CHAPTER XIX THE PERSONAL EQUATION The lowliest hearthstone flame Is worthier of worship than the sun. The patter of bare brown feet that dance and run And the poor mother's happy smile, are more And awful phantoms born of overwrought And soulless travail on the heights of thought. Maurice Thompson. HE way of life discussed in these pages will bring happiness and contentment, together with TH a large measure of security and individual independence, founded on landed proprietorship, to millions of families now utterly defenseless against the high cost of living and entirely dependent upon landlords for a place to lay their heads. A movement that promises so much in the way of social upbuilding is certainly well worthy of national attention and encouragement. It does not follow that everybody will adopt this way of life; or that all would find it satisfactory if they did. It has been my consistent effort to keep clear the distinction between those who are city-minded and those who are country-minded. It would be very interesting to know how society is divided along these lines, but there is no way to ascertain, except by the slow evolution of the national life. The city-minded will continue, as they ought, to dwell in town. Capital and enterprise, catering always to popular taste, have brought wonderful improvements in the conditions of urban living and will doubtless continue to do so. The modern apartment house is a monument to the craze for city life. It brings within reach of the many conveniences that could not be bought with a price a generation or so ago. Municipal advantages of every kind have been highly developed and are improving all the time. For the city-minded, capital and genius have wrought well in every department; and yet, from the standpoint of the countryminded, the sum of this fine achievement is as "dust and ashes," because it leaves their souls utterly unsatisfied. It represents only the dry husk of living. There is no nourishing kernel at the core of it. The country-minded will never be happy until they can set their feet on a spot of ground all their own. Like the birds of the air, they want a nest of their own designing and fashioning, in the shelter of the trees, under God's blue sky. They simply can not make a home in an apartment house, be it ever so aristocratic and expensive, and equipped with every convenience that the human brain can devise. These countryminded people will always be spiritual aliens in a flat. They will never be at peace with themselves until they strike their roots into their native soil. Having done everything for our city-minded, the time has come when the craving of the country-minded should be allayed, if for no better reason than that of quieting social unrest, and thereby conserving our institutions. The city-minded should stay in town, and doubtless will. No poorer service could be rendered than to urge them to do otherwise. They are happy in their present environment and would be miserable if they stepped out of it. Hence, this message is designed wholly for the country-minded who desire to satisfy their passion for the soil without sacrificing any of the good things they are now getting in their urban experience, including their hold upon the payroll. When we shall have put a tithe of the money and genius into the creation of garden cities that we have put into apartment houses, family hotels, and separate houses jammed together on 25-foot lots, there will be a revelation of country-mindedness that will arouse the nation to a sense of duty long neglected, and put a new star of hope in the sky of our common humanity. The personal equation is what tells in making success or failure, contentment or discontentment, in the homein-a-garden, as in other walks of life. Those who have the right feeling and the aptitude or at least the capacity to acquire it—are the ones to enter upon the adventure. There is such a thing as the home-in-agarden kink in the brain, just as there is such a thing as the mechanical kink in the brain; and, in fact, the two are akin, since the element of workmanship enters into both. Decidedly there is a technical side to littlelanding, and boundless scope for the growth of proficiency, acquired in part by study, but more by experience. The people who do well are those who care; and the people who do best of all are those who sense the deep spiritual significance of the thing, and so make it a sort of religion. In many this is a dormant sense susceptible of being awakened and cultivated in a high degree, like the sense of democracy in backward peoples. The country-minded are confined to no particular walk in life. To illustrate, in one garden city, where some one took pains to get the data, it was found that the following occupations were represented: Housewives, farmers, carpenters, physicians, stenographers, nurserymen, builders, editors, grocers, craftsworkers, stationary engineers, school-teachers, dressmakers, clerks, expert accountants, photographers, contractors, real estate men, printers, clergymen, horticulturists, electricians, metal workers, bank clerks, mining engineers, artists, assayers, bookkeepers, jewelers, blacksmiths, music-teachers, authors, storekeepers, carbuilders, railroad conductors, civil service men, machinists, hotel steward, lumber dealer, truckman, newspaper manager, superintendent of water-works, landscape gardener, locomotive engineer, construction foreman, produce dealer, rancher, gardener, dry goods, tinner, cooper, wood patternmaker, laborer, restaurant man, worsted weaver, patent medicine. As the appeal of the garden home is by no means limited to any particular walk in life, neither is it limited to either sex. The garden home is preeminently a family rooftree, and its ideal proprietor is the man with wife and children, all interested and helpful. I venture to predict that the divorce rate will decrease with the growth of garden homes. Such homes are far more favorable to domestic felicity than apartment houses and family hotels. The mere fact of partnership in a mutual enterprise will have something to do |