A well-regulated home is a millennium on a small scale-the lion and leopard nature by infantile stroke subdued-and "a little child shall lead them." Blessed the pillow of the trundle-bed on which rests the young head that never ached! Blessed the day whose morning is wakened by the patter of little feet! Blessed the heart from which all the soreness is drawn out by the soft hand of a babe!

But there are children which have been so thoroughly spoiled they are a terror to the community. As you are about to enter your neighbor's door, his turbulent boy will come at you with the plunge of a buffalo, pitching his head into your diaphragm. He will in the night stretch a rope from tree to tree to dislocate your hat, or give some passing citizen a sudden halt as the rope catches at the throat, and he is hung before his time. They can, in a day, break more toys, slit more kites, lose more marbles than all the fathers and mothers of the neighborhood could restore in a week. They talk roughly, make old people stop to let them pass, upset the little girl's school-basket, and make themselves universally disagreeable. You feel as if you would like to get hold of them just for once, or in their behalf call on the firm of Birch & Spank. It is easy enough to spoil a child. No great art is demanded. Only three or four things are requisite to complete the work. Make all the nurses wait on him and fly at his bidding. Let him learn never to go for a drink, but always have it brought to him. At ten years of age have Bridget tie his shoe-strings. Let him strike auntie because she will not get him a sugarplum. He will soon learn that the house is his realm, and he is to rule it. will come up into manhood one of those precious spirits that demand obeisance and service, and with the theory that the world is his oyster, which with knife. he will proceed to open.

He

But if the child be insensible to all such efforts to spoil him, try the plan of never saying anything encouraging to him. If he do wrong, thrash him soundly; but if he do well, keep on reading the newspaper, pretending not to see him. There are excellent people, who, through fear of producing childish vanity, are unresponsive to the very best endeavor. When a child earns parental applause he ought to have it. If he get up head at school, give him a book or an apple. If he saw a bully on the play-ground trampling on a sickly boy, and your son took the bully by the throat so tightly that he became a little variegated in color, praise your boy, and let him know that you love to have him the champion of the weak. Perhaps you would not do right a day, if you had no more prospect of reward than that which you have given him. If on commencement-day he make the best speech, or read the best essay, tell him of it. Truth is always harmless, and the more you use of it the better. If your daughter at the conservatory take the palm, give her a new piece of music, a ring, a kiss, or a blessing.

Let children know something of the worth of money, by earning it. Overpay them if you will, but let them get some idea of equivalents. If they get

distorted notions of values at the start, they will never be righted. Daniel Webster knew everything except how to use money. From boyhood he had things mixed up. His mother gave him and Ezekiel money for Fourth of July. As the boys came back from the village, the mother said, "Daniel, what did you buy with your money?" and he answered: "I bought a cake and a candy, and some beer, and some fire-crackers." Then turning to Ezekiel she said, "What did you buy with your money?" "Oh," said Ezekiel, “Daniel borrowed mine."

On the other hand, it is a ruinous policy to be parsimonious with children. If a boy find that a parent has plenty of money, and he, the boy, has none, the temptation will be to steal the first cent he can lay his hand on. Oh, the joy that five pennies can buy for a boy! They seem to open before him a Paradise of liquorice-drops and cream candy. You cannot in after-life buy so much superb satisfaction with five thousand dollars as you bought with your first five cents. Children need enough money, but not a superfluity. Freshets wash away more cornfields than they culture.

Boys and girls are often spoiled by parental gloom. The father never unbends. The mother's rheumatism hurts so, she does not see how little Maggie can ever laugh. Childish curiosity is denounced as impertinence. The parlor is a Parliament, and everything in everlasting order. Balls and tops in that house are a nuisance, and the pap that the boy is expected most to relish is Geometry, a little sweetened with the chalk of blackboards. For cheerful reading the father would recommend Young's Night Thoughts and Hervey's Meditations Among the Tombs.

He will be

Many

At the first chance the boy will break loose. With one grand leap he will clear the catechisms. He will burst away into all riotous living. so glad to get out of Egypt that he will jump into the Red Sea. A sure way of spoiling children is by surfeiting them with food. of them have been stuffed to death. The mother spoke of it as a grand achievement that her boy ate ten eggs at Easter. He waddles across the room under burdens of porter-house steak and plum-pudding enough to swamp a day-laborer. He runs his arm up to the elbow in the jar of blackberry jam, and pulls it out amid the roar of the whole household thrown into hysterics with the witticism. After a while he has a pain, then he gets "the dumps," soon he will be troubled with indigestion, occasionally he will have a fit, and last of all he gets a fever, and dies. The parents have no idea that they are to blame. Beautiful verses are cut on the tombstone, when, if the truth had been told, the epitaph would have read-KILLED BY APPLE DUMPLINGS!

Temperate in every place-abroad, at home,
Thence will applause and thence will profit come.
And health from either, he, in time prepares
For sickness, age, and their attendant cares.-Crabbe.

THANKSGIVING AT GRANDPA'S

Kinsfolk from far and near come to grandpa's at Thanksgiving. Children and grandchildren, uncles and aunts, even cousins, several degrees removed, find their way to the big, hospitable farmhouse, and for a week before the event

ful day, guests are arriving. Every nook and cranny of sleeping-room comes into requisition; the house overflows with babies and young people generally. The air is jubilant with song and laughter. Grandpa and grandma hear all

their old favorites and all the new Gospel hymns sung to their hearts' content in fresh, glad, young voices. Hide-and-seek, ring-around-rosy, and blindman's buff are in order every evening. Much corn-popping and chestnut-roasting goes on, interspersed with a little love-making.

Was any place ever so fragrant of good things, so wholesome and cheerful as grandpa's? The smell of apples greets you on the threshold; from the kitchen come spicy whiffs, aromatic and appetizing; lavender-scented beds infuse your slumbers with dreams of old-fashioned gardens. Great bunches of chrysanthemums in vases on parlor and sitting-room mantels breathe tribute to passing autumn. The very atmosphere welcomes you.

Grandma's kitchen! Was there ever such a delightful place? Big and sunny it is, with festoons of scarlet peppers, treasures of golden pumpkins, shining pots and pans, singing kettles, mighty, roaring stove-and a whole colony of cooks! Such merry cooks! One beauty of Thanksgiving dinner

at grandpa's is the fun the young folks have in helping to get it. Grandma loves to have them around her, and she lets who will try their hand at pie and pudding making. And now, is not this the nicest school in the world to learn house-keeping in? Why, cooking is play in grandma's kitchen! Grandma praises everything one does, too, and it there are any failures, she says, "Never mind, you'll do better next time!"

I went to the throne with a quivering soul-
The old year was done—

"Dear Father, hast thou a new leaf for me?
I have spoiled this one."

He took the old leaf, stained and blotted,
And gave me a new one, all unspotted,

And into my sad heart smiled

"Do better now, my child."-Kathleen R. Wheeler.

Home's not merely roof and room,

It needs something to endear it;
Home is where the heart can bloom,
Where there's some kind lip to cheer it!
What is home with none to meet,

None to welcome, none to greet us?

Home is sweet,-and only sweet

When there's one we love to meet us!-Charles Swain.

It takes at least two to make a home. It takes at least two to make a

cheerful table. Shun restaurants and dine with your wife.