The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1895-07-10
Reading.


in the worlt's movements. Listen to what
Jeanness Miller has to say along this line:
She says, every woman should endeaYor
to keep MP with the best publications OF her
time. 1t helps her to make her home beau
tjful. to keep it beautiful and to occasionally
institute the Wholesome changes that are
pleasing to mind and body She should
read in order that she may find interests
and recreation wthit herself, and that she
NAV be more comnanlonable for her hus-
band, nut esp aclallv should she read with
view to her children's benefit, that she may
teach them, converse with them lead their
thoughts into new realms, and that she
NAV more fully be their friend and com
panion.
The woman who reads will never be rele'
gated into the background by these better
informed children of hers, whom she has
helped to educate. Oftentimes beyond her
self; ont by keeping up with the times ana
their questions, their books and their events,
She bv reason of her wider experience and
the Accumulated wis iom Of her years, is
still the guide the COUNSELLOR and friend that
she was in the ignorant babyhood that she
watched so anx,Ously.
Children of tender years-but especially
tn use Chi. iren OF larger growth, men and
women--are proud of well informed
mother A cultured. educated man is never
more pleased tnan when able to introduce
TO his friends such mother, not but what
all men should feel proud of their mothers,
but it lies in the mothers power, more often
than she will admit, to greatly augment
that pride and reverence by her own en-
deavOr.
But alas it goes without saying that many
mothers fail here. They leave off their
reading with their school days, and after
marriage when the little ones begin to
gather in the family circle, mother thinks
her time must be devoted to their physical
comfort while public school teacher attends
to their mental development; and she con-
tents herself with the marks of honor at
school or the medal for department and
goes on sewing, cooking, cleaning, washing
and ironing, thinking tenderly of them all
the while, but wearing herself out in her
physical exertions with no thought of des-
olate time in the near future.
By and by the little ones are such no
longer. They are accomplished sometimes
specifically young men and 'dies, with
very advanced ideas of conduct, etiquette,
and education. To put it tersely, mother is
behind the times. even though she may
have been college educated girl in her
long-gone youth, Her ignorance OF the
topics of the day is appalling. and the
"children," forgetful Of her loving kindness
of past times, that reaches down even into
the present time, are actually embarrassed,
nav. ashamed of mother and her OId-fash-
toned, unsophisticated and uneducated
ways, when it might have been so different
had she exerted herself that she might lapse
into them.
How much of all this few hours of regu-
lar study or reading in day or in week
would have prevented!
We all know that there are hundreds, nay,
thousands, ot just such cases as this described
Mothers, good and sweet, tender and
true, are as regularly relegated to the rear by
their more accomplished children and the
youth of the age as do these same youth
make their entrances into colleges and high
schools There is but one remedy for It
The mother must keep up with the children
not only for her own good and pleasure, but
for theirs also.
1t depends of course upon what we read