Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1871-09-14
Home Life,

I'm true home the whole house ought
to belong to the family, and be occupied
by them. There ought to be spare cham
bers for the guests, and room for hospi-
tality, but there should be no shut cham
bers or shut parlors, sequestered from all
domestic use. There should be no mys
teries in the home, no place of oracle
there. Every part of the house, from
cellar to garnet, should be open and known,
not only lighted and ventilated, but visited,
too, by every member Of the household.
In real home the family always use the
best part of their house, and live in the
whole of it. They 90 in at the front door,
as well as at the back door; they 60 up by
the wide staircase, as we'll as by the mar.
row staircase, and they use the soft cush-
ions, the damask and the velvet, as we'll as
the cane seat and the straw mating. In a
genuine house no part or appendage of
the house ought to be too good for those
who are members of the family. Its well
in the home that each member should
have his own retreat. his own chamber,
the daughters and the sons and the SER
wants, but not we'll that there should be no
feeling of common right in the house.
And good home is not within the
walls of the house. The first home of the
first family was not in house at all, but
in a garden. To realize the home now
there ought to be garden attached to it.,
some space open to the sky in which green
things and bright things may grow, and
the family may enjoy Gods sunlight to-
getber. Some kind of garden every
true home ought to have, clear space in
front or in rear or around.
Every well ordered home will have q
library. Until this in some form comes
into the house it has not the right to be
called more than a lodging house, or an
clearinghouse, however sump1uously it may
be furnished. How many books are ne
cessary to make library we shall not
venture TO say, or whether the old Puritan
measure Of the Bible, the dictionary and
spelling book is to be taken as the unit,
or rather I 1inity in Unity. Books enough
to meet the ordinary need of intercourse
and conversation and reference, "the stand
ard works." enough to give the impression
of culture and intelligence; home mus,
have these, even if it has to spare como
physi al comforts to get them. Books ir
the house are binding influence between
members of the family, the means Of dis
persing the clouds, making rainy days
useful, and enlivsning hours of solitude
And in true home the library will MOI
be slowed away" in closet or dark
room, but will be in the center of the house
in the meeting place of the family, where
the young and old together catch inspira
ton in its gathered hoard. In the true
home the library will be the favorite "sit
ting room
Music there ought to be in every home
not only the music of mother 'singinl
to her clean, fat rosy babe," which The
Radical Goblet so muCh glorifi s, but the
music of cOnsenting voices and cOneentint
harps. The head of the house may be {
good steward without any musical know
ledge, but the true father will know moro
than the "two tunes" between which hi
cannot decide, when he hears his daughter
strike the keys. The best 3, ntiment o
home connects itself from infancy to age
with the voice of music.
And HON: is more fully realized whe1
all the family are together. There is I
painful absurdity in talking Of the pleas
ure of home when the children of thu
house are scattered, or the parents arc con
tinually absent. A father who spends al
bis time 10 his shop or in his club, exec p
the hours Of the night in which he sleeps
or the minutes which he gives for meals
knows nothing Of the satisfaction of home
This is one of the s"lccisms OF American
life, that men Of wealth lavish SO m,lc
upon their houses, but are in these house
go little. The children, too, are ser
away to boarding schools or to Europe
and threc-quarters of the great house TT
main unOccupied. OF course, in the pa!
sage Of life and the changes of fortune
y inevitable that the family circle shout