Suggested Exhibits.
Such an experiment as this, the appliances at work for Mr. Hillman, suggest exhibits which might form part of the premises of agricultural colleges and technical schools. These establishments usually require for their officers such dwellings as are not too large and costly for ordinary householders. These dwellings, carefully designed and equipped, might serve as examples of the best practice in building, planning and appointment; in sound methods of heating from a central plant. At suitable times they might be open to public inspection. They might range in cost from $1,000 to $5,000, the cheapest to be built of wood, others to be built in brick, stone, or concrete. All the furniture and fittings to be chosen with an eye to wholesomeness, durability, and maintenance with the least labor possible. Each house should contain in its main room a card telling the cost of the building, with estimates of cost if executed in other materials. On occasion this plan might be extended to the contents of houses, each item on show days to be duly labeled. A series of such houses would tend to bring ordinary house-planning and housekeeping to the level of the best. Many books and journals offer architectural diagrams which few can understand, but everybody can see how attractive a good plan is when realized in a house to which he pays a leisurely visit. At Expositions, such as those of Chicago and St. Louis, the appeal of the architect and the exhibitor is rather to wonder than to utility. He shows us schlosses from Germany, palaces from Italy, châteaux from France, all appointed with costly magnificence. But while the average American wage is eleven dollars a week these displays can do little good as models for imitation.