466 
Annual Be port of the 
Mothers need more time to devote to their children. Lessons are 
not all learned from books. There are a thousand things a child 
should learn before he is committed to the schools, and who is more 
fitted to teach him than his mother? It is cruel to send our little 
ones to school, to sit in cramped positions, with homesick hearts 
and aching limbs, when a little extra expense at home would al¬ 
low the mother to keep him under her own care a few years longer. 
In order to interest her children properly, a mother must have 
more rest from hard work, more time to spend with them. Did 
children have more of this home training, more of the society of 
good mothers, and less of the company of rough, street companions, I 
trust we should see a gentler race of boys and girls around us. 
While it is woman’s highest pleasure to keep the home, to make it 
comfortable, cheerful and happy, to adorn and beautify, to spread 
the board with neatness, and prepare the tempting food, she should 
also be careful that the beauty of her house do not surpass the 
beauty of the head and heart of her who presides over it; that the 
viands upon her table be not more tempting to her friends than 
the mental entertainment of the hostess. 
Let us not cater to the animal appetite alone, but try amid our 
home duties to cultivate habits of thought that will lighten life’s 
labors, and lead to a higher plane of being. Let us not bury the 
talent that is given us, lest our children grow to blush for tbe igno¬ 
rance of their mothers. In the earlier ages there was some excuse 
for ignorance, and we honor the dear old mothers, ignorant though 
they may have been, but in this day, it seems to me that children 
should expect the same degree of intelligence in a mother that they 
-do in a father. If it is necessary for men to read and think, that 
they may be useful citizens, is it not necessary for mothers to cul¬ 
tivate themselves both for home and society? 
Woman armed with intelligence and strong moral principles, 
with gentleness and firmness moulding the principles of husbands 
and sons at home, is a person behind the throne that will control 
more votes at the ballot-box than her presence there can ever do; 
.and her influence strongly used in society will overthrow more 
•evil than legislation alone can do. Women may be politicians, and 
work with stronger power—in her quiet home influence—than she 
•can by taking the field openly—in defense of her rights or the 
wrongs of the nation. 
