The Press. (Stafford Springs, Conn.) 1883-1935, 1899-05-11
Jessie M. Good in How to Grow Flowers>
VILLAGE IMPROVEMENT ASSO-
CATIONS.
First Paper.

First Paper.
Changed conditions have made it al
most an imperative business necessity
that something be done, and that quick
ly to make villages and village life more
attractive. For years social economists
have voiced their fears that the end of
the twentieth century would see all our
population living in towns--that the men
would go to their farms in the morning
as to an office, returning to town in the
evening. Grave things have been pre-
dicted for Americas future when this
should come to pass.
The usual futility of specializing upon
the far distant future is proved in this
case. Statisticians tell US that the city
ward tide is about at a standstill, while a
marked change in public sentiment to-
wards country living is apparent For
merly, when man In small town ac-
quired a competence by good business
habits, he grew restless for larger worlds
to conquer, and would remove to larger
town or city. He knew that shrewdness
is recognized the world over, and did not
fear the competition of the city. He
knew, too, that If he did not go, his sons
and daughters would, just as fast as they
could. He did not blame them. Edu-
Gated at good schools, with tastes beyond
the means of the village to crafty, why
should they stay? The consequence has
blood of village life has gone to build up
the cities.
The persons who have thus changed
their places of residence have gained by
cial intercourse that satisfies, and the
self respect which comes from living
where life moves in an orderly way. The
grass and trees are kept trimmed to a
decorous neatness. The parks are gay,
the people who throng them are gay, too !;
their clothes fit and are worn with the
air which marks so distinctly the urban
from the suburban, and our former vii
lager is very complacent over his escape
from the dreary, ill-kept village, where
not one dollar could be raised towards
improvements for the general good, and
property owners would neither keep
fences up nor weeds down.
What then, you ask, has brought about
the change In sentiment towards country
living? There are numerous reasons
which partly account for it.; chief of
which are foreign travel, illustrated books
of travel, cheap magazines, summer Wis
itors and electric railways, while the bi-
cycle has done its full share in the good
work. The annual outpouring of Ameri-
cans to Europe has been productive of
great good, in that the returned travellers
bring home a wholesome discomfort with
the dreary villages and bad roads of their
own country. When we contemplate a
trip to England is it not thoughts of the
quaint, well-kept villages of song and
story that constitute one of the allure
ments of the journey? Think you our
village life is of type to attract the peo-
pie of Europe to visit us? On the con-
trary, the visitor to our shores has never
failed to comment most unpleasantly up
on the lack of beauty and cheerfulness in
these respects.
The summer visitors, with their multi.
| farious demands, and their shocke ed
speech and manner at the lack of ordi.
N hold
have changed hundreds of towns for the
better. Indeed, have somewhere reaG
that sharp remark made by summer
visitor because of the unhygienic condi
resident, was the primary cause of the
formation of the first village improvement
association In the United States.
In 1853 Mrs. J. z. Goodrich, then Miss
Mary Gross Hopkins, after great effort
succeeded in forming an association. Ii
the more than forty-five years of its ak
istence, the members of this organiza
tion have held to the high purpose O
making their town beautiful and health
full, and have kept alive all historical as
sociations of the place. Stock bridge il
an old village as ages go in America. 1t
original charter, granted in 1887, is care
fully preserved but white men had beel
there long before, as missionaries to tn
Indians. Situated in the beautiful Berk
shire region of Massachusetts, part of tn
famous Lenox neighborhood pays it's take
in Stock bridge.