The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1872-03-21
American HOmesteads.


houses, which is seldom felt in America.
In Europe, one finds everywhere quaint
old buildings, in which generation after
generation have been born and reared,
and have married and died. Every nook
and corner of the building is clustered
over with memories and associations.
The change of such mansion from the
possession of one family into that of an
other is regarded as humiliation, and
mourned as disaster. This feeling is not
without salutary moral effect. 1t cul-
tivates family pride, feeling of honor
in the family name, which, handed down
from father to son, is sought to be main
tanned through successive generations.
1t begets sentiment of unity, among
those who bear the same name and are
connected by ties of blood, which
strengthens these ties and tends more or
less to make each regardful of the inter
ests of all.
But here in America there are as a
rule, no old houses. The son tears down
what the father built, or passes it into
other hands with little or no regret or
conjunction. He builds again that
which his sons shall raze or sell, regard
ing merely his own convenience, and
careless of who shall dwell in the spot
he inhabits after he has quilted it for
ever. Almost all our building is for the
present. We erect with view to tear
ing down, not for permanence, and hence
it is that our architecture has an unsat-
isfaotory air of instability, of cheapness,
and temporary expediency, which Of
tends cultivated taste, and goes far to
@l,a 4la@
chitecture as an art is scarcely to be met
with in our homes.
1t is true there are some fine and cost
ly residences scattered about through
the country and grouped in our large
cities, but throughout the land, cheap
frame buildings, with scarcely an ap-
pearance of design, offend the eye by un-
couth forms, shapeless sculpture, and
glaring white or dingy mud colored ex-
teriors Though we do not dwell in
tents, like some of the Tartar tribes, we
are essentially nomadic in our habits
and tastes. Boys escape as soon as pos
sible from unattractive homes, to chance
their luck in cities, or hew out fortunes
on frontiers. Young men clear off farms
in the far West, sell them at the first ap-
parently good offer, and try it over
again. Land, with us, is not thing to
be kept if possible, but to be speculated
in. Cultivation of soil is too often only
the temporary improvement preparatory
to sale.
Thus increases and hourishes that
restless wandering spirit which charac-
terizes the true Yankee born American.
Considerations of love for the spot on
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feeble when placed against hopes of
profit. All this may, perhaps, find some
compensation in the enterprising spirit
it engenders; but it does not make Our
rural homes picturesque piles half hid
den by honeysuckle, ivy, and woodbine,
like the garden embowered farm houses
and cottages of England.
Much has been written with view
to improve our architectural taste as a
nation, but we are yet too young 10 pro-
gress rapidly in this respect. The great
er portion of our land is too cheap. We
have too much elbow room, and we are
too fond of change. We do not wish to
spend much money on what we may, in
few years at furthest, cease to occupy
So we go on the cheap principle in
building, and content ourselves with
mere bodily comfort, sacrificing esthet-
ic considerations to utility. 1t is vain
therefore, to expect any great genera
improvement in architecture until W.
shall have advanced beyond adolescence
as nation. When the great West shal
have absorbed all it will hold of tn,
worlds population, and people look t.
die where they are born, homestead
will be beautifed, and sense of what i
meant by the word home will be SO i'm
pressed upon the minds and hearts o
youths, that to adorn the place of nativi
ty will seem almost duty.-Scientf
american.