tions of the country, which are so
novel to his town-bred taste, so the countryman finds a charm in the
novelty of the town. As one is led toward the quiet and solitude of the
fields and woods, so the other is drawn by the life and interest of the
community.

As a rule, at least in America, where the facilities for pleasant
country living are far less than in England, the countryman who goes to
town is less likely to wish himself back on the farm than is the
town-bred farmer to long for the comforts and conveniences of his former
condition.

"Man is a social animal," and the aphorism is especially true of his
wife and daughter. As the lives of the wife and daughter are much more
confined to the immediate surroundings of the domicile than is that of
the man himself, so the question as between town and country should be
considered more especially with reference to them.

There is a certain amount of truth on both sides of every question; and
the one which we are now considering is not to be answered by a decision
in favor of the heart of a great city, or of the entire solitude of an
outlying farm. As is so often the case, its solution lies between the
two extremes. If one may be permitted to imagine the conditions best
suited to the perfect physical, intellectual, and social development of
the human being, one would naturally think of a small town or a large
village where society is sufficient, where the facilities for
instruction are good, where communication with the large centres is
easy, where the conveniences and facilities for household economy are
complete, and where the country with its beauty and quiet and freshness
is close at hand,--where one feels on this side the influence of a
complete social organization, and on that the sweet breath of mother
earth.

Unfortunately, these imaginings can never be freed from the practical
bearing of the bread-winning and money-making interests. Men must live,
not where they prefer to live, but where their interests compel them to
live. The town and the country have their mutual economic duties by
which their life must be controlled. All that we can hope to do is, on
one hand, to ameliorate the hardness and solitude of country living,
and, on the other, to bring the citizen into nearer relation with the
invigorating fields and woods and boundless air of the country.

Devising no modern Sybaris, where all possible good of life may follow
from the unaided operation of a pe