windows, two beds, four
chairs, a table, a few dishes, father, mother, seven children, dogs,
cats, and chickens. At retiring hour the teacher is pointed to the
corner and is told she is to sleep there. A pile of dirty, ragged
quilts are pulled out from under the beds, some bags and rags rolled
for pillows, and the family dispose of themselves for the night, with
no change of clothing, scarcely the removal of shoes. Change the box
house to a tent, put the fire in the centre, and with less furniture,
but no more smoke or dirt, you have the tepee home of the Indian.
Match the dilapidation and the dirt, the narrow quarters and the
large family, and you have the cabin home in the Georgia swamps and
the lowlands of Louisiana. The conditions in the main are the
same--an untutored father and mother, no books, no pictures, no
newspapers, no clean clothes, no Sunday, no God.

At first sight our sympathies are aroused by the lack of all ordinary
comforts and conveniences of home life, but transplant the family
into a neat cottage, suitably furnished for a home, explaining to
them its advantages and uses, and let us see if thus we have met the
need. What a disappointment! Their old habits still cling to them.
They do not know the names or use of the kitchen utensils; they have
no proper knowledge of cooking, no orderly habits; there is no family
or personal reserve. There are books and newspapers, but they cannot
read them, or cannot read intelligently because of their meagre
vocabulary. Evidently the real degradation of these people does not
lie wholly in the poor cabins or tents, the scant furniture, the
ragged clothing, the shiftlessness and poverty. It is deep in the
nature, and far harder to overcome than any outward conditions.

We want to help them: we ought to help them. For what were we
nurtured and shielded in Christian homes; why taught self-restraint,
self-reliance, the law of God as applied to our duty to ourselves and
our neighbors? Why have our hands been trained to skillful work, our
minds opened to knowledge, if not to make these our talents ten more
by their exercise in behalf of such needy ones? But how shall we
convey to them the blessings of intelligent, Christian home life? I
am sure every womanly heart gives the same response: through the
children.

That is our way--the foundation of the broad work of this
Association. We cannot expect the mothers to teach their children
what they do not know themselves,