The Farm Home

By Mrs. A.J. Wilder, Rocky Ridge Farm

Co-operation is the keynote of affairs today and our lives seem to be governed mostly by the advice of experts. These both are greatly needed and I heartily say more power to them. But every good becomes evil when carried to excess by poor, faulty mortals. Thrift and economy overdone become miserliness; even religion may be carried so far as to become fanaticism and intolerance, the faith of love and gentleness causing hatred and persecution.

And if just so, the power of co-operation and the privilege of having expert advice are not to become harmful, individual thinking and initiative must keep pace with them. We must still do our own thinking and act upon it, for even tho we make mistakes, experience is still the best teacher and thinking and experimenting develop character.

The more we think for ourselves, the less we shall need advice and high priced experts would not need to waste their time and government money which is really our money, in telling us things we should think out for ourselves.

I read an item a short time ago in a farm paper stating that government experts advised the use of oil on shoes to prolong their life and usefulness and in doing so beat the high cost of living. Full instructions were given for this treatment of shoes.

Now the weekly cleaning and greasing of the family shoes was a regular thing with the grandparents and the parents of most of us and they charged nothing for advising and instructing us in the process. In fact, there was at times a compelling quality about their advice that is lacking in that of government experts. But at least our grandparents and their “old fashioned notions” are at last vindicated.

“Scrape off all that dirt and clean those shoes up good, then rub that grease into them,” said they, perhaps a bit sharply.

“The shoes should be thoroly cleaned and warm oil then rubbed well into the leather,” say the experts smoothly.

So you see that expert advice was given in our homes years ago. And after all that is the best place for teaching many things, first and most important of which is how to think for one’s self.

Mrs. A.J. Wilder. "The Farm Home." Missouri Ruralist (February 5 1920): 35.

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