The ugly houses, ill adapted to any useful purpose, which line the roadside bear witness to the ignorance of the women of to-day. The effort for mere decoration, for pretentious show, is so evident that one wishes for an earthquake to swallow them all.
Another cause for rise in rent demanded for a given space is the heavy tax borne by real estate for public improvement, for good lighting, clean streets, plentiful water, sufficient sewerage, free baths, parks, and schools. Again, this falls heaviest on our three- to five-thousand dollar class, who pay more than their share, especially when the millionaire shirks his duty by paying his taxes elsewhere. What can the man with limited income do but avoid the responsibility of a family? Has he a moral right to bring unhappiness to his wife and two children? Having been caught in the trap, why give him all the blame if he tries to increase his income by speculation?
The more one studies this question of shelter for the salaried group, the more is one convinced that it lies at the root of our social discontent and is a large factor in our moral as well as physical deterioration.
CHAPTER V.
POSSIBILITIES IN SIGHT PROVIDED THE HOUSEWIFE IS PROGRESSIVE.
"We are far from the noon of man:
There is time for the race to grow."
—TENNYSON.
"There appears no limit to the invasion of life by the machine."
H.G. WELLS.
The house as a centre of manufacturing industry has passed (for even if village industries do spring up, the work-rooms will be separate from the living-rooms); the house as a sign of pecuniary standing is passing: what next? Why, of course, the house as the promoter of "the effective life." Rebel as the artistic individual may at this word, it expresses the spirit of the twentieth century as nothing else can. Social advance must be made along the line of efficiency, even if it lead to something different and not at first sight better. The appeal to self-interest is soonest answered. The man or woman with any ambition will keep clean, will buy better milk for the baby, will pay more for rent if he or she is convinced that it will bring in or save money in the end, because money has been the measure of success in the nineteenth century. But as the full significance of this "machine-made" age is grasped it will be seen that it has set free the human laborer, if only he will qualify himself to use the power at his hand. The house will become the first lesson in the use of mechanical appliances, in control of the harnessed forces of nature, and of that spirit of cooperation which alone can bring the benefits of modern science to the doors of all. One family cannot as a rule put up in a city or in the suburbs—and half the world lives in cities—its own idea of a house without undue expenditure; but ten families may combine and secure a building which fairly suits them all. I say fairly, because all cooperation means some sacrifice of whim or special liking. The well-balanced individual will, however, choose the plan yielding on the whole the greater efficiency, thus following a law of natural selection which, so far, the human race has ignored—a neglect which has been carrying him toward destruction as surely as there is law in nature. Is this neglect to go on, or is man to turn before it is too late to a cultivation of the effective life? In everything else he has advanced, but in his intimate personal relations with nature and natural force he has acted as if he believed himself not only lord of the beasts of the field, but of the very laws of nature without understanding them. Mechanical progress has come from an humble attitude toward the powers of wind and water. Home efficiency will arrive just as soon as the home-keeper will put herself in a receptive frame of mind and be prepared to learn her limitations and the extent of her control of material things. When she will stop saying "I do not believe" and set herself to learn patiently the facts in the case, then will housekeeping take on a new phase and the house become the nursery of effective workers who will at the same time enjoy life. To manage this machine-driven house will require delicate handling; but let women once overcome their fear of machinery and they will use it with skill.
The undue influence of sentiment retards all domestic progress. Because our grandfather's idea of perfect happiness was to sit before the fire of logs, we are satisfied with the semblance in the form of the asbestos-covered gas-log. "It is not for the iconoclastic inventor or architect to improve the hearth out of existence." Sentiment is a useful emotion, but when it held open funerals of diphtheria victims, society stepped in and forbade. With a certain advance in social consciousness public opinion will step in and regulate sentiment in regard to many things depending on individual whim.