320 Missouri Agricullural Report. 



-pone you have in mind and the way in which you express your idea. If 

 you can afford oak finishings and oriental rugs, well and good; if not, 

 the essential features may be obtained from commoner materials. I see 

 no reason why the best should not be used on the farm as well as in the 

 city home. Have the best your taste demands and your purse will buy, 

 but be sure that you may have beautiful things at small cost of economy 

 if necessary. 



Mr. Batchelder says further : ' ' Our expression of the idea will be 

 beautiful in direct ratio to our control of our tools and materials, and 

 our appreciation of the principles underlying design. * * * ^\^q 

 beautiful thing is always sane and orderly in its arrangement, clear and 

 coherent in its expression, frank and straightforward in the acceptance 

 of the conditions imposed by use, surroundings, tools and materials. 

 These are things we can analyze and find simj)le rules for our guidance, 

 and from simple beginnings, through continuous experiment we try for 

 order and hope for heauty." 



This sounds somewhat technical on first reading, and I imagine I 

 hear some one thinking — if success depends on knowing the principles 

 of design then my case is hopeless, for I never had a drawing lesson in 

 my life, and I do not know a thing about design." 



Let us see : He says, ' ' The beautiful thing is frank and straight- 

 forward in accepting the conditions of use, surroundings, materials," 

 etc. I think he means about this: If it were necessary to have sleep- 

 ing accommodations in a room which did not permit a bed, he would 

 use a couch, which is frankly all it pretends to be, and not a folding bed, 

 which pretends to be a book-case or writing-desk, and rarely has any 

 beauty in its proportions. I am sure he would have his gas fixtures 

 show that they were meant to burn gas and not add a bit of white glass 

 under the pretense that he was using candles. He would enjoy a beau- 

 tiful hand-carved chair or chest, but he would not tolerate one that 

 had machine-carved ornaments glued on after the fashion of much that 

 is in our stores today. Above all, he would not paint a landscape or a 

 spray of flowers on a chopping bowl and tie ribbons on a guilded toast- 

 ing rack and hang them up for parlor ornaments. 



As to the principles of design, while they furnish study for a life 

 time, it is possible to begin with a simple thing which we know and can 

 appreciate, and by applying it every day, find its connections which 

 will make clear other things we had not noticed before. 



Most household problems can be reduced to two broad principles — 

 space relation and color harmony. Space relation we must deal with at 

 every turn. The table is to be set for a meal ; shall we deposit the dishes 

 containing the food in uninteresting confusion at the end nearest the 



