Deal with your young son on business principles from the beginning. Do not hastily and unwisely give him a piece of property that will have to be taken from him in the future because of its having grown into a disproportionate value. This old form of mistreatment of the country boy has been the means of thwarting the business integrity of many a promising youth. If the boy's small beginning develops under his care into a business of large proportions, the only check or hindrance that the ethics of the case will allow is that you treat with him on fair business terms, just as you would with any good business man. You may cause him to bear all his own personal expenses and all the expense connected with the care and development of his live stock or crop. Then the matter of curtailing him must stop. And if the son soon becomes able to buy you out, it is certainly an affair to be proud of, not a thing to hinder by unfair means. KEEP THE BOY'S PERFECT GOOD WILL It is a serious matter to lose the boy's confidence or in any way break faith with him, even though there be nothing about the place in which you can make him take a business interest. As he grows to maturity his own inner nature must gradually guide him into the way of a calling--and a divine calling at that it may prove to be. It may not seem out of place to quote the words of a religious teacher who says: "Do you not know that if one's inner nature points out clearly and inspiringly what he should undertake for a life work, such thing may be regarded as the Voice of the Divine One speaking faithfully through the instrumentality of one of his own creatures?" So it may prove at length that you will have to sell a load of corn in order to set up in the garret of your house a miniature art studio of some kind for your young son. Or, perhaps you may have to establish a small machine shop as an adjunct to the barn or wood shed, wherein the budding genius may blossom into that beauty of manly power and efficiency which all the world is glad to admire. Out of just such a wise indulgence as that last named a certain Kansas boy finally became enabled to revolutionize the old farm home and the work done there through the installation of an excellent motor power plant. Electric light for the house and barn, power for operating feed grinder, washing machine, grindstone, fanning mill, and many other such machines--all this has resulted from the rightly directed work of a youth who could have easily been driven to the city into some treadmill of mere wage earning. But, occasionally the boy will prove himself a versatile character, succeeding in a measure in every line of small business to which you introduce him, yet showing a marked success in none. In such case the advisable thing to do is to continue his general education for a longer period than is necessary for the boy who shows an early inclination toward a given line of work. SOME WILL BE RETAINED ON THE FARM