The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1886-09-01
HOME READING.

every FARMER Wn0F1S fdiSinS q idiiiiiy
to make home the brightest and
pleasantest place on earth to them.
The farm should not be as it SO often
is, a place of monotonous drudgery,
with its routine of daily toll, running
sometimes far into the night, when
old and young, wearied, fall to sleep
to wake in the morning for a repetl-
ton of the same wearing, endless
tasks. Thus day after day is spent
on many a farm in body-wearing and
spirit-crushing toll. No wonder that
young people grow old prematurely
when doomed to such a treadmlil
existence, and no wonder the boys
and girls tire of the farm, long for a
change and fly at the first opportu-
nifty to the town with it's glitter1ng
attractions. The farm where 1t
is work, work, all work, and where
little or no thought is given to any
thing else, is not a home in the true
sense; it is simply a place where
people stay, and toll for what they
eat, and where the young people
stay only until they can get away.
When the days work is done (and
the day should not be allowed to
run far into night the evening should
be given to home pleasures, interest
ing and instructive exercises and
mental development and improve
ment. The roo where the family
gathers should be both a place Of
pleasant recreation and a school. 1t
is a very easy matter for the father
or mother to cultivate a taste for
reading in their children, and to
direct that taste Alright, selecting
attractive books, which will be in
%structive whilst they are attractive.
Most young people like to read to
others what interests themselves,
and there are few families where
some ofthe older children are not able
to read aloud for the family circle.
At first it might possibly be a little
irksome, but in a little while it
would become a real pleasure and
all would long for the evening hour
to come to hear a continuation Of
what interested them the evening
before. And thus unconsciously they
are acquiring a fondness for books,
and are learning to think. Young
people are, as a rule, fond of biogra-
phies, and books Of travel, the read
ing of which will create a desire for
reading of history, and other litera-
ture, as the readers grow older and
their faculties develop.
Then there are instructive maya
zines monthly, and monthly and
weekly agricultural papers published
expressly for the farm and home life
on the farm, which would furnish
interesting reading, instructive as
we'll as entertaining, about matters
in which all who live on the farm are
interested. One half hour devoted
each evening to the reading of prop
erly selected matter in the family cir
Gle would result in imparting an in
credible amount Of information in
the course of one year. A half hour
is not long, but three hundred and
sixty-five halfhours make over seven
days Of twenty-four hours each, dur
ing which an ordinarily rapid reader
could read through several fair-sized
books. 1t is the little we learn each
day, or from time to time, that con-
stitutes the sum of education, and
thus the little acquired in these short
evening exercises would in a few
years amount to much, not only in the
pleasure and information enjoyed and
acquired, but in the formation of
tastes and habits of reading for after
life. With such habits and tastes
properly trained in these days of
printing presses and cheap books, the
education of young people is prac-
tically in their own hands, and their
destinies, to a great extent, within
their own control. There will be no
excuse for their not being ~tolerably
we'll educated and we'll informed, for
they have learned to be their own
teachers.
Parents, think of this, and when
the days work is done, instead of
sitting quietly about, thinking Of to-
morrow's toll, cheer up, light up,
send are out of doors, gather the
family around you and let all strive
to see how near they can come to
making the family room the pleas
ATTEST place on earth, and not only
pleasant but profitable-an agreea-
BILE school, where all learn something
each evening, and enjoy the learning
which comes, not as a task, but as q