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HOME AXD FLO^YEBS 



called the council, and a fourth tolled the 

 requiem of those condemned to execution. 

 Historic memories hang all about the Cam- 

 panile. Galileo made many of his wonder- 

 ful observations from it; Napoleon, it is said, 

 rode his horse half v\"ay up its inclined stair- 

 way. At its foot was the famous Loggia, 

 or meeting place for the Venetian nobles, 

 and near by the church where Frederick 

 Barbarossa made his memorable submission 

 to the pope. On one side is the world-famous 

 Cathedral of St. Marks, and on the other the 

 equally famous Doge's Palace. The Cam- 

 panile was 325 feet high and built of brick, 

 with a fine colossal gold statue of an angel 

 on. the apex of its pyramidal roof. No one 

 who ever saw the Campanile, by day or 

 night, will ever forget it. When the sun 

 shone it looked pinkish like a fairy Vv^and. 

 At night it was generally illumined with red 

 fire shooting upward into the darkness as 

 though made of flame and dancing downward 

 deep into the waves of the lagoon. Venice 

 cannot afford to lose the Campanile — indeed, 

 the world cannot. So it will be recon- 

 structed. A steel . core and weatherproof 

 bricks will soon perpetuate this beautiful 

 monument of tne former greatness of the 

 Bride of the Sea. 



"I think that blindness to beauty will 

 draw down a kind of revenge one day. Who 

 knows? Years ago men's minds were full 

 of art and the dignified shows of life, and 

 they had but little time for justice and 

 peace; and the vengeance on them was not 

 increase of the violence they did not heed, 

 but the destruction of the art they heeded. 

 So perhaps the gods are preparing troubles 

 and terrors for the world again, that it may 

 once again become beautiful and dramatic 

 withal. For I do not believe they will 

 have it dull and ugly forever." — William 

 Morris. 



Civic Improvement Convention 



The third annual convention of the Amer- 

 ican League for Civic Improvement, held at 

 St. Paul, Minnesota, September 24-26, reg- 

 istered the pulse of the betterment agitation. 

 Delegates from the far West, the far South 

 and the far East — from such v/idely scat- 

 tered points as Portland, Oregon; Dallas, 

 Texr.s; Princeton, New Jersey — met at this 

 beautiful city of the far North, and heard 

 the same inspiring story of town and coun- 

 try betterment from all over our vast land. 

 A report of the convention appears on other 

 pages of this issue of Home axd Flowers, 

 and the League promises a complete re:2ord 

 of all the proceedings in an early number of 

 Civic Progress, 



Most notable, perhaps, among the achieve- 

 ments presented at the convention were the 

 rural improvement work recounted by Mr. 

 O. McG. Howard, the playground movement 

 which Miss M. Eleanor Tarrant has so pa- 

 tiently and successfully brought about in 

 Louisville, Kentucky, and the phenomenal 

 growth and progress of the St. Louis League 

 for Civic Improvement, under the superin- 

 tendency of Mrs. Louis Marion McCall and 

 Islw Earle Layman. Home axd Flowers 

 hopes to publish full illustrated accounts of 

 these achievements in the near future. 



The American League for Civic Improve- 

 ment begins its third year of existence bet- 

 ter equipped than ever for the great work 

 before it. Springfield, Buffalo, St. Paul — 

 each convention has registered a decided 

 advance. The change of headquarters from. 

 Springfield to Chicago will give to the prop- 

 aganda of the League a metropolitan tone 

 and a wider appeal. The new organization, 

 with Prof. Zueblin as its efiicient correspond- 

 ing secretary, and a field worker of the ex- 

 perience of Mr. E. G. Routzahn, cannot fail 

 to make even greater progress in the future. 

 At Chautauqua, next summer, the League 

 will hold its deliberations before audiences 

 composed of thoughtful, progressive minds 

 from every section of the United States, who 

 will carr;/ back to, their homes the seeds of 

 endeavors vs'liich will blossom later into 

 cleaner, more beautiful cities and a more 

 exalted citizenship. Archbishop Ireland 

 spoke truly when he said at St. Paul, "Yours 

 is a sublime movement, and it is bound to 

 succeed." 



"Every father will do well to give his boy 

 a piece of land to cultivate with the under- 

 standing that the returns shall be the boy's 

 own. if he cultivates it well. Many a fine 

 boy has left home and been ruined, simply 

 because his hard-fisted father would not let- 

 him have something to call his own." 



New Opportunities for Men of "Wealth 



A writer in a recent number of Tlie Aflun- 

 tic MoiitliJii fi.nds fault with the millionaires 

 of today for lack of originality in their bene- 

 factions. Money, he says, appears to un- 

 nerve them. When they give it is in the 

 same old vvay, for the same old purposes — - 

 of endowing a university, founding a college 

 or church, or building a library. V.^hy, he 

 asks, does not some rich man hand his name 

 down to deathless renown and bestow a per- 

 petual benefit on his fellows bv fathering 

 some new movem.ent for the general better- 

 ment, founding some educational system on 



