Year: 1872

The whole tendency of farm life is
to develop the body healthy and SYM
metrically. Tho child is not pcnt
up in the narrow back yard Of city
dwelling nor turned into tho thronged
and filthy street to pursue his sports.
His eyes open first upon green fields
and fragrant meadows, and his first
football ont of doors is upon the matted
grass beneath the shadowy trees OF
his rural home. Hc drinks in health
from every breeze, and all the scenes
around him call forth that playfulness
which performs so important an Office
in our early training.


And this leads us TO speak of the in.
fluenco ofaarm lie upon home virtues.
No occub&tion can be more favorable
10 the cultivation of those qualities
which are ,he charm of tho domestic
circle. The farmer is much more at
home than is possible with any other
men. How many there are in our
cities who only sec their families at
at evening or on a Sabbath. They
live for their business, and this, from
its location, takes them from home
early and late. How many from this
same cause forsake housekeeping and
huddle into boarding houses and hotels,
where tho charm and beauty Of the
family as God constituted it are en-
tirely lost, and children fall under a
thousand influences that would never
reach them ut home With the best
arrangements wealth. can command
in the city, it is well nigh impossible
to keep children under the influence
of their parents, so that they shall
have distinct family character and
bear the moral as they do the physical
image of their progenitors.


Parental influence is dissipatcd amid
the varied social influences TO which
they are subjected from their earliest
days. Then what perplexities harrass
the man of business in the city-his
capital often invested in proftless en-,
terpaise, exposed to the depredalons
of dishonest men, betrayed, cheated
and ruined by knaves and bankrupts.
From the very character of his bust.
ness, he has to trust far more of his
available means to the integrity of his
fellows than the cultivator. His debts
are often scattered over q wide extent
OF territory, and collections are not
only expensive, but exceedingly un.
certain. But his commercial credit
depends upon this uncertainty, and he
is often compelled to fall back upon
nothing, q ruined man.


Ninoty-fve failures in a hundred
among most business men in the city
tell sad tale OF the perplexity and
sorrow, the corroding cares and an,
guish of mercantile life. How can q
father goadod with these anxietie'
from the beginning to the end of The
year do justice with his children even
II his business allows him to be will
them a part Of the timer He is not
in a frame of mind to superintend
their education and to perform ia
lhcr's Office.


The farm preserves the family in it'
integrity. The home has in It tha,
charming word, and that more charm
ing thing the frcside, around which
parents and children gather and where
the bright and cheerful blaze upon the
health is but true type of the fam,
of love that glows in every heart
The parents have been drawn togcth
or, not by the sordid motives of wealth
or the ambitious desire OF social dis
play, but for the qualities seen in cacl
other. The glory Of the frcside tC
the husband is that the wife is there
and to the wife that he is there who
is head of the woman and the band il
that home circle, Hero they gather
at morning and evening and at noon
Their board is almost always ssurround
cd with the same circle, and here they
spend their long winter evenings to
gcther Ohio Farmer.