rmstead is an intricate
organism with many parts working wonderfully together. The object, the
reason for the existence of every item and strain of it and for the
thing as a whole, is that there should be at the center of it a radiant
core of joy in which every human member of the little cosmos may have a
share and so reflect back to the others a still greater brightness. In
this farmstead world, each individual member must therefore be made
happy. A tricky word--that word "happiness!" Perhaps it cannot be
defined, but Americans are entitled to pursue it, whatever it may mean!

The wise ones, however, say that the one condition that can and will set
alight a vigorous flame of happiness at the heart of any human farmstead
is that there should be found there the opportunity for growth for
every individual in the circle, for the development of his or her latent
powers, so that each life may find that whatever it was intended to be,
it has been fully able to become; that none of its God-given abilities
have gone to waste for want of notice, furtherance, food, or
inspiration. It would be a pity to find that there was one social
structure among the devices of our high civilization that was stubbornly
inhospitable to the entrance of that messenger, "Growth," who precedes
and announces the heavenly visitant, "Happiness." The farmstead must not
be accused of being such a structure as that unless it is absolutely
necessary.

To what extent, then, does the farmstead offer opportunity for such
growth? Is it too much to ask that the ultimate joy of living, the joy
of growth, should be brought very near to the eyes of the people living
on the farmsteads, that their imaginations should be touched even more
keenly than they now are to a consciousness of the real possibilities in
their environment? What can we do to create an atmosphere that will give
its own enthusiasm to the people, that will bind each member of the
farmstead indissolubly to the place; one in which there shall be so
swift a certainty that it will seem like magic; that must so charm the
mind and the heart of each one that the tie will hold against any kind
of onslaught?

But the claim is being made in some quarters that the countryside home
does not live up to its possibilities in this respect, and if not in
this respect then the country life movement has a real pang behind it as
well as an uprising of renewed life. If the father in the home, who is
the farmer and h