ody, and Anna
Branch, and our miscellaneous writers, who have written biography,
essays, stories, and practical books: Alice Morse Earle, Marion Harland,
Kate Upson Clark, Mary Heaton Vorse, and Margaret E. Sangster. Women
journalists might also be an additional subject, and women editors, to
cover the entire field of women in letters.

CHAPTER X

TOWN IMPROVEMENT

I--OUR LOCAL CONDITIONS

1. _The Value of Public Sentiment and Cooeperation_--Rise in values as a
town improves; what an enthusiast can accomplish.

2. _Our Water-Supply_--Detailed description: water-system, wells,
cisterns, etc.; quality of the supply; limitations, dangers, and
possibility of improvement.

3. _Our Sanitation_--Detailed description: cesspools; garbage; disposal
of sewage.

4. _Our Yards, Our Streets, Our Parks, Our Public
Buildings_--Tree-planting; fences; city fountains.

BOOKS TO CONSULT--Patrick Geddes: City Development. C. M. Robinson: The
Improvement of Towns and Cities. W. P. Mason: Water Supply (from the
Sanitary Standpoint). Shade Trees: Their Care and Preservation (N. Y.
State Cornell Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 256).

The town water-supply has immense interest; study its relation to the
disposal of sewage; the ice-supply, the use of filters, bottled water,
and the like. Cleaning up and beautifying the back yards of a town,
planting vines, removing unsightly buildings, making gardens and having
window-boxes may be expanded into more than one paper. The village
common, the drinking-fountains, the band-stand, the use of refuse-boxes
in public places, may be discussed.

II--THE WORKING-PEOPLE'S HOMES

1. _Existing Conditions_--The various subjects of air, light,
water-supply, sanitation and adequate fire-escapes may be brought up for
careful consideration.

2. _The Model Tenement_--Plans, profit to the owner of tenement
property, management, rules for tenants (cleanliness, promptness of
payment), beautification of tenements (window-boxes, roof-gardens),
playgrounds.

3. _Model Cottage Homes_--Possibility of acquiring ownership
(building-and-loan associations, thrift clubs). Improving laboring-men's
homes in villages. Yards for children.

4. _The Garden Cities of England_--Compare the Sage Foundation
proposals in America. Model towns (Pullman in this country, Essen in
Germany, etc.).

BOOKS TO CONSULT--Gould: Housing of the Working People (U. S. Labor
Dept.). Manning: Villages for Working Men