The Courier and Enquiry of July 13th, has the following article, which indicates the beginning of a much needed reform. We rejoice at it, whether it come from necessity or choice. Hundreds of families have annually spent money enough at fashionable summer resorts, to support them a whole year in comfort and elegance in a country villa. We are glad to see a journal of such influence draw attention to the subject "It is admitted by all those who know, that there is much less traveling this summer than there has been for several years. There are fewer parties on their way to places of fashionable resort, or jaunting up and down for the mere sake of locomotion and thoughtless pastime. But it is equally worthy of remark that the city is more than ever deserted for the warm months, by those whom the imperative calls of business do not confine within the sound of the slumberous chimes of Trinity. These facts are significant; and their causes are worthy of consideration, because they lie deeper than the mere accident of the day, or the caprice of the hour.

The change in the mode of spending the summer mouths results from a lack of money, and a returning disposition to listen to the dictates of common sense rather than to those of fashion.

"To those who consider the subject superficially, it may seem absurd to suppose that the comparatively small amount of money required for a summer trip could be made, by a mere stringency in the money market, an item of moment to those who have hitherto considered the outlay for such a trip a necessary part of their family expenses. And it would be an unreasonable supposition, had this expense been incurred only by those who could really afford it. But in this respect, as in all others, the families of the great majority of our merchants and professional men have been living very far beyond their means - and living thus, not for health and comfort, but for display. Their summer change of residence has been in fact but a change of their scene of ostentatious dissipation. Fashion commanded that they should be 'out of town;' and as the eclat of fashionable life was the one object of their thoughts, they must be out of town in an astonishing manner. The newspapers which make personal notice of private citizens a part of their business, must prate of their whereabout, under the thin disguise of initial letters and stars; or they must at least have the satisfaction of knowing that they were part of the brilliant assemblages thus typographically gossipped over.

Now to do this costs money - any amount you please, from five hundred to five thousand dollars a season; and the unpleasant but wholesome truth which has presented itself to many a pater families this season is, that he cannot afford the five thousand or the five hundred dollars to do it with; or to speak more properly, that he has not either of those sums above the daily needs of his business; for he could last year have really afforded so to spend them almost as little as he can even now.

"When men live up to the extreme of an income which, though nominally large, is not the product of property accumulated and laid aside, but the mere profits of a business more or less precarious, - when upon such an income they build 'a house and a half' after the fashion of a ducal palace, and furnish it throughout in a style which would make most dukes stare with wonder at the outlay and the bad taste, it is not at all surprising that when Erie and Harlem gamble the summer away at the rate of three hundred dollars a week, exclusive of extras, which may or may not be twice as much more. And thus it is that in the present condition of financial matters quite a large number of those who would have thronged the halls of Saratoga, Newport, and kindred places, stay away because they have not the money wherewith to go.

"But there is another reason for the diminution of the crowds which pass the summer merely in going from place to place, or in watering-place dissipation; and that is the rapidly-growing preference of a country residence during the warmer months, if not during the whole year. Every one who has been familiar with the vicinity of New York during the last ten years, must have remarked the sudden increase in the number of villas in all directions within thirty miles of the city, during the latter half of that period. Many of these are used merely as summer residences; but most of them are occupied during the whole year. This is a good sign: it betokens health, present and future, for mind and body. It makes men better and happier to live in the country. Honest men, and plenty, there may be, who never have left this hive of bricks and mortar to go as far as Weehawken; but still there is reason in the prejudice that those who live in the country are for the most part manlier, more trustworthy, than those who live in cities. Life there certainly begets habits of greater simplicity, even in those who have wealth and social eminence.

The same man who when he lived in town lavished money upon suites of rooms which glowed and flashed and fretted with gorgeous colors and gold, and who surrounded himself with all the appliances of tasteless extravagance - this man having made his home in the country, is content to live in a style which approaches if it do not attain a simple elegance. It is ever thus. The English nobleman when he leaves town for his country home, leaves with it the town air and the town splendor which so frequently sits so ill upon him. Surrounded by nature's wondrous beauties, men seem to shrink instinctively from a display of their little vanities.

"There is, however, a much larger class than that composed of those who can afford villa life, which has, and will have, few representatives at the watering places and summer resorts this season. This class is composed of people who, though ill able to afford it, may in former years have fancied it necessary to seek health and recreation at the United States or the Ocean House, but who found there literally naught but vanity and vexation of spirit. They have wisely determined that they purchased those commodities at too hlgh a price; and now they may be found scattered in clusters of two and three families together in farm houses within half a day of the city by railroad and steamboat. The numbers who spend the summer in this way have more than trebled within the last three years; so that, to supply the need, farmers, the country round, have added rooms to their old homesteads, and by receiving boarders at a moderate price, make a comfortable addition to their yearly income, - their city inmates obtaining plenty of wholesome food, quiet, recreation, nights of sweet and unbroken rest, instead of the hurried and meagre meats, the confusion, and the exhausting dissipation of the fashionable watering places.