The Republican journal., 1915-05-06
Town Improvement.
An Interesting Meeting of Skowhegan
Grange.

The meeting of Skowhegan Grange
Wednesday evening, April 28th, was Civ
ic Improvement evening and much of the
program was furnished by people outside
the grange membership. 1t included an
address by Mrs Eliz abeth Powers Mer-
rill on Making the Best of Our Town"
and paper by Mrs. Annie F. Fish, pres
ident of the Town Improvement society.
on Clown Improvement"
Mrs. Merrill took up her subject under
four heads: Speaking first of the great
civic awakening of the world during the
last Is years; second, the town mentally.
physically and spiritually; third, the at
mosphere of the town, or the environ
ment of the children; and fourth, the
life of the citizen itself.
abraham Lincoln once said: "A man
ought to be proud of the town in which
he lives, and also said that the town
ought to be proud of the man. Here is
the whole of good citizenship in few
words. An ordinary life lived unto right
eous purposes may be of greater value to
the world than a highly gifted personal
lty living for personal ambition. The
wealth of town depends upon the char
acter OF the men and women it possesses
its condition upon what they are will
ing to do. 1t should be a duty as we'll as
privilege In home or town to bring
order out of disorder, conference out of
incoherence.
''Ihe condition of the town mentally
depends on the mental training of the
home. Talk on great subjects there
broadens the mind of the child and in
spires to higher ideals. The home and
the church are the source of spiritual life.
Marriage at it's best is the finest
flower OF civilization, and the living of
right lives in the home will work out for
the good of the town through the chill
dren. Payson Smith said at Pressure
Isle that the schools could not take the
place of home and church in the teaching
of moral and spiritual truth without
great detriment to both. The church
stands next to the home in spiritual
teaching of the community. Communi-
ties go to pieces which do not keep up
their churches. What'we need today is
not so much the conservation of our ma
tional resources as the conservation of
our religious ideals.
LAS regards the citizen himself" Mrs.
Merrill said: "There is no town more
healthy or better for man than the one
in which he is called by the Master of
Life, for nothing comes by chance. In
the larger view, life for the individual
must always be struggle. The will to
strive and overcome, that Is the personal
endowment. Then where we are is the
place to live life that overcomes and
to help build up and make the best of
the community IN which we live. Our
environment is our opportunity.
Mrs. Fish in her paper on Town I'M
provement made patriotism the starting
point of improvement and traced its de-
velopment from the settling of our Puri-
tanic ancestors, when the church was re-
garded as the seat of government. the
rise of the town with better homes,
streets, schools, asylums, hospitals, IL
braries, until now there is the great
crusade for civic beauty. Mrs. Fish took
up the advertising problem saying that,
Anything marring the beauties of
avenues or Streets destroying vistas,
menacing health, offending good taste or
injuring morals should be subject to re-
strictive measures. One thing is notable,
that in making common places clean, the
duty and hope that rests with the peo-
ple.''
She made strong plea for children g
Fairgrounds. She paid a great tribute
to the grange Els noble order and wor-
thy to take its place in the foremost rank
of our list of Town improvements.