The Farmstead - The Making of the Rural Home and the Lay-Out of the Farm #266750

Professor Amos Cr. Warner says that chil dren reared in institutions are much below par because they lack the power Of initiative. The farm child has an incessant, varied and uncon scious training Of the eye, the hand, and the mind. While he is developing strength, sym metry, courage, the mental is being coordinated with the physical. The hand is made to Obey the will, while the fact that the handicraft is made useful lends Charm and delight to the work. The city child must try to learn, by a course Of manual training in some public school, what the country child picks up unconsciously in the natural process Of; play and work. After half a century, I look back to one Of the happiest moments Of my life, when I pre sented my mother with a dove-tailed wooden flower box, painted bright red. That flower box first taught me how to make wood take the form desired. While the flower box has long since rotted, the board-runner sled smashed, the water wheel broken, and the boat lies rotten in the bottom Of the lake, the time spent upon them was not thrown away, for they gave me the inspiration and power to boss wood, and this power has served me well in many an emergency.