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100   HISTORIC GROWTH OF MAN.

HARMONIC HOMES.   101

The best material for building need not be discussed here. It may vary in different ages, with the progress of invention. For the walls, brick stands first in a sanitary point of view and also in durability. Next comes marble, and then wood. Brick is more porous than marble or granite, and therefore drier and better. Brick also admits of many tints of permanent color.

THE PERFECT VENTILATION of rooms is a neces

sary part of their sanitation.   It can never be

accomplished through the windows. The air should be admitted through many apertures near the floor of the room, so as to be evenly distributed and not in large isolated currents. In the Social Palace at Guise, the air was brought to the buildings in long underground galleries. This warmed the air to sixty degrees in winter, and cooled it clown to that point in summer. The experiment proved that this was not an expensive mode for warming and cooling the apartments.

The plans for workshops and factories resemble

those for dwellings, except that each corner space may have only one room, instead of a series.

The plans thus far sketched do not belong to the isolated home, for families of five or more. They are suited to the combined or harmonic household, with many members. We shall presently show that such a family and such a home can secure greater privacy and seclusion, with less interruption and interference than ever belonged to the isolated homes of civilism. Aside from this, the changed industrial condition of woman, already begun, will render such combined homes a necessity. And these homes will have none of the disagreeable features which have belonged to hotel and boarding house life.

The front aspect of the temple at the opening of this chapter shows the great dome at the center and supported on either side by clusters of spires. This central position of the highest point expresses the fact and gives the appearance of stability and unity. For stability and unity are central ideas in the very conception of a building to be occupied by living beings. The mansion, the factory and even the stable are gathering points for those who occupy them. How can they gather if it is not stable in position? And how can they be securely protected if it is not stable in structure? A dome, or the chief spire near one end, or far away from the center, means both physical antl spiritual instability and lack of security. This form did well enough for churches in an age when men thought that the best destiny for man was to sojourn on this earth and get away to another world as soon as the sands of life could run out.

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