Heating might now be accomplished without dust and ashes, without the destructive effects of steam, if enough houses would take electricity to enable a company to supply it in the form of a sort of dado carrying wires safely embedded in a non-conducting substance, or in the form of a carpet threaded with conducting wire. Both heating and cooling apparatus could be installed in the shape of a motor to replace the punkah man and the present buzz-wheel fan, and to give fresh air without the opening of windows which leads to half our housekeeping miseries. O woman, how can you resist the thought of a clean, cool house, sans dust, sans flies and mosquitoes, sans the intolerable street-noise, with abundance of fresh filtered air at the desired temperature! It is all ready at your hand. A windmill on the roof can store power, or a solar motor can save the sun's rays, or capsules of compressed air may be had to run the machine, if only you were not so afraid of the very word machine that no man dares propose it to you. Of what use is all the invention of the time if it cannot save the lives of the children, half of whom fall victims to house diseases, if it cannot sweep away consumption and influenza and all the kindred diseases arising from over-shelter and under-cleanliness of that shelter (lack of air). Both men and women are sentimental and non-progressive, but education is assumed to make wiser human beings. Women are said to be monopolizing the education; is it making them more amenable to reasonableness and less under the control of unprogressive conservatism?
It does require quick adaptation to keep up with the possibilities of invention, but should we not aim at that which will advance our race on a par with its opportunities? Every other department is getting ahead of us. We should hang our heads in shame that we have neglected so long the means for saner living.
It has been said that the highest modern civilization is shown not so much by costly monuments and works of art as by the perfection of house conveniences. Where then do we stand? And in what direction are we to look for the coming advance? We have had some sixty years of public sanitation; we have secured a supply of sanitary experts to whom all questions affecting the physical welfare of masses of people may be referred. We have a few architects who know the requirements of a livable house, not merely one which shows off well as first built.
We need sixty years of private-house sanitation. We need to educate house experts, home advisers, those who know how to examine a house not only while it is empty but while it is throbbing with the life of the family. This adviser must be, for many years at least, able to suggest practical methods of overcoming structural defects (more difficult than fresh construction), as well as of modifying personal prejudices.
These house experts will, I think, be women of the broadest education, scientific and social. They will have not only a certain amount of medical knowledge, but also the tact and enthusiasm of the missionary which will bring them as friends and benefactors to the despairing mother and the discouraged householder.
That there is a beginning of this demand, I can testify; that it will grow, I believe. As soon as a group of trained women are ready, they will find occupation if the advance in housing conditions which I foresee is to become a reality.