THE SCHOOL OF HOME.

The ocean looketh up to heaven as ’twere a living thing,The homage of its waves is given in ceaseless worshipping.They kneel upon the sloping sand, as bends the human knee,A beautiful and tireless band, the priesthood of the sea,They pour the glittering treasures out which in the deep have birth,And chant their awful hymns about the watching-hills of earth.

The ocean looketh up to heaven as ’twere a living thing,

The homage of its waves is given in ceaseless worshipping.

They kneel upon the sloping sand, as bends the human knee,

A beautiful and tireless band, the priesthood of the sea,

They pour the glittering treasures out which in the deep have birth,

And chant their awful hymns about the watching-hills of earth.

“If the ocean is so good and grand as that he ought to do something at our Chautauqua. Couldn’t he? God must love him very much, he worships him so much.”

“Yes,” said the elm tree. “I have heard that a great man once said, ‘God, God, God walks on thy watery rim.’”

“Wonderful, glorious,” murmured the flowers.

“They tell stories at Chautauqua—pretty stories about things and people; and I have heard that Ocean has a wonderful story. We might send word to ask if he will tell it,” suggested Bachelor.

“I fear he cannot leave home,” said the wind, “but we might try him.”

So it was agreed that the woodpecker should write a beautiful letter,earnestly inviting him to take part in the grand new movement for the coming summer. The brook agreed to carry the daintily-carved missive to the lake, and the lake to the river, and the river would carry it to the sea.

Bachelor spoke next: “They have a School of Languages at Chautauqua, could we have one?”

“I have thought of that,” said the fish, “but who could teach it?”

“That is the trouble,” said Bachelor, slowly shaking his head.

“I know,” said a little bird. “I went to church last night and heard the Bible read, and it said, ‘Day untoday uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.’ I think the day and the night could teach the School of Languages.”

“The day and the night, the day and the night,” said the brook.

“Yes,” said the oldest tree of all, “the day and the night know all languages.”

“We must have a Missionary Day and a Temperance Day,” said the wise old fish.

“What is a Temperance Day?” asked a young squirrel, who was notyet very well acquainted with the questions of the day.

“My dear,” said his mother, “there are some bad people in the world who make vile stuff and give it to people to drink, and it makes them sick and cross; then they do not please God, and there are some good people who are trying to keep the bad people from making it, and the others from drinking it; they are called Temperance.”

“Oh!” said the squirrel, “but why do the folks drink it? I should think they’d know better.”

“So should I, but they don’t. Why, my dear, I must tell you of something that happened to me once. Ilived in a tree at a summer resort, that year, and just under my bough was a window; a young man roomed there for a few days, and every morning he would come to the window with a black bottle in his hand, and pour out some dark stuff and mix sugar and water with it, and drink it as if he thought it was very good. I watched him for several mornings, and one morning the bell rang while he was drinking, and he left the glass on the window-sill, and went to breakfast. I hopped down to see what it was, and it smelled good, so I tasted it. I liked the taste pretty well, so I drank all there was left.Then I started home, but, will you believe it? I could not walk straight, and very soon I could hardly stand up. I tried to climb up a tree, but fell off the first bough, and there I lay for a long, long time. When I awoke I had such a terrible pain in my head! All that day I suffered, and didn’t get over my bad feelings for several days. I tell this as a warning to you, that you may never be tempted to touch anything to drink but water, my dear.”

“You must tell that story, Mrs. Squirrel,” said Bachelor. “And we will call it a story of intemperance, by one of its victims.”

“I will, with all my heart, if it will do any one any good,” she responded.

“Yes, we must have a Temperance Day and all make a speech on drinking cold water,” said the fish.

“And dew,” said the violet.

“I have always drank water, and never anything else, and I think one could scarcely find an older or a healthier tree than I am,” said the elm.

“That is true,” said the fish.

“Cold water, cold water, cold water,” babbled the brook.

“Yes, we can all speak on Temperance Day; we will have a greatplatform meeting. That is what they call it at Chautauqua when a great many speak about one thing. I heard a man telling his little girl about it on the boat,” said the fish.

And the woodpecker wrote it down.

“What was that other you said?” asked a sharp little chipmunk.

“Missionary Day,” said the fish.

“And what is that?”

“Why, there are home missions and foreign missions,” said the fish. “And they talk about them both. I think they have a day for each, or maybe two or three. Missions are doing good to some one, but I don’texactly see the difference between home and foreign missions.”

“Why, that is plain to me,” said Bachelor. “Home missions is when some one does something kind to you, and foreign missions is when you do something kind to some one else.”

“Of course; why didn’t I think of that before?” said the fish.

“One day last year I was very hungry,” said a robin, “very hungry and cold. I had come on too early in the season. There came a cold snap, and the ground was frozen. I could find nothing at all to eat. I was almost frozen myself, and had begun to fear that my friends wouldcome on to find me starved to death instead of getting ready for them as they expected. But a little girl saw me and threw some crumbs out of the window. I went and ate them, and every day as long as the cold weather lasted she threw me crumbs—such good ones too—some of them cake; and she gave me silk ravelings to make my nest of. I think that was a home mission, don’t you?”

“Yes, my dear, it was,” said Bachelor.

“You might tell that as one thing,” said the wind.

“I will,” said Birdie.

Said a daisy, “When I was verythirsty, one day, and the clouds sent down no good rain, the dear brook jumped up high here, and splashed on me so I could drink, and I think that was a home mission.”

“Yes, yes,” said the elm, “it was.”

“I know a story I could tell,” said the ferns.

“And I,” said the elm; “one of many years ago, when I was but a little twig.”

“I know a home mission story too,” said White Violet.

“And I,” said the brook. “Once I was almost all dried up and could hardly reach the lake, and a dearlovely spring burst up and helped me along until the dry season was over.”

landscape“YES, YES,” SAID THE ELM, “IT WAS.”

“YES, YES,” SAID THE ELM, “IT WAS.”

“And I, and I,” chorused a thousand voices.

“But what about foreign missions?” said the fish.

“I sang a beautiful song to a sad old lady in a window, this morning,” said a mocking-bird.

“That’s foreign missions,” said the chipmunk.

“Some naughty boys hid another boy’s hat yesterday, and I found it for him and blew it to his feet,” said the wind.

“I sent a bunch of buds to a sickgirl, this morning,” said the rose-bush with a blush.

“I think we shall have no lack of foreign missions,” remarked Bachelor.

“But what canwedo?” asked an old gray squirrel. “We can’t preach, nor teach. We can run errands and carry messages, but that isn’t much.”

“You might be on the commissary department,” said the wind.

“What’s that?” they all asked.

“Things to eat. We shall need a great many, and you could all lay in a stock of nuts, enough to last all summer, for a great many.”

“Why, surely!” they cried, and allthat fall such a hurrying and scurrying from bough to bough there was as never was seen before. They worked very hard, storing up nuts, and the people came near not getting any at all.

It must have been about a week from the time they sent their letter to Old Ocean, that one afternoon as they were assembled, waiting for the decision of a certain little committee, which had been sent over behind a stone to decide who should be the leader of the choir, that up the stream came a weary little fish.

He was unlike any fish that hadever been seen in that brook, and caused a great deal of remark among the flowers before he was within hearing distance.

He came wearily, as though he had travelled a long distance, but as he drew nearer, the old fish exclaimed, “There comes a salt-water fish! perhaps he has a message from the ocean.”

Then the little company were all attention.

Nearer and nearer he came, and stopped before the old fish with a low bow, inquiring whether this was the Chautauqua Committee.

hawthorne burr“AND THE PEOPLE CAME NEAR NOT GETTING ANY AT ALL.”

“AND THE PEOPLE CAME NEAR NOT GETTING ANY AT ALL.”

On being told that it was, he laida bit of delicate sea-weed, a pearly shell, and a beautiful stem of coral upon the bank, and said: “I have a message from Old Ocean for you. He sends you greetings and many good wishes for the success of your plan, and regrets deeply that he cannot be with you next summer; but he is old, very old, and he has so much to do that he cannot leave even for a day or two. If he should, the world would be upside down. There would be no rain in the brooks, the lakes would dry up, and the crops and the people all would die.”

“O dear! and we should die too,” said the flowers.

“Yes, you would die, too,” said the salt-water fish.

“He has a great many other things besides to take care of; there are the great ships to carry from shore to shore, and there is the telegraph,—”

“What is telegraph?” interrupted that saucy little squirrel who had no regard even for a stranger’s presence.

“Telegraph is a big rope that people send letters to their friends on. It is under the water in the ocean, and the letters travel so fast that we have never yet been able to see them, though we have watched night and day.”

“Wonderful, strange,” they all murmured.

“Old Ocean says,” proceeded the messenger, “that he cannot give you all of his story, as it would be too long, but that he sends some of it written on this shell, and in this coral and in this bit of sea-weed. In the shell is a drop of pure salt water that if carefully examined will tell you many more wonderful things.”

They all thanked the fish kindly for coming so far to bring them these treasures, and begged him to stay and rest, but he declined, saying he had a family at home and must hasten, so he turned to go.

“Stay!” cried Bachelor. “Wouldn’t you be willing to come next summer and give us a lecture on the telegraph?”

The fish laughed.

“Bless you!” said he, “I couldn’t do that. I don’t know enough about it myself. Ask the lightning. He is the head manager, and will give you all the lectures you want. Good-by! the sun is getting low, and I must be off.” And he sped away, leaving the woodpecker writing down “telegraph” and “lightning” on one corner of his memoranda.

And now the committee returned, having decided, by unanimous vote,that the mocking-bird should be the leader of the choir, as he could sing any part, and so help along the weak ones whenever he could see the need of it.

There was a pause after the committee had been told all that had happened during their absence, broken at last by Bachelor.

“I’ve been thinking,” said he, “that it might be as well for us to have a reply to Ingersoll.”

“What is that?” they asked, for they were getting used to strange things, and did not seem so surprised at the new word.

“Ingersoll is a man that says there is no God, and he has written a great many things to prove it,” said Bachelor gravely.

The other poor little flowers were too much shocked to say anything, and they all looked at one another dumbly.

“Is he blind?” asked a bird.

“He must know better,” asserted a fern. “No one could possibly believe such a thing.”

“I don’t know whether he is blind, but I think not,” said Bachelor. “They say he has made a great many other people believe as he does because he talks so beautifully.”

“How dreadful!” said the flowers, in a sad voice.

“They had a man at Chautauqua who answered all he said and proved that it was untrue, but every one did not hear him. I think we ought to have a day to answer Ingersoll,” again said Bachelor.

“Yes, we must,” said the north wind; “and we will all prove thereisa God. No one could have made me but God.” And he blew and blew until the flowers crouched down almost afraid at his fierceness.

When all was quiet again, out hopped a dignified-looking bird. “My friends,” said he, “my wife and I wentto church last night, and they sang a beautiful hymn that has long been one of my favorites. I told my wife to listen hard, and this morning, with my help, she was able to sing it. I think it would help on this subject if we were to sing it for you now.”

“Sing, sing, sing,” said the brook.

two birds“I THINK IT WOULD HELP ON THIS SUBJECT.”

“I THINK IT WOULD HELP ON THIS SUBJECT.”

The meek little wife at her husband’s word stepped out, and together they sang this wonderful hymn:

The spacious firmament on high,With all the blue ethereal sky,The spangled heavens, a shining frame,Their great original proclaim;The unwearied sun, from day to day,Does his Creator’s power display,And publishes to every landThe work of an Almighty hand.Soon as the evening shades prevail,The moon takes up the wondrous tale,And nightly to the listening earthRepeats the story of her birth:While all the stars that round her burn,And all the planets in their turn,Confirm the tidings as they roll,And spread the truth from pole to pole.What though, in solemn silence, allMove round the dark, terrestrial ball?What though norealvoice or soundAmid their radiant orbs be found?Inreason’sear they all rejoice,And utter forth a glorious voice,Forever singing as they shine,The hand that made us is divine.

The spacious firmament on high,

With all the blue ethereal sky,

The spangled heavens, a shining frame,

Their great original proclaim;

The unwearied sun, from day to day,

Does his Creator’s power display,

And publishes to every land

The work of an Almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail,The moon takes up the wondrous tale,And nightly to the listening earthRepeats the story of her birth:While all the stars that round her burn,And all the planets in their turn,Confirm the tidings as they roll,And spread the truth from pole to pole.

Soon as the evening shades prevail,

The moon takes up the wondrous tale,

And nightly to the listening earth

Repeats the story of her birth:

While all the stars that round her burn,

And all the planets in their turn,

Confirm the tidings as they roll,

And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though, in solemn silence, allMove round the dark, terrestrial ball?What though norealvoice or soundAmid their radiant orbs be found?Inreason’sear they all rejoice,And utter forth a glorious voice,Forever singing as they shine,The hand that made us is divine.

What though, in solemn silence, all

Move round the dark, terrestrial ball?

What though norealvoice or sound

Amid their radiant orbs be found?

Inreason’sear they all rejoice,

And utter forth a glorious voice,

Forever singing as they shine,

The hand that made us is divine.

When they had finished, the whole congregation bowed their heads.

“Yes,” they said, “every day we will show forth the greatness of God who made us, and that bad man will see and hear and believe, and the people will not be led away from God any more.”

“We will make that our great aim, to show forth the glory of God,” they all cried together.

So the little workers planned, and sent their messengers far and wide,over land and sea, and made out their programme; and the lecturers spent days and days preparing their manuscript,—for aught I know they are at it yet.

The flowers all have received their invitations to come, and some were so eager to be off that they packed their brown seed trunks and coaxed the wind to carry them immediately, that they might be early on the spot.

Next spring when the snow is gone and the trees are putting forth their leaves, and all looks tender and beautiful, you will see the birds flying back and forth, very busy, carrying travellers and messages; the squirrels willgo chattering to their store-houses to see that all is right, and to air the rooms a little; the birds will build many nests, more than they need, and you will wonder why, and will never know that they are summer nests for rent, else you might like to rent one yourself.

birds flying“YOU WILL SEE THE BIRDS FLYING BACK AND FORTH.”

“YOU WILL SEE THE BIRDS FLYING BACK AND FORTH.”

The wind, too, will be busy, so busy that he will hardly have time to dry your clothes that hang out among the apple blossoms.

You don’t know what it all means?

birds in treeTHE BIRDS WILL BUILD MANY NESTS.

THE BIRDS WILL BUILD MANY NESTS.

Wake up quite early every morning and listen. Be patient, and one morning, just as the first pink glow of the rising sun tinges the east, you will hear a watching tree call out,—

The year’s at the spring,And the day’s at the morn;Morning’s at seven;The hillside’s dew pearled;The lark’s on the wing;The snail’s on the thorn;God’s in his heaven—All’s right with the world.

And then all the lily-bells will chime out the call to prayer, the great red sun will come up and lead, and the little Chautauqua will open.

You will hear the sweet notes of praise from the bird choir, and prayers will rise from the flowers like sweet incense; you will see and hear it all, but will you remember that it is all to show forth the glory of God?

Let the school of home be a good one. Let reading be such as to quicken the mind for better reading still; for the school at home is progressive.

The baby is to be read to. What shall mother and sister and father and brother read to the baby?

Babyland.Babyland rhymes and jingles; great big letters and little thoughts and words out ofBabyland. Pictures so easy to understand that baby quickly learns the meaning of light and shade, of distance, of tree, of cloud. The grass is green; the sky is blue; the flowers—are they red or yellow? That depends on mother’s house-plants. Baby sees in the picture what she sees in the home and out of the window.

Babyland, mother’s monthly picture-and-jingle primer for baby’s diversion, and baby’s mother-help; 50 cents a year.

What, when baby begins to read for herself?Our Little Men and Womenis made to go on with.Babylandforms the reading habit. Think of a baby with the reading habit! After a little she picks up the letters and wants to know what they mean. The jingles are jingles still; but the tales that lie under the jingles begin to ask questions.

What do Jack and Jill go up the hill after water for? Isn’t water down hill? Baby is outgrowingBabyland.

No more nonsense. There is fun enough in sense. The world is full of interesting things; and, if they come to a growing child not in discouraging tangles but an easy one at a time, there is fun enough in getting holdof them. That is the way to grow.Our Little Men and Womenhelps such growth as that. Beginnings of things made easy by words and pictures; not too easy. The reading habit has got to another stage.

A dollar for such a school as that for a year.

Then comesThe Pansywith stories of child-life, travel at home and abroad, adventure, history old and new, religion at home and over the seas, and roundabout tales on the International Sunday School Lesson.

Pansy the editor;The Pansythe magazine. There are thousands and thousands of children and children of larger growth all over the country who know about Pansy the writer, andThe Pansythe magazine. There are thousands and thousands more who will be glad to know.

A dollar a year forThe Pansy.

The reading habit is now pretty well established; not only the reading habit, but liking for useful reading; and useful reading leads to learning.

Now comesWide Awake, vigorous, hearty, not to say heavy. No, it isn’t heavy, though full as it can be of practical help along the road to sober manhood and womanhood. Full as it can be! There is need of play as well as of work; andWide Awakehas its mixture of work and rest and play. The work is all toward self-improvement; so is the rest; and so is the play. $2.40 a year.

Specimen copies of all the Lothrop magazines for fifteen cents; any one for five—in postage stamps.

Address D. Lothrop Company, Boston.

You little know what help there is in books for the average housewife.

TakeDomestic Problems, for instance, beginning with this hard question: “How may a woman enjoy the delights of culture and at the same time fulfil her duties to family and household?” The second chapter quotes from somebody else: “It can’t be done. I’ve tried it; but, as things now are, it can’t be done.”

Mrs. Diaz looks below the surface. Want of preparation and culture, she says, is at the bottom of a woman’s failure, just as it is of a man’s.

The proper training of children, for instance, can’t be done without some comprehension of children themselves, of what they ought to grow to, their stages, the means of their guidance, the laws of their health, and manners. But mothers get no hint of most of these things until they have to blunder through them. Why not? Isn’t the training of children woman’s mission? Yes, in print, but not in practice. What is her mission in practice? Cooking and sewing!

Woman’s worst failure then is due to the stupid blunder of putting comparatively trivial things before the most important of all. The result is bad children and waste of a generation or two—all for putting cooking and sewing before the training of children.

Now will any one venture to say that any particular mother, you for instance, has got to put cooking and sewing before the training of children?

Any mother who really makes up her mind to put her children first can find out how to grow tolerable children at least.

And that is what Mrs. Diaz means by preparation—a little knowledge beforehand—the little that leads to more.

Itcanbe done; andyoucan do it! Will you? It’s a matter of choice; and you are the chooser.

Domestic Problems. By Mrs. A. M. Diaz. $1. D. Lothrop Company, Boston.

We have touched on only one subject. The author treats of many.

Dr. Buckley the brilliant and versatile editor of theChristian Advocatesays in the preface of his book on northern Europe “I hope to impart to such as have never seen those countries as clear a view as can be obtained from reading” and “My chief reason for traveling in Russia was to study Nihilism and kindred subjects.”

This affords the best clue to his book to those who know the writer’s quickness, freshness, independence, force, and penetration.

The Midnight Sun, the Tsar and the Nihilist. Adventures and Observations in Norway, Sweden and Russia. By J. M. Buckley, LL. D. 72 illustrations, 376 pages. $3. D. Lothrop Company, Boston.

Just short of the luxurious in paper, pictures and print.

The writer best equipped for such a task has put into one illustrated book a brief account of every American voyage for polar exploration, including one to the south almost forgotten.

American Explorations in the Ice Zones. By Professor J. E. Nourse, U. S. N. 10 maps, 120 illustrations, 624 pages. Cloth, $3, gilt edges $3.50, half-calf $6 D. Lothrop Company, Boston.

Not written especially for boys; but they claim it.

The wife of a U. S. lighthouse inspector, Mary Bradford Crowninshield, writes the story of a tour of inspection along the coast of Maine with two boys on board—for other boys of course. A most instructive as well as delightful excursion.

The boys go up the towers and study the lamps and lanterns and all the devices by which a light in the night is made to tell the wary sailor the coast he is on; and so does the reader. Stories of wrecks and rescues beguile the waiting times. There are no waiting times in the story.

All Among the Lighthouses, or Cruise of the Goldenrod. By Mary Bradford Crowninshield. 32 illustrations, 392 pages. $2.50. D. Lothrop Company, Boston.

There’s a vast amount of coast-lore besides.

Mr. Grant Allen, who knows almost as much as anybody, has been making a book of twenty-eight separate parts, and says of it: “These little essays are mostly endeavors to put some of the latest results of science in simple, clear and intelligible language.”

Now that is exactly what nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand of us want, if it isn’t dry. And it isn’t dry. Few of those who have the wonderful knowledge of what is going on in the learned world have the gift of popular explanation—the gift of telling of it. Mr. Allen has that gift; the knowledge, the teaching grace, the popular faculty.

Common Sense Science. By Grant Allen. 318 pages. $1.50. D. Lothrop Company, Boston.

By no means a list of new-found facts; but the bearings of them on common subjects.

We don’t go on talking as if the earth were the centre of things, as if Galileo never lived. Huxley and Spencer have got to be heard. Shall we wait two hundred and fifty years?

The book is simply an easy means of intelligence.

There is nothing more dreary than chemistry taught as it used to be taught to beginners. There is nothing brighter and fuller of keen delight than chemistry taught as it can be taught to little children even.

Real Fairy Folks. By Lucy Rider Meyer, A. M. 389 pages. $1.25. D. Lothrop Company, Boston.

“I’ll be their teacher—give them private scientific lectures! Trust me to manage the school part!” The book is alive with the secrets of things.

It takes a learned man to write an easy book on almost any subject.

Arthur Gilman, of the College for Women, at Cambridge, known as the “Harvard Annex,” has made a little book to help young people along in the use of the dictionary. One can devour it in an hour or two; but the reading multiplies knowledge and means of knowledge.

Short Stories from the Dictionary. By Arthur Gilman, M. A. 129 pages. 60 cents. D. Lothrop Company, Boston.

An unconscious beginning of what may grow to be philology, if one’s faculty lies that way. Such bits of education are of vastly more importance than most of us know. They are the seeds of learning.

Elizabeth P. Peabody at the age of eighty-four years has made a book of a number of essays, written during fifty years of a most productive life, on subjects of lasting interest, published forgotten years ago inEmerson’s Magazine,The Dial, Lowell’sPioneer, etc.

Last Evening with Allston and Other Papers, 350 pages. $1.50. D. Lothrop Company, Boston.

The wife of Frémont, the Pathfinder of forty years ago and almost President thirty years ago, has written a bookful of reminiscences.

Souvenirs of My Time. By Jessie Benton Frémont. 393 pages. $1.50. D. Lothrop Company, Boston.

Mrs. Frémont has long been known as a brilliant converser and story-teller. Her later years have been given to making books; and the books have the freshness and sparkle of youth.

The literary editor of theNationgathers together nearly a hundred poems and parts of poems to read to children going to sleep.

Bedside Poetry, a Parents’ Assistant in Moral Discipline. 143 pages. Two bindings, 75 cents and $1. D. Lothrop Company, Boston.

The poems have their various bearings on morals and graces; and there is an index called a key to the moralities. The mother can turn, with little search, to verses that put in a pleasant light the thoughts the little one needs to harbor. Hence the sub-title.

Readers of poetry are almost as scarce as poetry—Have you noticed how little there is in the world? how wide the desert, how few the little oases?

Through the Year with the Poets. Edited by Oscar Fay Adams. 12 bijou books of the months, of about 130 pages each. 75 cents each. D. Lothrop Company, Boston.

Is it possible? Is there enough sweet singing ringing lustrous verse between heaven and earth to make twelve such books? There is indeed; and heaven and earth are in it!

Ginx’s Baby, a burlesque book of most serious purpose, made a stir in England some years ago; and, what is of more account, went far to accomplish the author’s object.

Evolution of Dodd. By William Hawley Smith. 153 pages. $1. D. Lothrop Company, Boston.

Dodd is the terrible schoolboy. How he became so; who is responsible; what is the remedy—such is the gist of the book.

As bright as Ginx’s Baby. A bookful of managing wisdom for parents as well as teachers.

Questions such as practical boys and girls are asking their mothers all the year round about things that come up. Not one in ten of the mothers can answer one in ten of the questions.

Household Notes and Queries, A Family Reference-Book. By the Wise Blackbird. 115 pages. 60 cents.

It is handy to have such a book on the shelf, and handier yet to have the knowledge that’s in it in one’s head.

Transcriber’s Note:Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.The book cover was created by the transcriber by adding cover text to one of the book's images and is placed in the public domain.

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