Ani6rican Agriculturist, June 9,192S 
485 
The Good “Young” Times 
The “Old Times” May Have Been Good—But, WhoWants to Go Back to Them? 
I READ with much interest the article on 
“The Good Old Times,” and at the edi¬ 
tor’s invitation to us of the younger 
generation, I could not refrain from 
speaking in behalf of the modern times. 
When we look down the tortuous path of 
years to the Salem witchcraft days and the 
dark epoch when hanging was the penalty 
for no less than a dozen crimes of different 
nature, we can not but admit that this old 
world of ours must'he growing better, wiser, 
more just and more merciful. Surely it is 
but a merited tribute to Christianity to ad¬ 
mit that it keeps getting a firmer and better 
foothold through each cycle of time. Why? 
Population is increasing n 
the good with the bad. 
And since Good is the 
stronger, it naturally fol¬ 
lows that Bad is losing 
ground. 
Of course there will be 
crime as long as the world 
lasts, and knaves in each 
generation. Evil will go 
on lurking in movie thea¬ 
tre and dance hall—for 
evil will find an inlet any¬ 
where ; it is a thing which 
will never modernize. It 
ran rampant long before 
the movie came into ex¬ 
istence and when dancing 
was included in sacred 
ceremonies. There are 
good, bad and indifferent 
movie films on the market; 
as many clean, wholesome, 
instructive ones as there 
are the reverse. “Good or 
bad—choose,” is a world 
old test for the moral fibre 
of every generation. 
But the headstrong 
youth of to-day . would 
have been identically the 
same under the restric¬ 
tions of long ago. Disci¬ 
pline of the young was in 
those days, on an average, 
more rigid than now. Wit¬ 
ness the district school of a hundred years 
ago where the ferule and the birch were ab¬ 
solutely essential to the maintenance of a 
well conducted school. These instruments of 
torture are practically obsolete now—indeed 
a child who can be reached no other way is 
a rarity in our present day schools. There¬ 
fore our modern methods of child training 
also prove evolution along those lines, for 
the children are the better for it. 
No Longer Places for Vengeance 
Prisons- to-day are more places of reforma- ^ 
tion than of punishment (or vengeance). 
Our intitutions for the insane are really 
hospitals to treat the mind diseased. Once 
they were merely places of confinement, and 
many a dark tale has been told of almost un¬ 
believable brutality and inhumane methods 
of subjection. 
Compulsory education in many States 
to-day is proving the psychological adage 
“Education broadens the mind.” Eighty 
years ago such a thing as enforced at¬ 
tendance was unknown. A very’large per¬ 
centage of the voters were ignorant and 
illiterate. Politics had a far greater scope 
for “Rottenness” than they have at the 
present day. 
Here in the country the rural free delivery 
and parcel post system are indeed a boon to 
the farmer, for they bring the city to his 
door, figuratively speaking. He can trade, 
too, with the city stores without bothering 
to crank up his flivver and burn gallons of 
By A. A. Rf^ADERS 
gas—though he can at a pinch—and is 
fortunate at being able to do so. 
Then, too, time and evolution have brought 
to mankind many life-saving devices that 
we who are accustomed to, fail to fully ap¬ 
preciate. 
In the old days there were many “ships 
that never returned” and lives of waiting 
ones that were one long heartache of sus¬ 
pense and anxiety. To-day we think no 
more of seeing our friends off on an ocean 
liner than our great grand-parents did in 
saying adieux to loved ones taking a lengthy 
of death, while in the good old days similar 
cases met only the useless ministrations of 
a midwife or a doctor whose specialty was 
not always obstetric cases. The result, with 
no alternative must be a strong, useful life 
snuffed out — a home made desolate. 
The munificent wage of the present day, 
despite the high cost of living, is yet another 
evidence of progress and the improvement 
of conditions. Long ago when a widowed 
mother found herself the sole breadwinner 
for her little brood — wages were low — very 
low for women’s work; often from fifty cents 
to one dollar per week, seldom more — to 
keep her little flock together and to stave 
off the grim wolf was an 
impossibility. She was 
therefore obliged to “bind 
out” her fatherless little 
ones as best she might, 
often to lives of abuse or 
moral corruption—robbed 
of their birthright; the 
influence of mother-love. 
To-day ‘ the widow, 
when not protected by 
insurance, may secure a 
lucrative position and 
thus keep her little ones 
together to grow up under 
her guidance and protec¬ 
tion. 
None of us, I am pos¬ 
itive, would be willing to 
go back and live in “The 
good old times” even 
though they might have 
held much to be desired. 
—Mrs. Wm. W., Wad- 
hams, N. Y. 
Orchard’s where I’d ruther be— 
Needn’t fence it in fer me!— 
Jes’ the whole sky overhead. 
And the whole airth underneath— 
Sorto’ so’s a man kin breathe 
Like he ort. and kindo’ has 
Elbow room to keerlessly 
Sprawl out len’thways on the g'rass 
Where the shadders thick and soft 
As the kivvers on the bed 
Mother fixes in the loft 
Alius, when they’s company! 
Plague! ef they ain’t somepin’ in 
Work ’at kindo’ goes ag’in 
My convictions!—’long about 
Here in June especially!— 
Under some old apple-tree, 
Jes’ a-restin’ through and through, 
I could git along without 
Nothin’ else at all to do 
Only jes’ a-wishin’ you 
Wuz a-gittin’ there like me. 
And June was eternity! 
—From Knee-Deep in June, hy James WhitOomb Ril6y. 
What Is Needed In 
Every Farm Home 
OLKS living on the 
F 
farm, as a rule do not 
we know and trust 
—Marconi’s wireless 
river voyage—because 
that wonder of the air 
which on lightning wing over the briny deep 
safeguards those we love who traverse “That 
wild, wet road, called the sea.” 
Scarcely second to the wireless for effi¬ 
ciency and safety is the less complicated, yet 
indispensable telephone. .When little Bobby 
terrifies his parents in the still watches of 
the night by a grim wrestle with that deadly 
enemy of budding childhood—membranous 
croup, a hurried call over the wire brings the 
doctor in a few minutes by aid of his trusty 
car, whereas in olden times, father must 
“hitch up” and drive madly over miles of bad 
country road, leaving the anxious mother 
alone with the little sufferer who'often was 
beyond all aid that was earthly when father 
at last returned with the doctor. 
Advances in Medical Science 
Another instance of the lack of timely 
telephone and chugging motor salvation is 
this: Two young men, in our town—long 
before my day—after a few days of physical 
torture, died of a mysterious ailment diag¬ 
nosed as “inflammation of the bowels,” 
when a brief trip by auto, the hospital and 
an operation in each case would have brought 
relief and a new lease of life to those who 
were doomed by that once dreaded malady— 
to-day known and little feared—appendicitis. 
Many maternity cases have been hurried 
to the hospital by auto, at the eleventh hour, 
and mother and child snatched from the jaws 
bathe with so much fre¬ 
quency, nor well enough 
to be really sanitary; and 
I cannot blame them very 
much. Remember, I am speaking from ex¬ 
perience. I live on a farm. 
The usual course of procedure for the one 
who wishes to bathe is to secure the privacy 
of the kitchen while the remainder of the 
family are notified to keep out. The usUal 
privacy of the bathroom is lacking. A tub 
is dragged in. Water lugged from the spring 
or well, and hot water is added from the 
stove or range. 
’Twas Ever Thus 
Usually the remaining essentials for a 
bath are gathered together and a lot of time 
is used up in this way. In the course of the 
bath the usual ring of water is splashed 
around the tub. Generally the mo&t inop¬ 
portune time has been chosen since about the 
time the bather is busy, each one outside of 
the room thinks of something they need and 
it is in the room the bather occupies. He or 
she is interrupted to deliver the needed ar¬ 
ticles to the door. 
The tub must be emptied. Soap, towel, 
etc., must be placed in their respective places. 
Considerable fuss for a bath. Any wonder 
lots, of people dread it and go without. They 
are indifferent to the merits and virtue of 
bathing. Stop a moment and think—en¬ 
gaged in dirty work; go to bed dirty, get up 
dirty, stay dirty. Is it any wonder the doc¬ 
tors and undertakers are reaping a harvest? 
Very few families need be without a bath¬ 
tub. Yop may think you cannot afford it. 
{Continued on. page 499) 
