The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-06-18
EEW MTIFoRD,S FUN

| NEW MTLFORD'S FUN
 1 As the news columns of the Journal and Courier show this morning, these be merry and inspiring days in the good old town of New Milford in Litchfleld county. The cause of them is the celebration of two hundred years of honorable and useful history. The form the celebration takes Is that of an Old Home Week, and we are de- 1 lighted to observe that its features have been planned along self-respect- ing and dignined lines. There is pride and lot of 1t, but that will do the town good and not harm.
 There is much that is inspiring to the rest of the State in these eelebra- tions each year in some one of the one hundred and sixty-eight towns of the state, In his thoughtful and sugges- tive remarks Sunday afternoon at the Grove street cemetery, upon the social Organization of Connecticut at the present time, the Rev. Dr. Sheath of the Grand Avenue Congregational church impressed upon his hearers the fact that the great majority of the residents of the state are of foreign ex- traction His object was not to regret the gradual disappearance of the old New England family and the substitu- tion of the oppressed of other nations; l 1t was rather to call attention to the Iproblems which the fact presents and the solution they demand. Prominent among the forces upon which he relies to produce that result are the school, the press and the church. We have no doubt he has made his selection wisely and perhaps they are sufficient In so far as they slowly but surely maintain that spirit of local pride which must attract and hold the new conner if he is to become a real Ameri- can in his conduct, aspiration and en- thusiasm, but the currents of life in Connecticut towns and cities are so varied and angular that 1t is difficult to have complete reliance on direct educational influences alone.
 It would seem as If the spirit awak- ened by the celebration of two hum dred years was of itself a factor of large proportions There are foreign born residents in New Milford, and, while they show constant Inclination to enter more and more into the life of that town they needed just the instruction they are receiving this week, not so much in the admirable and instructive addresses of the we'll informed, as in the neighberlness of the setting. They are being brought closely into contact with the spirit of lIle lOWH dS lHcy ucNS hoNSh hhVWH lt before and are automatically absorb ing 1t as it is to be absorbed in no other way. They are being made to feel without effort that 1t is their town which has had this history. and their town which 1t is for them in the future to guard against injury, either In the form of cheap citizenship or neglect of governmental responsI- bilities. All that constitutes lesson, ;ha fruits of which will fit them for the tasks which must become theirs as a result of their numbers in the years to come.
 The Journal and Courier has been gratlfied at the reception accorded It's suggestion that New Haven begin to prepare for an Old Home Week next year. It would of course be more com plicated affair than that being celebrat- ed at New Milford this week, but the genius for such an undertaking is not lacking here. Outside of the city of Cambridge in the State of Massachu- setts, no city in the country would make such a widespread appeal to the good will of the nation, in it's old Home Week enterprise, as the city of New Haven. The sentiment back of it would ba tremendous.