Getting the Rural Savor into City Life 59 



a strenuous day in town, to discover its beauties afresh, 

 with a little shock of joyful surprise. 



My proposition is this: If that is a good thing for 

 some of the people, and particularly for those who 

 can have the best there is in life, then it is a good 

 thing for vastly more of the people who would do it 

 if they could. And to make it possible for them to 

 do it is a part, and a very urgent part, of the job 

 awaiting the builders of America. 



It is perfectly true, of course, that there are many 

 who would not care for that sort of thing. Herbert 

 Quick has given us an exceedingly serviceable phrase, 

 when he speaks of the "city-minded" and then of the 

 "country-minded." I venture to say that few people 

 realize to what extent the country-minded predominate 

 among the dwellers in great cities. They are legion 

 these men and women who turn wistful eyes from dens 

 in office buildings, from caves in apartment houses, 

 toward the open spaces dreaming that some day they 

 will have a little home of their own. They send for 

 seed catalogues and dream; attend poultry shows 

 and dream; observe fat squabs in the market and 

 dream; make furtive sketches in idle moments of un- 

 built cottages and unplanted gardens and dream. 

 Some of them, but by no means all, came originally 

 from the country, and look back lovingly to the scenes 

 of their childhood. Whether country or city bred, they 

 all thrill to the thought of the vine and fig tree, of 

 the family hearthstone that survives the mutability of 

 the years. The thing is in the blood of the race. It is 

 primal instinct, of which men are daily reminded by 



