Our immediate ancestors had their farm house, with its necessary accompaniment of granaries, barn, etc. We move to town and build our shingle palace or brick mansion, with its large front show window, in which the well preserved, gilt edged family Bible and the Rogers group have it which and t’other for supremacy—and set up in our back yard, to represent the outbuildings of our ancestry, a privy, a pile of slabwood, generally as dumped, a few barrels, perhaps a cheap stable. Not then satisfied with the amount of decaying wood about the premises, we lay a lot of wood walk.
Walking along the avenue, we see a pretentious residence. It must be occupied by people of great refinement, for is not the most prominent room in the house the library, the whole street side taken up with an immense bay window, the glass reaching nearly to the floor? How splendidly it was lighted as we passed last night! What elegant sets of books on the shelves! Plenty of pictures, too. Let us to‐day take a look at the back yard. Why do not these people board up the windows at the back of the house? Here is a well with a dirty puddle by it, the pump standing on a rotting platform; hard by some kitchen garbage, farther on ashes, and so it goes, the whole rear of the lot so bad as to discourage vegetable life even. It is mercifully screened in part from the general view by a high, unpainted board fence, against which, now and then, a weed or tuft of grass grows. Where is there better field for the crusade?
The rear of the house and the outbuildings, though not so expensively finished, have a right to be carefully and artistically done. A woodshed is not a nuisance if inclosed, well boarded and painted, and the wood kept inside. A privy has no right to exist. If there be no proper system of drainage in the house for a water closet, partition off an earth closet from the woodshed or stable. Tasteful, well cared for outbuildings and fences are not only not an offense to the artistic sense, but are rather pleasing, indicating thrift, tidiness, and comfort. But when we consider the opportunities they offer for the support of the vine morning glories, sweet peas, nasturtiums, climbing roses, and like forms of plant life, what a joyous recompense for so little labor and care. Then all the available back yard space that is not used for walks, drives, etc., should give either vegetables or flowers—minister to the comfort or culture of the family.
Listen to people who lament the bad influences of street associations upon the children. Yet they say, very reasonably, the children must have outdoor air, etc., and they have never considered but that the only alternative from the housing of the children is the freedom of the streets. They do not know what moral education is contained in a few feet of ground, congenial work for the hands, and the prettiest of life development studies for the mind. Give each of these street‐loving children a flower bed, a small set of garden tools, some flower seeds, and what help and advice they need, and note if there be not germs of nobler thoughts and desires taking root at the same time in their fertile natures. But—to moralize a little—there is a kinship between the ornamented front and disgraceful rear of a residence and the fine clothes and the false heart of the wearer, and we fear that the majority of people who inhabit that sort of residence would rather risk some contamination of their children’s characters than to see their faces, hands, and clothes besmeared with Mother Earth.
The back yard of the future will be a bower of flowers and greenery and the leisure hour resort of the family.—N. W. Architect.
Thomas Ustick Walter.
Thomas Ustick Walter died at his home, in Philadelphia, on October 30, aged eighty‐four years. He had been for some years president of the American Institute of Architects.
His first principal work was the new county prison, in 1831, now generally known as “Moyamensing Jail.” In 1833 he made the original designs for Girard College, and was sent to Europe by the building committee of the institution. His tour through the principal countries was made for the specific purpose of the study of the principal buildings of the old world. Upon his return he took charge of the college buildings, which were finished in 1847, in accordance with his suggestions, when he was also made one of the directors of the college.
Mr. Walter’s next great public work was the break‐water at Laguayra for the Venezuelan government. In 1851 his design for the extension of the national capitol was adopted, and he was appointed government architect. He removed to Washington, where he designed several prominent public buildings, among them being the wing added to the Patent Office in 1851, the reconstruction of the Congressional Library building, which was destroyed by fire in 1851, the extensions of the United States Treasury building in 1855, and the Post Office in the same year, the dome of the national capitol, and the government hospital for the insane.