Naturally these are of limited scope. Water supply often has been installed chiefly for fire protection. Sewers are seldom found in places under 1,000, although most communities have some private systems of drainage. These, from the sanitary point of view, are very imper fectly guarded. Water supply is largely from shallow wells. Garbage disposal is of the most primitive kind. Sanitary conditions in villages from these points of view are very far from desirable.
Street paving is rather unusual, although frequently the business district or main street is paved. Many permanent sidewalks constructed privately preceded general municipal provision for such, and in general one-fourth of village streets are so. provided.
In the Middle West villages such improve ments are more frequently found than else where. Urban ambitions and imitation are most active here. Special influences, such as summer residents, have been strong in New England communities. But in the awakened villages and towns of these older States, and in the South, village improvement has a large future.
The growing practice of the light companies of larger towns and cities to furnish power for light in the surrounding villages is an important advance.
Village street plans have in general been based upon the supposition that the place would sooner or later become a town or city. Streets are usually the width of a country road, and often much wider. Moreover, all streets are generally of like width. This is in marked con trast with the Old World village, with its single main street, and its courts and lanes. In part this accounts for the unkempt appearance of the average village, with its little, grass and-weed-grown streets, faint wagon track and straggling footpath. Little used for traffic, and fenced off from the private house-lots, the street is a neglected space. There has been little attention paid in this country to town planing, even for new communities.
The lay-out of the average village is rectangular and seldom takes any account of natural features. The American village is as a result seldom either orderly or picturesque. It consequently leaves much to be desired as a place of residence for retiring farmers,.and
must speedily correct such a condition if it would compete with towns and smaller cities.
Most villages prescribe fire-limits and com pel brick or sheeted buildings in the business district. But such limited fire-ordinances as exist are very inadequately enforced. The fire hazard is exceptionally high and the losses out of all proportion as compared with the cities. Sweeping conflagrations are all too conunon.
The great majority of villages, even of a few hundred people, have graded schools, in cluding high school facilities of a limited range. The school is usually the best building in the place, most frequently answering to modern requirements, and in many cases con structed with some thought of its acting in some sense as a social centre.
Despair has settled down upon a great many of the yillages which were settled one or more generauons ago, and have seen their neighbors thrive and grow. Stationary or losing popu lation, the.aged and conservative character of a large proportion of the population make effort for improvement difficult. But current population movements will repopulate and somewhat change the character of village popu lation. The average village will come to realize what its necessary future must be. A new civic spirit and outlook is coming to the American village. A change of front from imitation of the town and city to seeking to become an adequate village centre for its dis trict is inevitable.
A first necessity of successful village im provement is a vision of the scope, the place and the function of the village community in American life. Journals like the American City can do much. The organized municipal interests of the country have hitherto paid little or no attention to places other than cities and the larger towns. The Massachusetts Civic League, under the able direction of E. T. Hart man, comes nearest to an organization such a.s is necessary for this purpose. But village im provement must by no means be confined to merely physical improvement, and least of all the mere imitation of urban communities.