The Somerset reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1868-1909, 1898-08-04
Intellectual Salad.

In preparing lobster salad the first
thing to do is to produce the Holsters.
In preparing an intellectual salad the
first thing required is intellect. Now
when | came here last meeting thought
| would shirk little and ask the
Grange for good deal of help in pre-.
pairing this salad because l always see
intellect exhibited here, and there seems
to be so little at home (when the head
of the Lawrences is ABSENT. But the
worthy lecturer said, write paper"
and she looked at newell you know
howl did not think of disobeying.
just wanted to stir you all up into
salad. thought it might be easy to
stir you up and | was sure you would
be so good someone would want to eat
you. We hear that people are as good
as that sometimes, and if you were good
perhaps you would tell US what books
most influenced your lives. This would
be quite an exercise and fully take the
place of paper, and l hope we can
have it at some future time.
hope no one here thinks question
like this is for the good, grand and sue
cessful of earth alone. 1t is for us little
folks. We all read and our moral ma
lures are affected by our reading nearly
as much as our physical natures by the
kind of air we breath. In thinking
what books most influenced your lives
perhaps you will discover as | did that
it was the one you 80 carefully read dur
ing that formative period between ten
and fifteen, your first really grown up
book.
On my mothers book-shelves was one
large book in beautiful, dark red bind
ing, which as child l always admired.
" hen about eleven l read 1t for the first
time, and wonderful new world of
ideas was opened to me. During the
next long school vacation read it again,
and the next year again, and 30 on until
l was graduated from the high school.
l wish every school girl might read the
Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter once, at
least, for the sake of enriching her vo-
CdUuldIy IL uO OtuOI ICdboA' hiC
the books which most influenced US
are as different as ourselves, yet there
is one book which has influenced us all.
The one book which we always keep
lying open upon our altar, and in whose
pages are found the precept of our order;
Let me tell you a story Mr.. Archibald
ter morning. l did not hear it all,
bat hot 7 vi Lo fhic A
eler, passing along, came to place
where there were some pebbles lying in
his path, and beside them in the sand
was written, "nho gathers these peb-
bles will be sorry, and who does not
gather them will be sorry" He gath
cred few and passed on Afterwards
he found that the pebbles were dia.
monds and he was sorry because he had
not gathered more. This is the way
with the Bible. Those who read it will
be sorry and those who do not read it
will be sorry. The one because they
did not read it and the other because
they did not read it more.
| have read books which no one ought
to read and which ought never to have
been written, and they were not immoral
books either. l think no book ought
ever to be written whose author has no
higher motive than simply to amuse. /
used to read everything. l don't now.
There is not time. feel like the must
clan who, when an anxious mother asked
him if he could make singer of her
daughter said. 81 do not know. Mans
allotted life is threescore years and ten,
and am fifty-five. fear there is OF
time enough" Let us Grange mothers
look we'll to the kind of books our
children are reading. In making salads
for children variety is required, but
don't let's put in strychnine just for
variety.
Now intellect, as 1 understand it, is
the faculty of the soul by which it
knows. This faculty is God given.
Having then the intellect let us put the
eggs Of education, culture and refine
ment into our salad. Some of you will
think an English education quite suffi-
Gent some a scientific, and SOME will
approve of nothing less than classical.
Your ideas concerning culture will be
as varied, so chop your lobster and egg
to suit yourself, but please have plenty.
Now let's make a dressing More
eggs, more education, more culture,
more refining influences, more-more-
more-where can we stop? | never
have come to a comma even, much less
a full pause. Let us keep on with the
best, nothing stale in this salad if you
please. One small tablespoonful mus
tard-smart. What is it to be smart?
Is it to get up at 4.30, milk ten cows, do
other chores, work in field until noon,
then again in afternoon, do chores until
eight at night, or doing all the work in
an unhandy farm house for entire family,
all the family sewing, help educate the
children, and then paint, sing, wash or
sew for a little pocket money? The
head would be sure to answer yes. 1t
seems to me breathing spell, now and
then, to give the brain chance to do
something besides register aches and
pains, strained muscles and strained
joints, would be conducive of smartness
in certain directions. One-half tea
spoonful black pepper-snap. Just as
dressing for lobster salad requires some
thing more than eggs and mustard, so
learning and smartness alone will not
make successful person. Let US have
little snap. l have watched this in
the teachers calling (fOr teaching the
young idea how to shoot is calling
believe) and without snap, success is
we'll. nigh impossible. One half tea
spoonful cayenne pepper-temper hot.
Cayenne pepper is all very we'll when
thoroughly mixed in, but the risk is
so q eat that when least expected it will
m r itoalf ,,npleaaantlv prpminent and