THINGS 
House & Garde 
WE’VE GONE TO FRANCE FOR 
S EPTEMBER .... And men who never dreamed 
they would be in France are there today, gone to fetch 
back such things as never before men went to France to find. 
P'or many of us Paris was France, Paris of the shops 
and boulevards, Paris of the lithesome grace and tinkling 
laughter, Paris of the pleasures, where good Americans go 
when they die; Paris, “the world’s great mart where joy is 
trafficked in,” as Alan Seegar put it. We went there to 
buy dainty clothes, look upon fine paintings, eat of strange 
dishes and mingle with the lightest hearted men and women in the world. 
To others France was the France of the provinces—Brittany the relig¬ 
ious, the smiling Champagne, Normandy of knightly fame and gray 
chateaux, Provence of the poets. Here were picturesque byways where 
old folk and young lived life as though life was a pleasure. Quaint 
memories we brought back from those sleepy towns sprawled along the 
lower Seine, the Ranee, the Aisne, the Garonne and Rhone. 
We used to go to France with trunks awaiting the world’s daintiest 
creations or with kodaks and journals quick to catch the slightest 
inspiration from the life of town and countryside. 
❖ 
T ODAY a strange company has traveled there—men of stern purpose 
in khaki, men with guns and haversacks of simple rations, and 
rails and locomotives and aeroplanes and artillery and all the other grim 
trappings of war. Never before did such Americans go to France, and 
never before did men go there to bring back such things. True, we 
are paying an old debt, but we shall not lose for it. 
The things we have gone to France for are neither territory nor 
revenge nor a voice in the councils of Europe. We have gone there to 
bring back security for our homes here. We have gone, to bring back 
that which America sorely needs—an appreciation of what home means. 
In France, which has no word for home, we will find a new meaning 
for the word. The stakes in the game are human ideals, ideals as 
close to us as those about which the hearthfire is built. 
When President Wilson said that we must make the world safe for 
democracy he pictured not only a democracy of government, but all 
that democracy implies, of which the greatest is the maintenance of 
domestic ideals. 
We did not go overseas blindly; we watched this conflict for more 
than two years. We saw it pass from mere diplomatic intrigue to a 
war that verily is being fought out in Heaven for the security of the 
peace of the world’s homes. 
This security is what we have gone to France to establish. Without 
it we cannot return. 
♦ 
N O apology is needed for talking of the war in a magazine devoted 
to architecture, interior decoration and gardening. These three 
subjects comprise the fabric of the home, the economic basis of life in 
all civilized countries. Any attack on the security of the 
home is a blow struck at them, and the human interests for 
which they exist. 
Since we have grasped this significance of the war and 
have set our hands to the sword, it is well for us to take 
a measure of the things we shall reap for our effort and 
sacrifice. A new taste is being bred in the trenches. Men 
coming from them will bring back a new set of resurgent 
ideals. They will be sickened of fighting. They will 
also be convinced of the necessity for the democratizing of the home. 
♦ 
AMONG the fruits of peace will be not alone the right of men to 
lx. make and maintain their homes as they wish, but the desire to make 
them better homes. 
Heretofore good taste was claimed as a prerogative of the rich. It 
was looked on as a thing aloof from commonplace life, the fine essence 
of rare and artistic souls. Today—you will see it on page 36 of this 
magazine—good taste is defined as “the knowledge of what human 
beings require to make their surroundings more livable.” That definition 
is a sign of the times. 
Good architecture was another of those prerogatives that money alone 
could command; a well-designed house was obviously an expensive 
house. Architects could not afford to bother with small houses because 
there was not enough profit in them. Today there is a distinct move¬ 
ment among architects to design good, small houses. Men who could 
command immense fees are willing to sacrifice them in the interests of 
the widening of their professional appeal. Once on a time when we 
spoke of a city of homes, we pictured a city of little white cottages with 
little green grass plots in front. The actual city was quite different. 
But today and tomorrow—when men come back from fighting—cities 
of little white cottages will spring up all over the land. 
The garden, it would seem, was the only one of these three elements 
that withstood class segregation. Nature is essentially democratic. She 
grows equally well for rich and poor. This fact is being discovered 
by workers in war gardens the country over. Sturdy vegetables and 
magnificent blooms cannot be measured by money or class distinction; 
they are the result of good seed purchased from reliable houses, per¬ 
sistent labor and the application of common sense gardening principles. 
* 
T HE appreciation of these three elements—well designed houses, 
well furnished rooms and good gardens for those who will work for 
them—will be the result of the things our men bring back from France. 
Those of us who are left at home might well anticipate the movement 
for these things which will surely come. It will be the rarest sort of 
foresight on our part. We will, in fact, be consolidating the positions 
as they are won by our men over there, co-operating with them in 
making secure for the future the existence of the home. 
TRAIL AND ROAD 
Now comes the time to take the pack 
And fare on lane and by-way, 
On mountain trail and hunter’s track, 
On country road and highway. 
Unmeasured lands are ours to know, 
And many waters play there; 
And you shall tell me where to go, 
And I shall find the way there. 
Across the mossy mountain trail 
The friendly brook is flowing; 
Along the road, by wall and rail, 
The goldenrod is glowing. 
On track and trail I bear the load 
And trudge ahead to guide you; 
But best I love the country road, 
For there I walk beside you. 
Arthur Guitf.rman. 
