December, 1912 
A 
ASTIN 
ae a 
THE JANUARY NUMBER OF AMERICAN HOMES 
AND GARDENS 
ITH the January, 1913, number, AMERICAN HOMES 
AND GARDENS will enter upon its tenth volume. ‘The 
plans completed for the contents of the magazine through- 
out the coming year assure the maintenance of its enviable 
position as the magazine par excellence in the field of pub- 
lications devoted to the interests of the American home- 
builder and home-maker. No other magazine of its sort 
surpasses it for excellence of text and beauty of illustration, 
and the widespread interest in it shown by readers through- 
out the country has been a source of gratification to the 
Editor and to the publisher alike. 
HE Cost of Furnishing a Small House” will be the 
title of an article of great interest by a practical deco- 
rator and artist, Miss Ida J. Burgess. This article will 
take up the matter of itemized costs and will be adequately 
illustrated. ‘“‘The Practical Treatment of an Abandoned 
Farmhouse” will be described by Miss Mary H. Northend, 
and the photographic reproductions accompanying it depict 
beautiful interiors. The plans for this house will be shown, 
as also will the plans for other house articles in this num- 
ber, among which will be “Krisheim Cottage at St. Mar- 
tin’s,”’ described by Harold Donaldson Eberlein, and “A 
Long Island Farmhouse,” described by Robert H. Van 
Court. The subject of Floriculture will receive its share of 
attention in “The Begonia,” an authoritative article on Be- 
gonia culture by F. F. Rockwell. The double-page illustra- 
tion feature for January will present various types of bal- 
conies suited to different styles of architecture. An article 
on “The House Dog”’ by T. C. Turner will be one of the 
best dog articles of the year. This will be beautifully illus- 
trated by photographic reproductions of the various breeds 
of dogs of the “‘house’”’ sort. The various departments, 
“Within the House,” “Around the Garden,” and ‘Helps to 
the Housewife,” will be continued throughout 1913. The 
covers of AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS have continued 
to attract much attention during the past year and the series 
selected for 1913 is equally beautiful. 
HAT few gifts could be more appreciated by anyone 
interested in home-making—and what true American is 
not?—than AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS from month 
to month will suggest itself to many of the magazine’s read- 
ers who are now planning their Christmas surprises, and to 
their lists they will probably add one or more annual sub- 
scriptions as being most appropriate gifts. 
SCHOOLS AS EMPLOYMENT BUREAUS 
HE schoolhouse as an employment office, says the 
U.S. Consular and Trade Reports, is the most recent 
proposal in the movement for the wider use of the school 
plant, according to information received at the United 
States Bureau of Education. Prof. John R. Commons, a 
member of the Wisconsin Industrial Commission, proposes 
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using the schoolhouse as a labor exchange. He believes 
that the school, acting as a branch of the children’s depart- 
ment of the employment office, should be made to help re- 
duce the maladjustment of occupations that is now a crying 
evil. ‘Records of children’s aptitudes should be kept in 
school. Teachers can best tell what the child is good for; 
and they should direct the children into the most promising 
occupations.” It should be said that this principle is already 
partially recognized by public authorities. The vocation 
bureau of the city of Boston aids in directing the future 
occupation of children in the schools. In Ohio the truant 
officer is required by a recent statute to keep on file a list 
of the children between the ages of 14 and 16 who have 
received school certificates and desire employment; pros- 
pective employers are to have access to this list. 
THE STREET IMPROVEMENT IDEA 
HE Fifth Avenue Association, the largest civic organ- 
ization in New York, represents a movement that should 
have every encouragement, a movement that should be taken 
up by civic improvement workers throughout the country. 
Every city and large town in America has a “‘Main”’ street, 
the principal business thoroughfare, whatever its name may 
be. Inthe whirl of competition, or in the lethargy of merely 
grinding out a living, our main streets the counting over 
have become, to a great extent, disfigured by ugly signs, pro- 
jections, garish showcases, wooden Indians, barber poles and 
the like until this commercial hodgepodge has been permit- 
ted to make one forget that even the business section of a 
city should be and can be an orderly, attractive and livable 
quarter. In our hurry we have permitted our business thor- 
oughfares to become perennial eye-sores, junk avenues of 
commercial, instead of commercial avenues of attractive- 
ness. Fifth Avenue has been called ‘‘the finest business 
street in America,” and a few years ago Mr. Robert Grier 
Cooke, of New York, called together a number of public 
spirit business men and proposed the formation of a civic 
betterment organization to be known as the Fifth Avenue 
Association, whose purpose it should be to maintain, 
through action awakened by arousing public interest, the 
beauty of the Avenue, which, at that time, was quickly be- 
coming disfigured by the encroachment of gaudy signs, and 
all the accomplishment to the careless and thoughtless push- 
ing of the commercial idea which was untempered with any 
consideration for public welfare. In the few years of 
its existence the New York public has been made aware of 
the invaluable service this movement has rendered the integ- 
rity of its civic appearance, and the Editor hopes that its 
example will inspire the formation in other cities and towns 
in America of like avenue and street associations. Not only 
our houses should be our homes, but our cities should be 
beautiful and homelike as well. Every American city’s main 
street ought, in the measure of its opportunities, to be just 
as attractive to the citizen as the Rue de la Paix in Paris 
or Under den Linden and the Friederichstrasse in Berlin. 
