Farmers' Week in Agricultural College. ' 2G1 



ly as if she proclaimed them from the housetop. The portrait shows 

 only how she may appear at times ; the house shows truthfully what she 

 is. If her purpose is the comfort and happiness of her family it will 

 be apparent ; if it is to show her superiority over her neighbors, that 

 too, will be quite plainly seen; if her desire be to keep up with some 

 more prosperous rival or to hide her own poverty or to be in style — or 

 whatever it may be — it will be impossible to hide it, and the wise 

 woman is therefore honest with herself in choosing high ideals that will 

 express themeselves to her credit. 



Barry Parker, in the "Smaller Middle Class House," says: "The 

 true method of making a room beautiful is to make all the necessary 

 and useful things in it beautiful." This sentence gives the keynote 

 for the expression of the chosen purpose — the necessary and the useful. 

 If these are beautiful there will be little need for mere decoration, and 

 the beauty which is a part of useful things well made will be found in 

 all parts of the house instetld of the painful profusion of the would-be 

 beautiful in the parlor for the impression of the occasional guest, and 

 the equally painful lack in the other quarters of the house which says 

 that anything or nothing is good enough for the kitchen or back bedroom 

 which are in daily use by the family. 



Batchelder says, "The 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, sur- 

 roundings, tools and materials." "Frank and straightforward in the 

 acceptance of the conditions imposed by use" — if this means anything 

 it surely means that the house shall be furnished with a view to the 

 comfort of those who are to live in it, and not to dazzle the eyes of our 

 guests with the glory of our possessions. The chkirs and tables will be 

 strong and well built, inviting use ; the rugs and hangings will be of 

 fast sun-proof colors permitting sufficient light and air for the family 

 without constant anxiety for these less precious possessions; the living 

 room will be frankly the gathering place for the family, not a parlor 

 reserved for callers; the kitchen will receive attention in proportion 

 to its importance in the daily life, and will be as well supplied with 

 convenient tools conveniently arranged as the family purse will permit. 



Many persons, particularly professional decorators, attempt to 

 secure a sense of unity in the house by adopting some historic style as 

 the controlling motive, and we have houses furnished in the Queen 

 Anne style of the Colonial period or the Louis XVI style of the 

 Renaissance period. However successful this may be as an historic 

 reproduction there still exist incongruities between the life and customs 



