4 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS January, i 



Monthly C omment 



F^^^^^^^^ PORADIC efforts at reform are not always 

 Q fm successful and often fail to accomplish real 

 j^f^ 1^ M good, but they are not necessarily useless. 

 ^^^^1^:5^^^^ Take, for example, the question of public 

 ^^^^^f^^^ manners. This is really a burning question, 

 s^'^^^AiJcJ worthy of the most serious consideration and 

 something in earnest need of vigorous propaganda; yet, as a 

 topic, it receives only scant attention from the public press, 

 and has never yet been elevated into the dignity of a public 

 question. Yet there are few subjects that stand in greater 

 need of immediate attention from all classes of people. The 

 display of public manners that is on view in these United 

 States of ours is something so singularly bad that often 

 enough it seems as though there was nothing else. Public 

 manners, of course, refers to the behavior of any person in 

 public. It affects conduct in street cars, in crowds, in public 

 places of every sort; it refers equally to conduct in a high 

 class restaurant and to that in a police court; it is concerned 

 with men and women, with old and young; it is something 

 that every one should be interested in and which affects many 

 people, often in a most unexpected and unwelcome way. It is 

 quite proper to ask what is to be done in a matter of such 

 universal importance, and what steps are being taken to 

 remedy a crying public evil. 



A FIRST step in the betterment of this evil is the creation 

 of a definite public opinion as to the necessity and the value 

 of improvement. The good people of this land are entirely 

 too prone to ignore matters that do not seem to immediately 

 affect their pocketbook. The loss of money or of income 

 from boorish behavior in public does not appear, as yet, to 

 rank among the topics collated by the statisticians. It is an 

 intangible, indefinite thing, the avoidance of which is doubtless 

 considered desirable, but which, after all, is often supposed to 

 be a matter of comparatively small moment. So our women 

 are jostled and injured in crowds; elderly people and old are 

 thrust to one side in order that the wonderful new "youth" 

 of the country can find a place for itself; spoken language is 

 soiled in countless ways; and a general carnival of bad man- 

 ners holds high riot throughout the land. Courteous folk, 

 like well-trained foreigners, settle among us and soon find 

 their inborn courtesy regarded as quaint and a detriment to 

 advancement; a few years — sometimes a few months^ — 

 rids them of their superfluous manners and they become as 

 rude as the rest of us. A good resolution to make at the be- 

 ginning of a new year is to determine to be a little better 

 behaved than the year before on all public occasions. If 

 everybody, by great good fortune, should happen to make 

 such a resolution, this land would be marvelously more agree- 

 able to live in than it is. And its present attractions are not 

 few. 



No DISCUSSION of home problems is now regarded as com- 

 plete which does not include a chapter on the decay of that 

 world-wide institution. The prophets who foretell its speedy 

 demise, or the historians who rise to chronicle its extinction, 

 appear with the regularity of comets, bursting across the 

 heavens at stated intervals and leaving a brilliant tale of des- 

 olation behind them. Meanwhile, many persons who do not 

 know that there is no longer such a thing as a home, or that 

 under modern conditions there can not be such a thing, go on 

 trying to create one on their own account, and, remarkable 

 to relate, sometimes succeeding in doing so! And why not? 

 The healthily minded soul is not alert for unfortunate con- 

 ditions or undesirable situations, and the right sort of people, 



even under difficult conditions, will find no trouble in making 

 a home of their own, and a good one. There is no surer, 

 more certain way of putting an end to the home as an instru- 

 ment of civilization than to theorize on its extinction. Such 

 philosophy is apt to be discouraging and is quite unnecessary. 

 Is it possible these wiseacres have no homes of their own and 

 want to make every one else equally miserable? 



In a general way there are two classes of elements which 

 help to make a home, exactly as their absence tends to mar it. 

 One group constitutes the visible outward signs, such as the 

 house or apartment, the land or garden, and the funds by 

 which life is supported. The other group includes the per- 

 sonal elements, the spiritual and intellectual side of the home, 

 the intangible things which often count for so much and 

 which, quite as often, can not be measured and indicated with 

 any definiteness. It is difficult and perhaps unnecessary to try 

 to distinguish which is the more important of these factors in 

 home making. It is difficult to live, to be comfortable, or to 

 have enjoyment under physically unpleasant conditions; but 

 the spiritual life is not always extinct under such circum- 

 stances. It is not, in short, necessary to live in a palace in 

 order to be happy. 



The fact is, so many matters enter into the making of a 

 home that no one can be singled out as the one chief essential. 

 Some may be more important than others; some may affect 

 some people more than other conditions may; what seems 

 essential to one may be quite secondary to another. The 

 great trouble with the home problem — if such a problem 

 really exists — is that many people do not know what a home 

 is, do not understand what they might do or ought to do to 

 better it; do not know what may help to make it more home- 

 like; or are ignorant of personal errors and failings, and look 

 invariably for their fellow's mote, ignoring the historic beam 

 in their own eye. There are few limitations to the varieties 

 of human nature. What is the best for one person is not 

 always good for another; and what is the ideal for one may 

 be quite the reverse for another. The home is, in reality, an 

 ideal state; or, to put it another way, a state of ideals. If the 

 ideals which underlie it are not good or do not exist — as often 

 happens — the home naturally becomes an impossibility. The 

 cure will not be found in bewailing the lack of homes, but in 

 inviting the attention of the dissatisfied to more wholesome 

 aspects of the home life. 



Furniture styles change with quite alarming rapidity. 

 For the furniture man it is good business that they should. 

 It promotes trade, it increases buyers, it prevents the old 

 furniture from wearing out too soon, for no one will keep 

 it long enough to find that it does not always survive. Unfor- 

 tunately every one can not have a new set of furniture with' 

 each change of style. The old furniture is often good enough 

 to last some time, and often it must be retained from the lack 

 of means to purchase new articles. The housewife should not 

 be discouraged by such matters. So long as there is furniture 

 factories just so long there will be changes in furniture styles. 

 The solution of the difficulty is not in the constant buying 

 of new furniture, but in the buying of good furniture when 

 any is needed. As a matter of fact style in furniture is not 

 always nearly as essential as excellence and goodness. These 

 are truly permanent qualities, while mere brightness and pret- 

 tiness, no matter how fresh and pleasing when new, seldom 

 have lasting qualities. 



