the 
[Ocii 
192 
iTients 
village. 
In tlie 
VILLAaE IMPEOVEMENT SOOIBTIBS. 
It is the fashion in these days to 
stitutions and trace them ack^ j.„g]a„cl 
beginnings, however remote. 
town-meetings, Virginian parish 
ties, are all connected wit ^evg. 
even with Germanic institutions, 
lutionhas been the law with whatever has 
been worth the attention of civilized com 
munities. . . „ . 
Now, when the historians of various Ameri¬ 
can institutions have completed their investi¬ 
gations in social and political departmen s, 
they can assuredly find an interesting chapter 
yet to be wi-itten about the evolution of the 
Village Improvement Society idea on Amer¬ 
ican soil. Witli the proper sort of fostering 
care it is quite possible that a national 
society of gi-eat usefulness and significance 
maj' yet spring from this germ. 
It was about twenty years ago that the 
ladies of a quiet Jlassaehusetts town met, 
and determined to do something for the good 
looks of their streets. They were no dreamy 
esthetes, but a group of practical and very- 
much-in-earnest American women. Their 
ideas of village beauty grew steadily, they 
improved the appearance of the town in a 
multitude of ways, by better fences, better 
roads, tree-planting, street-lighting; every 
householder in the place felt the presence 
and inspiration of their work, until the mod¬ 
est little town became a model of a place, 
and the joy and pride of its inhabitants, and 
the fame of it went abroad, and other towns 
began to think of Village Improvement 
Societies. 
Only twenty years, or so, have passed and 
there is hardly a State in the Union where 
some organization of the people themselves 
has not taken the matter in hand. Away 
over on the Pacific Coast towns in Washing¬ 
ton Territory, Oregon, and California have 
adopted the plan. One of the most successful 
has grown up in Berkeley, under the shadow 
of a university of California, where many of 
the wealthie.st and most refined citizens of 
the metropolis of the State are building 
re.sideuces. There, so mild is the climate 
and so fertile the soil, an immense ratige of 
arboreal growths is available for decoration, 
and for utility in street and garden. 
But few are the villages founded where 
something cannot be done in the way of 
suburban improvement and tree-planting. It 
will be long before Angofosta ami Hainmor- 
fe.st have Village Improvement Societies, but 
the dreariest sight in the midst of Nebraska 
plains or Colorado Cacti needs only patience 
and energy to become an oasis, a refuge city 
in the wilderness of neglect. 
The natural province of such socielies is 
in the line of outdoor work. They are to 
clear away the rubbish, the piles of tin cans, 
the deserted and ownerless “ shanties,” the 
waste-heaps of camp or village. They are to 
secure wide streets and roads, and space for 
public buildings, and ample squares, or com¬ 
mons, where people can assemble and chil¬ 
dren play, and where trees, vines, shrubs, and 
flowers may be planted. They arc to interest 
all property-holders in the usefulness and 
practicality of their scheme, so that no ono 
wishes to do anything to injm-e the good- 
looks of the place. Rustic seats they can 
build by the road-sic wish 
they can wall up, an they have 
to bridge; soonei o ^ ^jy young an^ 
in hand will be 
old to be of last be educated 
Men will at 
build an ugly house. 
to perceive that or fences, to 
neglect ^^et, are all bdi^nge- 
east rubbish m i.„,.mnjiiGS of the 
oTthe unwritten harmonies 
the poorest 
to 
’Oils’ 
Lovely, 
refined homes, and such a 
raosphere of growth that ... 
washer-woman’s family the 
milage improvement society gi 
seeds-these are more than a match foi any 
disintegrating social influence. 
The active society, too, is apt o 
care to new enterprises, to the condition of 
factories and workshops as fast as they aie 
established, to the prompt removal of public 
luiisnnees, and to a multiplicity of que^ions 
relating to sewerage and drainage. For it 
is more than the mere loveliness of the vil¬ 
lage ; it is its health, its general welfare, its 
daily needs, which concern such an organ¬ 
ization. 
The old New England town-meeting is not 
a national institution. But if every village 
that really suffers for the lack of social or¬ 
ganization could have an “Improvement 
Society,” sometliing more than tree-planting 
might comn fi’oai it all. There might be 
reading-circles and literary associations, 
night-schools and social asseinhlies. The 
love of a garden, of an avenue of street- 
trees. of a picturesque public square, might 
lead an entii’e eoinmimity into more unsel¬ 
fish and loving relations as neighbors and 
friends. It might protect the ancient Oaks 
and Pines of the region, and gather up the 
fast-fading traditions and records of the 
early history of the community. It might 
go far toward destroying the dullness of 
village life. It might even give that life so 
sweet and beautiful an aspect, so deep and 
lasting a cliarm that over-rvorkod, brain-tired 
men and women would learn to seek it as a 
shelter, and love its old-time simplicities, 
and its gentle refinement. It certainly seems 
as if in that organization known as the “Vil¬ 
lage Improvement Society,” lie great possi¬ 
bilities of good to all rural communities 
throughout America, 
ClIARLKS HoWAKD SiuNN. 
THE KlftHT SPOT, 
One of the mo.st important points to bo 
aftei the lot has been chosen, is to dotormino 
the exact location of the building «po„ tho 
Mto. Wo rofor, ol eourso, to the open lots 
on winch thoro is room not only for the 
building, but for more or loss spaoic 
grounds upon all sidos. On such i ' 
altitude, tho distance from thovarious'bouiifT 
arms. Urn relation to other buildings to i 
street and to trees, present or f«tur ” 
all matters that should not be caroled’ 
tablisbed, and, althongh there are snL"“' 
cireuiiibtaiicc'H Jor each euHn Mw ^ 
t.ln 8.n.r.l p„|.,u “ ‘1° 7 T' 
1.. .u vni.8., ,„wto, „a 
Nothing is easier than to make a 
jBistake by placing a house too low 
a few feet too far in one direction or 
Nothing is more difficult to correct th 
a blunder. Tastes 'differ in this, of 
as in everything else, and no de’finitr®'*®’ 
can he given, but certain cautions 
observed,—for instance, in fixing the 
which are usually placed at the level of’**®* 
grst floor it is well to remember that 
actual front wall of the house, especially ^ 
is of considerable height, will appear 
nearer the street than do the stakes or ho 
that indicate its position. The wall se. * 
to move forward as it rises. SimilarWt^ 
underpinning, that is, the wall helow^th^ 
level of the first floor, seems less in compa * 
son with the height of tho structure after t" 
whole is completed than when there is onl 
a single board or line to show its altitude^ 
Tliere is, therefore, reason for the popuhi 
notion that there is no danger of setting a 
house too high or too far from the street. 
Trees are often allowed to crowd a house 
into an unfavorable location. A heautitol 
tree of large size and healthful growth ought 
not, indeed, to be sacrificed for an inferior 
gain; but when, in order to spare it, the 
finest views from the house are lost, the 
sunshine excluded from the windows, and 
the approach thrown into an inconvenient 
shape, the loss is on the other side, and the 
gain consists in destroying the tree. Espeei- 
ally is this true in regard to trees of moderate 
size, which can be removed, or, in a very 
few years at most, replaced by others. 
We have in mind a row of four Elm-trees 
that were transplanted from the nursery five 
years ago. Two of them measure thirty-five 
inches in circumference at three feet from 
the ground and the other two forty inches. 
They are about as many feet in height as 
inches in girth, and have a corresponding 
spread of branches. With such possibilities 
as that in the way of tree planting and grow¬ 
ing, it is manifestly absurd to set a bouse 
where it will be forever in the wrong place, 
in order to save a tree for which, if it cannot 
be spared, a substitute can easily be found. 
Keeping a house as near the ground as 
possible for picturesque reasons may he 
justified under certain conditions, but d 
commonly involves sanitary dangers which 
ought to be avoided, even at the expense o 
proud Immility and lowly picturesqueness.^ 
T/ie BnUder. 
THE HEAL HOME. 
“ What makes a homo,” remarked the late 
Doctor Holland, “is the light of love koF 
constantly burning on its altar, and " 
wolds tho tendor, sacrod tics of tho 
Persons who avo too busy with the ' *' • 
alTairs of life to find time to 
hoaulify Ihoir liomos will soon poraii' 
latii]) of lovo to burn low and dim on 
altar of thoir lioarth-stonos, and I'l*®**’ 
ignorant of Iho oauso of tlioir 'x'l*®'l^l:'jv^,ir 
they bewail at thoir lot ami marvel a^ 
own wrotoliodnoss, Tlio way to bo 
to inako your homo boautiful and 
within, of course, tho limits of tho ine®^ 
your oommaud. Intolligonoo, love, ®''' 
finomont oiinuol. bo found in a homo 
thoro aro only haro walls and floors, 
thoro aro no books or papers on tho 
no flowers in tho yard, and no innsio» 
hearts of its inrantos.” 
