The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-11-29
VILLAGE PoTsNTIALITIEs.

VILLAGE REPRESENTATIVES..
If the towns and villages of Mime
sofa come generally to adopt the pub
lie improvements installed by so many
of them and contemplated by many
more. there will be a check put upon
the migration to the cities, which has
led to such a congestion of population
in the latter. and. as a resultant that
is inevitable, so much distress when a
period of financial depression came.
While this movement has been thought
to have been largely from the farms,
1t has been mainly, especially in the
. case of men with young and growing
families. from the villages. The in
ducements were the better educational
facilities and the furnishing of those
conveniences of our modern life, water,
light and sewerage, by the cities and
the absence Of them from village life.
There was a lure also in the apparent
larger currents of life in the cities, the
apparent wider social possibilities, that,
at a distance, seemed realities, but
become mere mirages when pursued.
The change that. has taken place
within a few years and is increasing
rapidly in the adoption by suburban
towns of urban advantages is
one of the most striking feat
ures of the times. One who scans tbs
weekly press of the state is impressed
with the activity shown everywhere in
introducing those improvements that
have been heretofore the especial prop
erty of the larger cities and which
were supposed to be beyond the finan-
cal reach of the smaller towns. Hardly
a week passes without some village
paper giving the account of the discus
sion in council of the installation of an
electric lighting plant, either by the
town itself or by private enterprise.
Again it is a WaterWOrks system that
is either being discussed or it's COM
pletion announced. Following this in
evitably comes talk of a sewerage sys-
tenn to enable the waterworks to give
to the people their full possibilities Of
established there is removed from viii
lage life one of its great domestic dis
comforts, and there is also taken away
one inducement to go to a city where
those necessaries of life are provided.
In educational facilities the suburban
towns have made rapid progress in
the past ten years. There is hardly a
village of a thousand inhabitants in
the state that has not now it's high
school classes, either preparing for ad-
mission to the states list or already
listed, while the smaller cities have
their separate high schools. The most
noticeable change for the better is to
be seen in the greater attention paid
to architectural beauty in the school
houses of recent construction The
barn-like structures that satisfied the
taste ten years ago, when utility alone
was consulted, have been superseded
In the later structures by buildings
that unite utility and beauty, and thus
conform to the modern idea of the lat
itude and scope of true education. The
village boy or girl no longer need go
to the city to obtain that preparatory
schooling needed to fit for entrance to
the university or to better prepare for
entrance upon the activities of life.
But the greatest present activity is
in the provision of electric light plants.
and the contest runs not so much be-
tween those favoring and opposing, for
the latter element is rapidly vanishing,
as between the advocates of municipal
ownership and private control. Ii is
one of the significant indications of the
trend of our social organizations that
the former are the more generally vic
torious and are gaining ground as the
experience of other villages in manag-
ing their own plants demonstrates not
only the capability but the greater
economy. Among the villages that
have recently installed an electric
plant is Graceville, whose council pro-
poses to extend the system from light
Ing streets to supplying stores and
houses with light. The council has es-
tablished the rates at which light will
be supplied. and, if the rates are such
rs will even prevent a loss, if they will
barely pay cost, it will give the users
IN advantage that is denied dwellers
Il the cities. The monthly charge
liked is IS cents liGht for the first