n asset to the community. It is an experiment station for
social progress. Every married couple that sets up housekeeping starts
a new centre of group life. If they diffuse a helpful atmosphere
social virtues will develop and social efficiency increase. On the
other hand, many homes are a menace to the community, because an
ill-mated pair, poorly equipped for the struggle of existence, create
a centre of group life in which the individual is handicapped
physically and morally and too often becomes a curse to society at
large. When it is remembered that the home is at the same time the
power-house that generates the forces that push society forward, and
the channel through which are transmitted the ideas and achievements
of all the past, it will seem to be the supremely important
institution that human experience has devised and sanctioned.

46. =The Ideal Home.=--The ideal home toward which the average home
will be gradually approximating will be housed in a well-built
dwelling of approved architecture; erected in a healthy location with
room enough around it to give air space, and a bit of out-of-doors to
enjoy; tastefully furnished and decorated inside, but without
ostentation or extravagance; occupied by a healthy, happy family of
parents and children who care more for each other and for their
neighbors than for selfish pleasure and display, and who are learning
how to play a worthy part in the folk life of their community and
nation, and how to appreciate the highest and finest qualities that
mind and spirit can develop in themselves or others. If for economic
or social reasons any of this is impossible, there is a weakness in
society that calls for prompt repair.

READING REFERENCES

STARR: _First Steps in Human Progress_, pages 149-158.

JESSOPP: _The Coming of the Friars_, pages 87-104.

GILLETTE: _Constructive Rural Sociology_, pages 170-178.

CARNEY: _Country Life and the Country School_, pages 18-38.

RICHARDS: "The Farm Home," art. in _Cyclopedia of Agriculture_,
IV, pages 280-284.

CHAPTER VI

CHILDREN IN THE HOME

47. =Children Complete the Home.=--If the legend of the Pied Piper of
Hameln should come true and all the children should run away from
home, or if by some strange stroke of fortune no children should be
born in a village or town for ten years or more, the tragedy of the
childless home would be realized. There are localities and even
nations where the birth-r