I dreamed of Heaven, and God so near! Were choral work, were choral praise; I woke and found my dream was true, That happy dream of me and you! For Eden, Heaven, no need to roam ; The foretaste of it all is Home, Where you and I through this world's weather Still work and praise and thank together. -William C. Gannett ("The House Beautiful"). A human life, I think, should be well-rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar, unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, even to the dogs and donkeys, may spread, not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood. : George Eliot. The nature of the "home" is an important factor in determining that of the offspring. A noble life in the parent will bear fruit in the physical, intellectual and moral character of the child. Martin L. Holbrook. IV Health in the Home "To most men their home, which they have made out of their own love, is the centre of the world and its paradise."-THEODORE PARKER. F home is a Paradise to most men, may it IF. not be said that it is the Paradise of all women? Either this, or there is no such thing as Paradise for them on this earth. The best that is in our highest civilization is the outcome and product of the home and family life. The greatest dangers that beset our civilization are to be found in those tendencies which would undermine and destroy the home. Before enlarging upon other considerations implied in our topic it is well to take note of some of these reactionary tendencies. The ideal home is a little State within itself. With some of the outward characteristics of the patriarchal monarchy preserved in the joint rulership of the father and the mother, the modern home is getting to be more and more a little Republic. It is well that this is so: but it is well also that the fine quality of courtesy and respect should be preserved in the children which is sometimes dimmed or destroyed by the freer life of the family in our generation. We can no longer cultivate this respect in our children by force and repression. Our only resource is love— and respect for the individuality of our children. Respect will breed respect, courtesy will beget courtesy; and the new product when it is fully manifested will be nobler and more beautiful than that which it will supplant. The childnature is plastic, easily turned into one or another of the avenues by following which character is made or marred, yet there is an individuality in each one which has to be dealt with from the beginning. The old method tended to repress this individuality by compulsion; the new method must stimulate and direct it by a normal process of free expression. Characters were once molded according to some fixed standard of ideal excellence. The new ideal is not static but dynamic in its nature; it aims at progress beyond the attainments of the past; its method is that of growth rather than the molding of character upon a fixed type. I have said that the ideal home is a little State; it must therefore have its recognized individuality and "sphere of influence"; its autonomy, into which the conventions of society may not intrude. In so far as the Socialistic program would interfere with the sanctity and independence of the home life, either by undermining the sacredness of the marriage relation, by controlling the destinies and shaping the characters of the children outside of the home, or by enforcing mechanical theories of State education, it is an influence tending to weaken and undermine rather than |