the career of many a home is ended. No one may be directly to blame,
but want of common knowledge and common wit have set a limit
beyond which such a family may not go. The intelligent family has
some sort of a history which it is their privilege and duty to perpetuate.
Members of the intelligent family are moral sponsors for one another,
the mother for the daughters, the father for the sons, the brothers and
sisters for one another. They find their own best interests in the interests
of one another. The intelligent family is not superstitious. They act upon
the wisdom of the ancient poet, "every one is the architect of his own
fortune." They look to cause and condition for results. They spell "luck"
with a "p" before it. The intelligent farmer plants his crop in the ground,
rather than in the moon, and looks for his harvest to the seed and the
toil. The intelligent merchant locates his business on the street of largest
travel and makes the buying of his goods his best salesman. The intelligent
man of letters thrives at first by making friends of poverty and want, until
one day his genius places his name in the temple of honor. So it is with the
artist, the musician, the inventor, the architect. To be happy and useful
in one's lot, one must know something of the sphere in which he lives and
works, of its practical wisdom, and must be prepared to live, or glad to
die for the cause he serves. No indolent, superstitious, or ignorant family
need look for abiding happiness nor expect to be permanently useful.

Then unselfishness is essential to happy home life. It is a serious
matter for two persons, even when they are naturally mated, to
undertake to live together in peace and harmony. It is a more serious
matter when they are not naturally mated. It is more serious still
when children enter the home, for they bring with them conflicting
tendencies, dispositions, and wills. Often have we wondered how it
is that families get on as well together as they do when we have
considered, what natural differences exist between them, and what