January, 19 13 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



Vll 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS FOR 

 FEBRUARY, 1913 



THE readers of American Homes and Gardens have 

 expressed so much interest in the many articles on old 

 furniture, ceramics, old silverware and other subjects dear 

 to the heart of the collector, which have appeared in its 

 pages, will welcome the announcement that a greater amount 

 of space is to be given to material of interest to the collector 

 in the future issues of the magazine than heretofore. A 

 regular department for the collector will be one of the 

 features of American Homes and Gardens hereafter. 

 Collectors and others interested in antiques, old prints, auto- 

 graphs, in fact in any field having to do with the embellish- 

 ment of the home, are invited to address the editor in any 

 matters connected with collecting on which they wish in- 

 formation. These will gladly be furnished if stamps are 

 enclosed for postage on replies. 



THE February number of American Homes and 

 Gardens will describe the home of an American col- 

 lector of note and will be illustrated by beautiful photo- 

 graphic reproductions of various sections of the collection. 

 Miss Mary H. Xorthend will contribute an article on a 

 remodelled Massachusetts farmhouse illustrated with photo- 

 graphs of the interior. The rooms of this house are 

 furnished throughout with old Colonial pieces. A Detroit 

 house, in the middle West, will comprise a page feature 

 illustrated by exterior and floor plans. Bird lovers will 

 welcome the illustrated article on birds and bird-houses, 

 and those readers who live by the seashore will find a special 

 interest in an article on a very beautiful house, a seashore 

 home near Stamford, Connecticut. The double page feature 

 will consist of photographic reproductions of well-placed 

 windows. "Fox Hill Farmhouse at Radnor" is the subject 

 of an article by Harold Donaldson Eberlein, describing 

 and illustrating with photographs and plans one of the 

 most attractive stone houses in Pennsylvania. "The House 

 Telephone" will call attention to the desirability of this 

 modern device for furnishing communication between the 

 various floors of the house. The garden feature of the 

 February number will be an article on "Starting Plants In- 

 doors," by F. F. Rockwell. Many other good "things are 

 included in this number. 



APROPOS THE PARCELS POST 



SHORTLY after this issue of American Homes and 

 Gardens reaches its readers, the Parcels Post of the 

 United States will have been inaugurated and the country 

 at large will be given an opportunity to test its efficiency. At 

 present the announcements concerning rates and zones are 

 somewhat formidable to the ears of the layman, although 

 the Post Office Department insists it is a simple matter after 

 all. Several newspapers have expended much energy in in- 

 terpreting the matter, but it will probably be some time 

 before the public familiarizes itself sufficiently with the scale 

 of postal charges to feel quite at home in zonal conversation 

 on the subject. One thing, however, is obvious enough, and 

 that is that a very large sum of money is to be expended 

 for the bills incident to engraving, printing and handling 

 the special Parcels Post stamps which will be placed on sale 



January 1, 19 13, and which the Department requires shall 

 be purchased for franking parcels sent through the mails. 

 It may happen that postal conventions between countries 

 require the use of distinctive stamps for parcels, but instead 

 of following the example of Belgium, with its placard-like 

 Parcels Post stamps, it would seem that our regular postal 

 issues might better be surcharged for parcels use as was 

 done for regular postage, in the case of the United States 

 stamps used in Guam, Cuba, and in the Philippines, and as 

 in the case of the Government Parcels surcharge on the 

 stamps of Great Britain some years ago. The Parcels Post 

 system will now enable the suburban or rural dweller to 

 ship garden and other agricultural products to and fro at 

 a transportation cost that is neither prohibitive nor op- 

 pressive. Even the city garden-maker will now be able to 

 obtain from rural nurseries and seedsmen garden seedlings, 

 etc., without the accessory of an excessive carriage cost. 

 Thus encouragement will be given to the garden movement 

 in both town and country. 



RIGHT THINKING FOR BOYS 



DR. HELEN C. PUTNAM of Providence, R. I., a 

 director of the American Association for Study and 

 Prevention of Infant Mortality, and chairman of its com- 

 mittee on public-school education for prevention of infant 

 mortality, is one of those who are attempting to solve the 

 problem of the education of children with regard to the 

 laws of physical life," says the New York Evening Post. 

 "Children, she thinks, must be led to feel, as uncon- 

 sciously as they realize sunrisings and sunsettings, that life 

 is a trust from fathers and mothers beginning before his- 

 tory; to be guarded and bettered and passed along to chil- 

 dren's children. A definite conception of this trust is 

 essential to right living. Educators are finding that well- 

 directed correlation of human life with phenomena and 

 laws of growing plants and animals, in school gardens and 

 nature studies, develops a wholesome mental attitude. She 

 emphasizes some of the urgent reasons for educating adoles- 

 cent boys and young men in eugenics and details of home 

 sanitation and beautifying. She points out that we have 

 trade and industrial schools for boys; but fatherhood is 

 much more than earning money for the family. If babies 

 were well born and well cared for, their death rate would 

 be almost negligible. No farmer could succeed whose live 

 stock perished uselessly at the rate of American babies. 

 The infant death rate measures the intelligence, health, 

 and right living of fathers and mothers, the standards of 

 morals, and sanitation of communities and governments, 

 and the efficiency of physicians, nurses, health officers, and 

 educators." 



RURAL SCHOOLS 



ALTHOUGH the rural school is often the target of 

 criticism and the object of reform movements, it is not 

 without its defenders, says the Youth's Companion. The 

 Secretary of the United States Civil Service Commission at 

 Chicago says that of the many candidates who come before 

 the board, those from the country schools are successful in 

 a much larger proportion than those from the city schools. 



