Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-02-06

advantages they should have, high
schools, libraries, and leisure for reading
and acquiring the graceS and accomplish
mentS of higher education, they would
shine as brilliantly as their town cousins,
with the additional advantage derived
from practical training, their brilliancy
would for that reason be real and lasting.
Above all. the farmers wife should
possess the qualities that wear well. The
fine cOlOring of the cloth and its glossy
surface NAV add to its beauty, but after
all it is the qualities that wear well that
make it worth your money. The farmer
wife should be intelligent, practical, p0-
lite, clever, and religious, and l will add
to these. accomplished; for where are ac-
comphshmentS more requisite, and where
can they be displayed to better advant-
age than in the home of the farmer, who,
unlike his neighber of the city, must de
pend mainly on his own hearth for the
entertainment of his evenings and leisure.
So that nowhere is the delicate hand of
woman more needed to give the great,
sombre, tragic picture we call life its
softer cOlors and mellower tintS. When
the man in the city leaves his shop or
store or office after the long days toll and
anxiety, if he feels that he needs recrea-
ton or entertainment, and it is not to be
found in his home (where, of all places, it
should be-, he can go to the club or the
lodge or the theatre. But when " the
plowman homeward plods his weary way
1t is at his own fireside that he must eX-
pect his evenings entertainment. And
here it is that our ideal farmers wife can
display all her real accomplishments.
Here is the best of all opportunities for
her to employ the greatest of all accom-
pliShmentS, as Emerson so well and so
beautifully says, There is an art which
is better than painting, poetry, music or
architecture; better than botany, geology,
or any science, namely, conversation.
Wise, cultivated, genial conversation is
the best flower of civilization, the best
result that life offers to u.s."
My next ideal of the future of the farm
is that every farmer have good home.
How attain this? As the road has been
long and tOilSome one from the home
of the prehistoric cave-dweller to the
primitive log-cabin, so too will the road
from the log-cabin to the ideal home of
the farm be long, winding and steep; yet
| doubt not
Through the ages, one increasing purpose runs;
And the thoughts of men are broadened with
the process of the suns"
When we have fully arrived at the con-
clusion that higher education is neces-
sary to the ideal farmer and his wife;
when we have made our schools what
they ought to be-aS good at least as those
of the town and city; when we have
brought libraries of good books within
the reach of the farm; when we have
wholly eliminated over-work from farm
life: when we have driven ignorance and
prejudice into exile; when the farmer
comes to act mentally, morally and polit-
ically as well as he now does physically,
in the great arena of life-then will we
have passed so many mile-stones on our
road to the ideal home of the farm. This
cannot be accomplished in day. nor a
week, nor a year; it may not come about
in a lifetime, but let us do to-day what
our hands find to do, and tomorrow do
likewise, then when our age-enfeebled
hands will no longer hold the rein nor
guide the plow,
T 1o,, ;