INTRODUCTION


"MR. E.C. Gardner, architect, has consented to write us a series of
articles upon house-building," said one of his associates to the editor
of OUR CONTINENT a few months since. "What do you think of it?"

"We have no sort of use for such a thing," replied the editor. "There
are treatises enough professing to instruct people how to build houses.
You can't make every man his own carpenter any more than you can make
him his own lawyer. More's the pity."

"But I thought you said you wanted some one who had sense enough to put
a thoroughly capable and accomplished housewife's notions of what a
house should be into readable prose?"

"So I did," responded the editor, "and I still want it, and am likely
to want it for a long time. I do not wish articles on _House_-building
but on _Home_-building, and you will never get such from an
architect."

"Don't be too sure of that," said the other, who had had a taste of the
writer's quality before. "Suppose he should wish to try it?"

"Well,--let him," was the grumbled assent.

The editor did not believe in architects. He had built one or two
houses that did well enough on paper, but were simply appalling in
their unfitness when he came to try to adapt the occupants to the