The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-01

| what our occupation may be. The root l problems are much the same for all of us, widely though they may differ in out ward manifestation. The most important conditions that tell for happiness within the home are the same for the town and the country and the relations between employer and employe are not always | satisfactory on the farm any more than | in the factory. All over the country l there Is a constant complaint of pauclty | Of farm labor. Without attempting to go | into all the features of this question would like to point out that you can never get the right kind, the best kind, l of labor if you offer employment only for | a few months, for no man worth anything will permanently accept d. system which | leaves him in idleness for half the year. | And most important of all, l want to say l d special word on behalf of the one who I is too often the very hardest worked laborer on the farm-the farmers wife Reform, like charity, while it should not | end at home, should certainly begin | there, and the man, whether he lives on | a farm or in town who is anxious to l see better social and economic conditions prevail through the country at large, l should be exceedingly careful that they | prevail first as regards his own woman- ] kind 1 emphatically believe that for the 1 | pensable industry in which they should | engage is the industry of the home. There ase exceptions, of courae, but exactly as the first duty of the normal man IS the duty of being the home maker, so the first duty of the normal woman is to be the home keeper; and exactly as no
 other learning is as important for the
 average man as the learning which will
 teach him how to make his livelihood, SO tl,ar aftaer fu uo ifgifa n
 average woman as the learning which will
 make her a good housewife and motNer. But this does not mean that she should De an overworked drudge.
 Better Condition of Wives.
 l have hearty sympathy with the move
 ment to better the condition of the aver age tler of the soil, of the average wageworker, and 1 have an even heartier sympathy and applause for the movement which is to better the condition of their respective wives There is plenty that IS hard and rough and disagreeable in the necessary work of actual life; and under the best circumstances, and no matter how tender and conslderate 'the husband, the wife will have at least her full share of work and worry and anxiety; but if the man is worth his salt he will try to take as much as possible of the burden OH the shoulders or ms HelpHdtS. lHtlS IS nothing Utopian in the movements all that is necessary s to strive toward rals- ing the average. both of men and women. to the level on which the highest type of family now stands, among American farmers, among American skilled me- chanics, among American citizens gen orally; for in all the world there is no better and healthier home life. no finer factory of individual character, nothing more representative of what is best and most characteristic in American life than that which exists in the higher type of American family; and this higher type of family is to be found everywhere among LIS, and is the property of no special group of citizens.
 The best crop iS the crop of children; the best products of the farm are the men and women raised thereon; and the most instructive and practical treatises on farming, necessary though they be.
 are no more necessary than the books which teuch us our duty to our neigh bor, and above all to the neighbor who
 is of our own household. You young men and women of the agricultural and
 industrial colleges and schools-and. for