lot of ex¬ 
istence under far more favorable earthly con¬ 
ditions. 
It was my fortune, I might well say my 
blessed fortune, to pass four years of my 
early professional life as a district physician 
to a dispensary in a large city. This brought 
me into most intimate relations with a large 
number of poor families, forced to live in 
such narrow, filthy and airless habitations as 
the poorest farmer never knows, or the sons 
and daughters of any farm in America can 
ever form any conception of. Yet even into 
these hard lives there entered many human¬ 
izing ameliorations. There true friendship 
found a spot to stand in; there motherly and 
fatherly love and pride, and filial loyalty, had 
many bright examples; until, at last, I was 
almost persuaded that in these slums, in the 
midst of all namable and many unnamable 
forms of wickedness, there was sometimes 
more true virtue than in the mansions of 
wealth and culture in the neighboring aristo¬ 
cratic streets, whence almost never came 
the footsteps of help and charity to fellow- 
beings suffering and perishing almost within 
the hearing of those who are so heartlessly in¬ 
sensible. 
With these strange experiences, and a quar¬ 
ter of a century’s reflections upon them since 
on a farm far distant from such scenes, 1 am 
not able to accept fully what seems to me to 
be the crude and superficial judgments too 
often passed upon what is called the dark 
side of farm life. There are facts and reasons 
in connection with much that appears bard 
and repulsive in such a life, which, if rightly 
understood, would put quite a different aspect 
upon affairs. Take, for instance, the scene 
when the mother stands at the wash-tub in 
the kitchen, while the daughter sits at the 
piano in the parlor entertaining a city young 
man. There are two entirely opposite ex¬ 
planations of such a scene possible. The 
daughter may be selfishly enjoying herself, 
while the mother bows over the tub with fast¬ 
dropping tears of wounded affection. That is 
one view, and perhaps the one most readily 
taken. It is quite likely that it is the one in¬ 
tended by the designer. But may it not be 
that mother-lore is there, proud of the 
daughter’s educated skill and of her gracious 
manners, which cause her society to besought 
—and with it the daughter-love, willing to 
accept the mother’s sacrifice in the spirit in 
which it is made, and in the hope that through 
thrse accomplishments brighter days may 
come to them both? There may be as good 
an understanding there as in the companion 
scene, where the two daughters and the moth¬ 
er are working happily together, not only for 
their own advantage and comfort, but for 
that of the male members of the family who 
are away at their own work, from the pro¬ 
ceeds of which such domestic resources as 
they all enjoy together are derived? Doubt¬ 
less there may be coarsely selfish characters, 
even in families where, to a casual glance, 
things may look so pleasant. Yes, not only 
in the different members of our family may 
the characters differ thus, but even in each 
single heart these passions struggle together 
and sometimes one, sometimes the other, gets 
the mastery. The straw ride and the cro¬ 
quet scene are pleasing sketches of what we 
see, in the right seasons, on a vast number of 
Ameiican farms. Social recreations and 
amusements are quite as common now as in 
earlier and ruder times, and much more 
varied; but the sentiment at the bottom is the 
same. It is a pleasure to see the spread of all 
suitable and honest sports among those who, 
by severe labor, so richly earn the right to 
enjoy them. 
We ought, I think, to consider more closely 
than we do the fact that while we farmers 
have much in common, there are too many 
crude and hasty generalizations abroad in re¬ 
gard to “the farmer class,” which have a very 
slim basis of fact to rest upon. Among Amer¬ 
ican farmers we find every degree of social ex¬ 
istence, from the Crackers of the Southern 
mountains, the Hardscrabblers of New Eng¬ 
land, and the Pikes of the West, along up, 
through a continuous gradation, until we 
reach the refinement represented by New 
England types, like Dr. Sturtevant and Con¬ 
gressmen Russell and Burnett; by the refined 
planter life of the South, equally well repre¬ 
sented in Government circles; and by the 
great cattle breeders, the ranchmen and the 
grain and dairy farmers of the prairie States. 
Who can characterize with a word men and 
women of such varying quality, yet all rank¬ 
ing in the category which we designate right¬ 
ly by the honored and honorable title of 
the American Farmer? 
Ridicule has its place, and an important 
one, but to be effective it must be intelligent 
and honest. No one can be better pleased 
than I am with the Rural’s Cartoons in gen¬ 
eral, and the one under comment, intelligibly 
looked upon, is not inferior to those which 
have preceded it. In fact, ridicule is not its 
prominent feature, and it is to be hoped that 
no one will misunderstand its drift, which is 
to the praise of all well-doing, and, on the 
other hand, for a warning and an object-les¬ 
son of the ways in which we may not walk 
with any hope of real good, or substantial ad¬ 
vantage. The dutiful daughter reading the 
Rural to her father and mother, touches me 
nearly, since it is not an unrealized scene in 
my own bouse. What a contrast it offers to 
the overworked seamstress at her prolonged 
task, and the shop-girl on her weary round in 
search of employment! Oh, how little these 
sheltered ones know of the heart-pangs of 
these unsheltered, striving sisters of the 
towns! How every-way better is the hum¬ 
blest farm-house where love—even a little 
love—is, than the struggle for existence 
which city life offers, alike to the educated 
and uneducated poor! And the outcome, the 
too frequent outcome, depicted in the conclud¬ 
ing scenes on the right, so contrasted with 
those upon the left! Here is a lesson that 
must sink deep, and the deeper it sinks in all 
hearts the better it will be. Home! oh, make 
much of it! Build it up strongly, buttress it 
on every side with loving labor. Keep out 
envy, and every seed of strife from the Home 
on the Farm 1 
THE LIFE OF THE FARMER’S 
DAUGHTER. 
HENRY STEWART. 
A short time ago, the writer was in the 
office of a large publishing house in the city 
of New York, which had advertised for a num¬ 
ber of girls to address circulars for the wages 
of five dollars a week. This work, of course, 
was only temporary and the opportunity could 
not attract any but those who were in urgent 
need of employment, and none who were at 
satisfactory work would be likely to apply; 
the poor pittance, too, was so small as to be 
barely sufficient to procure decent food and 
lodging. The number of applicants was so 
large that the 50 required were secured in one 
hour, but the stream continued the whole 
day. During the writer’s visit one extremely 
modest and pleasing girl applied for work; 
and on being informed that a sufficient num¬ 
ber had been engaged burst into tears and 
wept piteously. The gentleman in charge of 
the business—(the parent of daughters and a 
remarkably kind and benevolent man) invited 
the girl to be seated, and kindly inquired why 
she felt so badly. Sobbing almost hysterically 
the poor girl told her story. A farmer’s daugh¬ 
ter, chafing under the quiet and uneventful 
life of the farm, and ambitious to see more of 
the world and seek fortune and better posi¬ 
tion in the great city, but all unaware of the 
difficulties, temptations, risks and dangers to 
be encountered by a young girl without a 
friend, companion or adviser, she left home 
against her parents’ wishes, and with a small 
sum of money to meet supposed expenses, she 
went to the city to seek a situation which she 
expected could be procured for the asking at 
such a salary as would provide her with a 
comfortable living and some savings to lay 
away. Alas I for the bright dreams of youth 
which so often change into a horrid 
nightmare from which one awakes in terror. 
She came, and for two weeks had been 
walking from place to place. Her little 
money was soon exhausted, seeking work, 
answering advertisements, and applying at 
the stores for employment. Her shoes were 
worn out; her money was gone; she had been 
turned out of her boarding-house that morn¬ 
ing, and unless she found work that day she 
would be a homeless wanderer, with no refuge 
but the police station, and her reputation 
would be gone. The kindly, sympathetic 
treatment she received caused her tears to 
flow afresh, for which she apologized by say¬ 
ing that in all her sad experience in the city, 
this was the first time she had been kindly 
spoken to. Rough rebuffs, coarse and some¬ 
times insulting remarks she had met with 
abundantly, but no kind word or sympathy 
until now, and her sorely wounded feelings 
overflowed. Her case was so piteous, her re¬ 
ferences were so well known, and her respect¬ 
ability was so apparent, that she was given 
work in order that she could find shelter 
awhile until she could return home, which she 
said she would do, oh, so willingly! like a 
hunted bird to its nest. And in a month she 
had saved enough to return home and tell her 
story. A very grateful letter was sent by her 
parents to the gentleman who had befriended 
her, and the dark chapter in her young life 
was over. 
Do not think, rural maidens, that this is a 
rare case. On the contrary, it is so common 
that business men, who are used to it, become 
steeled and case-hardened against the frequent 
woful instances that come within their knowl¬ 
edge, and which so far surpass the story 
above told, in misery, and pass so often into 
wretchedness, crime, despair, ruin, and un¬ 
honored graves, that the escape of this girl 
from a far worse experience is rare rather 
than the experience itself. 
What is the temptation to leave a happy 
home, kind parents, a gentle, tender mother? 
Oh! how often is the mother’s tenderness ig¬ 
nored and cast aside, and ill repaid by a 
daughter's willfulness—honorable and useful 
domestic employments, an innocent, pleasiDg 
life, respect of associates and friends, the hon¬ 
orable love of one who is more than a friend, 
a happy union, a modest borne of one’s own, 
with abundant, if homely, fare, and a life 
which portrays the innocence and usefulness 
and beauty of a virtuous family association, 
such as the Saviour of mankiud, the Divine 
Man himself, loved, before the glittering hol¬ 
lowness of the thing we call “society,” the 
showy, useless, unsatisfying association of 
people who think wealth is most desirable, and 
who sacrifice home for the paltry, empty bub¬ 
bles of what they call fashionable life and 
mere sensuous amusements. 
Home, in its fullest sense, is known only 
where the word exists, that is, where the Eng¬ 
lish language is spoken. The nearest approach 
to it in other languages gives no adequate 
idea of what home really is with all its refin¬ 
ing, holy influences, its pure joys and its most 
important results to the individual and the 
State. The tendency I fear is towards get¬ 
ting away from home to the very unsatisfac¬ 
tory and injurious idea existing in the French 
term for home which is “ chez nous ”, the lit¬ 
eral meaning of which is “among us” or 
^UfSE t> 
“among our set, or society.” We are in dan¬ 
ger of losing our borne in our greediness for 
what we call society, for associations away 
from home, devoted to superficial pleasure and 
a good deal of frivolity, and this is what is 
meant to a great extent by the common com¬ 
plaint of the isolation of farm life. This was 
what induced the young girl whose story has 
been told, to leave home, dull, common¬ 
place, uneventful and unsatisfying to the am¬ 
bitious or the gossip, for the city which she 
supposed would be a fairy world, a palace of 
delights to her. How great a mistake is thus 
made. In the crowd of a city there is more 
isolation than in a hundred thousand farm 
homes. To slightly change the words of 
Thomas Hood, whose “Song of a Shirt”gives 
a graphic picture of a phase of life into which 
the country girl quite commonly falls, we 
might say: 
“Oh, it was pitiful 
In a whole city full, 
Friend, she had none.” 
For in a great city there are so many fierce 
antagonisms, such strife, poverty, vice and 
misery and wretchedness among those who 
work for a living, that the senses are either 
wounded most acutely at the size of it all, or 
are blunted by the commonness of it. 
The farm home, on the contrary, is never 
isolated to the well balanced mind. The de¬ 
lights of a rural life are so many and so fresh, 
pure and ennobling, that thousands of people 
in cities are pining for it far more than those 
who are desiring to abandon it. There are 
more comforts, a more noble employment, far 
higher intellectual pleasures, more solid, agree¬ 
able and satisfying enjoyment—if one will 
only not deceive herself—and so far better op¬ 
portunities of fitting one’s-self for the duties 
of this life and the hopes of the next, in a farm 
home than in one in a town or a city. 
Our homes, like other of our environments, 
are as we make them. The farmer’s daughter 
has every opportunity to fill the farm house 
with sunshine, if she has it only in her own 
disposition. This endowment depends a good 
deal upon the mother, whose kind and sympa¬ 
thetic training, with good judgment and 
sound discretion, goes very far to fill the girl's 
life with pure and pleasant aspirations, and 
chase away the light and foolish bubbles of 
imaginary pleasures out of it. It is for her 
to initiate the daughter into the domestic arts 
—to make her expert in housekeeping—for 
this makes domestic work a pleasure and not a 
perfuuctory, degrading labor to be escaped 
from even by rushing into the jaws of certain 
injury. The skillful preparation of the food of 
the family as well as of its clothing, and the 
adornment of the home, are as pleasiDg a 
work for the girl as the excellent plowing of a 
field is for her brother, and the work well per¬ 
formed brings a sense of pleasure and enjoy¬ 
ment in the contemplation of it, besides the 
satisfaction of having pleased those who are 
dear to us. 
Homes may bo distant and far apart, but 
this does not make them isolated. It is con¬ 
geniality of disposition and profitable intellec¬ 
tual association which make society enjoyable, 
and nowhere else more than in farm homes 
are there so many subjects of interest for 
thought, study, and conversation. The out¬ 
door enjoyments, too, are conducive to health 
and to honorable and virtuous associations, 
while the amusements and associations of the 
city are often the very reverse. 
And is it not the duty of all of us to make 
our lives as useful to our race as we can? This 
duty is very comprehensive. It includes not 
only something to be done, but the prelimin¬ 
ary work in preparing ourselves for the doing 
of it. Every one has something to sacrifice, 
or it may seem like a sacrifice, and our wrong 
inclinations call for more of this sacrifice in 
the line of our duty than anything else. What 
we too often call sacrifices are the efforts made 
to keep ourselves in the right way; not always 
willingly, but by force of circumstances to 
which, in fact, we are often very much indebt¬ 
ed for escape from misfortune; and this duty 
is to be most conscientiously considered by 
every country girl who is apt to think she is 
missing some great advantages by sacrificing 
herself. So she may be misled to think—in 
devoting herself to the supposed humble life 
of a farmer’s daughter, a farmer’s wife and 
mistress of a farm home; while all the time, 
happily, force of circumstances is impelling 
her against her will to do the very best she 
can for her own happiness and comfort. Let 
me say one word to the fathers. A great deal 
of the formation of the daughter’s disposition 
depends on the father. He has often more 
influence than the mother in this way. Let 
him cherish his girls. Women are made to be 
loved, and they exhibit this natural trait from 
their infancy. Then, the father should be 
loving to his girls; a true comforter and ad¬ 
viser, and affectionate always. He should 
never be cross or morose, remembering the 
good advice, “Fathers, provoke not your 
children to wrath lest they be discouraged”; 
