290 HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



conjunction with the post-office. Church and school 

 are not really two offices and may be united for such 

 a community as we suggest. Of course our aim is 

 to secure moral and intellectual improvement, while 

 we train the young people to the broadest ethical aims, 

 by intellectual development. 



If we conceive a system of this sort developing 

 we shall soon find a Grange organized, holding its 

 weekly meetings in the same school building, which 

 is unoccupied of course in the evening for school pur- 

 poses. The Grange keeps the families in close al- 

 liance and it may cover the general subject of town 

 improvement, or there may be separately a rural art 

 society. This last association will have for its aim 

 to study road improvement, yard improvement, house 

 painting, fruit growing, and all other local questions 

 that pertain to the indoor or outdoor comfort and 

 wealth. 



This sort of community, made up of recent recruits 

 from city life, we must presume to have brought with 

 it a good deal of taste for music, architecture, and 

 some of those refinements which we can very cor- 

 dially welcome into country life. With all the rest, 

 a tree commission should be appointed, so that the 

 neighborhood and street vegetation shall not be muti- 

 lated. One of the chief troubles just now in the 

 country is the utterly misdirected trimming that is 

 going on. We cannot presume that our city friends 

 will understand trees very cordially or scientifically, 

 but in every community there is at least one person 



