divided they fall." She must practice the motto of "early to bed, and early to rise," which gives her the satisfaction of knowing its divine service, by getting up and earning her breakfast before she eats it.

If there are signs of a farmer losing his farm, some of the first questions that will be asked are, did they rise early? Was his wife economical, or could she waste more with the teaspoon than her husband could earn with the shovel? Were their affairs well regulated? Did she help him in any way? Or did he have to wait on her half the forenoon, and come in early to help get supper in the evening?

A farmer's wife must be vigilant, for "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty " as much on the farm to-day, as it was in the days of Patrick Henry. You know that farmers as a class, are called penurious, stingy etc., and that their wives are stingier than they are.

As a class the farmers come nearer to eating bread in the sweat of their face than any other people. He must work hard in this day of commission men and adulteration, which has a tendency to get him in a rut, and often he does not look beyond. They should guard against this. To provide for others and our own comfort and independence is honorable and greatly to be commended; but that a farmer and his wife should work and slave in all sorts of weather, all their lives, even toward declining years, allowing themselves no pleasure or comfort, shows that they are narrow-souled and miserly. Money is a power with a farmer after a sort; but intelligence, free heartedness and moral virtue are nobler powers.

NECESSITY OF THE FARMERS' LIBRARY.

BY MRS. MARY S. BOHL, WATERTOWN, Ο.

Time was when a successful struggle for simple existence satisfied the longings of a farmer. To be a good farmer now requires more than mere unenlightened, patient drudgery. The calling demands knowledge, constant study, patient experiment and tireless industry.

The life of humdrum hard work and ignorant farming, has driven many young men to forsake farming for more progressive avocations. This is largely the fault of the father on the farm. His theory too often is, that mind will take care of itselfmuscle is the thing needed. He discards agricultural books and periodicals; the traditions of his fathers are enough for him, and ought to be for his sons and daughters, and thus is muscle fed at the expense of mind. Without scientific books and periodicals there would be no schools, no lawyers, no doctors, no skilled mechanics, and practically no farmers. Strike books from existence and a return of the dark ages is inevitable.

Enterprising and intelligent farmers are always experimenting, and results find their way into agricultural periodicals. They may be of as direct benefit to you as to the experimenter. If profits can be derived from these experiments you may share them without the cost of labor, time and money originally expended, or a knowledge of others' failures may save you from making the same mistakes.

Learned men in other callings have devoted time, talent and money in investi gating topics of moneyed interest to the farmer. Could you sweat and toil, contrive, explore and experiment for centuries, your results would fall infinitely short of those already recorded in books other men have written. What man would ever become a successful physician were he to depend for knowledge and skill upon such cases only as came under his personal care and observation. Indeed, could a physician ever become successful under such conditions? Certainly not, any more than

can the farmer who never reads become, in the full sense of the word, a successful farmer.

The physician who reads most knows most; the same is true of all professions and trades. A good agricultural library is as indispensible to the farmer as is the library to the lawyer or doctor.

The very best use you can make of a comparatively small amount of money is to invest it in reliable agricultural books and papers. Let your neighbors call you a "book-farmer" if they will; you will work none the less faithfully and successfully for what you learn in agricultural books and papers. The enhanced value of your farm will be sufficient answer to those who have ridiculed you. Young farmer or old, by all means take your State agricultural paper, and as many more as you can afford. Appropriate a specified amount from each year's earnings for farm books and general literature, then adopt and apply such of their contents as will benefit yourself and family.

LITERATURE.

BY M. G. ToWNSEND, HOLGALE, O.

The gates of the twentieth century swing ajar under the golden bow of promise to all classes of people; and that the people of America shall be "destroyed for lack of knowledge" can not be said in this, the last decade of the nineteenth century, for there was never in the history of the world such extensive researches as we find in the literary field to-day; bringing into its arena the most classic, philosophic and @cientific scholars of the age; bringing forth such a feast of rich things that the most fastidious can feel they are exquisitely fed. It has not been so very many years since, that the Bible, a meagre amount of history and biograghies, and a few newspapers, were the only resources for intelligence. I can remember when the New York Tribune made a special department of foreign intelligence, and it was considered quite an achievement; but to-day we see history, biographies, and almost every phase and condition of life, compared and discussed by its own distinctive and special line of literature. We look upon professorship as almost the acme of civilization, and not a profession exists but what has its own line of literature commanding and using thousands of dollars for its productions. How efficient is the architect of to-day compared with fifty years; yea, half that time, ago. Look at the handsome and palatial residences that beautify our beloved land with the modern improvements and conveniences, complete in all arrangements, and never such artistic skill in the finishing as now. Even the most common day laborer can have his cottagehumble though it may be-built and finished under the most approved plan of the architect, which is indeed a thing of beauty to look upon, giving the owner pleasure and gratification as he enters it to rest and enjoy. Twenty-five years ago the mechanic had but rude forms by which to manufacture his productions. Now, plate after plate, with correct measurements, and instructions are placed before him and with application, beautiful things can be produced. We question sometimes the healthful part of some of the productions, especially the high heels and narrow toes, but watch the improvements on even these lines and you will be brought back to my text that every thing is bettered by having its particular line of instruction. A few years ago, for the teacher in Ohio, The Educational Monthly was the only publication accessible. Now, there are several to aid the teacher in imparting truths on the different branches of knowledge which they are required to teach, and how essential to obtain the best methods. I remember years ago, when under the instruction of the eldest sister of our esteemed friend, Mr. Todd, and later on under a younger ister also, that learning by topic was considered quite a departure from the old method, and created a deeper interest and inquiry, and in succeeding years, when I was teaching near his home, he being on the board of education, the system of teaching by diagram had just come into use, and which we used to the great satisfaction of ourselves and pupils; and thus improvements follow each other until in comparing the now with the then, it seems that we have almost reached the summit of perfection on nearly all avenues in literature. We rarely enter a home but that we see evidence of literary taste and habit, while, perhaps, it may be somewhat limited in certain localities, but that there is a growing interest and appetite for literature can not be denied, and as the farming population is the meat and marrow of this country, we hail with delight the advancement of the interest manifested in selecting and maintaining a higher degree of literature among that very important class of individuals, and when the farmer insists and persists upon good, pure and clean literature, and plenty of it in his home, we may expect to see civilization advanced in corresponding ratio. Besides the family Bible, which should always take the precedence, the price of a few bushe's of grain invested each year in wellselected books, magazines and papers, would soon create a library, the influence of which would have such concentrative and magnetic drawing-power that fewer families would be separated, drifting hither and yon, as their different tastes and temperaments direct, and often for wint of the proper knowledge which should have been obtained under parental direction and protection, they are overcome, blinded by outer appearances, without powers of discrimination, and fall to depths of iniquity from which they have no heart to escape, because of no assurance to stand should escape be possible. The farmer's home, it seems to me, should be as broad on every line as the acres to which his home belongs. No more thoroughly should the land be tilled than should the immortal minds residing on the land, and we know the better the tilling the more plenteous and profitable the yielding.

How often a boy showing tastes and tendencies in early childhood to be a mechanic or artisan on some line, has been encouraged by the few tools and pieces of boards that a wise father has provided, perhaps in number very limited, perhaps obtained by self-denial of some long coveted help or improvement on the farm, but seeing the boy's trend of mind wisely let it develop, until, in after years, he has stood beside his boy, grown to be a man, master mechanic of the machinery which he controlled; and, in other cases, furnishing them literature and every thing that will develop them on the lines which they seem to most enjoy and apply themselves. I believe in this way many a heart-ache is saved and many a gray hair is lessened. But you may ask what about the girls and mothers? I had the pleasure once of being storm-bound and obliged to remain a day or two in a family of three sons and three daughters, father and mother, on what the father told me was a poor farm. He said they had to work hard to produce enough to keep the current expenses balanced and pay the taxes, without buying scarcely any agricultural help or improvements; that the farm was given him as his share of his father's estate, and he supposed he should live and die on it. His eldest son had just gotten somewhere a pamphlet on stock-raising and wanted his father to turn the farm into a stock-farm. He said hissecond son mended the farming utensils on the farm and had repaired toole for the other farmers to take some magazine to which he was ardently attached. The mother, who, by the way, was an excellent cook, said her eldest daughter could not cook potatoes, but from a child was forever sewing and fussing with her cob dolls and a short time before that had learned the dressmaker's trade, and the dry goods part of that house showed there was some one in it that understood the use of needle and tape measure; and literature on different cloths, the texture of which and the use for and all that was needed in her line that could be obtained was gotten her, and to-day she is sole proprietor of a cutting system that is used in all the leading cities in America.

The second girl was the mother's assistant house-keeper, and she and mother had literature for their department. The third boy said all he could do was feed the pigs; but he didn't like to feed only the short nosed ones, because the book on hogs said they were the best.

To-day, the members of that family that are living are peers in their lines of work. The home circle was never broken till death entered it and when the mother and youngest daughter were called up higher. The sons and remaining daughters said, "Father, you've done all you could for us; we'll never leave you after denying yourself that we might have books and advantages, to help us along, and now we will show our appreciation." And so they live, each the complement of the other, rendering to the father godly reverence and deepest affection. And if history, biographies, books and magazines and papers which contain not only the current news, but important questions that are brought before the public mind which relate to the vital interests of our country, and which are ably discussed, supplemented by personal instruction that upon our boys and girls will depend the practical decisions of the people, and therefore they should become well acquainted with them, without forgetting even the very youngest, for Froeble's system of kindergarten work furnishes every thing from the smallest child to young girlhood and boyhood. If such literature could be placed in our farmers' homes, isolated, as many of them are, from society and advantages, I believe fully forty per cent. of our farmers' boys would be contented to stay on the farm until such time as avocations of their choice were engaged in, to their own advantage and the advantage of the world.

We do not recommend, be it remembered, the biography of Jesse James and like characters, and the blood and thunder, dime and nickle, brimstone smelling literature that disgraces many of our news stands and homes of to-day, and neither need these find their way into our homes if fathers and mothers would pre-empt the soil, beginning early with pure literature; but you may ask what would you do if the soil of their minds had been neglected until a taste for such reading had been acquired? I think I would try to purify the news stands, as far as the law would help me, and watch the pockets.

This subject, as it is to-day, is a broad one and not an easy one to regulate; but eternal vigilance will work wonders, and the consequences of impure literature have already proven to the American people that no trouble or labor is too great to guard the youth from its baneful influence, and I am a firm believer in the plain but practical adage, that "As the twig is bent the tree is inclined."

WHAT SHALL OUR YOUNG PEOPLE READ?

BY MISS A. C. ACKLEY, CARROLLTON, O.

Man, in his steady march of progress and civilization, has converted many of the luxuries and accomplishments of life into necessities; and the time is not far remote when reading was an accomplishment to which none but the richest classes of society could lay claim. So rapid, however, has been the intellectual progress within the last century, that it has now become a necessity-one of the senses, so to speak, through which the mind receives impressions from the material and spiritual world, and which enables it to establish relations therewith.

The great question under discussion at present, is not so much how we shall get the young people interested in reading, as what they shall read; for every one reads, but what he reads determines, to a great extent, the character and strength of bis mental and moral faculties. Herce, the great importance of guiding the young mind into a world where it will find nothing weak or vicious, but, on the contrary, will associate with high and ennobling thoughts, that form the foundation of true manhood and womanhoood.

Success in life has deen defined so often as the accumulation of wealth, or the founding of an illustrious name, that the world has come to accept such a theory as the correct one; but the grand master spirits of the age are trying to destroy this theory and substitute for it the true one. True success in life can only be measured by the usefulness of our lives; the amount of self-sacrifice we have endured for the sake of others; the crushing out of selfishness, and a thoughtful regard for the interest of others, as well as ourselves. Any thing that impresses the mind and heart with this true ideal of success in life, should be encouraged ; and is not the reading of good literature, inspired by the great souls, that have struggled to better the condition of man, one of the most potent factors in the formation of such an ideal?

Have you ever rightly considered," says Lowell, "what the ability to read means? That it is the key which admits us to the whole world of thought and fancy, and imagination? To the company of saint and sage, of the wisest and wittiest, at their wisest and wittiest moment? That it enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time? More than that-it annihilates time and space for us; it revives for us, without a miracle, the age of wonder, endowing us with the shoes of swiftness, and the cap of darkness, so that we walk invisible like fern-seed, and witness, unharmed, the plague at Athens, or Florence, or London; accompany Caesar on his marches, or look in on Cataline in council with his fellow-conspirators, or Guy Fawkes in the cellar of St. Stephens."

"Books," says Wordsworth ordsworth, "are a real world;" and he was thinking, doubtless, of such books, as are not merely the triumphs of pure intellect, however supreme, but of those in which intellect infused with the sense of beauty, aims rather to produce delight than conviction.

The words of the wise man are literally true in the present age: "Of the making of books there is no end;" and so vast and so varied has become the mass of reading matter now thrown upon the world, that it requires no small amount of judgment to determine what should be read, and what should not be read. In view of this fact, one of the admonitions of the Scriptures may be very appropriately rendered: "Take heed what ye read and how ye read."

To teach our young people how to discriminate between the good and the bad, in this heterogeneous mass, and how to inspire them with a love for the good and the useful, is a subject in which all parents and teachers should be interested.

One can read but a comparatively small number, even of the good books, and there should be no time whatever allowed for those that have not the indorsement of thoughtful, earnest people.

With the great number of newspapers and periodicals now published, there is a tendency to discard books nearly altogether, and read such literature only as is found in these magazines and papers. So far have we swung in this direction that thoughtful people are now calling a halt, for the purpose of considering this question. They find that in their attemps to read all the good periodicals, they have no time left for books. Well, perhaps some will say, what if the books are neglected; do we not find all that we need in these papers and magazines? We think not. Is the average newspaper calculated to give young people an exalted view of life? I think all will agree with me in answering, "No." That some of the papers should be read, all will admit, but to confine their reading to papers and magazines, though of the very highest order, is not enough to bring out the best development of morals or intellect.

We must not forget that the habit of reading has much to do, too, with the cultivation of language-the formation of habits of speech-that we naturally acquire a knowledge of English words and forms of expression from the literature we read.

We once knew a gentleman whose training in grammar and rhetoric had been almost wholly neglected, but he was an elegant conversationalist; an inquiry into