here is the best reason in the world why a tall house in the
country should look grim, gaunt, and awkward; it is thoroughly
inconvenient and out of place. The area of arable land covered by
human habitations does not yet interfere with agricultural products.
So let us spread ourselves freely. When we have learned the beauty and
the strength of co-operation for mutual helpfulness, we shall see the
prevailing mode of constructing houses in cities very much modified.
Now they stand as books are placed on their shelves,--vertically and
edgewise. They would hold just as many people, and be far more
convenient, if they could be laid horizontally, one above the other.

[Illustration: BREADTH AND HEIGHT.]

True, this would involve floors impervious to sound, and
fire-proof,--by no means a fatal objection. Since we can neither "fly
nor go" in the air, like birds and angels, it is well for us, having
found our appropriate level, to abide thereon as far as may be. There
is no doubt that where dwellings must be built compactly in "blocks,"
as we call them, the "flat" arrangement, each tenement being complete
on one floor, is the cheapest and best. Even the fourth story in such
a building is preferable to a house of eight or ten rooms, two on each
floor. But this does not concern you, unless you have a few thousands
to invest in tenement-houses. In the right place I like an
old-fashioned one-story house, but most people have a prejudice
against anything so unpretending.

One other fact besides the worth of co-operation I hope the dwellers
in cities will learn to recognize practically. When there were no
swift and screaming locomotives, no cosey and comfortable horse-cars,
no red and yellow omnibuses even, there was good reason why men must
forego the boon of country air; must forget the color of the ground,
the smell of the green things growing, and the shape of the heavens
above them. But the reason no longer exists. Doubtless the business of
a city should be as compact as possible; but for its dwellings, every
consideration of comfort and happiness, of physical and moral
well-being, demands that the inhabitants shall make the most of their
migratory resources and--scatter; find room to build, not tenements
or residences, but _homes_ for themselves and their children. In the
old time safety was found by crowding together within mural walls. Now
the case is reversed. Where the population is densest, temptations and
dangers do mos