Morning journal and courier., 1892-09-19
THE SUMMEI, COTTAGE
It's Growth in Size and fin Impor- tances During Recent Years.
 From HarDsr,s Weekly


 tances During Recent Years.
 From Harper's weekIy.l
 There have been signs during the cur rent season of astivation that the institu- ton known as the summer hotel has reached the height of popularity and power in this country, and that's its continued progress is more likely to slant down than up. The reason is not that city families ara learning to spend their summers at home, for they flock to the lakes, the noun tains and the seashore in greater numbers than ever, but smaller proportion of them live in hotels and considerably greater proportion in cottages. At Bar Harbor this season several of the largest hotels have remained closed, not because the vogue of Mount Desert has waned, for it was never so much the fashion, but chiefly because the island is full of cottages and the "best people" live in them, thereby damaging the hotels directly by the loss of their own patronage, aud indirectly by ceasing to serve them as bait The ten dency which is illustrated in an exceptional degree at BarHarbor is generally noticeable in the majority of the summer places, and a natural and commendable tendency it is The part of the population to which it is most essential to get out of town gre the women and children, and for them hotel life, even in the summer is decidedly a sec- ond-best expedient. The American hotel bred infant, with whom MT. Henry James | in the earlier years of his literary industry helped to make the world familiar, is a | type which it is as well should not survive | outside of the fiction of the last decade. Without admitting that it ever was a very prevalent type, 1t is safe enough to assume that the more American children are en- | abled to substitute the atmosphere of 8 summer home for the gsrish delights of & | summer hotel the better it will be for the manners of the rising generation.
 Of course, 1t is by no means a new thing | for rich Americans to have summer homes The growth of moss and ivy on some of the | Newport houses attest that. Of course, too, & summer cottage is a luxury. and lux uries are ever prone to make their first bows to the people with the most money. Nevertheless, there are cottages and cot tages, and whenever families that have been used to taking refuge in summer hotels once make up their minds that thev would like cottage better, there is no sound financial reason why they should | not eventually have one. The main diff culties are to decide where it shall be and to bring the family's mind to the point of Il giving hostages to return to the same place several summers in succession. For of course, unless one is rich enough to have an assortment of scattered dwellings, it is an extravaganza to build house unless he is going to occupy it or can rent it. No doubt the possibilities of vagrancy in the summer-hotel method constituted original ly one of it's chief charms. It enabled peo- pie to try at least one new piece every year, and ascertain finally where they preferred to go. But this very quality in it has helped the development of cottages, since, after @ due series of vsgrant seasons, the family is able out of its own sufficient experi- ence to declare settled preference for some particular spot. There the spirit of adventure having given place to the desire for assured comfort, the cottage begins its growth and finally develops into true home, with its accompanying possibilities of hospitality and of continuous accretions of grace and strength.
 The observer who watches the progress of American civilization must be both in. terested and editied at the spread of the summer cottage. He finds in 1t another sign of settling of the population which ii in process, and which make the land con stantly pleasanter and more habitable as | goes on. It Is one phase of the adjusttneu of the people to the conditions arising iron the upsetting of all old habits and possi