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The average theory of home life is that the happiness of home depends almost solely upon the wife and mother; that woman's first and highest mission is her home; that there are no clouds that ever overhang the home that sunbeams, bright and joyous, cannot penetrate. Love and reason, hope and aspiration, blend in a glorious, gorgeous rainbow of promise that arches the holy circle of home. Home means much in this twentieth century; it means all that makes life really worth the living. It is the object to which all unselfish endeavor is directed. It is the one solitary spot in the desert of the world where all those principles taught us in childhood preserve their living, green, and reach out of the twilight of the past into the sun-gold of the future, preserving unbrokenly for generations to come the lessons therein taught. Home is a word that we love to linger on. It brings around our hearts a confiding trust and repose. It has been said that there is no sweeter word in all the dialects of earth than the word home, unless it be the word "Mother," and home always suggests her and clusters about it more happy and hallowed associations than any other place. Its impressions are the strongest, deepest and most ineffaceable. It means life after death, the hereafter, to all who are blessed with offspring, in whom their own characteristics and energies are perpetuated. It is the golden chrysalis, wherefrom the hope of the future takes wings at last. The home life is the nucleus around which all life has its growth, and that its tone and coloring are transmitted not to one generation alone, but to many generations, is an indisputable fact. Some writer has said that each member of the family contributes his or her share towards the making of the home, but the principal, presiding spirit is the wife and mother. She is, or should be, its life, heart and center. The mother holds the key of the soul, and she it is who stamps the coin of character for her sons and daughters. Then crown her queen of the home. We should make our homes as tasteful as possible and beautify them with all the adornments which nature and our purse can provide. We should adorn our grounds with those natural attractions which the Creator has so profusely spread around us, and especially should we adorn the family circle with noble traits and kindly inclinations, fill the atmosphere with affection and thus induce others to love rather than fear us. The ideal home is not made up simply of furniture and fixtures and decorations. The furnishing may be elaborate and luxurious, the decorations of the most artistic charactor, the arrangements for comfort perfect in every respect. Still, if it lacks the sunshine and warmth of love and affection it is not an ideal home; it is cold and dull and without life. It is marvelous, too, if the home lacks this element, how soon it will be manifest. The absence of it permeates the very atmosphere. There are homes, however, whose memory is a perpetual joy, and to which we always turn with emotions of gladness and pleasure. Neither statuary nor paintings may grace niche or wall. They are plain and unpretentious, lacking everything but the necessaries of life. Yet they are filled with beauty because of the spirit of love and affection abiding therein. It is the duty of every father and mother to make the home attractive. Make the living rooms pleasant, give them the sunniest side of the house. The plant that lives in the shade is sickly and unsightly. One of the indisputable conditions of a pleasant home is the preservation of order. Have a place for everything and put everything in its place. "Order is heaven's first law." We should cultivate a habit of reading if we have it not. We need it as well as we need air and sunshine, sleep and food. How refreshing it is to be able to lose one's self, even for a short time, in places where nature reigns. The humblest country boy or girl, kept at home by poverty and having to perform menial labor, may, if he will, with the aid of books, use the eyes and ears and brains of all men, everywhere and in all ages. To-day the whole world of thought is before us and at our disposal, in every city and village, for a mere pittance. Every home should have a library. What bread and other articles of food are to the body books are to the mind, and, as the mind craves knowledge, its wants should be suppiled or provided for with great care. A library always affords the choicest companionship. Some books are inspiring. Every page and sentence stirs us to higher motives and a higher life. Others inspire us with awe and veneration as we read them. Others are fragrant; they breathe the air of the mountain, the hillside, the valley, the home. Those who have a well-selected library may dine with kings and reason with philosophers, associate with poets and painters, and number the master thinkers of all ages among their personal friends. A home without books is a dreary, inhospitable place. A good book is always a genial companion. We should select our libraries with the greatest care, beginning them with the Bible, and making the poets our especial friends, adding, each year, such books as may come within our reach. This is a sure means of refinement and education. The home is almost as incomplete at the present day without some musical instrument, as it would be without books. We should cultivate a taste for music, both instrumental and vocal. Music is classed among the fine arts, and is taught as a science which all may learn. Music has a refining, inspiring and patriotic influence. From the mother's lullaby to Mozart's requiem masses, in the masterpieces of Haydn and Beethoven, we can mark the influence of music. Who has not felt the quickening spirit while singing, or listening to, the sweet melody of the gospel hymns? Have we not the testimony of thousands that martial music thrills the soldier with a spirit of bravery on the field of battle? It has been said that no great musician has ever been convicted of a great crime. Shakespeare, as also well known, makes melodious utterance a test of civilization. Besides bespeaking a soft voice for a woman, he says: "The man that hath no music in himself, nor is moved with a concord of sweet sounds is fit for treason, stratagems and spoils." We are certainly a music loving people. Let us have it, then, in the home. Nature has done her part generously. She sings to us through warbling birds, and whispering pines, rearing waves and whistling winds. The least we can do is to join in the melody of nature, and by so doing, we add one more to the many bulwarks which should ever protect and surround the home. MODERN METHODS OF COMMERCIAL EDUCATION Commercial education is considered in these days to be a very important feature of the equipment of young men for business, and the development of the commercial training school has been very extensive. Not only have business colleges grown to a stage of high efficiency themselves, but as an outgrowth of them commercial courses have been introduced into the public and high schools, and some universities have established departments of commerce. The modern business college of the most advanced type instructs its pupils in bookkeeping, shorthand, typewriting, business methods, commercial law, correspondence, and kindred subjects. The time required to complete the course is from four to eight months, varying with the adaptability of the student. One college announces that some of its particularly ambitious students have finished the complete course in from eight to ten weeks. It will thus be observed that the student may advance as he chooses. There are no classes in which all do the same work. The system of instruction adjusts itself to the individual, and every attention is paid to the fact that the student is seeking at the earliest possible moment to devote himself to active business affairs. Each department of these schools is highly developed. In bookkeeping, for example, the fact is recognized that under the high-pressure methods of modern business, there is no time to train employes in business. The young man or woman who wishes to take a position must be ready to perform his or her duties at once. Consequently in the bookkeeping course, each rule and the reason for it are carefully explained to the student. He is given school currency, notes, drafts, invoices, etc., and works on living business transactions, instead of spending weeks in the dry study of mere text-books. Every detail of a modern office is illustrated, and students are given actual practice in letter filing, letter-press copying, indexing and drawing up all kinds of business papers. The students are well grounded in arithmetic, and taught to be rapid and accurate in figure. They are also taught to write, not only speedily, but well. They take a course in common law, are drilled in letter-writing and spelling, obtain a complete understanding of the latest labor-saving methods of accounting, and are trained to perform all the details and routine of office work. In teaching shorthand the students are usually divided into three grades. When the principles of shorthand have been mastered, speed in writing is attained through systematic practice under the supervision of a skilled and experienced teacher. This point, in the best schools, is reached in from three to five weeks. The grades are then as follows: 1. Where dictation is at the rate of from 30 to 90 words a minute. 2. Where the rate is from 90 to 110 words a minute. 3. Where the rate is from 110 to 125 words a minute. Some of the colleges have introduced what is called a "model office," where shorthand holds full sway. This office has every appliance and convenience of a modern commercial office. Here are duplicated the exact conditions that obtain in the offices of the largest and most progressive business houses. Among the facilities for study are the newest style of desks, new typewriters, with the very latest improvements, the leading card-index systems, folio indices, letter presses, the mimeograph, the newest style everything the student may be required to use later in actual business. All pupils regularly devote a considerable period of their time to this work, familiarizing themselves with the details of office routine, and obtaining a practical instead of a theoretical knowledge of business systems and methods. The school correspondence, as well as that of the employment department, is conducted in this office. The instructor, who is here the employer, in effect, gives each in turn, actual dictation. This is then transcribed, passed to the instructor for examination, and, if necessary, is corrected. The student then attends to the copying, indexing, cross-indexing and mailing of the correspondence. It is a part of the plan of the more progressive schools to assist all their students to obtain positions. To do this effectively, a thoroughly systematized employment department is maintained, which keeps in close touch with a large number of business firms, from which requests for employes are continually received. Banks and trust companies have regularly on file with these institutions applications for the services of the particularly bright and capable. The tuition fees are moderate, and board may be obtained at a reasonably low rate. SPARKS OF SCIENCE |