PIONEER AND COLONIAL HOMES, THE CENTERS OF INDUSTRY AND
HOSPITALITY.

"There is no noble life without a noble aim."--CHARLES DOLE.

The word Home to the Anglo-Saxon race calls to mind some definite house as
the family abiding-place. Around it cluster the memories of childhood, the
aspirations of youth, the sorrows of middle life.

The most potent spell the nineteenth century cast on its youth was the
yearning for a home of their own, not a piece of their father's. The
spirit of the age working in the minds of men led them ever westward to
conquer for themselves a homestead, forced them to go, leaving the aged
behind, and the graves of the weak on the way.

There must be a strong race principle behind a movement of such
magnitude, with such momentous consequences. Elbow room, space, and
isolation to give free play to individual preference, characterized
pioneer days. The cord that bound the whole was love of home,--one's own
home,--even if tinged with impatience of the restraints it imposed, for
home and house do imply a certain restraint in individual wishes. And
here, perhaps, is the greatest significance of the family house. It cannot
perfectly suit _all_ members in its details, but in its great office, that
of shelter and privacy--ownership--the house of the nineteenth century
stands supreme. No other age ever provided so many houses for single
families. It stands between the community houses of primitive times and
the hives of the modern city tenements.

As sociologically defined, the family means a common house--common, that
is, to the family, but excluding all else. This exclusiveness is