nd neglect that pervaded
many communities. It was not that the people lacked the aesthetic
sense, but it had not been trained, and in the struggle for the
subjugation of a new continent all such minor considerations must give
way to the satisfaction of elemental wants.

Slowly it is becoming understood that health and beauty are matters
that demand public attention and regulation. Good fortune and
happiness are not purely economic and political concerns. Well-kept
roads, clean and well-planned public buildings, sanitary farm
structures, properly drained farm lands, and pure drinking water may
not add to the number of bushels an acre, but they prolong life and
add to its comfort and satisfaction.

When it seems no longer strange to bother about health conditions, it
will be relatively easy to give attention to rural aesthetics. If a
schoolhouse or a meeting-house is to be erected, it will give greater
satisfaction to the community if the principles of good architecture
are observed and the building is set in the midst of trees and
shrubbery and well-kept lawn. With such an object-lesson, the people
of the community will presently contrast their own property with that
of the public, the imitative impulse will begin to work, and
individuals will begin to make improvements as leisure permits. There
are villages that are ugly scars on a landscape which nature intended
should be beautiful. With misdirected energy, farmers have destroyed
the wild beauty of the fence corners and roadsides, mowing down the
weeds and clearing out the brush and vines in an effort to make
practical improvements, while with curious oversight they have
permitted the weeds to grow in the paths and the grass to lengthen in
the yard. Many a farm in rural communities has untidy refuse heaps,
tottering outbuildings, rusting machinery, and general litter that
reveal the absence of all sense of beauty or even neatness, yet the
farmer and his wife may be thrifty, hard-working people, and
scrupulously particular indoors. Their minds have not been sensitized
to outdoor beauty and hideousness. They forget that nature is
aesthetic; they live in the midst of her beauty, but their eyes are dim
and their ears are dull, and it is difficult to instruct them.
Happily, recent years have brought with them a new sense of the
possibilities of rural beauty. Children are learning to appreciate it
in the surroundings of the schoolhouse and the tasteful decorations of
its