Village Improvements and Farm Villages

by George E. Waring

As a rule, these more attractive features are very much modified by the presence of badly-kept private places or neglected public buildings, and by a general air of untidiness. Still, the foundation of attractiveness is there; and nothing is needed beyond a well-organized and well-guided control of public sentiment, to remove or to hide the more objectionable features, and to permit such beauty as the village may possess to manifest itself.

The real elements of beauty in a village are not fine houses, costly fences, paved roadways, geometrical lines, mathematical grading, nor any obviously costly improvements. They are, rather, cosiness, neatness, simplicity, and that homely air that grows from these and from the presence of a home-loving people.

To state the case tersely, the shiftless village is a hideous village, while the charm which we often realize without analyzing it comes of affectionate care and attention.

There are villages in New England, in Western New York, and all over the West, even to the far side of Arkansas, which impress the visitor at once as being homelike and full of sociability and kindliness; which delight him, and lead him almost to wish that his own lot had been cast within their shades. These are chiefly villages where the evidences of public and private care predominate, or are at least conspicuous. A critical examination would, in almost every case, develop very serious evidence of neglect, unwholesomeness, and bad neighborhood.

Within a few years, beginning, I believe, in Massachusetts, the more thoughtful of those whose affections are centred in their village homes have united in organized efforts to make their villages more tidy, to interest all classes of society in attention to those little details the neglect of which is fatal, and to make the village, what it certainly should be, an expression of the interest of its people in their homes and in the surroundings of their daily life.

The first of these associations of which I have any knowledge (though, as such work is unobtrusive, there may have been many before it) was the "Laurel Hill Association" of Stockbridge, Mass. It takes its name from a wooded knoll in the centre of the village, which had been dedicated to public use. The first object of the association was to convert this knoll into a village park. Then they took in hand the village burial-ground, which was put in proper condition and suitably surrounded with hedge and railing. Then the broad village street was properly graded and drained, and agreeable walks were made at its sides. Incidentally to this, the people living along both sides of the streets were encouraged to do what they could to give it an appropriate setting by putting their own premises into tasteful condition and maintaining them so. The organization worked well, and accomplished good results. The Rev. N. P. Eggleston, formerly of Stockbridge, in a paper on village improvements written for the "New York Tribune," thus describes the collateral work and influences of the Laurel Hill Association:—

"Next followed the planting of trees by the roadside wherever trees were lacking. The children, sometimes disposed in their thoughtlessness to treat young trees too rudely, were brought in as helpers of the association, while at the same time put under a beneficial culture for themselves. Any boy who would undertake to watch and care for a particular tree for two years was rewarded by having the tree called by his name. Other children were paid for all the loose papers and other unsightly things which they would pick up and remove from the street.

"Gradually the work of the association extended. It soon took in hand the streets connected with the main street. Year by year it pushed out walks from the centre of the village toward its outer borders; year by year it extended its line of trees in the same manner; and year by year there has been a marked improvement in the aspect of the village. Little by little, and in many nameless ways, the houses and barns, the dooryards and farms, have come to wear a look of neatness and intelligent, tasteful care, that makes the Stockbridge of to-day quite a different place from the Stockbridge of twenty years ago. Travellers passing through it are apt to speak of it with admiration as a finished place, and, compared with most even of our New England villages, it has such a look; but the Laurel Hill Association does not consider its home finished, nor its own work completed. Still the work goes on. Committees are even now conning plans for further improvements. By itself, or by suggestions and stimulations offered to others, the association is aiming at the culture of the village people through other agencies than those of outward and physical adornment. It fosters libraries, reading-rooms, and other places of resort where innocent and healthful games, music and conversation will tend to promote the social feeling, and lessen vice by removing some of its causes."

No one can drive through this beautiful old place without realizing the effect of some influence different from that which has usually been at work in country towns. One feels that it is a village of homes; that the people who live in it love it, and that it has no public or private interest so insignificant as to be neglected.

I have cited this instance somewhat at length, because it was the first, as it is the most complete, that has come to my notice. In other places, more serious work of improvement has been undertaken in the direction of sewerage, gas-lighting, &c. In fact, the present writing was suggested by frequent requests for information and advice on the more practical parts of the subject.