August, 1 9 13 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



Vll 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS FOR SEPTEMBER 



THE September number of American Homes and 

 Gardens will be replete with beautifully illustrated 

 articles on house, garden, interior decoration, art and curios, 

 and other subjects of interest to garden lovers. ThereVill 

 be two articles on garden subjects, one on Iris, which will 

 take up the subject of Iris culture, and one on Evergreens 

 for the Home Garden, which will be comprehensively 

 treated by one of the foremost authorities on landscape 

 gardening. Both of these articles will be accompanied by 

 fine photographic reproductions. Miss Mary H. Northend 

 will describe a Medfield, Massachusetts, farmhouse, one of 

 the most interesting old houses in America dating from Co- 

 lonial times. Two modern houses of stucco type, quite dif- 

 ferent one from the other in design, will be illustrated in 

 two articles, and also a most attractive gambrel roof house, 

 which combines a number of features not commonly met with 

 in modern domestic architecture. In the Collectors' De- 

 partment will appear illustrated articles on "Old-Fashioned 

 Four-posters," "Trivets and Toasting-Forks" and "Dolls." 

 The interior decoration department, "Within the House" 

 will be devoted to the subject of Glass. "Around the 

 Garden," "Helps to the Housewife," "Collectors' Notes 

 and Queries," the "Collectors' Mart" and numerous other 

 articles will combine in making the September number es- 

 pecially enjoyable to every reader in town and country. 



AUGUST IN HISTORY 



IN the old Roman calendar, August bore the name of Sex- 

 tilis, as the sixth month of the series, and consisted of 

 but twenty-nine days. Julius Caesar, in reforming the cal- 

 endar of his nation, extended it to thirty days. When not 

 long after, Augustus conferred on it his own name, he took 

 a day from February, and added it to August, which has 

 consequently ever since consisted of thirty-one days. This 

 great ruler was born in September, and it might have been 

 expected that he would take that month under his patron- 

 age; but a number of lucky things had happened to him in 

 August, which, moreover, stood next to the month of his 

 illustrious predecessor, Julius; so he preferred Sextilis as 

 the month which should be honored by bearing his name, 

 and August it has ever since been among all nations de- 

 riving their civilization from the Romans. 



AN INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON SCHOOL 

 HYGIENE 



ALL the leading nations, every State in the Union, every 

 college and university of note in this country and vari- 

 ous other leading educational, scientific, medical and hygienic 

 institutions and organizations, as well as various women's 

 organizations, will be represented at the Fourth Interna- 

 tional Congress on School Hygiene, in Buffalo, August 25th 

 to 30th, according to a preliminary statement just issued by 

 Dr. Thomas A. Storey of the College of the City of New 

 York, secretary-general of the congress. 



Mr. Woodrow Wilson, as President of the United States, 

 has accepted the honorary office of patron of the congress. 

 The president of the congress is Dr. Eliot, one time presi- 

 dent of Harvard University. The vice-presidents are Dr. 



William H. Welch, the great pathologist of Johns Hopkins 

 University, formerly president of the American Medical 

 Association, and Dr. Henry P. Walcott, president of the 

 recent International Congress on Hygiene and Demography, 

 and chairman of the Massachusetts State Board of Health. 

 It is the aim of the organizing committee in charge to 

 bring together at Buffalo a record of men and women in- 

 terested in improving the health and efficiency of school 

 children, and to make this congress — the first of its kind 

 ever held in America — one of direct benefit to each indi- 

 vidual community. A programme of papers and discussions 

 is now being arranged covering the entire field of school 

 hygiene. There will be scientific exhibits representing the 

 best that is being done in school hygiene, and also com- 

 mercial exhibits of educational value. 



WOMEN ^WORKERS IN FRANCE 



THE United States Daily Consular and Trade Reports 

 is authority for the information that in reply to a ques- 

 tion, the French Minister of Labor has issued in Paris some 

 interesting figures giving the number of women — both home 

 workers and out workers — who earn their living in France. 

 The figures are based on the census returns of 1906, and 

 the total number of women workers is given as 4,150,000, 

 employed as follows: Agriculture, 949,000; factories, etc., 

 out workers, 1,385,000; home workers, 540,000; business, 

 public services, liberal professions, out workers, 504,000; 

 servants, 772,000. The wages received by women employed 

 in agriculture and in factories, etc., differ widely, but, accord- 

 ing to the inquiries carried out by a commission in 1893, 

 those engaged in out work as distinct from home work, 

 which is usually paid for by the piece, earn about 3 francs 

 (58 cents) per day in the Department of Siene and 2 francs 

 10 centimes (40 1-5 cents) in the Provinces. 



THE LOUISA ALCOTT HOUSE 



PUBLIC interest in the Alcotts and their Concord home, 

 the famous Orchard House, now preserved as a me- 

 morial of the family, or more especially of the gifted Louisa 

 and her eccentric father (equally gifted in his peculiar way) , 

 is attested by the number of visitors to the above-named 

 little house under the hill on the outskirts of the village, 

 says The Dial. Mr. Frank B. Sanborn, in a recent "Bos- 

 ton Literary Letter" to the Springfield Republican, writes: 

 "The Orchard House has been visited by more than six 

 thousand pilgrims to this Mecca of Concord since it was 

 opened to the public six months ago, and they have con- 

 tributed nearly $1,000 to the fund for maintaining the good 

 old house." In this connection he further remarks: "It is 

 a pity that the letters of Mrs. Alcott to her husband and 

 friends, which were carefully copied out by Mr. Alcott after 

 her death, were not wrought up into her biography by 

 Louisa, who found she had not spirit enough for a work 

 involving so many sad memories. Some of them afterward 

 came out in the lift of Alcott, in which were first published 

 some thirty pages of Emerson, most of which have since 

 been included in the Journals, or will be. They are among 

 his most characteristic writing." 



