ONE] INTRODUCTION 
about them. For poor people they designed arbor- 
like buildings with fancy turrets and pinnacles; and 
for the wealthy they offered Fifth Avenue palaces, 
to be constructed along boulevards. This book has 
nothing to do with boulevards or villas. I aim sim- 
ply to go out with the people who have a heart sick- 
ness after life in the green fields, and to help them 
as I can in adjusting conditions to desires, or desires 
to conditions. What we want in the country is 
men and women who intend to live as common- 
sense folk; will lift the social level with simple broth- 
erhood, high aspirations, and a humanity filled with 
Godliness — unaffected, pure in heart, and demo- 
cratic. 
This book will not concern itself specifically with 
cooperative colonies. These are hopeful, and 
those in charge of the Salvation Army are promising 
to be successful. My appeal must be to individual- 
ism and to individuals; to men and women who 
have had their eyes opened to the folly of that sort 
of life, which characterizes the bulk of our city 
population — a population where cooperation has 
dropped into deadly competition, and where money 
has become absolute. A studious man, or woman, 
on a small farm, possessed of industry and intelli- 
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