the
advantage of shelter with the fresh elasticity of outdoor air. I am
not going to give here a treatise on ventilation, but merely to say,
in general terms, that the first object of a house builder or
contriver should be to make a healthy house; and the first requisite
of a healthy house is a pure, sweet, elastic air.

I am in favor, therefore, of those plans of housebuilding which have
wide central spaces, whether halls or courts, into which all the rooms
open, and which necessarily preserve a body of fresh air for the use
of them all. In hot climates this is the object of the central court
which cuts into the body of the house, with its fountain and flowers,
and its galleries, into which the various apartments open. When people
are restricted for space, and cannot afford to give up wide central
portions of the house for the mere purposes of passage, this central
hall can be made a pleasant sitting-room. With tables, chairs,
bookcases, and sofas comfortably disposed, this ample central room
above and below is, in many respects, the most agreeable lounging room
of the house; while the parlors below and the chambers above, opening
upon it, form agreeable withdrawing rooms for purposes of greater
privacy.

It is customary with many persons to sleep with bedroom windows
open,--a very imperfect and often dangerous mode of procuring that
supply of fresh air which a sleeping-room requires. In a house
constructed in the manner indicated, windows might be freely left
open in these central halls, producing there a constant movement
of air, and the doors of the bedrooms placed ajar, when a very slight
opening in the windows would create a free circulation through the
apartments.

In the planning of a house, thought should be had as to the general
disposition of the windows, and the quarters from which favoring
breezes may be expected should be carefully considered. Windows should
be so arranged that draughts of air can be thrown quite through and
across the house. How often have we seen pale mothers and drooping
babes fanning and panting during some of our hot days on the sunny
side of a house, while the breeze that should have cooled them beat in
vain against a dead wall! One longs sometimes to knock holes through
partitions, and let in the air of heaven.

No other gift of God so precious, so inspiring, is treated with such
utter irreverence and contempt in the calculations of us mortals as
this same air of heaven. A ser