THE AMATEUR GARDEN 



The home is the cornerstone of the state. 



The town, the organized assemblage of homes, 

 is the keystone of civiHzation's arch. 



In order to keep our whole civilization moving 

 on and up, which is the only way for home and 

 town to pay to each other their endless spiral of 

 reciprocal indebtedness, every home in a town — 

 or state, for that matter — should be made as 

 truly and fully a home as every wise effort and 

 kind influence of all the other homes can make 

 it. Unless it takes part in this effort and influ- 

 ence, no home, be it ever so favored, can realize, 

 even for itself and in itself, the finest civiHza- 

 tion it might attain. Why should it? I be- 

 lieve this is a moral duty, a debt as real as 

 taxes and very much like them. 



In our People's Institute over in Northamp- 

 ton, Massachusetts, this is the a-b-c of all they 

 seek to do: the individual tutoring, by college 

 girls and town residents, of hundreds of young 

 working men and women in whatever these may 

 choose from among a score or so of light studies 

 calculated to refine their aspirations; the training 

 of young girls, by paid experts, in the arts of the 



132 



