ALL the arts are modes of expressing the One Ideal; but the ideal must be rooted in the soil of the real, the practical, the utilitarian. Thus it happens that architecture, the most utilitarian of the arts, underlies all other expressions of the ideal; and of all architecture, the designing of the home brings the artist into closest touch with the life of man.

A movement toward a simpler, a truer, a more vital art expression, is now taking place in California. It is a movement which involves painters and poets, composers and sculptors, and only lacks coordination to give it a significant influence upon modern life. One of the first steps in this movement, it seems to me, should be to introduce more widely the thought of the simple home — to emphasize the gospel of the simple life, to scatter broadcast the faith in simple beauty, to make prevalent the conviction that we must live art before we can create it.

The following brief essays on "The Simple Home" are written from the standpoint of a layman in architecture, and are mainly intended to present, as graphically and suggestively as such slight treatment enables, certain types of the simple home which may be infused with an art spirit. From such homes, I fondly believe, will come not only the artists of the future, but the public, whose faith and support are essential to the permanence of art life ina community. — C. K.