Page 88

SWORDS AND PLOWSHARES
FLOOR PLAN FOR HOUSE AT EL PASO.
inspiration to all those who enter its doors.
And any home that can boast as much char-
acter, beauty and honesty of intention in its
building and furnishing helps to raise the
standards of American architecture.
  For after all national architecture is large-
ly an index of national character. Every
environment reflects the taste or indiffer-
ence of those who create or endure it. And
the greater the sincerity of a building, the
greater we may assume is that of the
buildei.
T4
',MONn) r.LOOPPLfLi
SWORDS AND PLOWSHARES:
WHAT SOME ENGLISH SOL-
DIERS ARE DOING
B ELIEVERS in the justice and sanity of
    International Peace will no doubt join
hands with "back-to-the-land" enthusiasts
over a recent development among British
military circles. Word comes to us from
London that the men at Caterham Barracks
have found a pleasant and profitable occu-
pation for those idle hours which usually
hang so heavy on soldiers not in active
service. They have taken up the cultivation
of fruits and vegetables! Gardening, we
are told, "has become one of the chief fea-
tures of the place," and their recent annual
flower, vegetable and industrial show, in
spite of the recent drought, was something
of which any "gardening soldier" might
reasonably be proud. Corporal Holt of the
Coldstream Guards, who is said to be "not
only the tallest man in the army, but the
champion vegetable grower of the service,"
won nine firsts this year for his vegetables
and a first prize for the "best kept and
cropped   garden."   The    Commandant,
Major G. D. Jeffreys, and his officers take
much interest in the show, which is also
quite a social event.
  Surely this delightful variation of military
life is one which other barracks might adopt
with good results. It would be hard to
imagine a healthier or more sensible pastime
for a regiment of idle soldiers. The pride
of knowing you have raised the finest to-
matoes or the tenderest asparagus at the
post must be infinitely more satisfying than
the thought that you have dealt sudden
death to an unknown foe against whom you
had no personal cause for enmity. To dig
holes for plants and seeds must surely be
more pleasant than making a gap in some
distant home circle with a well-aimed bul-
let. And transforming of a plot of barren
ground into a productive garden seems more
grateful labor than the trampling of an
enemy's crops or the besieging of a starving
garrison.
  In fact not only does this Caterham ex-
periment show how easily a group of idle
soldiers may find normal tasks and pleas-
ures, but it also serves to bring home, by
the vividness of its contrasts, the insanity
and cruelty of war and the logic and beauty
of peace-the difference between construc-
tive and destructive forms of energy.
H