those who believe that for the boy who expects to make his own way by his own work, the quicker he gets to learning what he will directly make use of, the better. So, after leaving the common school, the special agricultural or trade school seems to me the most desirable.

Aside from the common school the best education which farmers' children can have is good books. Of these, good biographies of successful men are undoubtedly the best. They supply the consecutive "story" which the young mind craves, and incidentally convey useful information. The daily paper in the farmer's home is a nuisance. Nine-tenths of what it contains is of no value to anybody, and a great part of it is positively injurious. Few young people take kindly to books of a purely instructive character, but those who do should be supplied with them. If there are signs of an especial bent towards any useful occupation, it should be encouraged, whether in boys or girls. The city youths have a great advantage over those of the country in the great libraries to which they have access. This deficiency of country life it is the duty of the farmer to supply to the best of his ability.

In short, the duty of the father as a farmer seems to me to be to get out of his children's heads the notion that city life is in any way easier than country life; to train them to habits of work and responsibility not beyond their strength and their years; and to the best of his ability to supply them with the means of getting useful information. When this is done, if there is anything in them of value it will develop itself. If there is not, that is the end of it. The father has done his duty.

The farmers' employees will be mostly young men. Toward them his duty is to make their lives such as he would be willing that his own son should live. The old custom of farmers' sons" hiring out" to neighboring farmers seems to be gradually dying out. It was a good custom, and yet nothing that I can say is likely to revive it. Farmers' sons seem inclined to drift off to work among strangers and to spend what they earn in hunting for new jobs. In the end they tend to degenerate into the irresponsible and transient laboring class

with which farmers and employers of unskilled labor have to deal. Away from the restraints of home and family influence, their tendency is downward. What each farmer can do to check this, is to employ farmers' sons of his acquaintance so far as he can do so, and whoever he employs, to treat them with social consideration. The faithful young man who works on a farm is as good a man as the farmer he works for. If he is not treated as such he will be discontented. There is no social distinction between the farmer and the farm hand. If one is artificially set up, desirable men will be driven out of the business, and the most promising opening for the son of the farmer himself be cut off.

T

CHAPTER II.

THE FARMER AND HIS FELLOWS.

The

HE fault with farm life is the lack of social intercourse. Where farms are large this is hard to overcome. natural time for social intercourse is the evening, but when the farmer, his wife, and his team are tired, and the time for rising five o'clock the next morning, there is not much inclination to start out. These conditions must be overcome. Man is a social animal. He must mingle with his fellows or deteriorate. Where farms are small the difficulty is less serious. Modern improvements are doing much for the farmer in this respect. The country roads are improving and the trolley and the bicycle are never tired.

It seems to me that farmers must systematically attend to these social duties if they are to be happy. I am not speaking of social intercourse for "improvement" but for recreation. If circumstances forbid it of evenings, the time must be taken from the day. The American farmer is among the least social of men. Such social gatherings as occur are mostly left to the young people, who, unrestrained by the presence of their elders, are not always decorous. The country "ball," held upon holidays in some public hall, and open to all comers who will pay the fee, is not always a desirable place.

This rather questionable mode of recreation has grown up as the result of rural conditions in this country, and can be exterminated only by a change of those conditions. Young people will certainly meet for social enjoyment, and if the way is made difficult to rational methods, they will take other ways. The amusements which from time immemorial have had chief place among the people of all nations, have been the card table for the elders and the dance for the young. I am not aware that either of these amusements was ever considered questionable until the rise of the great Puritan move

ment in the seventeenth century, which, mainly through the New England settlement, has left its impress on all America. At the present time large numbers of the most excellent people we have are profoundly convinced of the essential immorality both of card playing and dancing. Some churches make it a matter of discipline; some wink at it, and some see nothing wrong in it.

On the other hand, many estimable people, doubtless comprising the majority of the community, believe dancing in itself to be an agreeable and innocent amusement, and that the evil consists in the promiscuous entertainments, conducted in public places and open to all, which are common in rural districts. As to "card playing" they claim that it is an absolutely innocent recreation, which has proved its acceptability for ages, and in all countries, and deny absolutely that it has any tendency whatever to lead to "gambling," or that in fact it ever does so lead. It may not seen clear to all what this has to do with the economic relations of the farmer to his fellows, but the fact is that in many rural districts this question of dancing and card playing lies at the root of rural discontent. It did so in the neighborhood where I was brought up. The people of most sterling worth set their faces strongly against these amusements, which the rougher element freely indulged in. The more headstrong of the youth of the better families tended to break loose from home restraints and associate themselves with the rough element, to the unquestioned deterioration of their morals.

Youth craves amusement and will have it. Age really requires it more than youth. The trouble with rural society is not the modesty of its pecuniary rewards, but the grinding, cheerless habit of life, which, by the way, is more marked in the American farmers than in any other people in the world. The youth do not drift to the cities so much with the idea of making more money as of having a better time. The remedy for much of the farmers' discontent is more abundant social intercourse, in which it is extremely desirable that parents and children should participate together.

The difficulties in the way of this seem almost insurmount

able. Farmers' houses are not usually built to accommodate large companies. This of itself often compels the resort to the objectionable public hall. It is always possible, however, for heads of families to unite to engage such halls, control the company invited, and by their presence exercise all necessary restraint. When gatherings are held at farmhouses, the labor of preparation, and, worse still, of clearing away after, often falls almost entirely upon the already overworked womer. of the family. There is often, also, an unfortunate strife to outdo each other, which adds greatly to the labor, and bears harder on the weaker.

No one can settle these things but the farmers themselves and their families, in the light of their sturdy common sense, and their regard for themselves and their youth. But one thing is sure, if rural conditions are to improve, the beginning must be made in its social features. The American farmer does not need to work harder but to play more. He must mingle with his fellows for the mere enjoyment of it. And when gatherings are held, they must be so managed that a good time is assured. Grange meetings are good, but the majority of farmers are not grangers, nor can any formal organized meeting take the place of the unrestricted freedom of intercourse at the home.

And such gatherings do not need promotion in any organized way. Any family can begin a round of "visits" to other families, which will be quite certainly returned in due time Or the more formal course can be taken of issuing invitations for an afternoon and evening, or for the evening alone. There would be more of this if the women of rural households would content themselves with such preparations as are within their strength. Perhaps this is not possible, the vice of "showing off" being apparently inseparable from the make-up of a good housewife. But in some way the social conditions of rural life must improve if fathers and mothers are to be contented, or the brighter youth to be retained there.

I do not think it an ignoble view of life to consider its main end rational enjoyment, for the highest pleasure unquestionably comes from labor profitably directed, interspersed