10/2 The Cornell Reading-Courses 



possible in positions where they will be undisturbed by draughts and by 

 other movements about the room. Favorite quotations, or a calendar 

 of daily texts, may be kept in sight for constant inspiration, for these 

 silent sermons have a way of keeping us up to the mark, physically, men- 

 tally, and morally. 



In order to live efficiently, we must keep ourselves physically freshened 

 and mentally poised. The struggle for mere possession of objects should 

 not master completely our time and strength. The daily routine of work 

 may be our immediate interest, but it is not the goal, for all work, play, 

 rest, and hospitality should combine to make of the home a suitable for- 

 tress of strength to the community, standing for wholesome living, clean 

 ideals, and unselfish public service. 



Listen to Mr. WilHam L. Price in "The house of the democrat": 



" I once built a house for a Democrat — a man who left a money- 

 making partnership when he believed he had as much money as he could 

 employ profitably to his fellowmen — and his one concern for this house 

 was not that it should cost too much, but that it should in no wise embarrass 

 his friends; ample enough to contain them; simple enough to leave them 

 unoppressed; yet with artistry to please and to lead them, if they would, 

 to do likewise. Some of his friends were not well enough off to afford 

 such a house, some of them were rich enough to build palaces; yet his 

 house was not to make the one envious or the other contemptuous. 



" When at last we build the house of the democrat * * * jt 

 shall be set in a place of greenery, for the world is a large place and its 

 loveliness mostly a wilderness; it shall be far enough av/ay from its next 

 for privacy and not too far for neighborliness ; it shall have a little space 

 knit within a garden wall; flowers shall creep up to its warmth, and flow, 

 guided, but unrebuked, over v/all and low-drooped eaves. It shall neither 

 be built in poverty and haste, nor abandoned in prosperity; it shall grow 

 as the family grows; it shall have rooms enough for the privacy of each 

 and the fellowship of all. * * * * 



" The rooms of his house shall be ample, and low, wide- windowed, 

 deep-seated, spacious, cool by reason of shadows in summer, warm by the 

 ruddy glow of firesides in winter, open to wistful summer airs, tight closed 

 against the wintry blasts; a house, a home, a shrine; a little democracy 

 un jealous of the greater world, fenced in, but pouring forth the spirit 

 of its own sure justness for the commonwealth. 



" Its walls shall be the quiet background for the loveliness of life, hung 

 over with the few records of our own and others' growth made in the 

 playtime of art; its furnishings the product of that art's more serious 

 hours; its implements from kitchen-ware to dressing table touched by 

 the sane and hallowing hand of purpose and taste." 



