OF READING

The countryside does not sufficiently appreciate the value of its asset
in the changing seasons. The alternation of winter and summer gives the
admirable opportunity for the harvest for support, and for the fireside
evenings for culture; the two combined make the possibility of an ideal
life. Even in the busy time of summer, the farmer who scientifically
organizes his scheme of farm work, will be able to give one day a week
at least for reading and the study of the literature of farming. Perhaps
the number who compose this orderly scheme of work may at present be
small, nor has any such boon of system including leisure for reading
reached the farm woman. How that older woman on the farm has felt about
this, is one of the great complaints lying back of the Country Life
Movement. Will the Country Girl be obliged to inherit this deprivation?

From the Country Girl of to-day, the report is far more cheering than
from the older women. She has many books at hand. She feels no poverty
in this regard. Sometimes they say: "We have a very large library in our
house--as many as a hundred books," or they say, "My father left us a
large law library," and they seem to love to gaze at the brown backs of
these volumes. Certainly this pride in the inheritance is noble.

If you ask Country Girls what books they have for their very own, they
will in many cases give long representative lists. Encyclopedias will be
included and sometimes books of reference. Their library lists give an
insight into the taste in reading of the American Country Girl that is
most gratifying. The first impression is that her taste is well founded
in classics; the second, that she keeps up with the times. She shows on
the whole great catholicity.

We cannot give room to the long lists: but we may mention some of the
books that, in response to our request, some Country Girls mentioned as
favorites.

In a long list of books that are her own an Iowa girl stars the
following as her favorites:

Life of Ellen H. Richards
Shakespeare's Works
Whittier's poems
_Ben-Hur_
_Uncle Tom's Cabin_
_Kidnapped_
_Quentin Durward_
_The Woman Who Spends_

The stories she enjoys reading when she is tired; the others she takes
to study.

Another mentions these:

All of Mrs. Porter's
Several of Stewart Edward White's
Several of Ralph Connor's
Three of Fox's
Two of Churchill's
_Shepherd of the Hills_
_Johnson's Natural Histo