Book faps^hf F l^l*) COPWilGHT DEPO&m THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD By Marion Talbot and SoPHONisBA Preston Breckinridge REVISED EDITION WHITCOMB & BARROWS BOSTON, 1919 ml COPYRIGHT, 191a AND 1919 By MARION TALBOT and SOPHONISBA P. BRECKINRIDGE THOMAS TODD CO., PRINTERS 14 Beacon Sfret, Boston, Mass OEC 12IJ1B ©J.A53fi!)48 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Household as a Social Unit i II. The Household as the Centre of Consump- tion 10 III. Shelter 20 IV. Food 29 \\ Clothing 37 VI. Management 47 VII. Domestic Service 5^ VIII. Education 67 IX. The Activities of the Household 74 X. The Household and THE Community 82 Index 9^ PREFACE We hope that the statements and suggestions in the following pages, supplemented with the questions, will lead housewives, either separately or in study classes, and students of social conditions in college and elsewhere, to find ways by which the household of moderate income and with children may realize its possibilities as an organized group of human beings. In these days, the constructive forces necessary for the maintenance of the household must be sought in new garbs, and those forces which seem to be disintegrating must be rein- terpreted in order to serve their higher purposes. No attempt has been made to treat the subjects presented in an exhaustive way or to do more than to indicate the wide range of interests which are the field in which the progressive housekeeper may serve and enjoy. Marion Talbot S. P. Breckinridge Department of Household Administration The University of Chicago June, 19 1 2 PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION During the ye'ars since the following analysis was published, there has accumulated a mass of testimony to the correctness of our statements. The war has served to emphasize the ''wide range of interests which are the field in which the progressive housekeeper may serve." In the following edition, the several sets of questions and the bibliographies have been revised and made applicable to recent developments. But except so far as the authority of the Government has been substituted for the free choice of the Housekeeper, and to that extent her prob- lems have been simplified, the statements contained in the following chapters seem still important. Among the serious problems to be faced, now that the war is ended, is that of determining the true sphere of service to the modern community of the modern household. Marion Talbot SoPHONisBA P. Breckinridge The University of Chicago August I ^^ I pip CHAPTER I THE HOUSEHOLD AS A SOCIAL UNIT THERE are students of modern social conditions who prophesy that the home and the family will not endure in their present form as social organizations. Moreover, these views have secured a considerable fol- lowing, and they have obtained a greater publicity than they really merit. The prevalence of these views doubtless seems greater than it is, partly because newspaper and magazine writers have widely quoted them and thus given them the sem- blance of more widespread authority than they actually possess, and partly because they reflect a general and very genuine dissatisfaction with many social phenomena apparent at the present time. Such evidence is found in the increasing frequency of divorce, the lowered birthrate, the multiplication of hotels and tenements, the increase of public places of amusement, and the deser- tion of families, either temporarily or permanently, by husbands and fathers. On the other hand, it is true that the dependence of the community upon sound family life as the condition of enduring community life is becoming constantly more widely recognized and more frankly acknowledged by persons of large experience in actual dealing with social problems. Those who work among the poor with any appreciation of their responsibility for the consequences of their ministry have long been familiar with the fact I 2 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD that to attempt to serve any member of the family with- out taking- into account the needs of the entire group is generally like pouring water into a sieve. The Charity Organization movement, with its program of "family rehabilitation," is a conspicuous instance of this emphasis upon the family as the ultimate social unit. Another is the Juvenile Court movement, with its theory that inade- quate family care amounts to dependency and justifies community interference in behalf of a child, whose claim to normal family life is thus recognized. Alore- over, the discussion of the treatment of dependent chil- dren, whether by means of pensions so that they may be cared for in their own homes, or after the "placing out" method whereby they are given homelike surround- ings with foster parents, has made the necessity of domestic efficiency on the part of the mother very clear so far as the poor are concerned. In the case of those who suffer from spiritual rather than from pecuniary limitations, the theory has not been so clearly formulated ; but the importance of setting higher standards of domestic, social, and administrative efficiency for women who administer incomes ranging from two to ten thousand dollars is becoming constantly more evi- dent. In the first place, these women are the ones who suffer more than any others from the influences which issue from a leisure class based on recently acquired wealth. These are the women whose incomes are most largely drawn from positions of a business rather than of an industrial character, among whom the canons of waste and idleness secure their widest adherence. To be sure, tlie college graduates belong largely to this group, AS A SOCIAL UNIT 3 as do most of the professional women. They are, how- ever, as yet, the exception and not the rule, and, to the domestic women of this pecmiiary group, subject to all the pressure of the competitive and wasteful business standards of today, is intrusted the administration of the households from which will come the young people who will be able to take high school and college courses, and so constitute the leadership in political, professional, and business life. It is, therefore, of supreme importance that for women of that group the dignity and responsi- bility of their tasks should be made clear, and ideals of efficiency and utility substituted for those of waste and social competition. If this can be done successfully, there will be less misapprehension as to the seriousness of the domestic problem. It is not surprising that great confusion of judgment regarding the subject has prevailed. Household tasks of outgrown value are retained because of their association with the real service to family life which was rendered by them at an earlier period. Archaic methods persist, practices no longer in accord wdth the demands of the time survive, and belated eighteenth or nineteenth century habits of thought often dominate the household life of the group, when twentieth century business or educa- tional ideals are being applied to problems presented to the members of the group in their experiences outside the home. The inevitable result must be serious difficulty for the young woman who undertakes as wife and mother to direct the affairs of her family, as well as friction among the members of the group. The development of the factory system and the application of its principles V J V 4 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD to many processes connected with the preparation of foods and the manufacture of clothing have prevented her acquisition of the various kinds of skill which her mother or her grandmother acquired as a matter of course. She cannot spin, weave, card, comb, bake, or brew. She can perhaps sew a little; she can cook but little, and then successfully only if she refrains from "stirring in judgment" and obeys the cookbook literally. Apparently, then, her status has been reduced, her influ- ence narrowed, and her position rendered less dignified and worthy. Moreover, much of the work which the domestic woman once did in the home, the wage-paid woman now does outside the home. Wage-earning is coming to have equal dignity with domestic life, and the wage-paid woman, while perhaps industrially bond, is domestically free. Yet it is, of course, obvious lo the intelligent observer that never was the position of the housekeeper and home- maker in reality more important or her responsibility greater. The tragedy does not lie in the small scope offered for the use of her abilities, but in her lack of preparation to avail herself of her opportunity. For without warning a far more serious change has taken place than has been realized. The domestic tasks of an earlier day have left the home, not leaving behind them a void, but making way for a substitute which has crept in, calling little attention to itself and therefore unnoticed and unwelcomed. This substitute for the older making — of yarn, cloth, bread, and beer — is spending money for ready-made clothing, household goods, and food almost ready to be served. By her making, the house- AS A SOCIAL UNIT 5 keeper of two generations ago provided for the wants of the aged, the children, and the other adults in her little group. If she planned wisely and executed well, Johnny had trousers that were warm, durable, and com- fortable, Jenny's little dress looked, wore, and felt well, and the husband's homemade shirt lasted until a suc- cessor was ready. Today, by her spending, • she, with others like her, determines the fate of innumerable child- workers, whose labor, performed perhaps at night, is embodied in the sheets in which her Johnny and Jenny sleep, the table linen from which the husband eats, or the bottles from which the aged parent takes the reliev- ing medicines. By her buying, employers are tempted to continue the use of sweated labor on the curtains which hang in reception rooms like hers, and convict labor is enabled to compete with the union workingman, whose efforts to improve his conditions are thus rendered futile. Surely the position of one who holds such power, though only as she shares it with others who are under- taking a like task, is one of great influence, real dignity, and grave responsibility. And yet it is and must for some time be extremely difficult to equip young women to perform these duties and meet these responsibilities ade- quately. As has been said, the vacating of the household by the various industries to which reference has been made has sometimes seemed unduly slow, but compared with the long period during which they have been so associated with home life as to seem to be identical with home life, this egress has been accomplished with extraor- dinary swiftness. Within less than a century, the age- long practice of making in anticipation of a want already 6 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD experienced has been replaced by buying an article made, not primarily to be used, but to be sold, often for a want not yet felt. The goods that were the products of the labor of separate small family groups are now the prod- ucts of big business. Through the act of purchase, the housekeeper becomes related to those who buy and sell, who plan and toil and exploit, the wide world over. To meet such a situation, no preparation has been possible, because no such situation could be anticipated. It is, therefore, not difficult to understand why we still teach a little cooking and a little sewing, and so continue to relate ourselves with the long past of making, instead of formulating and inculcating the principles of spending which belongs only to today and yesterday. For the past, explanations may suffice and apologies be accepted. For the future, however, no excuse can be offered. We know today that the newly assumed function of spending is as important as the old function of making. We know that those who spend determine the fate of those who make. W^e know that those who make and those who profit and those who spend are held by bonds of common interest, and we know that to those to whom so much is intrusted must be given wisdom, skill, technique, and intelligence with reference to the hard task to which they set their hands. Not only, then, are we beginning to recognize the significance of the spending function, but new measures are being worked out by which the importance of the efficient performance of the household task is estimated in terms of social well-being. In the child-study depart- ment of the Chicago Board of Education, the children AS A SOCIAL UNIT 7 who are brought before the Juvenile Court as truant, incorrigible, or delinquent are tested in ingenious ways to learn, if possible, the real source of their difficulty. It is the belief of the wise persons who observe these chil- dren in this close, scientific manner that in many cases their troubles grow, not out of natural inferiority, either mental or moral, but out of a lack of opportunity during the early days and weeks of their lives to form regular habits, to learn to coordinate well their bodily activities, and to cooperate and work naturally with other members of the group. In other words, the failure to secure regu- lar sleep, regular feeding, and regular play for the child at first, and then the loss of regular family life, and espe- cially the family meal, at which his needs receive due recognition as part of a group expression of a group need, and the lack of such discipline as the well-ordered home may furnish, lead the children into the humiliating paths which may end in the truant and reform school; and even if the failure is not so conspicuous, the result may still be that the child will be prevented from coming into his kingdom of full individual development and full social participation. The casual observer may propose the substitution of the well-ordered institution for the task of securing such regularity and discipline in the every-day household. But the mortality tables of institu- tions for children forbid the consideration of such sub- stitutions. If they do not receive in the home the kind of training that they should receive, they may become truant or delinquent; but if they receive institutional rather than maternal care, they die; and the risk is too great. 8 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD Because, then, of the significance of her task to the later Hfe of the members of her group, and because, too, of her power to determine the fate of those workers from whose services she benefits either directly or indirectly, the woman who administers the affairs of a household may well regard herself as placed at the real heart of things, responsible for the conduct of that institution which is the unit of social organization. Questions 1. What are the factors which go to make up sound family life? 2. In what respects, if any, may there be said to have occurred a decadence in home life ? 3. What features of the present form of family life are the object of criticism? 4. In case you think any of this criticism valid, what remedies would you propose? 5. What archaic methods and belated practices are retained in your household ? 6. Name some competitive and wasteful business standards. 7. What measures is your community taking to pre- serve family life? Bibliography The Family. Helen Bosanquet. New York: The Mac- millan Co. The Family as a Social and Educational Institution. W. Goodsell. New York : The Macmillan Co. The Family. E. C. Parsons. New York : Putnam's Sons. Woman and Economics. Charlotte P. Oilman. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co. AS A SOCIAL UNIT 9 The Normal Life. E. T. Devine. New York: Survey Associates. The Ethics of the Family. J. H. Tufts. National Con- ference of Charities and Correction. 19 15. Rich and Poor. Helen Bosanquet. New York : The Mac- millan Co. The Standard of Life. Helen Bosanquet. New York: The Macmillan Co. Durable Monogamous Wedlock. J. E. Cutler. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 22, p. 226. Social Diagnosis. Mary E. Richmond. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Domestic Service, Chapter L Lucy M. Salmon. New York : The Macmillan Co. Some Ethical Gains through Legislation. Florence Kelley. New York : The Macmillan Co. Report on Condition of Women and Child Wage-Earners in the United States, Volume L "Cotton Textile Industry," Chapter L United States Bureau of Labor, Washington, D. C, 19 10. Handbook of Information for Home Service Sections No. 207. American Red Cross, Washington, D. C. U. S. Department of Labor, Children's Bureau Publica- tion No. 28. Note. — The books referred to are expected to be suggestive rather than to give specific and detailed answers to the questions, and the lists have been made with special reference to students who have access to reference libraries. CHAPTER II THE HOUSEHOLD AS THE CENTRE OF CONSUMPTION THE household has lost its social value as the pro- ductive unit ; it remains, however, the centre of consumption. That the father should earn and the mother spend the family income is the allotment of function generally agreed upon. There are, of course, variations of this program. There are well-to-do households in which the father not only earns the support but pays the large items in the expense account, such as rent and other amounts which are periodically due. There are other households in which the wife is physically disabled or indifferent, and the father makes the daily purchases. In other families, too, in which the mother is interested in a professional pursuit, scholarship, the law, journal- ism, or teaching — conspicuous examples could be cited of each — the direction of the household may be jointly assumed as suits the professional convenience of either or both. There are communities of considerable extent — the great textile centres, mill towns in England and Scotland, and certain factory towns in New England — where the mother regularly contributes by her labor to the family income. The sum of these exceptional family groups is absolutely large ; relatively, however, it is small enough to justify characterizing them as "exceptional." How^ever many may be the cases of the women who earn or however questionable the desirability of their becom- lO AS THE CENTRE OF CONSUMPTION II ing wage-paid workers, it is universally accepted as suit- able that the women of the household should spend. Among large numbers of the community it is, in fact, the practice for husband and wage-earning children to turn in to the wife and mother their entire pay, to receive back for personal and separate use the amount her judg- ment allows, on the basis of knowing and planning for the needs of the entire group. It has been pointed out that in the past slight atten- tion has been paid to this function of the housewife, because in the past, when the home was the centre of production, the interest was focused upon the technical processes involved rather than upon the wise allotment of various goods to various wants. Moreover, where the great volume of vv^ants are satisfied by making goods rather than by purchasing them, the latter seems rela- tively less important. In this country, too, nature has been so bountiful and the access to the means of produc- tion on the whole so free that penalties for unwise use of resources have been lacking, and there has therefore been relatively slight inducement to improve the tech- nique of consumption. The same wasteful methods have prevailed in pro- duction for the market. Only as the struggle for life grows keener and access to the means of production more difficult, as land is appropriated and capital is organized, as the growth of cities and improved means of communication reveal to all members of the commu- nity the struggle necessary for many, has the producer for the market on the one hand and the housewife direct- ing the consumption of her family on the other begun 12 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD to take notice of the deplorable waste which has char- acterized the activities of both. On this account much is said and written as to the desirability of cost-account- ing in the factory and office. In the same way the need is voiced for the housewife to learn to plan more care- fully and to enter upon each year's activities prepared to benefit from the experience, failures, mistakes, victories, and successes of previous years. This means a system of cost-accounting carefully worked out so as to reduce the labor of keeping it to the lowest point consistent with its intelligent use in com- paring the results of methods used and of experiments tried. It also means careful and deliberate planning, the preparation of a budget in which the wants of the group are recognized and allowance is made for the fullest satisfaction of each want consistent with the adequate recognition of the others. It means, of course, a standard of living adopted on the basis of careful thought as to the pecuniary resources available for the group, the probable changes in the earning capacity of the man, the social claims upon the group, and the domestic and social capacities of the woman. The first consideration in determining the amount to be spent, after taking account of the maximum fixed by the total income from all sources — the earnings of the husband, income from invested securities owned by both husband and wife, earnings of the children, etc. — and the minimum set by the actual cost of the shelter, food, and clothing consistent with health and decency, would be the allotment of resources as between present and future wants. When there are children, the cost of edu- AS THE CENTRE OF CONSUMPTION I3 cation must be anticipated as relatively greater when they reach the adolescent period. The claims of the man's business may require sudden change in domicile or make a more costly method of living seem advantageous. Inherited tendencies of a physical kind may make it seem wise to lay aside a considerable proportion of the current income against the time of illness and incapacity. On the other hand, generous nourishment for man and child alike, or apparently extravagant expenditures in educa- tion or recreation, may ward off the dreaded invalidism or bring in relatively larger returns in increased earning capacity in later years. These considerations and others like them should weigh with the young housewife to whom the husband intrusts the responsibility of planning their joint domestic undertaking. Not only should she consider seriously the claims of the present and of the future; she should have a pretty clear idea of the wants other than physical which will demand satisfaction and avenge themselves if ignored. She will, of course, recognize the fact that food adequate in amount and well selected, shelter wholesome, decent, and if possible beautiful, and cloth- ing of the kind to meet the needs of warmth, freedom of motion, tastefulness, and rational conformity to pre- vailing styles must be supplied. She will, in addition, allow for the schooling of the children and provide the opportunity for the entire group, by means of daily news- papers, the weekly and monthly magazines, and the purchase of books, to indulge to a reasonable extent the desire to know what is going on in the world about and what the past has meant. If she is wise, she will 14 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD allow for such social intercourse as will give her group a sense of close relationship with other groups; for recreation which brings relaxation and gives free play to individual and original powers; for such service of the poor and needy as cultivates the spirit of service and gives a sense of unity with the whole wide world; and for such enjoyment and appreciation of beauty as unites the individual harmoniously with tlie universe. Her first plan must be tentative, and on the whole experimentally tried out. No very definite instruction can be given as to the proportion of income to be assigned to the various activities of the family. This is not because the subject has not received attention. Various plans have been proposed for formulating proper standards of family life. Le Play, the French student of family Hfe, spent many years observing the customs of family groups in many parts of the world, in order that the possibilities of controlling one's environment and the extent to which the environment is determining might be better under- stood. On the basis of extensive and elaborate compu- tation, Ernst Engel undertook to deduce certain ''laws of expenditure" which indicate within wide limits the relationships between total income and the proportion allotted to any special wants. These "laws" are usually formulated as follows: 1. The lower the income the larger the proportion claimed by sustenance. 2. Lodging, warming, and lighting absorb an invari- able proportion, whatever the income. 3. Clothing claims a constant proportion. AS THE CENTRE OF CONSUMPTION I5 4. The larger the income the greater the proportion allotted to well-being. These studies were limited, however, to families on a low pecuniary level. The conclusions, therefore, have no weight as indicating what is desirable. They merely summarize the practice of those who have lived under the pressure of poverty, and indicate in statistical form the truism that so long as a family is in the grasp of severe poverty, food will claim a disproportionate share of the slender resources. If as the income increases the proportions allotted to housing and clothes remain con- stant, it is because with housing and clothing are asso- ciated satisfactions of varied kinds, social intercourse, beauty, display, which demand satisfaction. It is to be hoped that true bases of expenditure may some day be formulated; but that will be possible only when more intelligence has been devoted to the house- hold problem. When housekeepers, trained in the tech- nique of spending, wise as to the nature of the interests intrusted to their care, become interested enough to keep careful accounts, to make experiments which require patience and devotion, and to report the results for the benefit of others engaged in similar undertakings, a body of data will become available from which conclusions as to desired standards of living may be drawn. Obviously, however, the intelligent young house- keeper will even now familiarize herself w4th the sug- gestions contained in such studies as those referred to, in order that she may obtain the help which they may afford in determining when and how to meet peculiar needs for which special provision must be made. For example, if 1 6 TPIE MODERN HOUSEHOLD shelter, heat, and Hght assume a fairly constant propor- tion, and that somewhere near one fifth, and she finds that her expenditures conform pretty closely to that measure, she may feel fairly well satisfied, unless she should argue that during the first few years of married life, when social demands are few, while her children are little, she will reduce this item to an even lower claim by doing without a sitting room and guest room, or by some other limitation in housing, in order that there may be large freedom later on when the husband is able to be at home more and the children demand more space and more entertaining. In such a spirit of foresight and regard for values will she distribute all her resources — her money income, her own time and strength, and the time and strength of those whose service she commands. Especially in- teresting questions arise in connection with processes formerly closely related to family life, now ready to sever connection with it. \\^eaving and spinning have gone. Should sewing go? Will she make the little gar- ments for the first baby, or buy them already made and save her eyesight and nervous force ? Brewing was once a household process. Shall baking go? Will she make or buy her family's supply of jams and other sweet things for the winter's enjoyment? If she lives in a community where there is no wage-paid work for women which might attract her for a time; if the bakers of her town make poor bread under conditions of which she cannot approve: if the children need home baking because in their community domestic science has not been put in the school curriculum and thev need to be tausfht to use their AS THE CENTRE OF CONSUMPTION 1/ hands — under any of these circumstances she may well decide to cling to the earlier practice. And so with many other decisions. Perhaps her task cannot be better de- scribed than by saying that she will allot the various units of her resources so that she will get out of every one at least as much satisfaction as if it had been allotted to any other use. With such a guiding principle, with the self-control and patience necessary to keep careful accounts and com- pare the results of the experiments as the years go by, ^/ and with the cooperation of the husband in encouraging such experimentation, the management of the group would become and remain a problem of increasing interest and dignity. Questions 1. What is meant by the home as a ''place of con- sumption"? 2. For what needs must the income of a family provide ? 3. Why has little attention been paid to the division of income? 4. What considerations other than those of pecuniary and industrial economy should help determine the method of living? 5. What tests can be applied to determine whether the family income is expended in the most satisfactory way? 6. What constitutes good buying? 7. Describe five observed instances of good or bad buying. 8. What is meant bv "sfood standards of living"? l8 THK MODERN IIOUSKHOLD 9. Under what conditions do you think a housekeeper is justified in taking up gainful employment? 10. How can greater simplicity in living be secured ? 11. Make a list of the industries which have in general disappeared from the city household. 12. Make a list of those which have partially dis- appeared. 13. Make a list of those which you think may dis- appear with advantage to family life. 14. Make a list of interests and occupations of the housekeeper which do or may replace the lost ones. 15. What measures for the control of spending have recently been adopted in your neighborhood ? Bibliography Economic Function of Woman. E. T. Devine. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. The Woman Who Spends. B. J. Richardson. Boston : Whitcomb & Barrows. The Cost of Living as Modified by Sanitary Science. Chapter IX, "Organization of the Household." E. H. Richards. New York: J. Wiley & Sons. General Sociology. Chapter XXXI, "Interests"; Chap- ter XXXII, "The Individual." A. W. Small. Chi- cago : The University of Chicago Press. The Standard of Living among Workingmen's Families in New York City. R. C. Chapin. New York: Charities Publication Committee. Also review in Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 17, p. 541. AS THE CENTRE OF CONSUMPTION I9 Home Problems. Caroline L. Hunt. Boston : Whitcomb & Barrows. American Economic Review. II, 269. "The Backward Art of Spending Money." W. C. Mitchell. Household Manufactures in the United States. R. M. Tryon. Chicago : University of Chicago Press. Manual of Household Accounts. J. C. and M. F. Cran- dell. Boston : Whitcomb & Barrows. Household Accounting. W. A. Sheaffer. New York: The Macmillan Co. The Business of the Household. C. W. Taber. Phila- delphia : J. B. Lippincott Co. CHAPTER III SHELTER 'T'^HERE are three terms which are often confused •*• in popular usage, viz., housing, housekeeping, and home-making. Each one has a distinct meaning, and yet they all go together to make up one whole, and that a very important concern of the housewife. We may use as an analogy the human body. There is first its struc- ture or its anatomy, then its physical activities or its physiology, and finally its spiritual life or its soul. Housing is the material form which shelter takes ; house- keeping is the direction or maintenance of the physical aspects of the house, while home-making is the crown of all, the nurture and development of that spirit which finds expression in the popular phrase, "There's no place like home." Much of the so-called ''bad housing," when closely scrutinized, proves to be bad housekeeping and bad home- making. Changes in housing laws will not better these conditions. There must be education for housekeeping. But more important still for right living and the wel- fare of society is education for home-making. This means the education of husbands and fathers as well as of wives and mothers. Little can be accomplished for the betterment of the home until this fact is recognized by public opinion and the significance of the home — not of its processes merely — is recognized equally by men and women. SHELTER 21 As the civilization of our time grows more complex, the relation of the individual to other individuals and to the community becomes more dependent and intricate. The change manifests itself in ' many forms, among which one of the most important and obvious is the larger control over the individual and his activities assumed by the state, showing itself by the adoption of new statutes and the organization of new administrative machinery. One of the latest phases of individual activity to be taken over by the community is that of the householder. The earlier attitude of the law towards a man's dwelling was shown in the adage that "A man's house is his castle,'* expressing the idea that at the outer door all rights of the outsider, even the public, ceased, and beyond that point the power of the occupant was complete. This view of the rights of the householder has had to yield to the modern conception of the relations of men to each other, and the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" receives quite different answers now, when the brother's right to life and health are had in mind, from those given in the older days, when men's minds were centred on obtaining freedom from official control. In this respect, as in other directions, it is recognized more and more fully that the limitations of one man's freedom may be absolutely essential to the enjoyment by another man of ordinarily favorable conditions. The law has always recognized as a basic principle in the use of property the maxim, "Thou shalt not so use thine own as to injure another's"; and in this principle support was found for the whole theory and law relating '22 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD to nuisances, public and private. In these days the health has become a matter of public interest and control, as the public peace long has been; and control of the use of a man's house has been taken over by the public with something of the same completeness with which the use of the streets and highways long has been regulated. The forms which the regulation has assumed are first, preventive, exercised by administrative boards or officers with large and incisive powers of inspection and direction ; and second, penal, enforced by the ordinary criminal processes of the law. The control thus exer- cised is usually in this country a matter of state, rather than of federal, control, largely delegated to the local units, and varies greatly with the needs of different locali- ties and their respective stages of civic development. Because of the wide range of these variations, it would seem worth while for householders, either individually or through special or general clubs, to make a study of the subjects over which control has already been assumed in the most progressive communities, and to discuss the tendencies manifesting themselves. There should be the twofold purpose of informing the members of those com- munities which have taken an advanced position what obligations have been laid upon them, and of suggesting to members of those communities which are backward in this respect what they may reasonably demand of their legislative bodies and to what objects the public opinion of their neighbors may profitably be directed. But however important the legal relations of the householder to the community at large may be, it is not the only nor perhaps the most important subject for SHELTER 23 study. To be sure, a long step in advance Is taken when a householder realizes that society is no longer an aggre- gation of isolated units, enters into the modern spirit of the obligation of the individual to the community, and heartily obeys the laws which control the rights of house- holders in the use of their property. But he does not reach the full conception of the modern view until he realizes that there is a finer and higher ideal than that of merely conforming, however intelligently and will- ingly, to the regulations laid down by the community in which he dwells, and considers the sacrifice of the seem- ing liberty a trifle in comparison with the larger oppor- tunity for the best citizenship. No matter how specific, detailed, and exacting the body of sanitary law in a community may be, there is a large uncontrolled field of obligation and duty which the true citizen should enter. His house may conform in every respect to the law, but the way in which he may use it is largely a matter of choice. Here he should rise above and beyond the law and make his house a unit of health, not only for himself and his family, but for the community at large, through the wise, intelligent, and public-spirited way in which its use and activities are directed. There are two interesting tendencies in sanitary theory and administration concerning which the house- holder should inform himself. The first, in brief, is to lay less stress than in the past on the environment and more on personal contact as the medium for the spread of disease. The second is the burdening of the sanitary code and the health department with matters which in the light of modern knowledge have nothing to do with 24 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD health, except occasionally in a very remote degree. For example, the disposal of household rubbish and garbage and the abatement of the smoke nuisance should be con- trolled by legal enactments enforced by competent expert officials, but on the ground of decency, order, beauty, and cleanliness, rather than on the ground of their effect on health. On the other hand, a careful study will show that new enactments affecting housing and involving health, that will secure such facilities for cleanliness as simpler plumbing and a cheaper and more abundant water supply, are gravely needed. It is not fitting to discuss the details of house sani- tation in this place. It should be noted, however, that, though damp cellars, dark rooms, and "sewer gas" are now known not to be the cause of tuberculosis, diphtheria, or typhoid fever, it is generally believed that when a person is in vigorous health or has a high degree of so-called "vitality," he is usually able to resist the attacks made by the germs of those and similar diseases. It is undoubtedly true that one of the factors in securing this vigor of body is the environment. Proper shelter then demands free movement of clean air both without and within the house, means for rapid and com- plete removal of body wastes, plenty of diffused light, such freedom from standing water, rubbish, dirty streets, and smoky air as would disturb peace of mind, ample facilities for cleanliness, and plenty of space to secure, at least at intervals, that degree of privacy which health of body and of soul alike demand. Such are briefly some of the sanitary considerations to be observed in housing. SHELTER 25 On the economic side there are also interesting tendencies to be observed. The rapid development of urban life, fluctuations in the kind of employment avail- able with the accompanying necessity of chsinge of resi- dence, rapid transit, and the development of the apartment house are some of the modern influences which affect housing. The homestead known to many generations of the same family has practically disappeared. It is even growing to be a matter of uncertainty whether a family should own the house in which they live. Nevertheless, there are circumstances under which the question may very properly arise, and then considerations of economy, convenience, the future development of the neighborhood, financial security, comfort, probability of permanence, educational value, and sentiment, all have a bearing on the proper solution. Another question which faces the modern housekeeper is that of the relative advantages of the house, whether owned or rented, and the apartment. The house furnishes greater freedom, privacy, space, and comfort, but these must be weighed against the uncertain cost of operating, greater amount of service needed, more restricted oppor- tunity for absence, and usually greater distance from business, school, and friends, involving greater expense in car fares and in time and strength than would gener- ally be required in the case of an apartment. Questions I. To what extent have twentieth century ideals and practices modified the idea that "a man's home is his castle," over which he has supreme control? 26 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD 2. What are the essentials of a hygienic house? 3. What pubHc agencies have you in your town for controlHng housing conditions ? 4. What private agencies are there for the same purpose ? 5. Are the housing laws of your town adequate? 6. Do they contain any restrictions which are need- lessly burdensome ? 7. What is a frequent motive for the adoption of so-called improvements and what is the true one ? 8. What changes in construction are taking place (a) for good? {h) forbad? 9. What architectural devices or changes in the house in which you live would you suggest which would tend to improve the sanitary conditions ? 10. What architectural changes in your house would you suggest which would lessen the amount of housework to be done ? 11. What are the factors of cost in the ownership of a house, e.g., taxes? 12. What are the factors of cost in the rental of an apartment, e. g., janitor service? 13. What are the factors of cost in the rental of a room in a hotel, e. g., bedding? 14. What causes lead to renting rather than owning a house ? 15. What are the advantages and disadvantages of both? 16. How may the demoralizing habits which often SHELTER 27 come from renting rather than owning a home be pre- vented ? 17. What are the advantages of apartment house life ? 18. What factors govern the amount of the income paid for housing? 19. One-third of the income was formerly considered the right proportion to be paid for rent. Why is it fixed lower now ? 20. Does higher rent always mean more total ex- penditure ? Bibliography Household Management. Bertha M. TerriU. Chicago: American School of Home Economics. Cost of Living, Chapter IV. Ellen H. Richards. New York : John Wiley & Sons. Cost of Shelter. Ellen H. Richards. New York: John Wiley & Sons. House Sanitation. Marion Talbot. Boston : Whitcomb & Barrows. Practical Hygiene. Charles Harrington. Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger. Care of a House. T. M. Clark. New York: The Mac- millan Co. The Llouse. Isabel Bevier. Chicago: American School of Home Economics. ' Principles of Sanitary Science and the Public Health. W. T. Sedgwick. New York : The Macmillan Co. Housing Reform. Lawrence Veiller. New York : Chari- ties Publication Society. 28 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD Household Hygiene. S. Maria Elliot. Chicago: Ameri- can School of Home Economics. The Standard of Living, Chapter V. F. H. Streightoff. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co. Preventive Medicine and Hygiene. M. J. Rosenau. New York : D. Appleton & Co. The New Public Health. H.W.Hill. New York: The Macmillan Co. The Housing Problem in War and Peace. Washington : Journal of the American Institute of Architects. The Business of the Household. C. W. Taber. Philadel- phia : J. B. Lippincott Co. Housing Problems in America. Proceedings of the Na- tional Conference on Housing. CHAPTER IV FOOD T VARIED as are the changes which all phases of ^ household and family life have undergone, in none are they more striking than in that which has to do with the satisfying of the primal need of mankind — nutri- ment. It is true that it is no new thing to realize that ■people must not be allowed to go hungry. The new ques- tions are: What kinds of food will best serve the real needs of the body; in what quantities shall they be pro- vided; what methods of preparation should be chosen, and how can use be made of modern economic and commercial conditions so that the family income can be utilized to bring about the greatest returns in health and satisfaction with the least expenditure of time, strength, and money ? The fire on the hearth, the spit, the crane, and the brick oven have vanished. Only here and there traces remain of the churn and the cheese press, the curing of meats, the drying of fruits and vegetables, the brewing of beverages, the caring for stored and too often decay- ing potatoes and apples, and the filling of closet shelves with jars of pickles and preserves. In their places have come gas and electric stoves, the fruit and vegetable trains from Florida and California, the gigantic stock- yards, slaughter houses, and packing plants, the factories for the preparation and preservation of every kind of food substance, the cold storage warehouse, the creamery, 29 30 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD the Greek and Italian fruit venders, the telephone to the market, and the mail-order house. In fact, there are almost countless devices of the spirit of invention and of commerce which give rise to wholly new problems in regard to proper feeding for a household. The reader must look elsewhere for a discussion of dietetic standards and approved methods of preparation. The subject presents a large field which the scientist has but recently entered. It is the housekeeper's duty to keep herself informed of the progress of sound knowledge, and to be wary of following the food faddist in all his absurd and grotesque theories. The following general principles, however, may be laid down as safe guides. Food should be clean and free from injurious substances. It should be varied in kind and sufficient in amount, when meals are taken regularly, to satisfy a hearty appetite. It should be palatable in flavor and attractive in appearance. Meat should be eaten in moderation, which means not oftener than twice a day, preferably once. Milk, vegetables, and fruits should be used freely. Natural flavors should be developed in cooking, and the use of condiments and artificial flavors discouraged. Principles such as these are founded on common sense and experience, as well as on the teachings of physiology. Some of the newer dietetic considerations are becoming equally plain. For example, increased facility and rapidity of transportation and its lower cost, as well as cold storage plants, have broken down the old distinctions between the seasons, and it is no longer proper to urge the housekeeper not to use foods which FOOD 31 are "out of season." It is a fortunate development of civilization which makes it possible for the dweller in Northern cities and towns to have fresh lettuce at low cost the year around, and strawberries as toothsome and cheap in .April as in June. The day has passed when the body,, starving for the vegetable acids and mineral matter which during the long, cold winter have been boiled out of the winter vegetables, has had to turn to "spring medicines," sarsaparilla and the like, as tonics, to relieve the languor and lassitude known as "spring fever." The notion is still current that the expenditure of money for foods low in so-called nutritive value is most unwise when the income is limited, but this is a serious mistake; and the opportunity offered of late years to secure fresh fruits and vegetables and salad plants through the winter, as well as summer, should be eagerly utilized, if housekeepers wish to keep those dependent on their care and intelligence in good physical condition. One proof that this is being done is the increasing substitution of fruits in winter for rich desserts and pastries. Another is the rapid decline of the old-time household industry of "putting up" preserves, which frequently was a gauge of the housewife's thrift and skill. Even in sparsely settled communities, certainly in all towns, she now has the opportunity to serve her family with fresh fruits the year around. This she does at great saving of effort and frequently also of money, if every cost is counted, unless she is still held in the shackles of a family tradition that a woman's devotion to her husband and children can be measured by the contents of her preserve closet. 32 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD With the facihties which have largely increased the range of foods within the housekeeper's choice has come the double danger of overtaxing the digestive organs by- providing too great a variety of foods at one meal, and of so stimulating the appetite by a succession of different flavors as to lead to overeating. The housekeeper, then, has the new problem of guarding against temptation and of securing proper simplicity in the meals she offers, rather than the old problem of discovering new foods and devising new dishes to tempt the appetites of those under her care. The greatly increased ease with which, under modern conditions, food is obtained and prepared tempts the unwary housekeeper to yield to the caprices of her family. Frequently there is no other reason for calling for differ- ent food from that which has been prepared than the gratification of a whim. This double harm of introduc- ing unnecessary complexity into the household processes and of developing undue self-indulgence must be guarded against. She has also to resist the existing tendency to over- elaboration in preparation, for which, unfortunately, teachers of cooking are in part responsible, unless it may be that the stress of social rivalry and the power of fashion or imitation may be held responsible to a still greater degree for such ill-advised practices. Greater, perhaps, than these problems are those which more directly result from the fact that food is no longer manufactured in the home, but is prepared in factories, often to the extent that no further labor is needed to make it ready for the table. The housekeeper was for- FOOD 33 merly personally familiar with all the processes through which the food she used had passed, even if she did not actually perform them. She could base her judgment as to their value or quality on personal knowledge. In the case of foods prepared or manufactured outside the home, this is not possible. Accordingly she must always be on her guard lest she buy fraudulent or unwholesome foods. Fortunately public sentiment is demanding that she be protected in her rights by legislative control, and pure food laws are becoming more generally adopted, and, with a fuller realization of their importance on the part of the consumer, will be more rigidly enforced. There are, however, pitfalls in this direction. A few instances will indicate their general character. The housekeeper must remember, for example, that a food may be perfectly wholesome and yet have glucose in it; for glucose, in spite of its evil repute, is the substance into which all starch and sugar must be changed in order to be absorbed by the body. The use of preserva- tives is not necessarily harmful, as has been shown by the practice of depending on salt, sugar, vinegar, creo- sote and other substances in smoke. Coloring matter may properly be used to make foods more attractive, and the housekeeper visiting the Pure Food Show will not be unduly alarmed by sensational exhibits of fabrics dyed with coloring substances when she remembers the fruit stains on her table linen or the attractive colors of her fresh vegetables. The use of so-called substitutes, for example, when apples are made the basis for a jelly or when oleomargarine is substituted for butter, results not in harm to the health, but, if the price which is paid is 34 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD correspondingly low, in profit to the purse. Coffee made up in part of roasted cereals may even prove to be much more wholesome than pure coffee. In all such cases the protection to the family lies in proper labeling, and on this point public opinion and the administration of the law should permit of no compromise. Many improvements in the handling of food have been introduced. Cereals come in packages, crackers are carefully wrapped, and the barrel which seemed to supply an inexhaustible number of rotten apples has given place to the small basket with its hand-picked, carefully packed fruit. Such changes as these necessarily involve in- creased expense, but the wise housekeeper often finds that the actual outlay is less because of the smaller amount of loss or the improved quality. A reaction, however, seems to have set in, and many wise people are again urging the practice of buying in bulk. The subject needs careful study. On the one hand, there is usually the advantage which comes from the whole- sale rate; on the other, the danger of waste which usually exists when there is more of an article on hand than is actually needed, the danger from spoiling, and the danger of infections from careless handling or exposure to dust and insects. Predigested foods are on the market in great variety and with astonishing claims as to their merits. It goes almost without saying that the human body is most likely to be kept in health when it is given work to do which requires the normal use of all its functions. A practice which substitutes changes in foods carried on outside the body in laboratory or factory for the natural FOOD 35 processes of the digestive system should be adopted only under careful professional advice. The subject of the relative advantages and disadvan- tages of buying food fully prepared for the table may be indicated as properly to be included among the difficult problems which the housekeeper must solve if she is to secure the best conditions for her household. Questions 1. What considerations are to be borne in mind in determining the amount and kind of food to be supplied to the family? 2. If the expenditure for food seems unduly large, what measures may be taken to reduce it ? 3. What are the essentials of "a good meal"? 4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a family table ? 5. How can right habits of feeding be formed in little children ? 6. What measures may be taken to interest the family in rational habits of feeding and in reasonably adjusting the time spent in preparing and eating food to the other activities of the household? 7. What are the factors of cost in preparing food at home? 8. What additional factors must be paid for in buying prepared food and what are saved ? 9. Have community kitchens or any devices for economy in fuel, apparatus, and labor and reducing waste of food been tried in vour neighborhood ? 36 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD 10. What measures do you take to learn whether the quantity and quality of the food are what you pay for ? Bibliography Food Products. H. C. Sherman. New York: The Mac- millan Co. Chemistry of Food and Nutrition. H. C. Sherman. New York : The Macmillan Co. Changes in the Food Supply. L. B. Mendel. New Haven : Yale University Press. The Food Problem. Kellogg Taylor. New York : The Macmillan Co. The Fundamental Basis of Nutrition. Graham Lusk. New Haven : Yale University Press. Publications of the U. S. Department of Agriculture and U. S. Food Administration. Feeding the Family. Mary S. Rose. New York: The Macmillan Co. Food Study. Mabel T. Wellman. Boston : Little, Brown &Co. An Adequate Diet. P. G. Stiles. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Food for the Worker. Stern and Spitz. Boston : Whit- comb & Barrows. Health of the City. Hollis Godfrey. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. The World's Food. November, 19 17. Food and the War. United States Food Administration. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. CHAPTER V CLOTHING THE selection of clothing suitable in amount and kind is one of the responsibilities still resting upon the head of the household. The principles to be followed in meeting this responsibility have, however, not as yet been formulated with any fullness. In fact, there is perhaps no other household duty which is performed under such confused and confusing conditions. It should be noticed, for example, that clothing is demanded from considerations of beauty, of decency, of hygienic fitness, of evidence of pecuniary strength, as well as of warmth and comfort. No evidence need be adduced to prove that the draping of the human form may produce most charming effects of line and color. The requirements of modesty demand that, with excep- tions in favor of the formal dinner or ball and the bath- ing beach, the person shall be covered. Comfort, too, and protection from cold, from contact with unpleasant objects, and from the approach of insects, ask that the form be covered. The anthropologist points out that the clothes of today are related by inheritance to the primitive devices invented for purposes of sex attraction and decoration. The economist calls attention to the fact that in no way can the wealth of the family and the ability to spend without regard to return in utility be more easily demon- strated than by dressing ''in the fashion." By wearing 37 38 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD today costly garments which are evidently different from anything worn by anybody yesterday, it is made plain that one has bought since yesterday, and so can probably buy again before tomorrow. The fact of this spending capacity is made much clearer if the clothes are not only conspicuously new, but obviously of such a kind as to indicate the wearer's inability to perform any arduous and possibly wage-paid work. The high-heeled shoe, the tight corset, the trailing gown, the very close-cut skirt, possess these elements of attractiveness, and the changes in style, conforming to no other law than the require- ments for change, are found to take place within limits set by the demand of obvious waste and uselessness. The rapid succession of styles, informing all the world when one's suit was made or one's dress was bought, is a constant pressure on the woman to keep up with the change, possibly that she may not be unlike her neigh- bor, possibly that all the world may know how well her husband is getting on, possibly that no one may suspect that he is really not getting ahead at all. The confusion of these different ends results in strangely difficult tasks for the woman who wishes to use wisely and discreetly the resources intrusted to her for the satisfaction of her family's needs, since the manu- facturer, the merchant, and the purveyor have not been slow to seize upon the opportunity to manipulate the situation to their own advantage. Buying is stimulated by the advertisement showing the new fashions, by the department store display, by the fictitious interest in Easter, by the early spring trip South, by the late spring race, by the summer journey. CLOTHING 39 until every possible temptation has been ofifered in this connection. Much is said about the overdressed depart- ment store girl or factory operative ; but no outcry is raised against the ''Easter Opening" in the great depart- ment store, which prostitutes to the uses of the dealer the natural craving to be fair and beautiful when nature redrapes herself in verdure and life springs again in bud and blossom after the long winter's drab. There has been until very recently an almost com- plete absence of any eftort to devise right styles of dress, taking the lines of the human figure as the basis for decision. As to the adjustment of weight, the evidences of durability, the signs of fraudulent practices, nothing has as yet been formulated. Only recently have investi- gations revealed the extent to which the purchaser of textiles is the victim of deceptive processes analogous to those practiced in connection with the food supply. And, as after years of effort "pure food laws" have been placed on the statute books of one state after another and of the federal government, "pure textile" laws will similarly have to be enacted by our legislatures. By these laws the manufacturers will be required to attach labels giving reliable information as to fabrics, in order that intelligent buying may be done. We have as yet, therefore, no such standards for the adaptation of the clothing of the body in weight, in strain, etc., to the needs of the individual for covering and warmth, as we have in feeding standards based upon the individual's need for nutriment. In such studies as Rowntree's "Poverty," Chapin's "Standards of Living," and Mrs. More's " Wag^-e-Earners' 40 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD Budgets," no attempt is made to ask with what clothing should such a definite family be provided. It is asked, rather: What has been the average of the clothing they have had and what any one family possesses is judged by its relation to an average which it has helped to determine. There are several other difhculties besides those con- nected with the honesty of the goods. One interesting question which arises in connection with clothing is that of durability. When the cloth w^as the product of domestic manufacture representing the labor of many hands for many days, it was important that it should wear a long time and that all possible use should be got out of the labor which went with it. IMoreover, in earlier times, when there was less crowding, when sun and air had readier access to the houses, the problems of infec- tion or of sanitary precautions were less urgent. Now, however, especially in cities, where the smoke constitutes a nuisance, where the houses are built close together and admit neither adequate light nor adequate air, w^here in the crow^ded car or on the street or in the school one comes into close contact with many whose standards of cleanHness are obviously low, and when the cloth, at least, is the result of mechanical processes, if the labor of mak- ing can be reduced by simplification of style, it may very well be that durability becomes less desirable than clean- liness assured by frequent change. The development of the dry cleansing business partly meets this demand; but that business has objectionable features associated with it, and it may be that with increased simplicity of style and the invention of fabrics which are so inexpen- CLOTHING 4T sive as to justify very brief use, greatly improved con- ditions in hygiene may be secured. Nor are the difficulties all connected with the fabric itself. The housekeeper who rises to the full measure of her responsibility will ask not only whether she as a purchaser is treated fairly in the manufacture of the cloth and making of the garment; she will ask under what conditions was the work done upon it carried on. Was sweated labor employed under bad conditions during excessively long days of toil at wholly inadequate wages? Were sanitary conditions good? Was there a working day limited by statute, and a reasonably adequate wage paid? Until recently, so little realization of the purchas- er's true responsibility has been developed that not in- frequently the attempt to arouse it has been made by appealing to her fear. The earlier "sweat shop" laws v/ere secured partly by alarming the well-to-do mother with regard to the dangers to which she exposed her own children when she bought goods made in uninspected and perhaps infected homes. That appeal is relatively much less urged today, when It is recognized that however safe one may keep one's own child from the infection which exists in the home where another child suffers, one cannot keep one's own heart free from pain and discon- tent so long as any children are forced to grow up in homes crowded with work, deprived of maternal care, while a scanty and inadequate support is obtained from the mother's work. The clothing problem was greatly aflfected by the war. As various types of patriotic service developed and other forms of distinction than that of economic power arose, 42 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD the influence of fashion was lessened; and conspicuous economy, evidenced by continuing to wear the fashions of other years, for a time replaced the conspicuous waste of following new fashions. To the extent to which the war made reputable the professional employment of women of the more favored classes, those styles of dress inconsistent with useful work quite generally became outlawed; and, on the other hand, principles of utility found a larger place in the manufacture of women's cloth- ing. Moreover, the Government, by appropriating a great part of the wool supply to the clothing of soldiers and sailors, and by prescribing the number and varieties of certain articles of wearing apparel, limited the range of choice and so simplified the problem. The Government also fixed in the contracts under which war supplies were manufactured conditions of work and of pay, and as a result standards as to hygiene, factory organization, equal pay, adequate wage-scale, and collective bargaining were developed, which may to some extent continue. Moreover, the great reduction in the labor supply placed the work- ing and the employing groups more nearly on an equality in their bargaining, and through the adoption of agree- ments between the two an industry which before was characterized by chronic industrial warfare has been taking on the habits of peaceful and therefore uninter- rupted activity. However, owing to the rapid accumula- tion of great fortunes in the hands of persons who do not regard their newly acquired economic power as a trust, a period of great confusion in questions of dress and of fashion may be anticipated, and the recurrence of styles having no claim to attention except their novelty may be CLOTHING 43 expected. The coming years, during which it will be nec- essary to find clothing for great masses of the people left well-nigh naked in devastated and war-stricken countries, offer a great opportunity to the responsible and public- spirited housewife who desires to use her influence in the direction of reducing misery and of increasing rational living everywhere. It is clear that the duty of selecting wearing apparel for the household is an opportunity of the richest kind. Intelligent and honest performance of that duty leads into some of the most important undertakings of the times, and opens the way into wide and invaluable service. Nothing has been said here in the way of specific instructions. No discussion of the relative merits of cotton, wool, linen, and silk is in place. The intelligent reader is aware that for the clothing of her new baby she should have instructions based on the most recent knowledge of infant hygiene. Decisions with reference to the clothing of each member of her household must rest upon consideration of climate, methods of house construction and of heating, of such physical peculiarities as hearty or delicate appetites, vigorous or inactive bodily habits, and other factors of that kind. It may be noted that experts dealing with dependent families consider clothing as a means of self-expression of special interest and importance during adolescence and youth. The prob- lem of directing a child's taste in clothing, and at the same time gratifying his often absurd desire for the novel or ultrafashionable article of apparel, often taxes all a mother's wisdom and tact. Here, as in much of her other spending, her chief preparation must be a 44 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD sympathetic understanding of the nature of the task, a determination to buy for use, not for display, a patient taking account of experience, and a courageous attitude to novel experiments suggested for the purpose of set- tling vexed questions in maintaining the proper relations between body temperature and outside temperature, in giving fitting dignity to the bodies of children in their own minds, and in adequately meeting the demands for beauty and for reasonable conformity with the practices of those about her. Questions 1. What principles do you follow in determining what garments you will provide for your children ? 2. Having determined the number and kind, what decides the question of buying ready-made, or making at home ? 3. If you buy ready-made garments, what informa- tion do you demand with reference to the conditions under which they are made ? 4. Do you ask any questions as to the conditions of work prevailing in the shop where they are sold ? 5. Discuss the relative merits of wool, cotton, silk, and linen for garments to be worn next to the person. 6. What connection is there between the covering of the body and the dietetic needs of the body? 7. What factors do you consider constitute "a bar- gain " in buying clothing ? 8. What part do you take in securing better condi- tions for the work people who handle your clothing before you buy it? CLOTHING 45 9. In what ways is it possible to express individual- ity in clothing without striking disregard of prevailing styles ? Bibliography Feminism in Germany and Scandinavia, Chapters IV and V. Katherine S. Anthony. New York : Henry Holt &Co. The Theory of the Leisure Class, Chapters I-VII. T. B. Veblen. New York : The Macmillan Co. Law and Order in Industry. J. H. Cohen. New York: The Macmillan Co. Clothing for Women. L. I. Baldt. Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott Co. Household Textiles. C. M. Gibbs. Boston: Whitcomb & Barrows. Textiles. Woolman and McGowan. New York: The Macmillan Co. Clothing and Health. Kinne and Cooley. New York: The Macmillan Co. U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nos. 135, 143, 161, 186, 187, 198. The Cost of Living, Chapter VII. E. H. Richards. New York: J. Wiley & Sons. The Standard of Living among Workingmen's Families in New York City. R. C. Chapin. New York: Charities Publication Committee. Some Ethical Gains through Legislation. Florence Kelley. New York : The iMacmillan Co. The Woman Who Spends. B. J. Richardson. Boston : Whitcomb & Barrows. 46 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD « Fatigue and Efficiency. Josephine Goldmark. New York : Charities PubHcation Committee. Publications, National Consumers' League. Mrs. Florence Kelley, Secretary, 289 Fourth Ave., New York City. Publications, National Child Labor Committee. Owen R. Lovejoy, Secretary, 105 East 22d St., New York City. Publications, American Association for Labor Legislation. John B. Andrews, Secretary, 131 East 23d St., New York City. CHAPTER VI MANAGEMENT ^TpHERE is a great temptation to prefix the word -■- "scientific" to the heading of this chapter. On / all sides is heard the phrase, ''scientific management." The newspaper and the magazine, the platform speaker and the economist, all use it with equal glibness. The manager in his office, the foreman with his gang, and the director at his meeting are all cudgeling their brains or working out calculations so that the returns from the human labor they control will be as profitable as possible in terms of dollars and cents. It is true that the house- hold is lagging in making application of this form of efficiency. The reason is not often formulated, although it is doubtless unconsciously felt. The fact is that the household is not a form of organization whose purpose is pecuniary profit. It must surely be run on a basis which means that the expenditures shall not exceed the income and the amount of money invested shall not be greater than the value of the goods bought. But the returns from scientific household management must also be in terms of comfort, satisfaction, enjoyment, growth, education, and individual and group efficiency. These are reasons which give ample scope for processes that are not purely mechanical, but demand judgment, discretion, forethought, and, in fact, rather rare ability in the administration of the household, especially of one with several children and a limited income. 47 48 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD The ''scientific management" of the household in the full sense presupposes a competent manager, one who knows all the resources at her command and who has a clear conception of the returns she wishes to secure. It is frequently thought that she must be able to perform all the processes which she directs, but this demand is often unnecessary, provided she knows the general principles involved and can estimate with a fair degree of accuracy the cost in money and the outlay in time and strength, and can suggest more expeditious or less costly methods. It is no longer necessary for a housewife to be able to cure a ham or to make yeast. Year by year, industries are passing out of her domain. Even a knowledge of the technique of bread-making is no longer an essential part of the housekeeper's equip- ment. But, if she has bread made at home, she still needs to know, if she does not do the work herself, what equipment and what time- are needed to produce a satis- factory result with the skilled labor she employs. If she has not the skilled labor within her home, she will find that the economical and satisfactory method will be to buy bread from an outside factory, where skilled labor is employed under hygienic and fair conditions and clean, wholesome materials are used. The present-day housekeeper, especially in urban communities or under the stimulus of the "Home" magazine, is under constant temptation to elaborate and multiply the number of household processes and to slip gradually into a standard of what is usually called "living," but is often quite the reverse, which makes of the daytime hours a series of confused puzzles as to MANAGEMENT 49 how to fit in all the things which must be done and of the night-time hours a period of racked nerves and wearied flesh. The process is often quite insidious. More fre- quent change of table linen, dishes of olives or bonbons, finger bowls, the entire substitution of service by the maid for the family "helping" at the table, more cere- mony in waiting on the door bell — one after another come the changes of style, often without increase of in- come or of service, prompted by the desire to make a "good appearance," regardless of those principles of comfort and honesty which should be fundamental. Here comes an opportunity for really scientific management. The question as to what is essential for the welfare of the household must be frankly put and intelligently answered. Ignoring the question or timidly yielding to the pressure of fashion or social competition will never give the feeling of freedom or the conviction of sincerity which are the basis of true home life and of domestic happiness. "Scientific management" in the shop means the introduction and skilled use of the best mechanical appli- ances for doing the work and measures for keeping them in a state of perfect repair. Here the present-day house- keeper has much to learn, for, as a rule, she is woefully unscientific. The problem is not solved by buying every mechanical device which a honey-tongued agent extols. The housekeeper must determine whether the paring machine will be a real economy in the hands of her un- skilled maid, who is already efficient with a paring knife. And if the paring knife is to be the tool used, it must always be good of its kind and in repair. No manager 50 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD of a shop would ever expect a satisfactory or remunera- tive output if his work-people were allowed to work with tools of such poor quality as are found in many kitchens. All that is said on this point applies with still greater force to the worker. The employer, of course, must determine the degree of skill which she will seek for in her employee. Her duty, then, is to maintain conditions of life and work, such as hours of labor, a due amount of personal freedom and recreation, sleeping accommo- dations, intelligent direction, and routine of work, which will result in her securing the maximum of efficiency from the work-woman. Forethought is a quality which has even more play in scientific household management than in business, and yet, in these modern days, its value is practically ignored. This is due, in part, to the ease with which, by means of the telephone and the delivery wagon, the ready-to-eat and the ready-to-wear article may be brought to hand and the threatened catastrophe be an agony of but a few hours or even minutes. Another reason lies in frequent lack of familiarity on the part of the housekeeper with the processes of her household, the materials necessary for meeting its needs, and, last but not least, the efficiency of her domestic helper. Forethought is not synonymous with worry, nagging, or slavery. It consists in an intelli- gent provision for future but certain needs before they actually arise, and such order and system as will lead to genuine comfort. The so-called ''emergencies," which seem to make up a large part of the activities of some households, are for the most part needless. It would, in fact, be difficult to name more than a verv few emer- MANAGEMENT 5 1 gencies which could not be avoided by a small use of sound sense. In the olden time, very little money was actually handled or used in the management of a household. The goods which were produced in excess were bartered for the few other goods needed. Labor was seldom paid for in money. This is true to some extent in a few com- munities today, but, on the whole, the system prevails of a money income to be expended as money payment for household supplies. There results, then, the new need of a system of accounts. Many bookkeeping de- vices for housekeepers have been proposed, but most of them are complex, mechanical, and fail completely to accomplish their purpose, which should be not merely to show for what the money has been spent, but how it might be more wisely spent. Closely connected with this problem in management is that which has to do with the care of money resources, and especially with investments for future needs. Poets and prophets are seeing visions of a social order, when no man shall steal from the labor of another man, and when, in the spirit of Brotherhood, all who are able- bodied shall labor and the weak, the sick, the crippled, the defective, and the aged shall be the care of the strong and the young. But in spite of many signs of growing discontent with the present industrial and social order, a radical change is not in the near future, and, accord- ingly, a problem in the management of the household is how best to take care of those resources which the study of the family needs has shown can be set aside after the satisfaction of daily wants. The problem is one 52 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD which cannot be answered in detail in this place. It hardly ever presents itself twice in the same form and the answers are correspondingly varied. The possibiH- ties, such as insurance, savings-bank account, national securities, the family homestead, or the education of the children along special lines, may well be considered an important phase of management for the family to study over together. It is needless to point out that the problem of invest- ment as well as that of charitable giving was wholly altered by the war and by the needs growing out of war. The Liberty Loans and "drives" for such extra-govern- mental agencies as the Red Cross and Community Service indicate lines of investment, as well as of contribution, whose era of usefulness has not passed. This does not affect the thesis that these undertakings and decisions should be acted upon by the family group as a whole. Questions 1. What modern conditions especially affect house- hold methods ? 2. In what way and to what extent, if at all, should household management use modern business methods? 3. In order to decide whether the administration of a household is really economical, what points must be borne in mind? 4. What household interests and activities afford special opportunity for choice as against drift? 5. What tests will you apply to desired improve- ments before you decide that you should adopt them ? MANAGEMENT 53 6. In what respects, if any, is the telephone an eco- nomical investment? 7. What are the arguments for and against the reten- tion of "spring cleaning"? 8. Do you distinguish between hygienic and aesthetic cleanliness ? 9. What use can be made of your system of house- hold accounts to bring about more scientific management ? 10. Name some of the proposed conditions which are expected to improve household and family life. 11. Why do they frequently fail in this result? 12. Make a list of incidental household expenses which are not likely to be provided for in advance. 13. What determines the real economy in the purchase and use of mechanical appliances ? 14. What other expenses than that of plumbing re- pairs are due chiefly to neglect ? 15. Make a list of items of waste and drudgery that might leave the house to advantage. 16. Have you made any study of the different motions and the time involved in doing housework, such as clean- ing a room or washing the dinner dishes, with a view to greater economy? 17. Have you calculated whether the continued use of broken, antiquated, and inconvenient equipment is truly economical, or whether it uses up strength and time in such a way that there is waste at other points, such as care of children? 18. Is it possible to cooperate with your neighbors in the use of such labor and strength-saving devices as vacuum cleaners and washing machines? 54 'l"i^'- MODERN HOUSKHOLI) 19. Before deciding on an elaborate table service, such as a bread and butter plate, another course, a daily change of table linen, do you estimate the added time and strength required of the maid ? 20. In estimating whether the wages you pay a cook are high or low, do you take into account the food burned or wasted or stolen, or other evidence of her lack of skill, thrift, or honesty? 21. Do you know how long it should take your maid to do any given piece of work, such as cleaning the silver or washing the windows ? 22. What investments should be made in a family with children ? 23. What means can you devise for lowering the cost of living without the sacrifice either of real comfort or of efficiency? 24. What evidence does your household furnish that the prevailing high cost of living is due in part to extravagant standards ? 25. Do you, with one girl doing "general housework," attempt to maintain the style of an establishment cared for by three maids ? 26. What causes of friction, discomfort, or annoy- ance in your home can be removed? Bibliography Care of a House. T. M. Clark. New York : The Mac- millan Co. Euthenics. Ellen H. Richards. Boston: Whitcomb & Barrows. MANAGEMENT 55 Household Management. Bertha M. Terrill. Chicago: American School of Household Economics. Fuels of the Household. Marian White. Boston : Whit- comb & Barrows. Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning. Richards and Elliott. Boston: Whitcomb & Barrows. Cost of Living. Ellen H. Richards. New York: John Wiley & Sons. The Efficient Kitchen. Georgie B. Child. New York: Robert IM. McBride & Co. Home Efficiency. M. B. and R. W. Bruere. New York: The Macmillan Co. Lower Living Costs in Cities. C. L. King. New York : D. Appleton & Co. The Business of the Household. C. W. Taber. Philadel- phia: J. B. Lippincott Co. Household Management. Florence Nesbitt. New York : Russell Sage Foundation. Experiment in Household Finance, J. H. Canfield. Cos- mopolitan, July, 1902. The Cooperative Family. F. E. Leupp. Atlantic Monthly, December, 1909. Mechanics of the Household. E. S. Keene. New York : McGraw-Hill Book Co. The Home and the Family. Kinne and Cooley. New York: The Macmillan Co. Household Engineering. Christine Frederick. Chicago: American School of Home Economics. U. S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of Standards Circulars 55^ 7^; 75- CHAPTER VII DOMESTIC SERVICE AIMONG the most difficult questions which present themselves to the housekeeper are those connected with securing help in the performance of her household tasks. There are the various things which must be done to keep the house a clean, attractive, well-ordered place in which to live and to maintain the machinery for the daily feeding, the nightly sleeping, the periodic dressing of children, and the cleansing of linen, garments, and places used. Which of these tasks shall be performed by members of the family, which by persons who live with the family though not of it, which by persons who come in to perform the task and go when it is done, and which by those to whom the task can be taken, is one of the fundamental questions of administration. There are com- munities, few and far between, in which domestic service is almost eliminated as a household difficulty. In a city in which the laundry business has been well organized, so that the housekeeper can both risk her garments and pay the bills, where it is possible to secure at reasonable rates fairly skilled service by the hour or by the task (as in the case of the so-called employment agencies generally conducted by Japanese in San Francisco), where the deli- catessen shops make easy the private eating of prepared dishes and the restaurants tempt to the congregate dining- room, and where perhaps the climate is such as to reduce to a minimum the need of fires and the fuel gives rise to S6 DOMESTIC SERVICE 57 little dust and smoke, the household tasks may be reduced to the daily putting in order, caring for the children in the group, and doing a small amount of work in connec- tion with the meals. With the invention of labor-saving devices, too, and the development of collective, perhaps municipal, provision of light, water, and heat, the task is further simplified. In households in which the mother and daughters have acquired the household arts, are physically strong, and have administrative capacity, the maid-servant may be entirely dispensed with. For many housekeepers, however, whose physical strength is not great, whose early training in the household arts has been inadequate, or who have outside interests, the need of intelligent and skilled service within the home is very urgent and today often satisfied only with great diffi- culty. The reasons for this are interesting and possibly worth reviewing at this point. In the first place, although the relationship of mistress and maid is a relationship with which well-nigh uni- versally acknowledged difficulties are associated, it has until recently been the subject of little careful or scien- tific study. Since any one can enroll herself among the so-called domestic servants, however little training she may have or however lacking in capital of any sort, and because the products of the labor are not only transient in character but measured in terms, not of profit but of comfort and well-being, much less attention has been given to it than to factory or commercial employment. Part of this failure to observe closely and to analyze adequately the factors in the situation is also due to the fact that the immediate parties to the wage-bargain in 58 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD this case are women, often married or of less than full age, and so not only legally incapable but lacking induce- ir.ent to scan their acts closely. Undoubtedly the historical association of this relation- ship with that of master and slave, master and redemp- tioner, and master and apprentice, all involving both legal and social inferiority, has something to do with the contempt often felt not only for the maid-servant as an individual, but for the relationship itself. *' Menial," which once suggested "within the walls" (mocnia), has become synonymous with "despicable." The stigma of social inferiority attaches at the present time; the maid is addressed by her first instead of by her family name, is excluded from social intercourse with the group she serves, and is often regarded as socially below the worker in the factory and the shop. At present, of course, these differences are most marked in those communities in which ihe domestic servant group is wholly or largely colored and where the shadow of slavery still is heaviest; and the fact that, in other sections of the country, the great majority of those who find their way into this kind of employment are foreign-born or children of foreigners undoubtedly retards the establishment of a more democratic relationship, and perhaps hinders the more rapid awakening of housekeepers to the desirability of a change of attitude on this question. They often feel a contempt for the person of color or for the foreign girl who serves, and they continue to despise the service she renders. Certain associations with the earlier legal peculiari- ties too, as well as with the S(xMal difi'erences, impede the DOMESTIC SERVICE 59 rational consideration and consequent improvement of this occupation. The old law books said that the maid was under a duty to obey all ''lawful orders," and were full of illustrations of how harsh and arbitrary an order might be and still be "lawful." This meant, of course, that the mistress was entitled to the use of the person of the maid rather than to the product of her labor, and the implication of so m.e thing very like servitude was therefore present. Another peculiarity of this relation- ship is its so-called "entirety." If either party fails to perform in full the obligation undertaken, she forfeits the right to claim any fulfillment by the other party. If, for example, the maid has undertaken to work for a week, and quits after three days without fault on the mistress's part, no wages can be claimed for the three days' work. On the other hand, if, after one day, the mistress discharges without good cause, the entire week's pay may be claimed. This doctrine does not prevail in all communities. Some states. New Hampshire, Kansas, and a number of others, have adopted an equitable theory that since the employer has been enriched by the service performed, and cannot return it, she will be called upon to pay what the service was reasonably worth. AIo re- over, whether the agreement was for a given period or not is often a difficult question of fact, to be determined in the light of the custom prevailing in any given locality. So apt is there to be misunderstanding on this point that in some cities, notably New York, the Legal Aid Society has issued statements warning both mistresses and maids upon this subject, and urging them to make clear to each other their intention in the matter and to be prepared to fulfill their obligation. 6o THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD The domestic employer is thus legally and socially more advantageously placed than the domestic employee. The nature of the demand for service of this kind, how- ever, is so peculiar, and the conditions under which it presents itself so unlike other kinds of demand for wage- workers, that in some respects the domestic servant is at a distinct advantage as compared with other wage-earning women. In industrial and mercantile establishments the employer is at an advantage as compared with his pro- spective employee, in knowledge of the business and of the market, in ability to wait and in bargaining skill. In domestic establishments, on the other hand, the oppo- site is true. Here the employee knows the job, knows the market, has the power to wait and bargaining skill probably greater than the employer. The result has been that, without any organization and without combinations of domestics to do collective bargaining, wages, hours, and working conditions have in many communities been very considerably improved for groups of w^orkers. These changes, being due not to any well-considered plan, worked out on the basis of a careful study of the occu- pation, but rather to individual and often ill-considered and ill-advised whims on the part of maid-servants, have done little to standardize the service as a whole and to make things better for those workers who lack the spe- cial abilities to which reference has been made. For some, therefore, wages have been raised, the half-day out secured, limitations placed on evening work, privi- leges of a social kind obtained, and better living condi- tions sometimes demanded. These are all good so far as they go. But there have been few suggestions as to DOMESTIC SERVICE 6l standards of work or methods of administration. Labor- saving devices have not been invented or structural changes in the house of a kind Hkely to facihtate work proposed. Other features of the relationship which distinguish it from most wage-bargains are, first, the practice of paying partly in kind. The "living in" system, in ac- cordance with which the employee is housed and fed by the employer, is found in no other occupation in this country, except in the case of agricultural labor and in construction work done by gangs. It is being much dis- cussed in connection with the shop assistants in England, where it still survives, and many objections urged against it there could be with equal force urged against it in the case of domestic labor here. These objections are chiefly three. The first is that it is difificult, if not im- possible, to standardize the accommodations provided. The room occupied by one maid may be thoroughly com- fortable, adequate in size, attractively furnished, and wholly suitable, and her meals may be abundant, palatable, perhaps lavish, while a maid in a neighboring house- hold may be housed under wholly unsuitable conditions and expected to content herself with food inadequate in amount and unattractive in kind. A second objection to the "living in" is found in the fact that the maid, while physically within the family group, is spiritually separated from them by the social barrier to which reference has been made. Although she lives in the house, she gives no account of her goings or comings ; she is therefore without the protection furnished by her own family's knowledge of her move- ^ 62 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD ments, and the family with which she hves suppHes no substitute. On this account, the employment is considered by students of the social evil, by wardens of reforma- tories for women, and by those familiar with the history of the girls who have been drafted into lives of immo- rality, as a conspicuously "dangerous trade." A third consequence of the "living in" system is that it becomes more difficult to standardize the hours of work. More and more the community is recognizing the advantages of a standardized day. Many states have limited the hours of employment of women in factories and workshops, possibly in mercantile establishments. In some states night work is prohibited for such groups of workers. But when the maid lives in, so that she can hear the front door and telephone bells, why should she not answer them ; why not call on her to get the early breakfast, the late supper, or to render any service needed between those extremes of the day? This lack of standardization in the accommodations and the length of working day is characteristic of most features of domestic service, and might by a superficial student be ascribed to the nature of the tasks performed. That this is not the true explanation is shown by the rapidity with which many forms of personal service are now being organized and, as it were, professionalized, as the industrial processes were organized at the begin- ning of the nineteenth century. The demand for the midday meal near the place of business is developing new kinds of "waiting on table." The waitress, the boy behind the lunch counter, and the cafcticre where one serves one's self, are all substitutes for the old midday DOMESTIC SERVICE 63 home dinner. The shampoo, hairdressing, manicure, and ''shoe-shine" estabHshments provide other forms of menial personal service so specialized and so dignified as to remove all question of personal relationship and so all question of superiority and inferiority. Along such lines further development may be ex- pected. More reliance will be placed upon standardized services performed outside the home ; more upon stand- ardized services performed within the home by the person who comes to perform her task and goes when it is done ; and for the general helper in the home the same process must take place. As the housekeeper becomes more conscious of the true nature of her function and has her attention more and more focused on the problem of administration, the canons of efficiency will be observed, tasks of all kinds will be standardized as to products and method of per- formance, instructions will become definite, devices in the nature of profit-sharing will be invented to interest the maid in her own increasing efficiency and skill. When the principles of management have been worked out, the tasks of the maid standardized, and the proper grouping of tasks agreed upon, the training of both mistress and maid can be undertaken with some degree of confidence. As long as it is a matter of doing a mass of heterogeneous tasks as any accidental mistress may want them done, it is impossible to consider a course of vocational training leading to domestic service. If, how- ever, the problem should become one of supplying trained people to render service in connection with the mainte- nance of a well-ordered, dignified, agreeable family life. 64 THE MODERN UOUSEHOLD lived among clean and pleasant surroundings, where good temper and consideration for others prevail, and if a reasonable administrative capacity could be expected, courses of study based on principles of science and art could be offered to attract girls of administrative capacity and high character. Questions 1. What are the factors of cost of keeping a servant? 2. In your experience, how does the amount paid for wages compare with that paid for rent? 3. Test the theory that the cost of keeping a servant is twice her wages by making a full estimate of every item which your servant costs. 4. What are the factors of cost of laundry work done outside the house? What are its advantages? Its dis- advantages ? 5. Would you urge the development and improvement of the laundry system as an organized industry, so that, like tailoring, it should disappear from the household? State the reasons for your opinion. 6. What kinds of labor must be done in the house? 7. How can they be reduced in amount? 8. Why have the conditions of domestic service not been considered as seriously as other forms of labor? 9. What light does the historical study of domestic service throw on its present conditions? 10. What effect have general economic conditions on the conditions of domestic service? 11. What are the difficulties of the domestic em- ployer ? DOMESTIC SERVICE ^5 12. What are the difficulties on the side of the employee ? 13. What duties have you the right to require your maid to perform which necessitate her sleeping in your house ? 14. How may carelessness of servants be controlled or corrected? 15. What tests should be applied to any proposed remedy for existing difficulties? 16. What remedies will meet these tests? 17. How far are these remedies within reach of the individual housekeeper? 18. In what ways and to what extent may the indi- vidual members of the family aid in applying them? 19. Make out a series of questions to be asked em- ployers concerning the possibilities of having a part or the whole of the housework done by persons living outside. Bibliography Domestic Service. Lucy M. Salmon. New York: The Macmillan Co. Progress in the Household. Lucy M. Salmon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Industrial Democracy, Part HI, Chapter II, "The Hig- gling of the Market." Sidney and Beatrice Webb. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Democracy and Social Ethics, Chapter IV. Jane Addams. New York : The Macmillan Co. Commentaries. Blackstone. Book I, Chapter XVI. 66 THE AIODERTf HOUSEHOLD Shop Slavery and Emancipation, Chapter II, "Living in." William Paine. London: P. S. King. Household Management. Bertha M. Terrill. Chicago: American School of Home Economics. Woman in Industry. Edith Abbott. New York : D. Apple- ton & Co. Report of Commission on Household Employment. Y. W. C. A. of the United States. A New Way of Housekeeping. Clementina Black. Lon- don : W. Collins Sons & Co. A CHAPTER VIII EDUCATION FEW generations ago the education of the child was carried on in the home, a domestic industry. He learned to read at his mother's knee. His body grew strong and obedient to his will by carrying wood and water, feeding the chickens, doing the chores which contributed to the family welfare. His social instinct was developed by play with brothers and sisters or the neighbors' children in the barn or garret or orchard, where ingenuity and imagination had full scope. Tasks of many kinds gave him manual facility and the sense of power which comes through producing. Sacrifices and hardships and economies showed him the meaning of real values. Stern precepts of duty, obedience, and honesty were taught him in the home. The observance of Sunday, instruction in the Bible, and family worship trained his religious nature. The contrasting conditions of today reveal one of the problems of the household. The beginning of the day finds the prime interest of the family to be getting the children to school on time. They must be neatly dressed, books must be gathered together, and possibly the con- tributions for a school charity, for a class party, or for the school luncheon put in the pockets. The noon meal must be so timed as to suit the children's convenience. The hours after regular school exercises are all too short for the parties and clubs and athletics and dancing and 67 68 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD music lessons. In brief, the school and its organized activities have taken from the home most of the child's training, physical, manual, social, mental, and moral. Is there left a place for the family life to furnish training in any of these respects or in allied lines, such as aesthetic, productive, or spiritual? Is the home destined to be merely a shelter where physical needs are met, or can it still serve as an agency for true character building? Many a mother is conscious of the answer she wishes to give and helpless in finding means of bringing her hopes to pass. She must ask what is left of the old which can be used, and what opportunities do the new conditions offer? The gas range or electric heater, the telephone, the municipal heating plant, the plumbing, the electric light, the vacuum cleaner, are newcomers in the home and must be made to serve at least as well as their prede- cessors, even though not in the same way. Their proper use and simple repairs may certainly be as educative as picking up chips or carrying pails of water. The hammer and the screw-driver are useful tools of learning. Open- ing a box of soap or tightening the dressing-table handles is an act whose effect is greater than the service rendered. Even with mechanical and almost automatic appliances at hand, there are still household tasks to be done regu- larly and carefully, such as making beds, dusting, keep- ing rooms neat and tidy, caring for plants, occasional repairing, besides the routine tasks of dining-room and kitchen which still survive. These provide, as they always have provided, for training in power to cooperate and to carry responsibilities. EDUCATION 69 Another surviving subject for domestic training is language. The home may seem to have a hopeless task in its attempt to counteract the influence of the play- ground, the street, and even of the school; but it has the advantage over its competitors of the early start and the continuous opportunity. Reading, story-telling, famihar talk about the day's doings and the family inter- ests are all means for enriching the vocabulary, showing distinctions in meanings of words, developing careful pronunciation and enunciation, training in modulation of the voice, and, above all, establishing habits of courtesy and respect in speech. Here the family table is an aid of supreme importance. The occasions when the family gather to ''break bread" furnish easy opportunities for giving example and pre- cept in manners, in self-control, in regard and thought- fulness for others, and in mutual sympathy. The family table, with all its disadvantages of trouble and cost, may be made worth many, many times the price paid for it, if it is used intelligently and discreetly, and it should on no account be allowed to disappear as one of the family's educational resources. The training given by the school must be 'to a con- siderable extent for the child as a member of the group. His training as an individual, the development of his special powers, must be cared for in the home, and the administration of the home must provide for safeguard- ing that precious possession, individuality, while care- fully and even sternly warding off selfish and mean tendencies. Playrooms, workshops, bedrooms, and per- sonal belongings give the needed opportunity for wise yO THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD direction of individuality and the sense of responsibility which comes from ownership and power of control, while, on the other hand, they may be used as a means of fostering generous impulses and a helpful spirit. The widest possible participation in the household processes and the family activities should be granted to the children. The kitchen should never be closed to them, as is unfortunately sometimes the case. The apportion- ment of the family budget should be made a matter of their concern as early as possible. Choice of clothing and a responsibility for it may be turned over to them at an early age. Errands to the market, the post office, the library, or the bank may be intrusted to them, and the steps will be willingly taken if the doing of the errand means the assumption of a real responsibility and not merely an enforced task, due to the self-indulgence of an older person in authority or an evident desire to get the child out of the way. The child need not be made to realize that the home actually exists for him and that he is its chief asset, although these are the facts; but he should be made to feel that the part he plays, the duty intrusted to him, and the contribution he makes to the family welfare are important, and he must not fail in them. He will thus grow gradually into a larger efficiency and be ready to meet the issues of life when he leaves the protecting care of his childhood home. Another kind of training which remains in the hom.e is that which has to do with the physical life and habits of the child. The old mammy was quite wise in saying, when she came to take charge of a two-day -old child, EDUCATION 71 that she "didn't like to begin so late; a child got so many bad habits the first day." Regularity of habits, cleanliness of person, right standards of air supply, reasonable choice of food, proper methods of feeding, and decency in clothing are among the teachings which the home must give the child in earliest infancy and continue to give by persistent and patient effort all through the formative years. Hereditary tendencies must be observed and directed or checked, as the case may be, and thus future ills be warded off through right living. Moreover, it is in the home, rather than on the street or in the playground, that the mysteries of new life are to be revealed to the child, and sex distinctions and sex functions are to be made the basis of instruction in the principles and practice of sex health. This is one of the gravest duties which belong to parents, and it is lamentable that so many are incompetent to fulfill it. Within the home must come the training which gives the individual consciousness of belonging to a group. He recognizes dimly that there his physical needs are satisfied, because he does not suffer. He is sheltered, clothed, and fed. He is given what he has a right to have. He is «;urrounded with love and sympathy, and feels a sense of protection. He must learn to give in return. He must help when there is sickness or suffering, join with others in offering courtesy to "the stranger within the gates," and make from time to time little sacrifices called for by the good of the whole. In train- ing him thus, the home will so educate him that, when he becomes a member of a larger group, he will not merely clamor for his "rights," but will render those y2 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD services which make for the large social consciousness that is to prevail if increasing human welfare is to mark the advancing years. Such are some of the educational problems of today which the home must face and solve, and in so far as it shirks or ignores them it fails to justify itself as an institution to be perpetuated. Questions 1. What kinds of training of the young are going out of the home? 2. What arrangements can be made so that the children will have playrooms, workshops, or laboratories where they may develop individual gifts? 3. How may respect for the children's rights to their personal property be shown? 4. In what ways may they be trained to care for their personal property? 5. How may they be taught to be generous with what belongs to them ? 6. What opportunities may be given them to co- operate in choosing their clothing and even to have full responsibility ? 7. How may they be trained in the handling and use of money? 8. What methods may be used to teach wise and proper saving? 9. What means may be used to train them in voice and speech? 10. To what extent may they be allowed to partici- pate in the family conversation without dominating it? EDUCATION 73 11. What household duties may be assigned to them for which they may be held responsible ? 12. How may habits of personal cleanliness be en- forced ? 13. How may sex functions be best explained? 14. To what extent may manufacturing processes be retained in the home for educational purposes? Bibliography Some Thoughts Concerning Education. John Locke. New York: The Macmillan Co. Leonard and Gertrude. Pestalozzi. Boston : D. C. Heath &Co. Cyclopedia of Education. Paul Monroe. Article on Family Education. New York: The Macmillan Co. The Coming Generation. W. B. Forbush. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Euthenics. Ellen H. Richards. Boston: Whitcomb & Barrows. Home, School, and Vacation. Annie W. Allen. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co. The Town Child. R. A. Bray. London. Democracy and Social Ethics, Chapter VL Jane Addams. New York: The Macmillan Co. Progress in the Household, Chapter H. L. M. Salmon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Democracy beginning at Home. H. F. Cope. Religious Education, February, 1919. Teaching in the Home. A. A. Berle. New York : Moffat, Yard & Co. CHAPTER IX THE ACTIVITIES OF THE HOUSEHOLD THE physical operations and material needs of the household are, of course, of fundamental impor- tance. They do not, however, by any means constitute all the interests of the household, as many persons unfortunately appear to believe ; they are merely the basis for the expression of those qualities which distin- guish human beings from other forms of life. Food, warmth, and protection must be furnished, but not as ends in themselves. Every principle studied, every reform advocated, and every process adopted should be considered in the light of its role as a part of the founda- tion for the highest and best expression of Hfe, whether it be physical, intellectual, moral, or spiritual. The house which is perfectly administered on its physical side has a small function in the economy of life unless it contrib- utes to the upbuilding of men with noble minds and souls. As Emerson said : "A house should bear witness in all its economy that human culture is the end to which it is built and garnished. It is not for festivity. It is not for sleep. But the pine and the oak shall gladly descend from the mountains to uphold the roof of men as faithful and necessary as themselves, to be the shelter always open to the good and true, a hall which shines with sincerity, brows ever tranquil, and a demeanor impossible to dis- concert." In the preceding pages the attempt has been made to 74 ACTIVITIES OF THE HOUSEHOLD 75 keep this point of view steadily before the reader. The activities of the household which remain to be considered are often said, although perhaps in the last analyses not quite truthfully, to represent "the higher life." Educa- tion, hospitality, civic cooperation, aesthetic enjoyment, and moral and spiritual growth are all forms of activity which must be demanded as the fruitage of those domes- tic efforts which are so exacting and costly as often to blind the housekeeper to the fact that they are not her final goal. The possibilities and obligations of the household in these different directions are as varied as the families to which they belong. It is, therefore, impossible to for- mulate with precision any details of procedure. Certain general suggestions may, however, prove helpful. For example, if the training of children is a paramount duty, then the retention of domestic industries, as far as they prove educational, is not only justifiable but necessary. Moreover, if the carrying on of such industries as cook- ing and sewing contributes to the sense of pleasure or comfort, or develops a spirit of cooperation or unity in the household, they may be retained, even if they would not justify themselves on grounds of economy alone. Whether the result is worth the cost must be determined by intelligent and frank discussion. Hospitality is a form of household activity which >^ represents the satisfaction of a very real human craving. Nevertheless, the forms which it often assumes are such as to defeat entirely its purposes. Undue cost, social pretense, anxiety, and nerve strain crowd out genuine friendliness, enjoyment, and pleasure on the part of 76 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD hostess and guest alike. Methods of attaining the real end in entertaining friends should very properly be made a matter for the family council, and devices for using modern social resources in independent and pleasurable ways should be adopted. The current forms of hospital- ity into which children are forced seem to need particular consideration and readjustment, while forms of entertain- ment, involving less cost and carried on with less for- mality, constitute a need which many adults feel strongly. The household is surely not performing its functions adequately until it solves these problems. The study of the family accounts may well be given a larger place among the activities of the household. Such discussion not only has real educational value, but, for the time which it may consume, will contribute more to the development of a loyal family spirit than any other form of cooperation. Every member of the family, even to the youngest, should sit in council, learn what are the resources of the group as a whole, and determine by joint action, guided, of course, by the more responsible and wise members, just what amounts shall be assigned for group expenditures and what for individual needs and indulgences. The ethical and social principles involved are far-reaching and the training in so-called business habits will be invaluable if the discussions are conducted with frankness and generosity and the decisions carried out with honesty and devotion. The proper development of the aesthetic faculties and the gratification of the sense of beauty is a problem which is taking on new forms, as society is breaking away from the austere influences of earlier generations and as the ACTIVITIES OF THE HOUSEHOLD 'J'J means of gratifying the appeal for beauty in form and color are year by year brought within the reach of a larger number of people. The expression of a sense of beauty through wall coverings, furniture, pictures, table- ware, ornaments, and other household and personal equip- ment affords an interesting and valuable family activity. A great change has come within recent times in the formal religious activities of the household. Family prayers, Bible study, churchgoing, and the observance of Sunday as a day of prayer and devotion have given place to a new order. The modern problem is how to save from the wreckage that which was spiritually enriching and uplifting, while gladly breaking free from deadly formalism. Many wise leaders are giving help in this direction, especially through such agencies as the Reli- gious Education Association, and every one interested in family welfare should be eager to make use of their suggestions. But there are also activities without the walls of the home which appear in a new phase during these later years and whose significance must not be ignored, espe- cially since the right use of the opportunities they offer presents an interesting problem. One form which these activities take is sometimes known under the term, "com- munal pleasures." The old-time husking-bee, spelling- match, sewing-circle, and singing-school have given way to organized methods of furnishing entertainment, infor- mation, or recreation, often conducted at public expense. The theatre, the library, the park, collections of art, concerts, and museums devoted to different fields of knowledge are increasing in number, attractiveness, and 78 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD availability. The fact that they lure from the home fireside and tend to neglect of duties is sometimes de- plored. The more intelligent attitude of mind is that which recognizes in them agencies for genuine family progress and thus uses them. Americans have in this respect much to learn from some foreign nations, notably Germany, where it is much more usual than in this country to see a whole family group find pleasure or profit in making use together of some of these com- munal agencies. Visits may be made together in the late afternoon, Saturdays, holidays, and even Sundays. Not merely the chance for increased information and culture, but the delight of sharing enjoyment, should make of such hours both happy memories and vital forces in group and individual growth. The dramatic sense of a younger member of the family, the taste in art or music of another, may thus be fostered and at the same time dignified with a kind of leadership, if the other members of the family are open-minded and sympathetic in their response. One most desirable reaction will inevitably be the enrichment of the conversation of the group through a common interest in more worthy subjects than neighborhood gossip, current slang, or personal grievances and whims. Another interest in which the family as a whole may well be concerned, and which will take them beyond the limits of their house walls, is the organized philanthropic work of the neighborhood. The group, including even the youngest, should recognize this responsibility and opportunity, and join in carrying some of the burdens and studying some of the problems which our present order of society presents with great insistence to all ACTIVITIES OF THE HOUSEHOLD 79 thoughtful persons. This is not only a public duty, but one which must be met if the highest welfare of the group in its inmost needs is to be attained. The method of working it out becomes a problem of no mean order in the modern household. Similarly every form of social betterment, such as organized educational, religious, and civic work, affords opportunity for the further training and expression of those powers which the modern household should count as among its choicest assets, if not, indeed, as the very justification for its existence as an institution. The suggestions thus briefly outHned cannot be further elaborated in this place. The conditions of the problem are too diversified to make its solution possible by rule of thumb. Indeed, the danger in carrying them out at all lies in the direction of making these forms of family ac- tivity too mechanical. They are in reality an "outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," the manifestation of those things of the spirit for which the physical processes of the household should serve as the foundation and starting point. Questions 1. What reasons can you give for not distinguish- ing any special human interests as belonging to "the higher Hfe"? 2. What needs come with a larger income? 3. What class of people find the most difficulty in meeting their needs, and why? 4. How is the satisfaction of such needs to be determined ? 80 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD 5. What features of the older home Hfe must be retained in order to secure its permanence and vitaHty? 6. What new features does modern life make necessary ? 7. Describe agencies which can be used in the modern well-to-do home for the development of efficiency, char- acter, and sense of responsibility in children. Which of them are not to be had in hotels and boarding houses? 8. Specify some ways by which regard both for the individuality and for the common interests of the family can be served in the organization and administration of the household. 9. What are some of the "communal pleasures" which the people of your town enjoy? 10. What influences and resources can be used in the home to check the love of crowd and of communal pleasures ? 11. Why is household life more complex now, with all labor-saving appliances, than it formerly was? 12. What arrangements should be made in money matters between the different members of the family? 13. To what extent does genuine hospitality require a modification of the customs of the family? 14. When the purchase of a ready-made article, such as a piece of underclothing, involves more money outlay and less expenditure of time than making it at home would demand, what plans have you for a satisfactory and profitable use of the leisure secured? 15. Discuss the outside interests which do or should have the active interest of the mother. activities of the household 8l Bibliography Democracy and Social Ethics, Chapters II and III. Jane Addams. New York: The Macmillan Co. Introduction to the Study of Society. Small and Vincent. New York: American Book Co. Ethics, Chapter XXVI. Dewey and Tufts. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Household Economics, Chapters I and XII. Helen Campbell. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Theory of the Leisure Class. T. B. Veblen. New York: The Macmillan Co. The Education of Women. Marion Talbot. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Home Problems from a New Standpoint. C. L. Hunt. Boston : Whitcomb & Barrows. The Home. C. P. Oilman. New York: Charlton Co. Euthenics. E. H. Richards. Boston: Whitcomb & Barrows. The Cost of Living, Chapter VIII. E. H. Richards. New York : John Wiley & Sons. A CHAPTER X THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE COMMUNITY FREQUENT mention has been made in the preceding pages of activities within the household with which the well-being of the community is intertwined. It has been pointed out that, from such humble and simple tasks as supplying regular food and requiring regular sleep for the little children, a reduction in the volume of delin- quency, truancy, and subnormality might be expected. Similarly, attention has been called to the importance of care in the selection of articles of food and clothing, not only from the point of view of those who eat and wear, but of those who make and sell. The household is, in fact, tied to the community by two sets of bonds. There are, in the first place, those tasks to be performed by the housekeeper on which the well-being of the community depends. With proper care of waste-matter in her house and the maintenance of a reasonable standard of cleanli- ness, the entire community is greatly concerned. Upon her living up to a reasonable measure of intelligence in the treatment of her children, the entire well-being of the next generation may be said to depend. So closely identi- fied, in fact, is the public interest with the adequate performance of such daily tasks as these, that housekeep- ing may now be classified among the public functions. But not only is the community dependent upon the housekeeper; she is, in turn, dependent upon the com- munity for help in the performance of her household AND THE COMMUNITY 83 duties. To be sure, much can be accomplished and must be sought through voluntary association. A careful housekeeper can keep her own house sweet and clean, and can maintain a nice standard of care in her yard; but the extent to which her floors will be tracked with muddy feet or her curtains soiled by dusty wind will depend in large measure on the standard maintained in the care of the street in front and the alley behind both her own and her neighbors' homes. The organization of a neighborhood improvement association may be, then, the first and the most practicable step towards securing a community standard of cleanliness like her own. In the same way, in order to secure conditions which she can regard as endurable and suitable for the prepa- ration of such of her food as under modern city condi- tions should not be prepared at home, she may accomplish something by individual care. She can look at her butcher's refrigerator, go through her grocer's store- room, visit her milkman's dairy, and inspect his wagon. Moreover, she can organize a Consumers' League, whose members will agree with her to ask information before they buy and to maintain representatives to inspect for them all and to voice their demands. Obviously, how- ever, the local improvement association is but a step towards securing at least a reasonable standard of street and alley care for the whole city. To secure this it is necessary to exercise control over the public works de- partment and to influence the determination of the pro- portion of the city's resources which should be spent on this aspect of city comfort and well-being. Moreover, in connection with many processes neces- 84 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD sary to the preparation of food, the private group is as helpless as the private individual. Whether the beef shall be adequately inspected before slaughtering, whether the meat products shall be carefully handled, whether the em- ployees in distant mills and workshops are sweated or exploited or exposed to needless accident and to prevent- able disease, neither the individual nor the woman's club can effectively determine. Nothing short of govern- mental power, expressed in legislation and executed through governmental agents, will meet the exigencies of the situation. Spending for food and clothing and other means of satisfaction involves, then, a partnership with the whole industrial machinery by which they are supplied, and a partnership with the governmental organ- ization by which the industrial machine must be con- trolled. "The woman's place is in the home," is an old saying to which all subscribe, perhaps with varying appreciation of its significance. To some it means that women must limit themselves to the performance of duties arising within the walls where the members of the family sleep, whence they go to their daily interests. To others it means that wherever there is found an interest vital to the well-being of the group for which she is responsible, the housekeeper will feel entitled to claim admittance. To those who take this larger view, it becomes in- evitable that the housekeeper shall be present either in her own person or in the person of her agent where the food of her family is prepared. She must inspect the farm from which her milk is brought to the city, the dairy in which it is prepared, the trains on which it is AND THE COMMUNITY 85 transported, the centres from which it is distributed. She must take part in the decision as to the standard required, the method of enforcement devised, the rate at which that standard shall be raised. She must properly separate the waste matter in her own home and dispose of it in accordance with her own standards of cleanliness and with the orders from the City Health or Public Works Department. She must also cooperate in securing adequate provision for the disposition of that waste which must be collectively handled. She will insist on following her children into the school, on to the playgrounds, into all places of amuse- ment. She will claim the right to be present when the "guardians of the law and of the children who go about in public places" are selected and instructed, because they are her servants doing her work. With amazing complacency women have let their homes outgrow them. They have allowed their children to go unattended and unguarded and so substantially orphaned into many places and through many experiences. The girl who is motherless, not because her mother is dead, but because she has let her home outgrow her, is unguarded in the dance hall or place of cheap amusement. The boy, orphaned similarly, finds his way to the Juvenile Court. The streets which she has neglected are lined with ugly and deceptive billboards. Into the city which she has failed to claim come strangers treated as she would not let a dog be treated in her own back yard. She talks much of the difficulties attending her efforts to secure a maid who shall open the door and take in 86 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD the milk ; but she has paid no attention to the selection of the man at the head of the Health or Public Works or Pure Food Department., whose duties are of as immediate and urgent concern to her. Perhaps she de- serves to be treated as the servant in the parable was treated, and be made to deliver up to another the talent intrusted to her for wise investment. But to whom would the better handling of the talent be intrusted? No such solution of this difficulty is possible, for there is at hand no servant who has been faithful with the ten talents. Her sins have been those of omission, and have been largely due to the fact that her eyes have been hidden so that she has not seen the way in which the boundaries of the home which she thought her pres- ence filled had shifted, leaving her stranded in the centre of a wide and ever- widening reach of human problems and human needs. When she sees how her presence is needed in all the places which have been named, she 'Svill arise and go" to the polling booth, to the city hall, to the factory, to the school that the child's mental training may not be divorced from his physical and social needs, to the place where the children play so that safety and therefore decency may characterize the rela- tionship of boys and girls, to all the places where those who prepare and serve her food and make her clothing work and live. She will appropriate the ballot as a domestic neces- sity, just as she appropriates the mechanical devices which lighten her work and render her physical efforts more effective. She will utilize governmental organiza- tion as she will resort to private organization, according AND THE COMMUNITY 8/ as one or the other serves the interests intrusted to her care. She will scan the records of public servants because of the domestic interests involved in their selec- tion, and gradually she will apply to the selection of her private helpers professional rather than personal standards which will dignify their labor and her relation- ship to them. Her position will then become one of increasing dignity and interest, and from her trained intelligence will come many suggestions for better col- lective action in behalf of the children, the aged, the sick, for whose care the community must be responsible. All of this will grow out of her realization that a woman's presence is demanded throughout the range of interests which constitute her home. The question arises as to the best method of prepara- tion for such a profession as has been described. Obvi- ously many are being allowed to undertake these respon- sibilities without adequate equipment, indeed without any equipment at all. Clearly no training which enlarges the sympathy and widens the sense of kinship with all man- kind will be amiss. All the helps to be got from Htera- ture and history in making the past live, in making the ways of others interesting for her own group, will be useful, if the home is to compete in attractiveness with the excitement of the moving picture show or the allure- ments of the street. Bacteriology, chemistry, and physics should be her handmaids in the performance of house- hold tasks. Economics and the theory of government she should command. With the technique of simple cooking, of simple sewing, of simple cleansing both of house and of garments she should be familiar. The 88 THE MODERN HOUSEHOLD theory of modern advertising and of modern methods of selHng should be made known to her, so that she may not be victimized by them. Perhaps the most important preparation of all is the attainment of a fine democracy of spirit which dignifies work, judges by objective stand- ards, and leaves to others, children, maid-servants, any who cooperate either in public or private undertakings, a large measure of freedom from interference and petty criticism, creating an atmosphere of kindness and of genuine equality. In such an atmosphere children will thrive, maid-servants will respond, tasks will be smoothly done, and life will move serene in the sphere over which she has undertaken to rule and in which she has been glad to serve. Questions 1. In what respects, if any, do you think that the administration of the household offers "a career" to women ? 2. What kinds of training and knowledge do you think the head of a household needs? 3. On what public agencies is your household now dependent for its well-being? 4. With what voluntary associations can you ally yourself to secure better housekeeping for your neigh- borhood ? 5. Summarize the different ways by which a house- keeper can combine her household duties with the edu- cation of her children. How can she make use of one to accomplish the other? 6. Can you justify from your own experience the •Adapled from fine posler oP The Woman's CiTy Club Cnicaqo. Madam, Who Keeps Your House? AND THE COMMUNITY 89 statement that it is possible to be victimized by advertise- ments ? 7. What do you think are the most pressing reforms needed today in the administration of the household? 8. What agencies can be devised and used to bring them about? Bibliography Newer Ideals of Peace, Chapter VII. Jane Addams. New York: The Macmillan Co. The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets. Jane Addams. New York: The Macmillan Co. Democracy and Social Ethics, Chapter III. Jane Addams. New York: The Macmillan Co. A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil. Jane Addams. New York: The Macmillan Co. Some Ethical Gains through Legislation. Florence Kelley. New York: The Macmillan Co. The Family. Helen Bosanquet. New York: The Mac- millan Co. Ethics, Chapter XXVI. John Dewey and James H. Tufts. New York: Henry Holt & Co. The Education of Women. Marion Talbot. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Civics and Health. William H. Allen. Boston: Ginn & Co. Euthenics. Ellen H. Richards. Boston: Whitcomb & Barrows. The City the Hope of Democracy. Frederick C. Howe. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. INDEX Accounts, household, 12, 51, 76 Advantages of domestic em- ployee, 60 Advertising, 88 Esthetic faculties, development of, 76, 77 After-Care Committee, 42 Amusement, places of, 77, 85 Appliances, mechanical, 49 Archaic methods, 3 Atmosphere of home, 88 Ballot, a domestic necessity, 86 Belated habits, 3 Business, relation of house- keeper to, 6 Buying clothing, difficulties in, 38, 41. 42 Buying clothing, stimulation of, 38 Buying, influences of, 5 Buying, preparation for, 6 Care of streets, 83 Causes of disease, 24 Chapin, 39 Charity Organization Move- ment, 2 Chicago Board of Education, 6 Child, chief asset of home, 70 Child Labor Committee, 42 Choice of standard of living, 12 Cleanliness of clothing, 40 Clothing, 37 et scq. cleanliness of, 40 difficulties in buying, 38, 41, 42 durability of, 40 home making of, 42 manufacture of, 41, 42 purposes of, Z7, 38 sanitary aspects of, 40, 41 selection of, 2>7^ 43 standards in, 39 styles in, 38, 39 sweatshop, 41, 42 Coffee, 34 Coloring matter in foods, 33 Common interests of maker and buyer, 6 Communal pleasures, 77, 78 Community dependent on house- keeper, 82 housekeeper dependent on, 82, 83 interference, 2 Complexity in feeding, ^2 Conditions of household labor, 50 Considerations in choice of home, 25 Consumers' League, 42, 83 Consumption, wasteful methods in, 1 1 Control of food, 83, 84, 85 of home, 86 of householder by state, 21 of public servants, 87 of public works, 83, 86 Cooperation, training in, 68 Criticisms of family, i Danger of overeating, 32 Decline of preserve-making, 31 Dependency, 2 Development of aesthetic facul- ties, 76, 77 of individuality, 69 Dietetic considerations, 30 standards, 30 Disappearance of household in- dustries, I, 4, 5, 16, 29 Disease, causes of, 24 resistance to, 24 Disposal of waste, 85 Distribution of resources, 13, 16 Domestic appliances for educa- tion, 67, 68 efforts, fruitage of, 75 employee, advantages of, 60 working conditions of, 60 ideals, 3 90 INDEX 91 Domestic industries, disappear- ance of, I, 4, 5, 16, 29 retention of, 6, 75 necessity, ballot a, 86 problem, seriousness of, 3 service, 56 et seq. legal peculiarities in, 58, 59 servants, training of, 63, 64 Durability of clothing, 40 Economic status of family groups, 2 Education, 67 et seq. a domestic industry, 67 domestic appliances for, 68 for home-making, 20 Efficiency, standards of, 2 Elaboration of household proc- esses, 48, 49 Elimination of service, 56, 57 Emergencies, household, 50 Emerson, R. W., 74 Enactments, sanitary, 24 Engel, Ernest, 14 Engel's Laws, 14 Environment, effect of on health, 24 Ethical training, 71 Evidences of dissatisfaction, i Expenditures, experiments in household, 15 Factory system, 3 Failure of institutional lite, 7 Family accounts, 76 as a social organization, i criticisms of, i groups, economic status of, 2 life among the poor, i importance of sound, i rehabilitation, 2 Feeding, complexity in, 32 new questions in, 29, 30 self-indulgence in, 32 principles of, 30 Food, control of, 83, 84, 85 handling of, 34 laws, 33 preservatives, 33 substitutes, 33 Food, wholesale buying of, 34 Foods, coloring matter in, 33 in season, 31 nutritive value of, 31 prepared, 32, 33. 35 predigested, 34 Forethought, use of, 50 Fruitage of domestic efforts, 75 Fruits, use of, 31 Function of house, 74 of making, 6 of spending, 6 Glucose, ZZ Governmental organization, use of, 86 Group training, 81 Habits, belated, 3 Handling of food, 34 Health, effect of environment on, 24 Hereditary tendencies, 71 Higher life, 75 Home, atmosphere of, 88 centre of production, 11 child, chief asset of, 70 considerations in choice of, 25 control of, 86 education, 67, 68 woman's sphere, 84, 88 making, 20 education for, 20 of clothing, 42 Homes, women outgrown by, 85, 86 House, function of, 74 Householder, control of, by state, 21 legal relations of, 22 obligations of, to community, 23 . , Housekeeper, community de- pendent on, 82 dependent on community, 82, 83 position of, 17. 40 relation of, to business, 6 responsibility of, 8 92 INDEX Housekeeping, 20 a public function, 82 training for, 87 Household accounts, 12, 51, 76 emergencies, 50 life, importance of, 6 manager, qualities of, 48 object of, 47 processes, elaboration of, 48, 49 tasks, 56 welfare of, 49 Housework, standardization of, 60, 61, 62, 63 Housing, 20 sanitary considerations in, 24 Hospitality, 75, 76 Ideals, domestic, 3 twentieth century, 3 Importance of family life, i, 6 Individuality, development of, 69 Industries, disappearance of do- mestic, I, 4, 5, 16, 29 retention of domestic, 6, 75 Influence of buying, 5 Investments, 51, 52 Institutional life, failure of, 7 Juvenile Court, 2, 7, 85 Juvenile Protective Association, 42 Labor Legislation Association, 42 conditions of household, 50 Language, training in, 69 Laws, Engel's, 14 Legal Aid Society, 59 relations of householder, 22 peculiarities in domestic serv- ice, 58, 59 LePlay, 14 Limitation of householder's rights, 21 Living in system, 61 objections to, 61, 62 Maid, social inferiority of, 58 Maker and buyer, common in- terests of, 6 Making, function of, 6 provision for wants by, 5 spending substitute for, 5 Management, scientific, 47, 48 Manners, training in, 69 Manufacture of clothing, 41, 42 Mechanical appliances, 49 Methods, archaic, 3 Mistress and maid, relationship of, 57, 58 Money, use of, 51 More, 39 Needs, supply of, 13 Neglected streets, 85 Neighborhood improvement as- sociation, 83 Nutritive value of foods, 31 Object of household, 47 Obligations of householder to community, 23 Organization of personal serv- ice, 62, 63 Overeating, danger of, 32 Owning versus renting, 25 Pensions, 2 Personal service, organization of, 62, 63 Philanthropic activities, 78 Physical processes, significance of, 74 training, 70, 71 Places of amusement, 77, 85 Placing out, 2 Planning for spending, 12, 13 Playgrounds, 85 Poor, family life among the, i Position of housekeeper, 4, 17 Power in spending, 5 Predigested foods, 34 Preparation for buying, 6 Prepared foods, 32, 33, 35 Preserve-making, decline of, 31 Principles of feeding, 30 Problem, domestic, seriousness of, 3 Production, home centre of, 11 Provision for future, 51, 52 for wants by making, 5 INDEX 93 Public function, housekeeping a, 82 servants, control of, 87 works, control of, 83, 86 Purposes of clothing, 37, 38 Relation of housekeeper to busi- ness, 6 Relationship of mistress and maid, 57, 58 Religious activities, ^J^ Education Association, tj Renting, owning versus, 25 Resistance to disease, 24 Responsibility, training in, 70 Retention of domestic indus- tries, 6, 75 Resources, distribution of, 13,16 Responsibility of housekeeper, 8 Rights, limitation of house- holder's, 21 Rowntree, 39 Sanitary aspects of clothing, 40, 41 considerations in housing, 24 enactments, 24 Sanitation, tendencies in, 23 School, a household interest, 67 Scientific management, 47, 48 Self-indulgence in feeding, 32 Selection of clothing, 37, 43 Service, elimination of, 56, 57 within the home, 57 Sex instruction, 71 Significance of physical proc- esses, 74, 79 Social inferiority of maid, 58 problems, study of, 78, 79 organization, family as, i Spenders, women as, of family income, 10 Spending, function of, 6 planning for, 12 power in, 5 substitute for making, 5 Standard of living, choice of, 12 Standards in clothing, 39 of efficiency, 2 Standardization of housework, 60, 61, 62, 63 State, control of householder by, 21 State control, study of, 22 Stimulation of buying clothing, 38 Streets, care of, 83 neglected, 85 Study of social problems, 78 of state control, 22 Styles in clothing, 38, 39 Supply of needs, 13 Sweatshop clothing, 41, 42 Tasks, household, 56 Tendencies, hereditary, 71 in sanitation, 23 Textile laws, 39 Training, ethical, 71 for housekeeping, 87 group, 71 in cooperation, 68 in language, 69 in manners, 69 in responsibility, 70 of domestic servants, 63, 64 physical, 70, 71 Twentieth century ideals, 3 Use of governmental organiza- tion, 86 of forethought, 50 of fruits, 31 of money, 51 Wage-earning, 4 Wage-paid woman, 4 Waste, disposal of, 85 Wasteful methods in consump- tion, II Welfare of household, 49 Wholesale buying of food, 34 Woman, wage-paid. 4 Woman's sphere, the home, 84, 88 Women as spenders of family income, 10 Women outgrown by homes, 85, 86 Working conditions of em- ployee. 60