initial commit of ebook 36781HEADmain

1 files changed, 8140 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/36781-8.txt b/36781-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fa52e3e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36781-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8140 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Household Administration, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Household Administration
+       Its Place in the Higher Education of Women
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Alice Ravenhill
+        Catherine J. Schiff
+
+Release Date: July 19, 2011 [EBook #36781]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSEHOLD ADMINISTRATION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Katherine Ward, Jonathan Ingram, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+HOUSEHOLD ADMINISTRATION
+
+ITS PLACE IN THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN
+
+
+EDITED BY ALICE RAVENHILL AND CATHERINE J. SCHIFF
+
+
+  NEW YORK
+  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
+  1911
+
+  Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+  At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The object of this book is threefold. (1) It endeavours to define
+the importance and scope of household administration in the twentieth
+century, which, when analysed into its component parts, is found
+intimately to concern the right conduct and domestic care of individual
+human lives, from their inception to their close. (2) It seeks to
+demonstrate the necessity of an adequate preparation for all who assume
+the responsibility of such administration; particularly for those who,
+in consequence of their parental responsibilities, their wealth, their
+social status, or their professional duties, exercise far-reaching
+influence through their standard of life and example. (3) Finally, it
+gives prominence to the fact that the domestic arts are no collection
+of empirical conventions, to be acquired by imitation or exercised
+by instinct. It is clearly demonstrated that the group of sciences
+upon which they rest is more comprehensive than most people suspect,
+and that their contribution to the solution of pressing domestic
+problems has so far been but partially realised. It is, therefore, of
+considerable interest to observe the remarkable consensus of opinion on
+each of these points among the recognised experts in their subjects,
+to whom were entrusted the preparation of the various sections of this
+book. The writers of the papers, untrammelled by editorial restrictions,
+each writing from the fulness of her knowledge, tested by ripe
+experience, reached independently conclusions conspicuous for their
+unanimity. It will be evident to the most casual reader that, in the
+opinion of these thoughtful women, blind instinct must yield place to
+trained intelligence, if home life is to be preserved and modern
+conditions of existence adequately adjusted to human requirements.
+
+Progressive changes, social, commercial, industrial, and, last but not
+least, educational, now require that this trained intelligence be
+fostered by organised instruction outside the home, adapted to the
+needs, present or prospective, of girls in every grade of society. Such
+instruction, whether in the fundamental sciences or in the applied arts,
+must be associated with individual practice in laboratory, studio,
+workroom, and kitchen; the details to be varied as circumstances
+dictate.
+
+If, however, consistent applications of such knowledge are to be made in
+order that desirable saving in time, labour, money, health, or happiness
+shall be effected, graduate women of high attainments are urgently
+needed for the work. It is they only who can bring to bear upon the
+problems of childhood and adolescence, of food, of clothing, of housing,
+of domestic economics, of occupation, rest, and recreation, the patient
+study and research in the interests of humanity, which men of similar
+standing have lavished upon the advancement of commerce and industrial
+processes. It is by their skilled labour in the almost untrodden field
+of domestic science that the millions of homes will benefit which are
+committed to the charge of women who possess neither time, opportunity,
+nor ability to carry out these indispensable investigations, but who can
+yet effectively fulfil their responsibilities, if they be supported by
+systematic training and organised common sense, based on sound
+knowledge.
+
+It is in the hope of forwarding these objects that this book has been
+prepared.
+
+  ALICE RAVENHILL.
+  CATHERINE SCHIFF.
+
+  _Nov. 1910._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  INTRODUCTION--A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH OF
+  WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE FAMILY                                  11
+
+    By CATHERINE SCHIFF, Officier d'Académie
+
+  THE PLACE OF BIOLOGY IN THE EQUIPMENT OF WOMEN                  35
+
+    By WENONA HOSKYNS-ABRAHALL, M.A. (Dub.)
+
+  SCIENCE IN THE HOUSEHOLD                                        71
+
+    By Mrs. W. N. SHAW, formerly Lecturer of Newnham
+    College, Cambridge. Author of "First Lessons in Observational
+    Geometry."
+
+  THE ECONOMIC RELATIONS OF THE HOUSEHOLD                         121
+
+    By MABEL ATKINSON, M.A. (Glasgow), Lecturer in
+    Economics, King's College for Women (University of
+    London), formerly Scott Scholar in the University
+    of Glasgow; Research Student at the London School of
+    Economics; and Fellow of Economics, Bryn Mawr
+    College, U.S.A. Author of "Local Government in Scotland."
+
+  SOME RELATIONS OF SANITARY SCIENCE TO FAMILY LIFE
+   AND INDIVIDUAL EFFICIENCY                                      207
+
+    By ALICE RAVENHILL, late Lecturer in Hygiene,
+    King's College for Women (University of London), &c.
+    Author of "Practical Hygiene," "Some Characteristics
+    and Requirements of Childhood," "Elements of Sanitary
+    Law," "Household Foes."
+
+  MODERN WOMAN AND THE DOMESTIC ARTS--
+
+    I. NEEDLEWORK AND DRESSMAKING                                 295
+
+    By Mrs. R. W. EDDISON, Gen. Hon. Sec. Yorkshire
+    Ladies' Council of Education, Added Member of Education
+    Committee of County Council of West Riding of
+    Yorkshire, &c.
+
+    II. HOUSECRAFT                                                308
+
+    By MAUD R. TAYLOR, Examiner in Domestic Science.
+
+
+
+
+A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH OF WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE FAMILY
+
+BY CATHERINE SCHIFF
+
+
+The home must always claim the first place in the large majority of
+women's lives. It has done so in the past, it does so in the present, it
+will continue to do so in the future. But woman's activities are no
+longer to be merely confined to her own fireside, though that must
+always hold a prominent place. The real problem of the day is the right
+conduct of the home on scientific lines.
+
+In some ways the management of the home has never been more difficult.
+The servant problem has never been more acute than to-day; the cost of
+living and the standard of comfort is going up by leaps and bounds, and
+the old recipe of "Feed the brute," as far as the husband is concerned,
+is no less inefficient. It is essential to-day to know something about
+food values, the arrangement of meals, which avoid monotony, and provide
+that requisite variety in nourishment, on which the good health and
+ultimately the good temper of the household depend.
+
+Again we are realising the great complexities of all questions dealing
+with child-rearing and education. We have travelled far from the
+self-complacency of the woman of thirty years ago, who based her claims
+to a thorough knowledge of the up-bringing of children on the fact that
+she had buried ten. This need for wider knowledge in all branches of
+housekeeping is equally important to the unmarried woman, who is more
+and more being called upon to act as a foster-mother, whether as a
+teacher or in some other capacity, to the nation's children.
+
+The care of the children is considered by all shades of opinion to be
+the _clou_ of a woman's life, and every day more and more responsibility
+is cast upon her in this respect. How can she, then, fulfil these duties
+as they should be fulfilled if she is utterly ignorant of the laws of
+health and of child-life, and how both are affected by environment and
+all the other grave and fundamental truths which lie at the root of the
+successful up-bringing and development of the child? It is now a
+hackneyed saying "that the child of to-day is the man or woman of
+to-morrow," but a whole world of truth lies enshrined in those words;
+the children are the assets of the nation, and if their up-bringing is
+not of the best they can never attain to that full heritage of
+development which is the right of every soul born into the world.
+
+Scientific training in Household Administration can alone save the
+sorely taxed housewife of to-day from becoming more than a slave to her
+domestic responsibilities. It is only by being a mistress of her craft,
+"whether China fall or no," that she can make sufficient time to devote
+herself to necessary self-culture and recreation as well as to those
+ever-growing outside duties which the twentieth century is imposing upon
+her in the shape of public and social work. If there is one thing which
+is becoming increasingly obvious, it is that the help and advice of
+scientifically trained women are absolutely necessary in the management
+of hospitals, the administration of the Poor Law, and the general
+solution of social problems.
+
+At no other epoch in the history of mankind has woman stood on the same
+high plane as she does to-day, and at no other period has so much been
+demanded of her, intellectually, morally, and physically. It is only
+within recent years that Science has attempted to come to the aid of
+woman in helping her firstly to obtain, and then to maintain, the
+position for which she was originally designed, as the complement of man
+and as the chief element of preservation in human society.
+
+If the history of mankind is traced back to primordial times, we find
+that it was the female who possessed power over the emotional nature of
+man, and it is becoming increasingly evident that the family owes
+its origin as a social factor to the Mother, not to the Father.
+Lippert is convinced "that the idea of an exclusively maternal kinship
+at one time extended over the whole earth," and McLennan says, "We shall
+endeavour to show that the most ancient system in which the idea of
+blood-relationship was embodied was a system of kinship through the
+females only."
+
+Occupation seems to have been the main factor in determining that the
+mother rather than the father should be the founder of the family.
+Agriculture originally appears to have been entirely the woman's
+industry, while the men were engaged in hunting or looking after the
+cattle, and wherever agriculture was the predominant feature of life we
+find that relationship is traced through the mother; while on the other
+hand those tribes who were chiefly pastoral had a paternal system of
+relationship--that is to say, that descent was counted through the
+males.
+
+Drummond, in his book on the "Ascent of Man," places the Evolution of
+Motherhood long before that of Fatherhood. "An early result, partly of
+her sex, partly of her passive strain, is the founding through the
+instrumentality of the first savage Mother of a new and beautiful social
+state--Domesticity--while Man, restless, eager, and hungry, is a
+wanderer on the Earth, Woman makes a Home!" And according to the same
+authority we find "that to Man has been assigned the fulfilment of the
+first great function--the Struggle for Life--Woman, whose higher
+contribution has not yet been named, is the chosen instrument for
+carrying on the Life of Others." Nature took many æons to make a mother,
+whose gift to the world was Love and Sympathy; the evolution of the
+Father came still later. "It was when man's mind first became capable of
+making its own provision against the weather and the crops that the
+possibility of Fatherhood, Motherhood and the Family were realised."
+"The Mother-age, with its mother-right customs, was a civilisation, as I
+have indicated, largely built up by woman's activity and developed by
+her skill; it was an age within the small social unit of which there was
+more community of interest, far more fellowship in labour and
+partnership in property and sex, than we find in the larger social unit
+of to-day."[1]
+
+In connection with this theory of the "Mother-age" it is interesting to
+note that the Etruscans traced their descent through the female line,
+and it was from the Etruscans that the Romans derived nearly all their
+institutions; thus many of the "initiative forces of civilisation" have
+come down to us from women.
+
+It is believed that the patriarchal system--where the man was the head
+of the family, as amongst the Jews--which succeeded the Mother-age, grew
+out of the custom of capturing women belonging to other tribes, this
+being succeeded later on by purchase, and "as soon as the woman ceased
+to be protected by the force of ideas, as soon, that is to say, as she
+lost her position as head of the family, her downward path was certain."
+But even among primitive people we find that it was an almost universal
+custom that a woman should be provided with an independent property,
+"Mitgift," though as time went on and the patriarchal system became more
+firmly established, it appears that this Mitgift became the husband's
+property, and that every bride was expected to bring a dowry to her
+husband, whose property she became, thus losing all independence.
+
+However, in Greece the position of woman, during the Heroic times was to
+a certain extent an independent one, as is clear from the poems of Homer
+and the treatment of Homeric and Heroic themes by the Athenian
+dramatists. But one has only to compare the "Nausicäa" of Homer or the
+"Electra" of the Tragedians with the women of the time of Pericles, to
+see how much the status of the female sex had deteriorated. The Athenian
+wife of that time was treated as a mere "Hausfrau," expected to spend
+her whole time at home in the managing of the household, while the
+husband satisfied his intellectual tastes by intercourse with the
+"Stranger-women" attracted to Athens from other towns. "Thus arose a
+most unnatural division of functions among the women of those days. The
+citizen-women had to be mothers and housewives--nothing more; the
+stranger-women had to discharge the duties of the companions, but remain
+outside the pale of the privileged and marriageable class."[2] To this
+artificial condition of domestic and social life may be partly
+attributed the downfall of Athens, for it is impossible to divide the
+functions of woman without serious risk to State and race.
+
+In ancient Rome the patriarchal system was the prevailing custom. Under
+the Roman law the husband was the only member of the family possessing
+legal rights. "The family (_familia_) in its original and proper meaning
+is the aggregate of members of a household under a common head; this
+head was the paterfamilias, the only member of the household who
+possesses legal rights."[3] It is true that there were many honoured
+women under the Roman Republic, such as Cornelia and Portia, the
+daughter of Cato, but the lot of the majority was not an enviable one.
+Gradually, however, the tutelage of women became less severe, and
+Justinian in revising the whole Roman code placed married and family
+life on an altogether new basis, "the husband lost his absolute control
+over his wife's dower, and in case of separation he had to restore it
+entire."
+
+Women had been for so long under such strict tutelage that they were
+unfit to benefit by these new laws. Doubtless it will be remembered that
+the corruption of the women of the period is practically unparalleled in
+history, but it must be also borne in mind that the whole system of
+Imperial government was so vicious that it was almost impossible for
+women to escape from the widespread influence of vice and corruption.
+
+Christianity as a force began to make itself felt while woman was yet in
+this low moral state, and it is not therefore surprising that to the
+leaders of Christianity the freedom which women then enjoyed and the
+easy method of divorce obtainable were in a large measure responsible
+for the vitiated state of Roman life. In their eyes the only means of
+producing a more salutary state of affairs was to put a check on what
+they considered a menace to a Christian society.
+
+It is of interest to notice how the attitude of the Early Fathers
+towards women differs from that of Our Lord as recorded in the Gospels.
+There indeed are women highly honoured, and it is to a woman that Christ
+often gives a message of the highest import. It was to Mary Magdalen
+that the Risen Lord first appeared and bade her tell the others, and
+again it was the woman of Samaria who became the instrument of salvation
+to her people. But to the Early Fathers the ascetic ideal was the
+predominant one, and in consequence thereof women were treated as the
+chief source of temptation to man. "Woman was represented as the door of
+Hell, as the mother of all human ills. She should be ashamed at the very
+thought that she is a woman. She should live in continual penance on
+account of the curses she has brought upon the world. She should be
+ashamed of her dress, for it is the memorial of her fall. She should be
+especially ashamed of her beauty, for it is the most potent instrument
+of the demon."[4] In fact a decree of the Council of Auxerre (A.D. 578)
+forbade women to receive the Eucharist in their naked hands owing to
+their impurity.
+
+Unfortunately "the bigotry of the Early Christian teachers gave the
+first check to the tendency to freer institutions, the next was given by
+the fall of the Empire."
+
+With the influx of the Teutonic tribes we find a new code of ideas and
+morals, but eventually a compromise was effected between the Germanic
+and Roman laws. Thus from very early times we find that it was a German
+custom to provide every bride with a dower, and this is remarked upon by
+Tacitus. Afterwards the Church adopted this custom, which was strangely
+enough both Roman and Teutonic in origin.
+
+From the time when the Empire went down in a cataclysm which shook the
+foundations of the world, until the beginning of the Middle Ages, we
+hear but little of woman. It was the Sturm and Drang period in the
+world's history, in which woman had no real position. The women of the
+upper classes were of necessity confined either to the castle or the
+convent, and woman's sphere was therefore a small one; man demanded
+nothing more than that they should minister to his physical wants in the
+short periods of peace he then enjoyed. Hallam says, "I am not sure that
+we could trace very minutely the condition of women for the period
+between the subversion of the Roman Empire and the First Crusade ...
+there seems however to have been more roughness in that social
+intercourse between the sexes than we find at a later period."[5]
+
+With the end of this stormy period comes the dawn of the Age of
+Chivalry, and from that time forward until the Reformation, woman
+enjoyed a portion at least of her rightful position. It is said that
+"Chivalry not only bestowed upon the woman perfect freedom in the
+disposal of hand and heart, but required of the knight who should win
+her, devoted and lengthened service"; this may be, however, a rather
+idealised view of the situation; but there is no doubt that the Court
+and the Cloister became the two centres of women's lives, and an
+intimate connection was maintained between the two. Nearly all women of
+gentle birth were educated in nunnery schools, and by the eighth century
+we find that these schools had attained a high standard of learning,
+which increased and developed in the succeeding centuries. The convent
+afforded a shelter to the woman who did not marry and to whom the
+marriage state did not appeal; there she was able to a certain extent to
+follow the career she desired, at the same time her personal safety was
+assured. "The scholar, the artist, the recluse, the farmer, each found a
+career open to him; while men and women were prompted to undertake
+duties within and without the religious settlement, which make their
+activity comparable to that of the relieving officer, the poor law
+guardian, and the district nurse of a later age."[6] It is perhaps of
+interest to us to note that the first hospital for lepers in England was
+founded by a woman, "good Queen Maud," in 1101 at S. Giles' on the
+East.
+
+The rule of an abbey or a priory called for no mean business capacity on
+the part of their heads, and as a rule the abbess and prioress were
+women of great business and administrative ability. Before the Norman
+Conquest nearly all the nunneries founded in England were abbacies,
+subsequently priories were the most usual foundations, as according to
+feudal law women were unable to hold property.
+
+The latter half of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are renowned
+throughout history for their women, who, occupying foremost positions in
+the government, were clever, cultured, and liberal-minded. One has but
+to mention the names of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the "Lady
+Margaret" of Oxford and Cambridge; of Leonore d'Este, the mother of
+equally famous daughters, Isabella and Beatrice d'Este; Marguerite de
+Valois, sister of Francis I., and Isabella of Castile, to conjure up
+before one's eyes the whole procession of the proud and capable women of
+these days.
+
+"One and all have been fruitful as successive stages of growth, yet they
+can never recur, and only the fanatic or visionary could wish that they
+should recur, for each is narrow and insufficient from the standpoint of
+a later age."
+
+In England "the women who were the mothers of the men who created the
+great Elizabethan epoch were almost without exception brought up in
+nunnery schools"[7] and, alas, the destruction of the nunneries and the
+rise of the Puritan spirit sounded the death-knell of women's education.
+After the Reformation the position of woman was peculiarly degrading; in
+the eyes of the law she possessed practically no status, and "the old
+chivalrous feeling for woman seems to have faded out with the romance of
+the Middle Ages--she now figured as the legal property of man, 'the
+safeguard against sin,' the bearer of children _ad infinitum_."
+
+So woman was left once more to sink back into a slough of despond, until
+with the end of the eighteenth century there arose the humanitarian
+movement and the gradual awakening of woman to the sense of her
+responsibility, with the inevitable corollary of her rightful position
+as the social equal of man.
+
+If these ideals are to be realised, woman must recognise her
+responsibilities and act accordingly. She has proved herself a more than
+apt student in all the liberal studies, she has practically forced the
+door of nearly all the professions, now she must realise that she must
+apply her higher learning to what is probably the most difficult
+profession of all, the management of the home, or in other words she
+must see that the knowledge she has acquired be adapted and turned to
+practical aims.
+
+Up to the present time the conduct of the home has been regulated purely
+by rule of thumb methods; if however in the future it can only be
+administered with the same method and scientific exactitude as prevail
+in other great business enterprises, the drudgery of housekeeping will
+diminish and woman will cease to be a slave to household duties. She
+will have more time to devote to the cultivation of her own mind, and
+thus, while becoming a more real companion to man, she will be free to
+take a more enlightened interest in the education and development of her
+children.
+
+"Incidentally this may go to prove that a sound knowledge of the
+household sciences and arts may serve, not to tie a woman more to the
+storeroom and kitchen, but to enable her to get better results with the
+expenditure of less time and energy, by enabling her to apply to
+everything simple and complex within the household the master-mind,
+instead of the mind of the uncertain amateur."
+
+Her responsibilities are great not only as an individual but as a member
+of the community to which she belongs; and if she is to fulfil these
+responsibilities in respect to the home, she cannot do so without a
+thorough scientific preparation.
+
+The home is the "cradle of life," it was the birthplace of those
+industries which to-day form the great centres and constitute the means
+of livelihood for millions. In some of these there is reason to believe
+that woman took her share as originator. With the process of time,
+these primitive practices have grown into the great industries and arts
+of to-day, yet it is still to the woman that the call comes to cultivate
+and use her taste in these matters, so that when it falls to her to be
+responsible for the decoration and furnishing of a house, she may be
+able to choose in all departments of life what is _the best_, to the
+everlasting benefit of herself and her family, both physically and
+morally.
+
+If man be the producer and distributer of wealth, woman is certainly the
+director of consumption. On her rests the responsibility of expending
+wisely and well the money entrusted to her for the nutrition and
+clothing of her family, and how can this be adequately fulfilled if she
+have no real knowledge of the subject beyond what she is able to pick up
+as she goes along, a method detrimental to all concerned? Little would
+be thought of any business house which entrusted its most delicate
+operations to inexperienced buyers, or of any municipality which allowed
+its affairs to be conducted by an amateur. Far less would be heard of
+misery, poverty, and ill-health if the art of buying and preparing food,
+for instance, were properly understood by those whom it most concerns.
+
+Again, the chief racial responsibility falls on woman; it is just in the
+most precious years of childhood that her influence is so potent, and it
+is the mother, who besides helping to sow all the ethical and spiritual
+seeds, should safeguard the perfect physical condition of her children,
+in order that an unimpaired vitality and constitution be handed on from
+generation to generation. No proverb is truer than "Mens sana in corpore
+sano"; the two go hand in hand together, and their accomplishment is the
+proud privilege of the woman.
+
+From the family flows the life of the nation, and the power to guide it
+aright lies largely in the hands of women, whether they be married or
+single. With the married woman her own family comes first of all, and
+then through it her duty as a citizen; the unmarried woman's duties as a
+citizen are manifold, and each year they increase and expand. Nearly all
+the activities of public life are open to her; for instance she may sit
+on County Councils, Municipal Councils, District Councils, urban and
+rural Parish Councils,[8] Boards of Guardians, &c.; in fact in the
+growing field of social work, her services are being more and more
+recognised as indispensable, and it is impossible in a few words to
+enumerate all the possibilities of service which lie before her, both
+professional and philanthropic.
+
+Consequently if a healthy nation is desired, the women of a country must
+be educated both academically and scientifically. "If women are to be
+fit wives and mothers they must have all, perhaps more, of the
+opportunities for personal development that men have. All the activities
+hitherto reserved to men must be open to them, and many of these
+activities, certain functions of citizenship, for example, must be
+expected of them. Moreover, whatever the lines may be along which the
+fitness of woman to labour will be experimentally determined, the
+underlying position must be established that, for the sake of the
+individual and race character, she must be a producer as well as a
+consumer of social values."[9]
+
+Now how is this most desirable end to be attained? The succeeding papers
+will deal with the subject _in extenso_; here can only be briefly
+indicated the scope and purpose of the majority.
+
+An eminent authority tells us that "the objects of nature may be
+designated as the objective point of view. It is the standpoint of
+biology and affords the natural conditions for the successful
+investigation of the laws of life, not only of the lower organisms but
+of the human race as well."[10] This immediately demonstrates the vital
+necessity that women should know something of these fundamental laws of
+life, which biology alone can teach, in order that she may apply these
+to her ordinary daily life and recognise them as operating in all her
+surroundings.
+
+The transition from this stage to the next is an easy one. Woman
+having learnt the laws of life, will immediately view her economic
+responsibilities with a clearer eye and fuller understanding. It is
+true that throughout the ages woman has striven to acquit herself as
+best she could, but until the present day it has mostly been a
+groping in the dark, without the aid of any exterior agency. Now
+light is beginning to be thrown on many points hitherto obscure.
+
+Household economics has been well said "to rest on two chief
+cornerstones, the economy of wealth and the economy of health, and
+encloses the groundwork of human happiness and human aspirations ...
+even all departments of science must contribute to its development."
+
+But a mere knowledge of biology and economics is useless without bodily
+efficiency, and true bodily efficiency is only possible where the
+environment is favourable to growth and life. It cannot be expected that
+full physical development can ever take place in ill-lighted, badly
+ventilated, defectively drained or otherwise objectionable houses. And
+it must never for a moment be forgotten that if the body be neglected,
+then, as an inevitable consequence, the mind and spirit must also become
+warped. It is not that we desire man to develop his physical nature at
+the expense of his spiritual, but rather that we would see him placed in
+such a condition that he is able to apply those great faculties, which
+distinguish him from the brute creation, to their highest and best use.
+
+The ancients recognised in very early times the need of sanitary
+precautions to protect themselves from the onslaught of disease and the
+consequent decimation of their race.
+
+We find Mena, King of Egypt (5000 B.C.), mentioning in his Ordinances
+that offences in diet were one of the things through which "the genius
+of death becomes eager to destroy men."
+
+The Levitical Laws contain many enactments of a sanitary character, they
+are one of the oldest known sanitary codes, and have many wise and
+necessary provisions for the health of the people.
+
+Rules for the conduct of rural life were formulated so far back as
+100-500 B.C. in Boeotia. Tarquinus Priscus began and Tarquinus Superbus
+completed the great works for the drainage of Rome in the fourth and
+fifth centuries B.C., of which the Cloaca Maxima was the most remarkable
+feature; even to-day the ancient water-supply of Rome and her system of
+baths are still a source of admiration to the modern world. And to
+their credit be it said that the Romans carried this knowledge with them
+to the countries which they conquered; we find aqueducts at Great
+Chester and Lanchester, an arterial sewer at Lincoln, and the well-known
+baths at Bath.
+
+From the destruction of Rome until well-nigh ten centuries later was a
+period in which no advance in sanitation was made; on the contrary,
+retrogression was the keynote of the time. Warfare, religious
+segregation, and the spread of asceticism were the chief reasons for
+this; the ideals of both Christian and Pagan were opposed to personal
+and public hygiene. "The ascetic violated all laws of personal hygiene,
+the monastery's ideal was inconsistent with public hygiene, and both
+glorified God by teaching submission to pestilence,"[11] which from time
+to time swept over the country, devastating it from end to end.
+
+But with the increase of trade it became necessary to adopt certain
+measures for the preservation of human life, and in 1348 we hear of
+the first street-cleaning and quarantine in those two great centres of
+commerce, Venice and Cologne. It was in the same year that the most
+terrible plague which the world has ever known attacked Britain and
+practically depopulated it, finding its chief prey in the filthy
+streets of the City. This led in 1379 to an Order in Common Council
+for keeping the streets clean. But despite this, all through mediæval
+times personal health was shamefully neglected and public health
+practically unknown. The consequences are easy to trace; the country
+was again and again swept by epidemics which were naturally followed
+by severe famines, and thus on every side progress was checked. The Fire
+of London at least cleansed London of its filth, and from that time
+forward matters began to improve. All through the eighteenth century,
+smallpox, typhus, scurvy, and ague were rampant, and it is not till
+1834 that we find the beginning of sanitary legislation. In 1837 the
+Act for the Registration of Births and Deaths was passed, which at
+once provided the indispensable foundation for reliable statistics;
+previous to that date all that there was to depend upon were the
+Baptismal Registers and the more or less accurate Bills of Mortality.
+This has been followed by a long series of Public Health enactments
+concerned with practically every department of life. In fact during
+the last fifty years the public conscience has been quickened to an
+extraordinary degree. Much however has yet to be done which cannot
+be touched by legislation, and it is to the woman, who has been trained
+in the right conduct of life both private and public, that the world
+looks for the preservation of healthy human life, much of which is now
+needlessly sacrificed on the altar of ignorance. In many cases the
+woman is the only person who can prevent this, therefore she must
+equip herself for her high and noble duty with all that Science can
+provide and Art can suggest, neither must she forget that her own
+home must ever be the starting-point of every endeavour. For the
+"Mrs. Jellabies" of this world are not those who help forward its
+progress, rather are they the clogs on its wheels.
+
+Not only charity, but all other virtues begin at home. "So long as the
+first concern of a nation is for its homes, it matters little what it
+seeks second or third."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+    [1] Karl Pearson, "The Chances of Death," p. 3.
+
+    [2] Donaldson, "Woman," p. 58. Longmans & Co.
+
+    [3] Greenridge, "Roman Public Life," p. 18. Macmillan & Co.
+
+    [4] Lecky, "History of European Morals," vol. ii. p. 358.
+
+    [5] Hallam, "History of the Middle Ages."
+
+    [6] Eckstenstein, "Woman under Monasticism," p. 106.
+
+    [7] "The Mediæval Education of Women in England," _Journal of
+        Education_, June 1909.
+
+    [8] It is interesting, however, to note the following Electoral
+        Disabilities for women in England and Wales, which, however, do
+        not exist in Scotland or Ireland:--
+
+        No married woman can vote in any Town Council election or in any
+        County Council election outside London.
+
+        No woman owner has any right, in virtue of her ownership, to
+        vote in any local election. Until 1894 women owners, as such,
+        were entitled to vote in Poor Law Guardian elections, but the
+        Local Government Act of that year disfranchised them, while
+        enlarging the voting rights of men owners.
+
+        No woman lodger can vote in any local election, although men
+        lodgers can vote in District and Parish Council and Guardian
+        elections, and in the election of the London County and London
+        Borough Councils.
+
+        For women there is no service franchise--such as entitles men to
+        vote in District and Parish Council and Guardian elections, and
+        in the election of London Borough Councils--_i.e._ no occupation
+        of a dwelling as an official or servant (for example, as matron
+        or caretaker) entitles a woman to be placed on the Register.
+
+        For neither men nor women is there any ownership franchise,
+        lodger franchise, or service franchise for Town Council
+        elections or for County Council elections outside London.
+
+    [9] Parsons, "The Family," p. 346.
+
+   [10] Lester Ward, "Dynamic Sociology," vol. ii, p. 120. D. Appleton and
+        Co., New York.
+
+   [11] _Sanitary Record and Journal_, Nov. 24, 1904.
+
+
+
+
+THE PLACE OF BIOLOGY IN THE EQUIPMENT OF WOMEN
+
+BY WENONA HOSKYNS-ABRAHALL, M.A. (DUBLIN)
+
+
+In considering what is the best mental equipment for women in civilised
+countries it is as well not to contemplate only the great general facts
+of life, such as wifehood, motherhood, and the woman's position in the
+household. It is necessary to take into account also the special
+characteristics and circumstances of our own times and civilisation;
+for, unless a woman is prepared to meet these successfully, she cannot
+be deemed adequately equipped, even if from other points of view her
+education be ideal. In the beautiful old-fashioned education of Japanese
+women we have an instance of such ideal excellence, which is yet proving
+unable to cope with the requirements of actual life in modern Japan.
+
+The most striking, and also the most radical and pervasive,
+characteristic of our time is, of course, the progress made in
+scientific knowledge. Month by month enormous numbers of facts are, in
+every department, added to the knowledge already acquired. To let one's
+imagination range, even in a cursory way, over the work that is being
+done in chemistry and physics merely as they concern biology--to
+enumerate the subdivisions of these sciences, or to look down a list of
+recent publications relating to research carried on in them, is enough
+to make one's brain reel.
+
+This ceaseless widening of the borders of knowledge is, we must gladly
+allow, most inspiriting; and yet, seen from another side, it may well
+give rise to fears. For it is fairly obvious that the progress of human
+happiness goes by no means _pari passu_ with this progress of knowledge;
+and, on looking more closely, we may even observe miseries and
+degradations which can be traced up directly to the practical
+application of some of those scientific discoveries.
+
+To what must we ascribe this? It would seem to be the outcome of two
+lines of tendency just now predominant.
+
+The first of these is that very strong bent towards mere accumulation of
+fresh facts which may be noted in the most able and active workers all
+over the world. Just as, in other times, the best minds have flung
+themselves with enthusiasm upon art or literature or philosophy or
+statesmanship or war, so now they fling themselves eagerly upon the
+discovery of more and more recondite truths in science--leaving the
+ordinary government of affairs, on the whole, to minds of the second
+order.
+
+The next is the reckless way in which isolated scientific
+discoveries--more especially in physics and chemistry--are brought to a
+practical application and introduced into the scheme of everyday human
+life. This is done without consideration of anything beyond ensuring
+some obvious superficial convenience, and--what is a principal
+determinant--the opening up of new financial enterprises. Advantages of
+a sort no doubt are won--but often only at a fearfully disproportionate
+cost. The game--if we would but look at it unconventionally, from the
+standpoint of true biological science--is not worth the candle; for it
+involves a sacrifice of life itself to what can hardly be considered
+even as the means of life.
+
+Thus the chemicals used to preserve food impair its nutritive qualities;
+while other chemicals, as well as a number of ingenious mechanical
+processes, serve to facilitate adulteration. We all know how difficult
+it is to obtain pure milk and butter, or pure bread from pure flour, or
+jams made with sugar from fresh and good fruit. Bread may be made from
+flour which has passed through no less than seven processes,--a sad
+contrast this to the old home-made bread, the product of home-ground
+meal, whole and sweet as nature made it. What is sold in enormous
+quantities to the people as sugar, whether alone or as part of
+preserves, turns out often to be glucose. Butter, so-called, is often
+only skilfully-treated fats, the weight helped out by water. These three
+articles of diet alone, when adulterated as they thus often are, mean
+serious deterioration in the food--and therefore in the physique--of the
+nation; and to them we have yet to add the effect of the chemicals used
+for keeping fish and meat in place of the genuine, old-fashioned
+pickling, salting, and smoking.
+
+Machinery, again, growing ever more and more complicated, has destroyed
+an incalculable wealth of traditional activity: and therewith,
+generation by generation, it tends to destroy the finest capacities of
+individual men and women, whether producers or consumers of the finished
+product. The consumers suffer through the lack of opportunity to acquire
+and exercise manual dexterity and resourcefulness--as well as through a
+great lack of experimental knowledge. The producers suffer through the
+monotony and narrowness of their labour.
+
+We may take as other instances of recklessness our common use of
+unprotected illuminants--electric light and incandescent
+gas-mantles--which give off ultra-violet rays injurious to the eyes; the
+use of portable electric lamps and switch lampholders, which is by no
+means free from risk; and again the extreme recklessness of the
+so-called "medical electrician," who will actually venture to give
+electrical massage to a patient immediately after wet pack.[12]
+
+As a last example we may take the rage for speed, and in particular
+the use of electrically driven motor-cars. The exact effects upon the
+human frame of the rapid motion, of the vibrations, of the presence
+of the electric current and escaping gas have never been adequately
+investigated--though sundry ill consequences of motor-driving have
+been noted without any diminution of the practice.
+
+A very cursory reflection may show us that, while the progress of
+science is the great characteristic fact of modern life to which we all
+have to adjust ourselves, we must be prepared not only to take advantage
+of the good it offers, but also to discern and counteract the perils it
+brings with it, when applied to human life in our present somewhat
+random way.
+
+The random nature of our proceedings may be illustrated from yet another
+side. There are a number of facts and principles, long since agreed upon
+as truly ascertained, which have never, or only very partially, been
+brought to bear upon custom and daily life. We all know that plenty of
+fresh air is a first condition of health and vigour; and are so far
+convinced of this verity that open-air treatment is generally accepted
+as the proper mode of attacking and mastering consumption. Yet we crowd
+together into cities: our houses are often very imperfectly ventilated,
+and our public buildings--churches, theatres, halls, schools and
+institutions, as well as our railway-carriages and tram-cars--provide
+only for the very minimum of change of air. Similar neglect of
+definitely ascertained facts may be seen in dress, in food and drink, in
+furniture, in occupations. Noise is well known to be injurious to the
+brain, and destructive to thought: more than that, it has been
+discovered that it is harmful to the viscera. We insist, more or less,
+upon quiet for the sick: but no trouble is taken about quiet for those
+who are well. Our thoroughfares echo with noises of all kinds, from the
+roar of traffic to the howling and whistling of errand-boys; and the
+authorities would be much surprised if they were accounted specially
+negligent for not making some effort to suppress them. Yet to any
+biologically trained person this noise must appear not disagreeable
+merely, but a real handicap to the health and energy of the community.
+Wherever faithfulness to scientific principle involves trouble without
+prospect of money-making, it is likely to be shirked, however great the
+benefits known to come from it.
+
+This is not entirely due to laziness, nor yet to ignorance, it is due
+quite as much to circumstance and to the pressure of our present social
+institutions. It is closely bound up with the great social question of
+the ownership of land, and with the husbandry and use of the resources
+of the land, our rivers and our sea-shore. Wasting a great measure of
+what these have to give us, polluting them in different ways by our
+manufactures and by the refuse of our cities, we are constraining whole
+masses of our population to look to the work and the products of other
+countries for the first necessities of life. Whole masses of our
+population are removed from direct contact with the soil, which is the
+nursing-mother not only of the body, but also of the mind of man; the
+people and the land being thus alike impoverished. Inquiring how so
+dangerous an error can have arisen, we may find at least part of its
+cause to lie in an ignorance of the fundamental principles of biology,
+the science of life.
+
+What, it may now be asked, is to be done to counteract these
+disadvantages and dangers? And, again, how does all this bear on the
+equipment of women?
+
+Taking the latter question first: it is indisputable that an enormous
+proportion of our commerce and manufactures is concerned with food and
+with articles required for the home. But things for the home are made to
+be dealt with and used by women. In so far as science comes in and
+modifies this material it is imperative that women should be placed in a
+position, not only to know what are the essentials for life, but also to
+criticise and estimate accurately that which is offered to them as
+scientific improvement. For we need, in this connection also, to
+remember that science can only be fought by science--that is, by
+knowledge belonging to the same plane.
+
+We have now in part answered our former question. What we need is a
+central or basal science to which--for practical purposes and in regard
+to its practical application--the work done in other sciences can be
+brought to be accepted, or rejected, or modified. This central science
+can, in the very nature of things, be none other than biology: the
+science, that is, which gives an account of the functions and
+inter-relations and structure of all living things, and deduces
+therefrom those principles which, in a rather loose way, we speak of as
+the laws of life.
+
+It would, we think, be a very happy turn of affairs if, not all, but
+some of that genius, which is now spending itself in the research for
+fresh facts, could be diverted to the work of correlating with one
+another facts already known, and bringing all those that are appropriate
+to be grouped as it were in order of service around biology.
+
+But perhaps not less important than this is what we may call the
+practical synthetic work of women in their households. There are,
+indeed, two circumstances which would give the ordinary woman of average
+intelligence, if she were but adequately instructed, some advantage, so
+far as the service of mankind goes, over even the most brilliant man of
+genius. The first is the vantage-ground of her position in the home--at
+the very point, that is, where so many sciences thrust themselves up
+together to the surface of actual life--where in some way or other,
+however roughly, they have to be correlated, compared, their different
+claims adjusted. The second is the natural inclination of the womanly
+mind towards synthesis rather than analysis, towards practice rather
+than theory.
+
+We ought now to consider rather closely--exhaustively we cannot--what
+is included under the term Biology. It stood for some time chiefly to
+mean an account of the structures of animals and plants, structure
+being pursued into ever further minuteness, down to the cell and the
+constituents and parts of the cell. With this has gone insistent
+inquiry into the process of reproduction and growth; and more lately,
+in bio-chemistry and bio-physics, the conformity of living substance
+to the order recognised in non-living matter has been, and is being,
+most eagerly investigated. And now a school of biologists is arising
+whose aim is the vindication of the claims of function as against
+the too exclusive study of structure. Function, of course, involves
+activity; and activity, in a complex, multicellular organism, involves
+the interplay of parts. This interplay, again, cannot be studied
+without reference to the environment, and to the relations between the
+organism in question and others--whether of its own or of other species.
+In this way it seems likely that biology--moving as it were in a
+spiral--will by-and-by return, though at a much higher level, to the
+standpoint of the older naturalists, whose interest in plants and
+animals was focussed more upon their activities, habits of life and
+special environment than upon their morphology--and even disdained
+not to consider their possible uses for man. Also, more thoroughly and
+extensively than before, the study of man himself is being caught up
+into the great web of Biology. It is seen as an integral part of
+Biology, and pursued in the biological spirit. Whether we look to
+psychology on the one hand, or to anthropology and its associated
+sciences on the other, the present is a most propitious moment for
+drawing public attention to this vast science, as being the true
+centre and foundation of that practical knowledge which is needed as
+a guide, and also as a stimulus, for practical everyday life.
+
+It will, of course, be instantly objected that the subject is indeed
+vast--much too vast. But not too vast, surely, if, by means of a very
+simple principle, we select out what is of immediate definite use, and
+necessary for everybody, from what may be, by the majority, safely left
+on one side. We shall then get, on this side, the highly specialised
+Biology of the laboratory with its minute researches and nicely
+calculated experiments, and, on that, what we may, for our present
+purpose, call Common-sense Biology.
+
+Just one word of explanation is perhaps needed at the outset.
+Common-sense Biology does not mean anything like that slipshod dealing
+with miscellaneous phenomena of nature which sometimes goes by the name
+of Nature Study. It is a course of work systematic and strictly
+scientific, conducted as truly as any other in the scientific spirit. It
+presents, however, two points of contrast with special or analytical
+Biology, in that, whereas, in analytical Biology, a beginning may be
+made practically anywhere, with any series of facts one may prefer to
+take first, in Common-sense Biology there is only one right mode of
+starting, and that of the utmost importance; while, secondly,
+Common-sense Biology combines some of the characteristics of an art with
+the ordinary characteristics of a science.
+
+
+COMMON-SENSE BIOLOGY
+
+It is this latter form of the science--this science, which is also an
+art--that we would advocate as essential for the equipment of women.
+With this view let us examine it further.
+
+And first, what is its proper starting-point? Its proper starting-point
+is accurate instruction concerning the living things with which the
+student is, or can easily be, brought into immediate practical contact.
+And, again, in the study of these living things--plants and animals
+alike--attention is directed first towards the organism in its totality
+and in its activities--towards function rather than towards structure;
+and also towards mode of life, relations with environment, and, where
+possible, towards its use or danger to mankind. Structure will, no
+doubt, early have to be introduced, but only in its larger details as
+explanatory of function, for the sake of a better knowledge of the
+animal or plant as a whole.
+
+What are to be the types and examples of organisms studied?
+
+This is an important question, and the writer would most strongly urge
+that the principle of selection should be that of locality; that the
+student should start with those plants and animals--both wild and
+domestic--which are to be found within a given radius of the place where
+she is living and working. The first things to know about are habit,
+activity, inter-relation and use to human beings. In respect to these,
+the presence of one organism will react upon others, and therefore no
+plant or animal within the area should be lightly overlooked.
+
+
+THE IMPORTANCE OF BACTERIOLOGY
+
+We must not, however, confine attention to the higher multicellular
+animals and plants. One of the most important factors in the environment
+is the existence of bacteria; and it is of great importance that an
+outline of bacteriology should be included in our course of Common-sense
+Biology. This outline should be kept close to the common necessities of
+everyday life. For the sake of making clear and real to the mind the
+manner in which bacteria multiply and the extreme rapidity of the
+process, a certain amount of microscopical work ought to be done, the
+examples being few, but carefully chosen. This kind of work,
+nevertheless, should be kept subordinate. The effects wrought by
+bacteria in water, earth and air, in stored foodstuffs, and in the
+tissues of the living body are the important subjects for study; and
+naturally, connected with these, the conditions which permit the access
+of bacteria or which, in the case of noxious bacteria, will best ensure
+protection.
+
+The rationale of toxins and anti-toxins, with the relations of these to
+the blood-serum should also, in a general way, be known; and moreover
+the student should be prepared to learn that many diseases, which are
+at present very imperfectly understood--we may take, for instance, forms
+of insanity--have their _vera causa_ in the action of toxins, and
+require to be treated accordingly.
+
+Perhaps, for those who cannot take more than the shorter courses of our
+Common-sense Biology, it will be sufficient to consider only those forms
+of inimical bacteria which we have to combat in our own islands. But the
+writer would strongly urge that, at least among women of the leisured
+classes, this instruction should be extended to cover the bacterial and
+other minute parasitic forms of disease most prevalent in our colonies
+and in our foreign possessions. The wives of officers, civil servants
+and missionaries ought to know, in a clear, scientific way, the causes,
+modes of attack, and methods of prevention of the principal tropical
+diseases, so far as these have at present been made out.
+
+
+METHOD OF STUDY
+
+What should be the method of this study?
+
+The sketching out of a course would be far beyond the scope of this
+paper. Here it may only be said that the work must, of necessity, fall
+into two main parts. There must be, on the one hand, field-naturalist's
+work, for the greater proportion of the animals and plants studied
+ought--so far as is in any way practicable--to be observed in their
+natural surroundings; and there must be, on the other hand, work allied
+to that of the gardener and farmer, the rearing of selected plants and
+animals for purposes of experiment and of closer examination. Nothing
+worth mentioning can be done on either of these lines without some study
+of the food and climatic conditions required by each creature; and this
+will involve a study of soils, temperature, atmosphere, and so on--and
+also a study of the nutrient properties of those organisms which furnish
+forth the food of other organisms. From this knowledge, gained thus
+through direct observation and experiment, would be deduced the general
+principles which--so to express it--govern life; and upon it as
+foundation would be reared the more specialised knowledge of all that
+pertains strictly to the life of mankind. Throughout the aim should be
+to use books mainly for reference.
+
+It is not necessary--as it might have been a few years ago--to show that
+a training on these lines is better, as a preparation for life, than
+that offered by the ordinary school and university curriculum; but it
+may be worth while to show how far and why it is superior to a
+well-planned course in the analytical biology of the laboratory. The
+superiority is surely twofold: in that the kind of knowledge acquired is
+of greater practical utility; and, again, in that the development which
+it ensures, to the powers, bodily and mental of the student, is more
+varied, thorough, and effective.
+
+
+COMMON-SENSE BIOLOGY AS AN ART
+
+As has been said, this Common-sense Biology partakes of the nature of an
+art. Now it is characteristic of any art that, for its satisfactory
+exercise, it demands not only knowledge, but also intuition;--not only
+conscious volition, reflection, and endeavour, but also subconscious
+nervous and muscular activity, and, together with that, a certain
+emotional state--a trend, tendency, disposition of the whole being,
+which likewise is chiefly subconscious.
+
+Without such a disposition to begin with you cannot have an artist.
+Neither will you get an artist, if, on the other hand, this disposition
+is never given an opportunity for displaying itself and developing its
+capacities. You cannot play an instrument properly if you have no music
+in you, and the music in you will never come forth if you have no
+instrument to play upon. When disposition and opportunity are happily
+met, and the true artist arises, it is in the subconscious that the
+chief riches, gained by her work and experience, are stored, and from
+the subconscious that she draws her skill; while in the subconscious,
+again, lie the mysterious sources of original inspiration. We all know
+well how over-consciousness spoils art, as it spoils most kinds of
+action. The happiest effects, the loveliest deeds spring, as it were,
+spontaneously.
+
+What is true of such arts as music and poetry is at least equally true
+of the art of living. The rich and well-harmonised subconsciousness is
+the proximate source whence all that is strongest and most beautiful in
+human activity is derived. The domestic arts, conversation, power of
+rapid judgment at a crisis, the care of the sick, the care of children,
+tactful daily dealing with one's fellows, all these, and so much else,
+we recognise to be dependent for perfection upon practice; and that is
+only another way of saying that they depend on the efficiency and the
+character of the subconscious. But the character and efficiency of each
+person's subconscious being depend in their turn--not solely, yet
+principally--first, upon the knowledge she has acquired, and secondly,
+upon the actions she has habitually performed. Action and being, as we
+all know full well, are for ever acting and reacting upon one another.
+
+Action is a more potent influence upon the subconscious even than
+knowledge; and when to mere activity there is added emotion--such
+emotion, for instance, as pleasure or love, or solicitude, or desire for
+truth--we may feel assured we have brought into play the most powerful
+of all the forces which, in an ordinary way, go to vivify and to form
+human character.
+
+The subconscious is even more important for women than for men, because
+women have more calls upon their emotions, and more need for intuition,
+and also more need for general resourcefulness and skill. It is because
+the Common-sense Biology whose claims we are urging involves so much
+activity, such care, quickness of observation, patience and ready wit,
+that it makes a better preparation for life than the more highly
+specialized work in the Biology of the laboratory alone could be.
+
+
+THE GAINS AND LOSSES OF CIVILISATION
+
+Is there, it may now be asked, anywhere any definite evidence to bear
+out this contention. There is: and in abundance. For it, however, we
+must look away from civilised communities, especially from the educated
+portion of their populations. Civilisation, no doubt, gives much; but it
+also takes much away. It has taken away much of the traditional lore of
+women, and more and more of their traditional activities. This does not
+merely mean that the practical ability and knowledge of civilised women
+is greatly restricted; it means also that the peculiar intuitive wisdom
+of women--the fruit of a richly-stored subconsciousness--is much
+diminished. In capacity for pure thought the educated woman of civilised
+communities no doubt excels all the rest: in most other respects the
+barbarian or savage woman will--with some few exceptions--probably be
+found her superior, whether judged merely by her mastery of the
+conditions amid which she has to work, or, more broadly, by the amount
+of her real knowledge and the range of her effective capacities.
+
+Take, as an example, the Eskimo woman, who is considered to represent
+the woman of palæolithic times. As there is no Eskimo Board of
+Education--no paraphernalia of Primary, Secondary, Technical, and other
+Schools, with their red tape and officialism--she is free to carry on
+the tradition of her ancestresses, and to rear, in the good old ways,
+children who grow up to be sturdy men and women. The preparation she had
+for her task was chiefly that of watching and imitating her own mother.
+Thus, as a child, she followed all the processes of turning the dead
+reindeer to account--learning thereby an economy and an unwillingness to
+waste which were essentially scientific--learning, too, subconsciously.
+She saw the flesh of the reindeer made into pemmican--cut into thin
+slices, and dried in the sun or in the smoke of a slow fire, then
+pounded between stones (the use of stones is worth noticing) and stored
+under a cover of melted fat, poured over it in due proportion. She saw
+the bones--after the marrow had been extracted from them--pounded down
+and boiled to get out the residual fat; the horns set aside to make
+fish-hooks, chisels, needles, and fishing-spears, work for the long
+winter evenings; the skin carefully dressed with a split bone and cut
+into shape to make clothing, and snow-shoes, thongs, bow-strings,
+fishing-nets, and so on. The very tendons make threads for sewing: and
+the garments thus fashioned are not only strong and serviceable, but
+beautiful with that particular beauty, which may perhaps be called
+barbaric, but which almost invariably denotes vigour and fulness of
+subconscious life. The Eskimo women also make their own boats and their
+own tools; they are good fishers and hunters. Their year's work
+comprises an exercise of dexterity and quick wit of which the ordinary
+Englishwoman can have no idea.
+
+We might take as another example the North American Indian woman, with
+her varied forest-lore; but, since space is limited, let us pass for one
+further illustration to the despised Australian aboriginal. She too
+knows and does things worthy of our admiration and imitation. For
+instance the English housewife's preparation of the household food is
+nothing like so conscientious as the Australian's, whose proceedings
+have the keen disinterested concentration proper to a bit of scientific
+research. Thus, to take but one example of the processes connected with
+the preparation of one form of food--a seed of a species of eucalyptus:
+"With a hooked stick she pulls down the terminal branches of the tree
+and spreads them out to dry on a piece of ground cleared for the
+purpose. After allowing them to lie there for a period determined by
+temperature, she collects the distal ends of the branches, damps them
+and brushes the seeds off into water. For a period of two or more hours
+these seeds are kept soaking, but the water is repeatedly changed, so as
+to remove all traces of the 'gum.' After this they are dried and ground
+on a stone. Again, she builds their rough, but wisely devised home most
+carefully according to ancient tradition. She takes her little girl,
+armed with a miniature digging-stick, out to track the honey-ant with
+her, and to learn by the way what are the birds and beasts and plants,
+friendly or inimical, which surround their home-camp."
+
+Alongside of this direct learning about nature goes the learning of the
+legends and traditions of the tribe, together with the customary
+dances, rituals, and religious practices. The activity of savage life is
+everywhere such that no anomalies like our physical exercises are
+needed,--for the physique of the young men and women is as graceful,
+strong, and enduring as need be.
+
+If we turn to savage or barbarian peoples higher in the scale we shall
+find their knowledge, abilities, and accomplishments higher and also
+more varied. But, on the whole, until we come to the average modern
+woman of a civilised community, we shall find that the women--through
+their happily developed subconsciousness--are equal to the best the
+community requires of them. They do not call their training Common-sense
+Biology, but that is what it practically is. They know all about their
+surroundings, and what to do therein. And grace and beauty wait upon
+what they do.
+
+This ideal is not, however, quite without parallel among the more highly
+civilised peoples. The Greeks conceived of Athene, the great goddess of
+wisdom and of war, as also Athene Ergane, the Workwoman, the goddess of
+handicrafts in the home. In our own country--to take examples near to us
+and familiar--the names of Caroline Herschel, Jane Austen, the Brontës,
+Mary Somerville, and George Eliot not only attest the fact that
+exquisite skill in domestic arts is not, in a woman, incompatible with
+learning and genius, but may also lead us to suspect that the exercise
+of this skill actually aided and furthered their better-known
+achievements.
+
+In our civilised communities--from the point of view of the
+subconscious--women are in two ways at a disadvantage. First, excessive
+division of labour, with our dependence upon machinery, has made the
+life of the State far more complicated than in former days; and
+secondly, the activity of the individual, from the same causes, is far
+more monotonous, far less well-calculated to bring out all her powers
+and train her being as a whole, than it used to be. Hence, as we said,
+women have lost a good deal subconsciously--even though, in
+consciousness, they may have gained.
+
+There is nothing in which the character of the subconscious is more
+clearly seen than in a person's attitude towards the great mysteries of
+life: towards birth and marriage and death on the one hand--towards
+religion on the other. It is, of course, matter of common knowledge that
+in regard to marriage the customs of some savage tribes are what we
+should describe as licentious. A truer understanding of the savage mind
+has, however, mitigated many of the judgments passed even upon the worst
+of these practices--at least in so far as they were taken to indicate
+gross inward depravity on the part of the women. And among many peoples
+there are found laws and customs of real beauty and noble significance,
+witnessing to reverence, fine intuition, and real care for the highest
+good of the tribe. And in general of all savage races it may be said
+that whatever their laws and customs are--though perhaps born of
+ignorance and selfishness--they feel seriously about them as about
+sacred things, and observe them scrupulously.
+
+The better side is exemplified chiefly by the women. When
+anthropological work is more largely undertaken by women, and when,
+through their sympathy, the jealously guarded secrets of the women's
+tradition, now almost entirely unknown, are yielded up to us, it is
+probable that our conceptions of savage life and thought will have to be
+radically modified. However that may be, it is even now sufficiently
+well known that the women do not leave the question of reproduction and
+marriage to chance in the education of their girls. The girls are
+definitely, carefully, and it would seem often tenderly, taught; and if,
+among some peoples, they are made to undergo great sufferings, a closer
+study usually reveals in these the effects of the long subjection of the
+women to the cruelty and uncontrolled passions of the men. All this
+should not blind us to the fact that the maternal instinct is here
+actively grappling with the great realities of life: and we may contrast
+this with the ways of the modern woman who, less developed in
+subconsciousness, is not so forcibly impelled to make any such attempt,
+and, for the most part, practically lets the whole thing slide. Here, as
+in other directions, the fuller development of the subconscious would
+compel and also enable us to correct a grave omission: while the
+knowledge necessarily acquired concerning reproduction and birth in the
+course of biological work would fill up that which has hitherto often
+been wanting even in the best-inspired women who have dealt with this
+question.
+
+It must by now have been made clear that our object in advocating this
+Common-sense Biology is to recover what was excellent in the equipment
+of the women of the past, and to unite it with what is most excellent,
+and most germane to woman's life, in the methods and knowledge of the
+present. Since modern household life is deficient in the requisite
+opportunities we are obliged to have recourse to definite educational
+schemes. But education of this sort will assuredly continue to be
+necessary even after many improvements in the home have been brought to
+pass; because it will always be necessary to keep the knowledge and
+activities of women in correspondence with the advance of science. At
+the same time it is worth while to remember that the earlier the child
+begins to observe living things, to live with them, learn about them,
+and take care of them, the better the final result will be; while the
+ideally trained mother in the ideal home, herself practical and active,
+will be able to do more for her children in this regard than most
+people, perhaps, would now dream of.
+
+
+THE INFLUENCE OF COMMON-SENSE BIOLOGICAL TRAINING ON SOCIAL WORK
+
+Biological training of the order we have been considering is, we
+believe, desirable for all women in the interests, first, of the home
+and of the rearing of children. But it is equally desirable for the
+women who are not destined to be wives and mothers, and particularly so
+as a foundation for any kind of university work, even for the different
+literary or philosophical schools.
+
+Here it is, perhaps, worth while to urge upon women the claims of the
+other great division of Biology, that of the laboratory. A considerable
+number of women who go up to the universities have, indeed, intellectual
+abilities deserving special cultivation, yet abilities which show no
+very distinct inclination in any one direction. These have been very
+commonly drafted into the study of history. It may be questioned whether
+some branch of Biology would not be better for them, and more useful to
+the community. Women working at Biology in the universities ought to
+serve, and to aim at serving, as the channels by which each fresh
+addition of scientific knowledge finds its way to, and its appropriate
+place in, the schemes of Common-sense Biology generally obtaining.
+
+In another field--the field of public work--it is to be hoped that ere
+long a knowledge of biology will come to be considered a _sine quâ non_
+for women. It would be superfluous to point out in how many kinds of
+public work women are gradually coming to the fore--in those especially
+which deal with education and with the care of the disabled. Already the
+influence and the peculiar gifts of women have in some degree made
+themselves felt; but these might operate much more powerfully if they
+were more commonly associated with scientific knowledge--with a
+knowledge of those branches of biology, more especially of bio-chemistry
+and bio-physics, which bear most nearly upon humanity.
+
+It would take up too much space to give an account of the many ways in
+which biology is here of service: two great lines of utility may just be
+indicated as examples.
+
+First, biology would lead to certain modifications of
+practice--particularly in our treatment of children, and of persons
+deemed criminal or insane. The biologist, when anything was
+amiss--before she pronounced any one to be mentally or morally unsound,
+defective, or bad--would presume, to start with, that there was some
+definite physical trouble to be set right, not necessarily anything
+dangerous in itself or mysterious. In New York they now make it a rule
+to examine for adenoids every young offender against the law, before
+punishing him; and it is amazing how often adenoids are found, and when
+removed carry the child's wickedness away with them. Adenoids and divers
+glands are responsible for a great proportion of youthful wrongdoing;
+and yet other physical troubles will account for a great proportion of
+the rest. The writer herself once came across a young girl who was, in
+intention and attempt, a murderess--yet was so only through the effect
+of a common physical condition, easy enough to treat when once
+ascertained. Until our general conception of a child--or indeed of a
+human being--is a more truly biological one, framed more closely upon
+the facts of its bodily life, we shall have but little effective
+intuition into its state. And such a sound biological conception is not
+to be had apart from some good measure of sound biological knowledge.
+
+When, however, the most careful observation reveals no local or
+definite mischief to be dealt with in the person under consideration,
+the biologist will still not hastily set him down as bad--or even as
+unsound or defective. He will next suspect that he is one whose physical
+organisation is not fitted for its environment: if he can be placed in
+a better environment perhaps he will grow better. If this change is,
+from whatever circumstances, impossible, the biologist in treating
+him, however troublesome he may be, will still never regard him as
+wholly responsible for what he is, will still try to ascertain the
+exact ways in which the environment presses injuriously upon him, and
+to help him in those definite particulars. If we desire the work of
+our reformatories and prisons and the disciplinary work of our
+schools really to be and not merely to appear effective, it is only by
+such nicely-calculated methods that we shall attain our object.
+
+This brings us to our second point. Biology, when a knowledge of it is
+more widely spread among us, will assuredly work a change in public
+opinion. We have among us thousands of men and women whom we account
+failures in life; whose existence constitutes our gravest social
+problem. The drunkard, the wastrel, the thief, the prostitute--these are
+characters whom society thrusts out. They have proved themselves
+unfitted for their environment; they cannot act in it with any
+regularity or seemliness: its laws are not their laws. And the
+assumption most generally is that these are beings of a lower stamp than
+the average, unhappily surviving in, or at war with, an environment
+which postulates a nobler sort of men and women. Is it so?
+
+The finer and more delicately poised a mechanism--whether it be chemical
+balance, galvanometer, electroscope or what not--the more sensitive is
+it to its surroundings. Thus the instruments once at Kew Observatory
+have had to be transferred to the wilds of Scotland to ensure their
+perfect working--rendered impossible at Kew by the noise and vibrations
+of encroaching London. Thus, again, the mind of Darwin required for its
+proper functioning the quiet of a study at Down, in the heart of the
+country. A ray of light will spoil a delicate experiment: the presence
+in an observatory of one steel key will hinder the work of the
+instruments. A boy commits suicide because of the noise of the factory
+in which he is compelled to work. A girl drowns herself because the
+worries of her home are intolerable.
+
+The point I would press is that these different examples belong
+fundamentally to the same category. Whether it be the instrument devised
+by man, or whether it be the human nervous system itself, that which we
+are looking at is a mechanism too delicate for the cruel exigencies of
+an unyielding gross environment. We have but to reflect on one organ
+alone--on the exceeding fineness of structure, and nicety of adjustment,
+and definiteness of sense-limit, of the eye--in order to realise that
+the comparison between the human nervous system and the most delicate of
+our delicate instruments is more than justifiable.
+
+How do we know, when dealing with any given drunkard, that we have not
+before us a fine, fine nature, to which the harsh and low conditions of
+our Western civilisation have simply proved intolerable? How do we know
+that, instead of blaming him and trying to adjust him to the world, we
+ought not rather to blame the world, and try to make it a fit place for
+him to live in?
+
+This consideration--strictly scientific as it is--ought to have very
+great weight in that new department of biological work which has been
+named Eugenics. Before lightly saying of any stock that it is not good
+to breed from, or that it is good to breed from, pains should surely be
+taken to ascertain whether irregularities and disease evinced by members
+of that stock do not in reality proceed from their superiority to their
+environment and to the average men and women about them. Individually
+they may be irreclaimable, yet, thrown out of gear, miserable and wasted
+as they are, they may be the carriers of the finest hopes of humanity,
+of a promise for the fulfilment of which we are not yet ready. Perhaps
+there is a tendency to be a little over-hasty in our estimates of good
+and bad stocks to breed from. Perhaps we have not yet fully learnt
+either the significance of recessive characters or the importance of the
+mere fact that the unit-characters of a human being are immensely
+numerous, and their inter-relations therefore extremely intricate. And
+yet, again, perhaps we are too intolerant of variety, too eager for
+uniformity.
+
+Here in England we have a mixed population, sprung from many diverse
+origins. The differences between individuals are many and great. Yet the
+majority of the population is thrust into the grooves of one educational
+system, and thereafter compelled to settle down to occupations and modes
+of life which are the same for thousands together. Any attempt to leave
+the common rut is looked at askance. What wonder that there are rebels,
+and that the rebels are unhappy! A society constructed in conformity to
+true biological principles, instead of suppressing variety would give it
+welcome as one of the most precious of national characteristics, and
+would purposely adjust itself and its systems with more accuracy so as
+to give every sort and type of person the best possible chance for
+developing his or her peculiar gifts. In a society so constituted, very
+rare indeed would be the occurrence of insanity.
+
+These considerations should have weight in yet another direction: in
+determining the counsel which ought to be given to girls as to the
+choice of a mate.
+
+The importance of soundness of stock has here too been well brought into
+prominence by the workers in Eugenics; and perhaps it may not be amiss
+to make one or two suggestions with a view to obviating a too narrow
+application of the principle of the sound stock.
+
+We must remember, first, that disease is not necessarily evidence of
+unsoundness. Like some forms of moral obliquity, it may be merely
+evidence of a quality in the stock which renders it unable to tolerate a
+given environment. And this quality may be in itself an excellence of
+the most precious kind. This would be the true account of many cases of
+insanity, while others would be covered by the action of toxins on the
+brain. Heredity, we are told in many instances of "insanity," is more
+probably a heredity of "special liability to the production of toxins or
+to the action of toxins on the brain," than heredity of insanity proper.
+This view will naturally entail modifications in our methods of treating
+the "insane," as well as a considerable change in public opinion with
+regard to the significance of insanity.
+
+And, secondly, we must remember the importance of the environment, more
+especially of the human part of it. A man of sound stock is very
+commonly brought up as a sportsman, whose first idea is to kill; or as
+an idler, whose chief occupations are eating, drinking, and smoking,
+with travel and some amount of gambling thrown in by way of variety. Or
+he may easily be above all things a money-maker and a lover of money.
+His habits of this sort will determine to a very great extent the
+early--and that is the critical--environment of his children. The
+tendency in his family will be towards uniformity, towards one level,
+and that not a high level, of thought, activity, and character. His
+example and influence will go very far to counteract the advantages
+presumably ensured by the soundness of his stock.
+
+On the other hand, a man whose ancestry is eugenically not flawless
+may have such wide interests, so many and such fine powers, so much
+skill in different activities, and so high and generous a personal
+ideal, that the environment which his manner of life would make for his
+children--the inspiration he would be to them--might well be expected
+very largely, if not wholly, to counteract the disadvantages of defects
+in the stock.
+
+No doubt this principle should be applied with all reasonableness and
+care, but it is extremely important for the highest welfare, for the
+development of the best possibilities of the people, that it should be
+definitely recognised.
+
+
+ANTHROPOLOGY A BRANCH OF BIOLOGY
+
+A word must here be said as to the importance--more especially to the
+biological student who aims at social work--of some knowledge of
+Anthropology. Biology is, in fact, incomplete without anthropology; for
+in its absence there is a danger of applying biological principles too
+summarily, and therefore unscientifically, to humanity. Anthropology, of
+course, goes behind art and history and the literary ideas current among
+civilised peoples. It gives life and meaning to customs, legends,
+handicrafts, details of dress, ornament, and furniture which otherwise
+go unheeded or misunderstood. It helps to interpret for us the ways of
+contemporary peoples and classes which are on a level different from our
+own. It gives a unity in infinite diversity to our whole conception of
+humanity. When more widely studied, there can be little doubt that it
+will cause us to reconstruct many of our judgments, both concerning the
+history of the past and concerning the civilisations of the present
+day.
+
+We cannot but believe that a time will come when it will be assumed of
+all women that they know the broad truths of biology, just as it is now
+assumed that they know the alphabet. It will be taken for granted that
+they have mastered the essential domestic arts with their own hands,
+just as we now take for granted they can write with their own hands. We
+shall have reached then the beginning of a new era--an era which we may
+hope will unite the excellences, moral, æsthetic, and hygienic, of
+earlier times, with the excellences, more purely intellectual and
+scientific, of our own day.
+
+
+WOMAN'S SYNTHETIC POWERS AS AN INSTRUMENT TO EFFICIENCY
+
+The most effective instruments for bringing this about are the synthetic
+powers of woman herself, combined with her practical skill and her ready
+intuition. As we have tried to show, the best chance for the eliciting
+and the disciplining of these powers of hers, so as best to fit them for
+the struggle of modern life, is afforded by biology.
+
+It must be clear how many reforms--impossible to the nominally educated
+women of the present day--would flow easily from this better training of
+women; for those so trained could certainly not endure the futility of
+some of our educational ideals, nor that haphazard disregard of the
+nature and needs of the child, which still characterises so much of our
+educational method. They could not support the continuance of many of
+the common evils of modern life--the noise and dirt, the brutality of
+manners, the scamping of work, the rush for pleasure. These, however
+they may or may not affect the adult, are plainly impairing the best
+promise of the children; and that fact will be enough for the truly
+educated woman.
+
+Knowing, too, as she will, more accurately and scientifically than women
+to-day generally know, how largely energy and depression, irritability
+and calm strength are questions of right or wrong food, the educated
+woman may be trusted to find a means to put an end to the crying
+iniquity of adulteration. Directly or indirectly, by the pressure of her
+determination that the race shall no longer be offered a sacrifice to
+Mammon, she will assuredly find a way to put an end to all not
+absolutely necessary dangerous trades.
+
+The opposition of such women to what is wrong in social custom, in
+government, in education, will be a very different thing from the
+opposition of well-meaning but imperfectly instructed women on the one
+hand; or, on the other, that of a few thoroughly trained and informed
+ones working more or less in isolation, scattered over the country. It
+would mean a body of sound, enlightened, disinterested public opinion,
+so vast, so far-reaching, yet so intimately cognisant of all the little
+daily details of life in the home, that it is difficult to see what
+other body of opinion could be found mighty enough to resist it.
+
+If, unhappily, this advance should not be made--if our present Western
+civilisation be allowed to run unchecked down the groove into which it
+has sunk--there seems nothing before it but destruction.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [12] "The Electrical Resistance of the Human Body." Gee and Brotherton,
+        Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc., 1910.
+
+
+
+
+SCIENCE IN THE HOUSEHOLD
+
+BY MRS. W. N. SHAW
+
+
+The slow development of the demand for the training of girls of the
+middle and upper classes in the details of household management has been
+to a great extent due to the common observation that persons of
+imperfect education are frequently proficient in the domestic arts, and
+to the assumption that good housekeeping consists entirely in the
+efficient exercise of those arts.
+
+The fact that in the early Victorian period girls living much at home
+learned, almost insensibly, from their mothers the routine of daily
+duties in the house, has made elder women look askance on the lectures
+dealing with domestic economy which appear to them so needless, and has
+led them to foster the superstition that woman _qua_ woman should be
+equal to any demand that may be made upon her as organiser of her own
+household.
+
+That the housekeeping of to-day is more complex than that of half a
+century ago is incredible to the older woman who remembers the baking
+and brewing, and divers other matters, that demanded the attention of
+the notable housewives of the forties and fifties of the nineteenth
+century. That the horizon of women's lives has widened, and that other
+interests than those appertaining to their immediate circle claim their
+attention, is not acceptable to all; it is however the claims of these
+outside interests that have awakened in the more thoughtful the desire
+so to order their households that they may in some degree free
+themselves from petty cares, and be able to help in the amelioration of
+the lives of less fortunate persons; or to pursue other branches of
+knowledge in which they have learned to take a keen intellectual
+pleasure.
+
+It is a paradox that one of the difficulties with which the modern
+mistress has to contend is the fact that her house is "replete with
+every modern convenience." Every labour-saving contrivance, every
+mechanical convenience, calls for vigilance to ensure its proper use,
+and for knowledge as to the ways in which it may fail, and of the method
+of readjustment if it should happen to do so. No apparatus which is not
+thoroughly understood by the mistress will be well used by the servants,
+and servants will rarely if ever exercise any knowledge they possess to
+prevent the expense of calling in a workman. If the mistress of a house
+can use such ordinary tools as a hammer, a screwdriver, a gluepot, and a
+soldering-iron, a great deal of expense may be saved in small repairs;
+on the other hand, ignorant meddling with scientific apparatus may be
+worse than useless. There can be no doubt that a course of instruction
+in natural philosophy, combined with work in a well-equipped laboratory
+and workshop, should find a place in the curriculum of every girls'
+school, whether elementary or secondary, as this training lays the
+surest foundation for a superstructure of experimental domestic science.
+The argument against including the application of the physical sciences
+to domestic methods in the ordinary educational course of every girl,
+namely, that she may not be called upon to keep a house of her own,
+cannot be sustained; there are no circumstances in which knowledge of
+the laws which govern the health and well-being of human beings can be
+useless. We all live in houses, either our own or other people's, and we
+are all liable to disease and discomfort caused by the faulty
+construction of the house or the unhealthy practices of the inmates.
+
+
+THE AIM AND METHODS OF MODERN EDUCATION
+
+The aim of education is to enable a person to act wisely in every
+emergency of life whatever his particular calling may be, but it is
+hardly possible to act wisely without some knowledge of the relation
+between cause and effect. This is true whether we are engaged in the
+practical affairs of life, in the pursuit of knowledge, or in the effort
+to extend knowledge by research. It is sometimes argued that a woman of
+trained intellect can easily acquire the art of housekeeping, and this
+is no doubt the case if we limit the art to the choice and supervision
+of competent domestics, but there can be no doubt that there are many
+women of trained intellect who not only suffer themselves but entail
+suffering on others from inability to discern good housekeeping, in our
+sense of the word, from bad. It must be remembered that courses of
+education should be framed for the training of unmethodical and
+unpractical minds, which may and often do accompany the highest forms of
+intellect, as well as for those of a naturally orderly and practical
+bent.
+
+We all consciously or unconsciously make use of the facts of science: we
+do not send eggs by parcel post merely placed in a box, we do not even
+send one egg in a box that exactly fits it, we are careful to surround
+each egg with soft paper or some other elastic material in sufficient
+quantity to distribute the effects of the blows that we know the box
+will be subjected to in the post, so that the eggs may not be broken; if
+we place a tray of china on a table, we are careful that it should not
+project beyond the table so as to fall when we let it go; we do not pour
+hot water into cut-glass tumblers, and we do not mix effervescing drinks
+in wine-glasses. We should call a person ignorant who was unaware of the
+probable results of doing the things enumerated above; but if the
+accidents following want of knowledge were always so simple, ignorance
+would not be a matter of much importance, and we might be willing to let
+our girls learn by experience. Unfortunately, the neglect of a
+scientific law has led in the past, and may lead in the future, to much
+more serious, even fatal results, and Solomon has applied a not very
+complimentary epithet to those who have wisdom forced upon them by
+involuntary experience. It is to the publication of statistics which
+show the alarming spread of such diseases as consumption and the
+terrible waste of infant life, that we owe the awakening of the public
+mind to the need for systematic training in science and scientific
+method.
+
+
+THE VALUE OF A SCIENTIFIC TRAINING
+
+Scientific method seeks to establish relations between isolated facts or
+phenomena, and the relation generally takes the form of cause and
+effect; so that persons with a scientific training are accustomed to
+examine the grounds for considering this relation of cause and effect in
+circumstances which are selected with a view to exhibiting the reality
+of the relation. From that training it becomes possible for them, when
+confronted with circumstances presenting some difficulty, to form a
+better opinion as to what is the cause of the difficulty than they could
+if they were confronted with the same difficulty without the previous
+training. Any attentive observer of human nature will be struck by the
+fact that every person is accustomed to refer every event to some cause;
+if it is an illness, the occasion for contracting the illness is
+defined; if it is any unforeseen event in the domestic economy, a reason
+is nearly always forthcoming; the question which the housewife is called
+upon to decide is whether the reason offered is a real and sufficient
+one. Meteorologists tell a familiar story of an Indian nabob who found
+that there was a deposit of moisture on the outside of his tumbler of
+brandy and water, and tasting it with his finger, remarked it was very
+curious that the water came through the glass but the brandy did not.
+Plenty of reasons offered for domestic incidents have no better ground
+of fact than the nabob's opinion that the water came through the glass.
+
+A good deal of the comfort of a modern house turns upon a right judgment
+as regards cause and effect, and therefore some preparation which will
+fit the housewife to appreciate the rights and wrongs of domestic
+reasoning is an indispensable qualification for success. It is not
+always possible for the most profound student to offer offhand the true
+explanation of various facts of domestic life, but it is possible to
+approach the consideration of these questions with some hope of deciding
+whether the explanation offered is a true or a fictitious one. The
+ability for this is largely a question of habit of mind or training; and
+for our purpose the training must include those departments of
+knowledge, the laws of which find daily expression in the manifold
+experiences of domestic life. The ultimate foundation for these laws is
+to be found in the study of Physics, which deals with those changes in
+the state of matter which stop short of the alteration of its
+composition; of Chemistry, which deals with changes involving an
+alteration of the composition of the substances under consideration; and
+of Physiology, which is the identification of the processes which take
+place in living animals and plants and their relation to the laws of
+physics and chemistry. Without a knowledge of the fundamental principles
+of these sciences and of the methods by which those principles are
+established, it is not to be expected that any person can deal
+adequately with the common experiences of life.
+
+It is true that experience, if it is sufficiently extensive and
+prolonged, may lead to the formulation of a set of practical rules that
+will carry a housewife through the ordinary household round without
+discredit, but the question which we have to put to ourselves is
+whether, by organising and directing the experience, success may not be
+made certain and more instructive. In these days domestic life is more
+complicated than it used to be; at the same time experience is in a
+sense more restricted. Many of the instructive processes, practical
+experience in which conveyed valuable if unconscious scientific
+training, are now conducted on a large scale, and are outside the range
+of domestic duties, and the housewife has to supply, by special training
+in scientific principles, the judgment that in days gone by was acquired
+as a matter of habit.
+
+It is impossible in the short space of a single article to set out the
+details of a systematic course of training sufficient to fit the
+housewife to use her judgment wisely in circumstances which require a
+knowledge of the principles of the fundamental physical sciences. The
+most that we can attempt is to give a few examples which illustrate the
+application of the principles of physics and chemistry. Our purpose in
+doing so is to suggest illustrations which appeal to every householder,
+and may create a desire for fuller knowledge rather than to supply a
+course of instruction. What we aim at is not to provide the equipment of
+scientific training, but to show that the scientific habit of mind will
+find opportunities for useful employment in many of the most ordinary
+affairs of life. The problems that present themselves in the course of
+experience are sometimes difficult and intricate; patience and careful
+observation as well as knowledge are required for their solution.
+Sometimes this solution is beyond the immediate resources of those
+concerned, and it is a part of scientific training to recognise when
+this is the case, so that effort and money may not be wasted in
+endeavours which are foredoomed to failure. We may cite a case in point
+where an extra bell was desired in a system of electric bells in a flat
+at a time when electric installations in private houses were somewhat
+rare, and workmen with any knowledge beyond that necessary for carrying
+out instructions were not easily found. To the confusion of the tenant,
+the introduction of this extra bell caused all the bells in the flat to
+strike work. A mathematical lecturer living in the same building was
+consulted, and opined that the battery of two somewhat small-looking
+cells was insufficient, so he obtained and added a larger cell, but the
+bells were obdurate and did not resume work. A lady with knowledge of
+physics examined the installations and discovered that the wire
+connections as altered were entirely wrong and did not connect the bells
+to the battery. A plan of the correct connections was shown to the
+workman, who a few days later reported that now all the bells rang at
+once, and he had had to disconnect the battery! He produced a sketch of
+the connections he had made, and on his error being pointed out he was
+able to rectify it, and the bells answered to touch without the use of
+the extra cell. Generally speaking, a failure on the part of electric
+bells is corrected by filling up the cells which compose the battery
+with water, an operation which any one may undertake.
+
+It is not safe, however, for an inexperienced person to interfere with
+electric light fittings further than to remove a worn-out lamp and place
+a new one in the socket, and even this operation may be attended with
+disaster. A young friend of ours who was taking part in some private
+theatricals obtained the loan of a row of electric footlights. It did
+not occur to any one concerned to ask the voltage of the lamps or of the
+current to which they were to be applied. When the footlights were
+turned up they blazed for a brief period, and then every light in the
+house went out! Electrical science for the housewife has been resolved
+into a knowledge of electric terms and of a few practical rules useful
+and interesting in themselves, but not immediately suitable for our
+purpose of showing how scientific study may aid the housewife in her
+daily routine.
+
+
+PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE HOUSEHOLD
+
+We may for this purpose examine some of the laws of common physical and
+chemical phenomena, neglect of which has resulted in much needless
+discomfort in daily life, and even more serious consequences. For
+instance, the laws of expansion of gases and liquids with heat, and
+their subsequent behaviour, are phenomena that are often imperfectly
+realised. There is probably no person who is unacquainted with the law
+of gravitation, but there are many persons who accept literally the
+statements that smoke rises and that balloons ascend. A clear
+understanding of what actually takes place when gases and material
+masses appear to move in opposition to the law of gravitation is
+essential to any scheme for warming and ventilating the house.
+
+A very simple experiment will serve to reconcile the apparent
+contradiction of the universal law by the observed fact. Suppose we have
+two fluids, oil and water, of which oil is, bulk for bulk, lighter than
+water. If the oil be poured into a glass beaker, it will be seen to rest
+at the bottom of the beaker; if water be now poured into the same
+beaker the water will go to the bottom of the beaker and will displace
+the oil and lift it up so that the oil will float on the water; the oil
+may be lifted to any height we please if sufficient water be poured in
+to lift it to that height. If a single drop of oil be introduced into
+the water by means of a pipette and be liberated at the bottom of the
+beaker the water will close in under it, and lift it up to the surface.
+In both cases the oil "rises" through the water. Oil, however, has no
+tendency to "rise" by itself, and in this case it lay motionless until
+it was lifted by the heavier fluid. We may use colloquial language when
+describing phenomena if we bear in mind what is really taking place.
+
+A balloon "rising" through the air is exactly analogous to the drop of
+oil in the water. The balloon is, bulk for bulk, lighter than air; the
+air therefore closes in under it and lifts it just as the water lifted
+the bubble of oil.
+
+
+EFFECTS OF CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE ON AIR
+
+Let us apply this to air. Air when warmed expands, and therefore warm
+air is, bulk for bulk, lighter than cold air. Warm air behaves in the
+presence of cold air as the balloon: it is displaced and lifted by the
+cold air, the result being an ascending stream of warm air, which is
+called a convection current.
+
+The movement of ascending smoke is essentially the same as that of the
+warmed air. Smoke is warm air made visible by the particles of soot with
+which it is laden. The particles of soot would fall to the ground except
+that they are carried upwards in the stream of warm air. Dr. W. N. Shaw
+has called attention to the importance of these phenomena in his book on
+"Air Currents and the Laws of Ventilation," in the Cambridge Series of
+Physical Text-books. He there says: "The dominant physical law in the
+ventilated space is the law of convection. It is at once the condition
+of success and the cause of most failures. Without convection,
+ventilation would be impossible; in consequence of convection, nearly
+all schemes of ventilation fail.
+
+"The law of convection is the law according to which warmed air rises
+and cooled air sinks in the surrounding air. Its applications are truly
+ubiquitous. Every surface, _e.g._ a warm wall, or a person warmer than
+the air in the immediate neighbourhood, causes an upward current; every
+surface colder than the air in contact with it causes a downward
+current.
+
+"Ventilation would be much easier if warmed air or cooled air could be
+carried along at any height required; but the law of convection is
+inexorable: warmed air naturally finds the ceiling, cooled air the
+floor."
+
+It is true that the ventilation of a house is generally considered to be
+the business of the builder and architect, yet there are many unpleasant
+phenomena that come under the observation of the housewife which are
+due to this law of convection, and it will be useful to consider a few
+of them.
+
+Let us take first the universal annoyance to housewives caused by the
+sight of _dirt on the ceiling_. That all air is full of dust is seen
+when a stream of sunlight crosses a room; the particles of dust are then
+clearly perceived moving rapidly in all directions in the air. These
+dust particles, when air is at rest, constantly fall to the ground under
+the action of gravity, and are deposited on shelves and ledges, from
+which they have to be removed daily by the housemaid. When air is warmed
+and ascends it carries the dust particles with it, and these particles
+striking against any cold surface with which they come into contact
+stick to it. This is the cause of the necessity for the periodical
+sweeping of chimneys. The walls of the chimney are colder than the smoke
+that comes into contact with them, and the particles of soot in the
+smoke striking against them are deposited on them. In the house the
+effect of the bombardment of surfaces by dust-laden streams of air is
+seen most conspicuously over burning gas-lights. Burning gas does not
+itself produce all the dirt which is found on the ceiling above it, but
+it causes upward streams of hot air, which carry up the dust and deposit
+it on the ceiling. The practice of suspending a shade over the gas-light
+does not lessen the amount of dust and smoke in the air, but the shade
+serves to spread out the air over a larger surface, and thus to render
+the dirt on the ceiling less apparent. That the shade itself remains
+clean is due to the fact that it gets hot. A heated surface promotes the
+activity of the motion of the air-particles in its neighbourhood, and by
+this local activity the dust is repelled, so that a surface remains
+clean or becomes coated according as it is more or less hot than the
+invading current. The validity of this explanation may be tested by
+holding a cold spoon over a lighted candle when it will be seen that the
+spoon becomes blackened; if a hot spoon be substituted for the cold one
+it will remain clean.
+
+In order that the hot, vitiated air of a room may escape easily, it has
+been in many cases the custom to place an exit opening for it in the
+chimney over the room fireplace. The wall in the neighbourhood of this
+ventilator invariably becomes black; but as this wall is warm it is not
+probable that dust is deposited on it by the outgoing air, the
+explanation given by the housewife that the smoke from the chimney gets
+through the ventilator into the room is probably correct, though these
+ventilators are supplied with mica flaps which should swing open when
+air from the room strikes against them, and close when the air from the
+chimney does so.
+
+When a house is heated by hot-water pipes and radiators, the walls over
+these pipes are another source of trouble (Fig. 1). A good deal of
+scientific ingenuity is required if the walls are to be kept clean.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
+
+That some ceilings appear striped with broad light and dark lines is
+due to inequalities in the temperature of the ceiling. The light stripes
+are under the joists, which prevent to some extent the escape of heat
+from the ceiling, and the dark correspond to the unprotected parts of
+the ceiling. The dust rising from the room is slightly repelled by the
+currents from the warmer parts of the ceiling, and sticks more readily
+to the colder parts.
+
+Let us take for our second example the apparently trivial matter of
+_smells in the house_. Smells may be of various kinds from various
+causes. The best judge of the kind, and therefore of the cause, is the
+nose. Suppose the smell to be the common one in houses of all
+classes--the smell of cookery! The smell of cookery in the house is
+generally a winter phenomenon. The air in an inhabited house is always
+in a state of motion, induced by the inequalities of temperature caused
+by the inhabitants themselves, and to a greater extent by the fires, of
+which there will certainly be one in the kitchen. We must remember that
+cold air will get into the house through all available openings, to take
+the place of the air which supplies the fires. The most obvious
+available openings in an ordinary dwelling-house are the casual ones of
+the open chimneys of unused grates, and the loosely fitting doors and
+windows. In cold weather fires are lighted in the sitting-room grates;
+these fires when lighted should warm the air in the chimneys above them
+and cause an upward draught in the chimney. Sometimes however the
+chimney will be found to be occupied by a current of air coming down to
+feed fires in other rooms, and so long as this goes on the smoke from
+the newly lighted fire comes into the room. The down-draught can be
+stopped by opening a window to supply sufficient cold air to counteract
+it, otherwise we have to adopt special devices to make the smoke go up
+the chimney in the first instance. Sometimes a newspaper is burnt in the
+grate to give the necessary amount of warm air, but this is a dangerous
+practice by which the chimney may be set on fire. Sometimes air is
+supplied by the bellows. A newspaper is often held in front of the grate
+so as to close the opening above the fire and cause the cold air to pass
+through the fire, thus promoting combustion and the supply of hot air in
+the chimney. In any case, the warm air of the fire is carried up the
+chimney by the cold air of the room, and this cold air is drawn from the
+casual openings already referred to. It has been demonstrated by
+laboratory experiments that the amount of draught in any chimney depends
+on the height of the chimney and the fire in its grate.
+
+Smells are conveyed about a house by the flow of air to feed the fires,
+and they nearly always find their way from all parts of the house to the
+ground-floor sitting-rooms when the doors are left open and the fires
+are burning. On their way they pass through passages and are therefore
+nearly ubiquitous. The air of any room in the house is in communication
+with that of every other room, and it is only by the nature of the smell
+that we can tell its probable source. There are people who like when
+they open the bedroom door in the morning to know that coffee and bacon
+await them downstairs, or on coming into the house from a cold winter's
+walk to meet a "delicious smell of Irish stew." To other people all
+smell of cookery is abhorrent, and they feel a sense of irritation that
+their guests should on entering the house be regaled with the odour of
+the preparation of food. To many mistresses the only remedy that
+suggests itself is a message to the cook, who is powerless in the matter
+and returns an answer that she is sorry, but that she doesn't know why
+there should be a smell of cooking upstairs as there is none in the
+kitchen. A visit to the kitchen will generally confirm the cook's
+statement as to that particular spot, but a considerable smell will be
+encountered on the kitchen stairs. We may inquire into the cause of
+this. The usual equipment of the kitchen includes a closed range,
+supplemented in many cases by a gas stove. The kitchen fire draws a
+plentiful supply of air from casual openings, and this air for the most
+part passes with the smoke up such flues as are open. The oven is
+provided with a ventilator, which carries off the odour of baked or
+roasted meats. The odour in the hot air over the closed range has no
+escape except into the kitchen--the cook says that ever so slight an
+opening in the top of the range will prevent the oven from heating. This
+odour-laden air therefore comes directly into the kitchen, and being hot
+is directed to the ceiling, thus escaping the cook who is in the draught
+of the fresh air supply. Travelling along the ceiling the hot air passes
+through the opening at the top of the door and mingles with the fresh
+air on its way upstairs. The same thing happens when the gas stove is
+in use. The only remedy is to provide some exit for the hot air of the
+kitchen which will be more easily accessible than that by way of the
+door, for the hot air will travel by the easiest path. A considerable
+knowledge of science is required to achieve this object.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
+
+Closely allied with the smell of cookery is _the smell of the gas
+stove_. Many persons consider that the use of a gas stove either in the
+kitchen or in a bedroom is inseparable from the peculiar odour of
+partially consumed gas. It may therefore be useful to consider how the
+gas supplied to stoves and incandescent lights differs from that of an
+open gas fire or that of an ordinary burner. Gas stoves and incandescent
+lights get their supply of gas through what are known as Bunsen burners,
+so called after the German chemist whose invention they are. In an
+ordinary burner the gas mixes with atmospheric air at the opening at
+which it burns; the supply of air obtained in this way is insufficient
+for complete combustion until the outer layers are reached; the interior
+part of the flame is bright and smoky. In the Bunsen burner the gas
+issues from the main through a nozzle which opens inside a bulb. The
+bulb is perforated to allow of the ingress of atmospheric air; the gas
+and air mix in the tube which is a prolongation of the bulb, and the
+mixture is lighted at the top of the tube. Fig. 2 shows a representation
+of the Bunsen burner as applied to a gas stove. In this the gas escapes
+from the main at the nozzle _n_, into a bulb of which the tube A is a
+prolongation, air is admitted to the bulb at the openings _a a_, and
+the mixed gas and air is burnt at the openings in the tube A. The amount
+of air supplied is regulated by the size of the openings _a a_ and the
+holes where the gas is lighted. The gas thus supplied with air is
+completely consumed where combustion begins, and a clear, blue,
+non-luminous flame is the result. If the holes through which the mixture
+of gas and air issues are partially closed by rust or by accretions from
+the "boiling over" of saucepans it is evident that, the gas supply being
+unchanged, less air can be drawn through them; consequently the gas will
+not be entirely consumed, and acetylene (C2H2, one of the products of
+partially consumed coal gas) will pass into the atmosphere and will give
+rise to the peculiar odour associated with gas stoves. This product of
+partially consumed gas is very poisonous, and all gas stoves should be
+furnished with chimneys to carry off the fumes to the open air. The
+phenomenon known as "burning back," that is, the ignition of the gas at
+the nozzle in the bulb, is caused by the pressure of gas being too small
+for the supply of air. The gas should at once be turned out and
+relighted till it burns at the proper places. The simple remedy for
+smell from a gas stove is the cleansing of its burners, unless indeed
+the kettle is too close to the holes from which the gas issues for
+complete combustion to be possible.
+
+There is another winter phenomenon which is very disagreeable--the
+presence of _fog in the house_; and the perplexed housewife asks, Where
+does the fog get in when all outside doors and windows are closed? We
+have already pointed out that the sitting-room fires must have air, and
+that that air will be drawn from casual openings. Among these openings
+are the chimneys of fireless grates; the greater part of the fog in the
+house comes down these chimneys. On a foggy day it is wise to close the
+chimneys of fireless grates and provide some other opening for the
+supply of air; but all air from the outside is full of fog. The problem
+of how to let in air and keep out fog suggests the question, What is
+fog? Fog consists of material particles (dust or smoke) on which vapour
+has condensed; if these particles can be removed the air will be clear.
+The problem for the housewife is how to free a sufficient quantity of
+air from these particles.
+
+_A smell of gas_ in any part of the house may be very dangerous if no
+one on the premises has any scientific knowledge, for it may be premised
+that the escape of gas is not where the smell is first perceived. Gas
+being lighter than air is carried upwards, and the smell is at first
+above the place of escape; it may even be in a room over where the gas
+is escaping. The only safe detector of the source of mischief is the
+nose; the mixture of coal gas and atmospheric air is explosive, and no
+light must be struck. The upper sash of the window should be pulled down
+to allow the gas to escape, and if the accident is at night time must be
+allowed before searching for the source of escape further than can be
+done by feeling the taps in the dark or following the scent by the
+nose.
+
+Further illustration of the effect of convection currents in the air of
+a dwelling-house are needless, but the student may profitably spend time
+and thought in considering how fresh air may be introduced into a room
+without causing cold air to lie on the floor or hot, vitiated air to
+cling to the ceiling. It is the old problem (with a difference) of
+teaching a grandmother to suck an egg. He may also interest himself in
+seeking answers to the questions (1) What action is expected to take
+place when a poker is placed against the bars of a grate to make the
+fire draw? and (2) Does the sun put the fire out, and if so how? In
+connection with the expansion of air with heat he may consider the
+popular fallacy that an inverted empty pot in a pie keeps in the juice.
+
+
+EFFECT OF CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE ON WATER
+
+Accidents have occurred in houses owing to ignorance of the full effects
+of heating or cooling water from its ordinary temperature. Water at any
+ordinary temperature expands when subjected to the action of heat; it
+contracts on cooling till it reaches a temperature seven degrees above
+the freezing point; from this temperature it expands until it becomes a
+solid mass of ice. At still lower temperatures ice contracts.
+
+Let us consider first the effect of heating water. If water at the
+ordinary temperature be poured into a vessel which is placed on a fire
+or other source of heat the water at the bottom of the vessel will be
+warmed and will expand; it will therefore be lighter, bulk for bulk,
+than the water nearer the top of the vessel. The cold water will
+therefore descend, and the warm water will rise. All ordinary water
+contains air; presently the air in the water will become visible as
+small bubbles which rise to the surface of the water and escape
+noiselessly into the atmosphere. As more heat is applied some of the
+water in the bottom of the vessel will be formed into steam, and bubbles
+of steam will expand and rise into the cooler water above and collapse
+there with a rattling noise which is characteristic of the state known
+as simmering. These bubbles of steam rising and bursting aid the
+convection currents in stirring and mixing the water so that it
+presently becomes of even temperature throughout. When this occurs the
+bubbles of steam rise to the surface and burst explosively into the
+atmosphere, throwing the water violently about; the water is then
+boiling. It is an important point to remember in cookery that boiling
+water will not become any hotter with the application of more heat, but
+it will "boil away;" that is, it will be completely converted into
+steam. The steam resulting from any volume of water occupies a space
+1700 times that of the water from which it is produced, but what
+concerns the housewife most seriously is that the change of water into
+steam is accompanied with the evolution of tremendous mechanical force
+that will burst any vessel in which the water is enclosed. It is the
+fact of this tremendous exercise of mechanical force that has led to
+serious accidents when hot-water bottles have been put into the oven to
+keep warm. It has been assumed by some people that if the hot-water
+bottle be not completely filled, that if what they consider to be
+sufficient room is left for the expansion of the water, no harm can
+result from putting the bottle into the oven, but no arrangement can
+make such a course safe.
+
+The bursting of the kitchen boiler is an accident resulting from
+disregard of the phenomena of heated water. It sometimes happens that
+the hot-water supply of the various taps in the house fails. If the
+boiler supplying the water is a hand-fed one some one whose duty it was
+to fill it has neglected that duty. An empty boiler with a removable lid
+will do no harm, but it is not advisable to leave it empty, as the heat
+of the fire will destroy the iron of which it is made. No attempt,
+however, should be made to fill the boiler while it is hot, as the
+result of pouring cold water into it will be the sudden and violent
+conversion of the water into steam, and the person pouring in the water
+will assuredly be scalded. If the boiler be one that is filled
+automatically, one of two things has probably occurred: either the pipes
+are blocked by fur--that is to say by sediment from the boiled water--or
+the supply-pipe is frozen. In neither case is it safe to light the fire.
+If the pipes are blocked by fur steam will be formed in the boiler and
+it will burst; if the supply-pipe is frozen the heat may thaw the ice,
+and the inrush of cold water will at any rate crack the boiler.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
+
+When water expands with heating convection currents are formed in it,
+and the hot water rises to any height we please if cold water be
+available to take its place. This law of convection is applied to
+maintain a circulation of hot water in pipes used for warming a house.
+The general arrangement of such a system is shown in Fig. 3. The
+furnace heats a boiler in the basement or on the lowest storey of the
+house; HB and HL' are parallel vertical pipes connected with a
+horizontal pipe H'H at the top of the house; C is a small cold-water
+cistern which is furnished with a ball-tap to maintain the supply of
+cold water to the pipe H'L if any water is drawn off at any part of the
+circuit. The short pipe A acts as a valve for the escape of air from
+the pipes. The pipes H'L, H'H, and HB are filled with water. When
+the fire is lighted in the furnace, hot water is driven up the pipe
+HB by cold water descending through H'L, and this circulation goes
+on so long as a difference of temperature is maintained in the pipes;
+that is, so long as the fire is burning. Any number of coils of pipes
+may be introduced into the circuit between the boiler and the top of
+the pipe HB. In filling the pipes with water allowance is made in these
+coils for the expansion of the water with heat and for the air which we
+have seen escapes from heated water, and a tap is fixed in each coil
+for letting out any air that may have lodged in it. If free air
+remains in the pipes the circulation of the water will be hindered and
+the boiler may become dangerously overheated. It is therefore necessary
+when the heating apparatus is in use to examine these taps and see that
+water and not air escapes from them.
+
+The installation of a heating apparatus in middle-class houses is fairly
+common, and where one is not found many persons use gas or oil stoves in
+the passages in the winter, for it is now realised that it is not
+possible to heat rooms by means of open fires without creating cold
+draughts in them from the cold passages into which they open. And,
+moreover, the constant change of temperature encountered in passing from
+one warm room to another through cold passages is not only disagreeable,
+but is not found to be conducive to health.
+
+Let us turn to the cooling of water. Water expands about one-eleventh of
+its volume on becoming ice. This change of state, like that of change
+into steam, is accompanied by the evolution of tremendous mechanical
+force. If water freezes in pipes it bursts the pipes, and on a thaw
+taking place the pipes are found to leak. The appropriate remedy for
+this state of things is to protect the pipes from cold or to empty them
+when a frost is apprehended. In all properly built houses there is a tap
+by means of which the water supply can be cut off from the house, thus
+allowing the pipes to be emptied on a frosty night. The custom of
+leaving the taps dripping is effective, because the pipe is generally
+liable to freeze at some particular point where it is in immediate
+contact with the cold air, probably in the unclosed chink where the
+pipe passes through the wall; keeping the water moving in the pipe
+prevents any part of it getting cold enough to freeze, but the practice
+should not be resorted to, as it wastes water.
+
+
+RADIANT HEAT
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Section of a Convex lens.]
+
+It is pleasant on a dry, still day in winter, when the ground is covered
+with crisp snow or glistens with hard frost, to feel the warmth of the
+sun's rays, and it is becoming quite a fashion for people of leisure to
+spend the winter months at the pleasure resorts amid the snow-laden
+mountains of Switzerland. It is a matter of some interest to inquire how
+it happens that the sun's rays are warm when the thermometer tells us
+that the temperature of the air is below freezing-point. There is an old
+and pretty experiment in which a burning glass is made of ice; it is not
+a difficult thing to do. If the scale-pan of an ordinary balance be made
+hot and be pressed against a slice of ice (the concave side of the
+scale-pan towards the ice), first on one side of the slice and then on
+the other, the ice can be formed into a convex lens (Fig. 4). If now
+this lens be placed in the path of a sunbeam and the light be brought to
+a focus, that is, to a bright spot on a piece of paper, the paper will
+be heated and will take fire while the lens through which the heat
+passes remains ice. From this we may surmise that the heat of the sun
+does not affect the medium through which it passes.
+
+Clerk Maxwell suggested yet another experiment in illustration of this
+law. By means of an ice lens he collected the sunlight to a focus in the
+middle of a basin of clear water, and observed that no effect was
+discernible in the water. He then directed the focus (the spot of light)
+on to a mote in the water. The mote became hot, the water was agitated,
+convection currents were formed, and the mote was carried up in them.
+This showed that rays of light from the sun do not affect the substances
+through which they can pass, and that they heat bodies through which
+they do not pass. It has been demonstrated by laboratory experiments
+that all hot bodies emit rays of heat, whether we see the rays or not.
+When we see the rays the bodies are said to be red or white-hot. The
+process by which heat passes from one body to another without warming
+the intervening medium is called radiation. Radiation takes place only
+through transparent bodies. Rays of heat, like rays of light, pass
+through transparent bodies; whereas they are absorbed by, that is they
+make hot, opaque bodies. Heat rays travel in straight lines and are
+reflected from polished surfaces; their intensity varies inversely as
+the square of the distance of the object on which they fall from their
+source. The heat of an ordinary fire is radiant heat; when we sit round
+the fire we act as opaque bodies and absorb the heat, and are what we
+call scorched if the fire is very bright. If we move away from the fire,
+still letting the same firelight shine on us, we are not scorched; this
+is because the heating power of the rays varies inversely as the
+distance from their source, therefore if we move away double the
+distance we receive one quarter of the heat that we received before we
+moved. If we draw our chairs to one side we are not scorched, because
+the rays of heat do not travel round a corner.
+
+
+CONDUCTION OF HEAT
+
+We have seen that the ice-lens was not affected by the passage of heat
+through it. If we now take hold of the lens we shall experience a
+feeling of cold, and the lens will begin to melt. Heat has passed from
+our hand into the ice. The process by which heat passes from one body to
+another in contact with it is called conduction. The fundamental law of
+conduction is, that heat always passes from a warm body to a cold one.
+Clerk Maxwell illustrated this law in a series of very simple
+experiments. He placed a silver teaspoon in a cup of hot tea, and noted
+that the handle became warm gradually from the hot tea; the heat passed
+from the bowl of the spoon in the tea to successive parts of the handle
+until the whole spoon was hot. His second experiment was to put two cold
+spoons, one of silver and one of German silver, into the tea, when he
+found that the same phenomenon took place, but that the silver spoon
+became hot much more quickly than did the German silver one. He then put
+three spoons into the tea, made respectively of silver, of German
+silver, and of bone. In the result, he found that when the other two
+were hot, the bone spoon hardly showed any sign of heat at the end of
+its handle.
+
+The conclusion to be drawn from these experiments is that heat passes at
+different rates through different substances. Substances through which
+heat passes quickly are called good conductors of heat. The law of the
+conductivity of heat is that in a homogeneous body the flow is
+continuous, and is from the region of high temperature to the region of
+low temperature, and that it continues until the body is of uniform
+temperature throughout. The law is the same for bodies of different
+materials when in contact one with another.
+
+The conduction of heat is in operation in every department of domestic
+life. People live in houses and are clothed to protect them from the
+vicissitudes of the weather, including the cold of winter and the heat
+of summer; use is made of the phenomenon in warming the house and in the
+preparation of food.
+
+In selecting materials for various purposes, account has to be taken of
+their conductivities, for in some cases it is desirable that the
+transfer of heat should take place slowly, and in others that it should
+take place quickly. It might be thought that the conductivity of a
+substance could be estimated by touch, but a little reflection will
+show that this cannot be the case. The flow of heat between two bodies
+depends upon the difference of temperature between them, and if there
+should be no difference of temperature between them at the moment of
+touch there will be no flow of heat, though both are bodies of greater
+or less conductivity. Let us take, for example of the uncertainty of
+estimation by touch, a well-known experiment. Suppose we have a basin of
+hot water and a basin of cold water, and place a hand in each for a few
+moments; suppose we withdraw the hands and plunge them into a basin of
+tepid water, we shall find that the tepid water feels cold to the hand
+that was in the hot water and warm to the hand that was in the cold
+water.
+
+Luckily, it has been found possible in the laboratory to refer
+substances to a common standard and to assign numerical values to them
+in order of their conductivities, so that substances can be compared and
+a selection made for any desired purpose. Pure silver has the highest
+conductivity; other useful materials take the following order: copper,
+zinc, lead, iron, steel, marble, glass, brick, slate, wood, fur, cotton,
+flannel, water, air. Fur and wool no doubt owe much of their warmth to
+the fact that they consist of fibres which enclose a good deal of air,
+but as a matter of fact the warmth of loosely woven woollen and knitted
+articles in general is often overrated; they are very warm as under
+garments or in calm weather, but in windy weather the air in them is
+rapidly changed and the cold seems to blow through them. If for any
+purpose we select a material from its place in a table of comparative
+conductivities, and use it without reference to the law of conduction of
+heat, we shall probably be disappointed with the result. We know that
+cotton burns easily; if we stretch a cotton handkerchief over the back
+of a gold watch and place a red-hot cinder from the fire on the
+handkerchief on the watch, the handkerchief will not be burnt.
+
+Many interesting problems present themselves when a house has to be
+built or rented. There is often opportunity for some choice of material
+in walls or roof, and some peculiarities to be considered. Are the top
+rooms of a thatched cottage warmer or colder than the top rooms of a
+house covered with slates? Is a wooden or an iron building warmer? What
+difference does it make if the iron building is lined with wood? If the
+iron walls were twice as thick, what would be the effect inside the
+room? Would the walls of such a building be always dry inside? It
+sometimes happens that the end wall of a row of houses is covered with
+slates to preserve it from the effects of storms of wind and rain; will
+that inside wall be always dry?
+
+But the housewife is probably more interested in those articles in
+use in the house which it is her business to provide. Shall the
+stoves be of slate or iron? In olden days warming-pans were made of
+copper. What change in the manner of use justifies making them of
+earthenware or India-rubber? The slow transmission of heat through thick
+woollen materials has been applied to the construction of Norwegian
+cooking-stoves (Fig. 5). These stoves consist of a wooden box, lined
+with well-padded felt. The cooking vessels are of metal; the food when
+at boiling point is placed in these vessels and the lids put on, a
+thick padded felt is placed on the vessels and entirely fills the
+wooden lid of the box which is then closed; the heat is preserved so
+that the cooking is continued without further attention. Would it be
+possible to use the Norwegian stove as a refrigerator? Would it keep
+an ice pudding cold without any alteration? In connection with this
+we may ask why freezing machines have the inner vessel in which the
+freezing takes place of zinc, and the outer vessel which contains the
+ice and salt of wood? What would be the effect of interchanging the
+materials?
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
+
+It is possible that the excellence of some continental cookery is due to
+the extensive use on the continent of earthenware cooking utensils
+through which heat passes very slowly. The growing fashion of using
+enamelled cooking vessels must have some effect on the food cooked in
+them as heat certainly passes quickly through them. Reference has been
+made to them simply to demonstrate the universality of the application
+of physical laws, and we may now return to the house and its arrangement
+for the comfort of the inmates.
+
+
+METHODS OF DOMESTIC HEATING
+
+The two methods of warming a house are by radiation and conduction. We
+may surmise that in any case both methods will be in use, but the one
+will predominate; for instance, in heating by an open fire radiation
+will predominate, and in heating by stoves and radiators conduction will
+predominate. In planning a house a decision must be made between the
+two. This decision being made there is the further consideration of
+where the source of heat shall be placed. In the case of an open
+fireplace shall it be in an end wall, in a corner, in an outside wall,
+and so on, the object being to make the greatest possible use of the
+heat that passes up the chimney and of that which radiates into the
+room. The same consideration must be paid to the situation of the closed
+stove; where will it pass heat by conduction to the greatest volume of
+air, and where can its radiant heat be utilised?
+
+In a room heated by a stove there is frequently a vessel of water placed
+by or on the top of the stove. If we ask what is the purpose of this
+water we shall be told that the stove dries the air in the room. Now, it
+is impossible that the heat of the stove should remove any moisture from
+the air; we must therefore seek an answer to the question, What is dry
+air? The sensation of the dryness or moisture of the air does not depend
+only upon the amount of vapour in the air but upon the ratio of the
+amount present to the amount that the air is able to hold at the given
+temperature. The warmer the air is the more vapour it can hold, hence
+when the air is warmed the percentage of water present to the possible
+amount in it is lowered; that is its humidity, which is the percentage
+amount, is lowered, and we feel it to be dry. The question may arise why
+we should feel this when the room is heated by a stove and not when it
+is heated by an open fire? It may be that in a room with an open fire we
+are warmed by radiation and give out heat to the surrounding air which
+is constantly changed by convection currents, so that the air we breathe
+is colder than we ourselves; and that in a room warmed by a stove we
+receive heat from the air and are constantly breathing air that is
+warmer than we ourselves. But it is more than probable that the custom
+of providing a source of moisture to the air persists from the
+suggestion of a single person in seeking to relieve the disagreeable
+feeling attending the breathing of air laden with the poisonous products
+of half-consumed gas, and that it has no real scientific foundation.
+
+_How to estimate temperatures._--Whatever method is adopted for warming
+a room, the housewife may be assured that the resulting temperature will
+not be pleasing to every member of the family. One will find it too
+warm, and another will at the same time find it too cold, and this not
+from any wilful captiousness but from the cause that we have already
+alluded to, that the feelings are a very uncertain test of temperature.
+It is therefore advisable to keep the air of the room as far as possible
+at a standard temperature. To do this it will be necessary to have a
+thermometer in the room, and to know what its readings indicate. When
+the thermometer registers 32° Fahr. or less, water will freeze in the
+room, and the vessels in which it is kept will burst; it is therefore
+wise, when it is anticipated that the temperature will fall below 32°
+Fahr., to empty the ewers and bottles that may be in the room. From 32°
+Fahr. to 40° Fahr. the room will be very cold, up to and including 58°
+Fahr. it will be too cold to be pleasant; the standard temperature may
+be taken as between 62° and 64° Fahr.
+
+It may appear a simple matter to hang up a thermometer and read it, but
+a little thought will show that it is not so easy as it seems. If, for
+instance, the thermometer is placed in front of the fire at a distance,
+say of four feet from it, what will its reading indicate? Will it be the
+temperature of the air of the room or the temperature of the fire, or if
+neither, what will it be? Suppose we have two identical thermometers,
+and hang them on adjacent walls, one of which is an outside wall, which
+of the two readings shall we take as that of the temperature of the
+room? It is not an easy matter to decide. In a sick-room, where one
+person's comfort only has to be considered the doctor will order the
+thermometer to be hung at the bed-head, but we cannot adopt this plan in
+a general sitting-room.
+
+
+CHEMICAL SCIENCE IN THE HOUSEHOLD
+
+In our endeavour to establish the claims of the science of chemistry to
+a prominent place in the educational equipment of women, all reference
+to those most interesting and important chemical phenomena that
+accompany the exercise of the physiological functions will be omitted;
+as also those which are most immediately concerned with the preparation
+of food. Attention will be confined to some of the common occurrences of
+daily life, the methods of dealing with which are typical of the method
+adopted in considering more important and abstruse problems.
+
+Perhaps one of the most disappointing experiences of the novice in
+housekeeping is the rapidity with which everything assumes a shabby
+aspect. Bright paint grows dull, dull paint wears away, curtains and
+fabrics fade, and very soon mistress and maids alike feel that the
+house no longer repays the trouble incurred in the spring-cleaning
+that it must still undergo. This spring-cleaning, the primary object
+of which is the preservation of the beauty and substance of the house
+and its appointments, is in the result the cause of much of their
+deterioration.
+
+Cleaning consists in removing dirt by means that are partly physical and
+partly chemical; for instance, the removal of dust by sweeping, shaking,
+or brushing is a physical operation, and the removal of dirt and grease
+by dissolving them in soapy water involves their change by a chemical
+process. If the surfaces or materials to be cleaned include a substance
+on which the cleansing agent can operate the agent will not confine its
+work to the removal of the dirt only; in washing coloured fabrics we
+know how often the colour comes out with the dirt. Knowledge therefore,
+not only of the composition and properties of cleansing agents, but also
+of the surfaces and materials to which they are to be applied, is
+essential, and we should find that it is not always the powder or paste
+which makes the greatest show of cleanliness in the shortest time, with
+least expenditure of labour, that is the most to be desired.
+
+_The use of alkalies._--The most common cleansing agents are hot water,
+soap, and soda. Hot water is itself a detergent; that is, it has the
+power of dissolving dirt. It does not, however, dissolve grease, and all
+household dirt is more or less greasy, hence we cannot do our cleansing
+with water only, and we are accustomed to add to it soap or soda.
+
+It is not easy or even possible to discuss the chemical properties of
+substances without the use of chemical terms. Substances are
+classified for chemical purposes in groups, every member of which
+exhibits the same chemical property, and we shall require to distinguish
+between the group called acids and the group called alkalies. It
+will be sufficient for our purpose just now to know that acids have a
+sour taste and that alkalies counteract acids. From this definition
+lemon-juice will easily be recognised as an acid. If we add soda to
+lemon-juice there will be a brisk effervescence and the lemon-juice
+will no longer be sour, hence soda is an alkali. Alkalies have
+another well-known chemical property--they dissolve grease and oil and
+enable them to mix with water. If we have some hot water in a
+tumbler and pour oil into it the oil will float on the water, and if
+we stir the two together the oil will break into globules but will still
+float on the water; we cannot mix them together. If we dissolve some
+soda in hot water and pour in oil we shall find on stirring that the
+mixture becomes milky or soapy in appearance and the oil and water are
+no longer discernible as different fluids. Moreover, on standing the
+oil will not again separate from the water; it has been emulsified.
+Oils themselves have the chemical power of dissolving resins. Resins
+are hard, bright vegetable gums which will come under our notice when
+we consider the composition of varnishes.
+
+All hard soaps are made from soda, grease, and resin; the cheaper soaps
+contain free soda, the dearer ones contain an excess of fat. Yellow
+scrubbing soap contains about eight per cent. of free soda. Both soap
+and soda can be dissolved in water, and are so dissolved for cleaning
+purposes. Knowing the constituents of our cleansing agents, we can
+consider their action on paint and varnish. Paint contains white-lead,
+linseed-oil, and colouring matter. It is not very hard when dry and can
+be easily scratched with the nail. Varnish is made from linseed-oil,
+resin, and turpentine. When dry it should be very hard and bright.
+
+The whole of the painted woodwork of the house is subjected to
+spring-cleaning whatever its appearance with regard to dirt may be. The
+operator throws into a pailful of hot water a "handful" of soda, soaks a
+scrubbing-brush in the mixture, rubs it well with soap, and uses it to
+brush the somewhat soft paint or harder varnish. The soda and soap,
+aided by the heat, soften the paint and the brush removes a quantity
+equal to about a coat of paint. The effect is certainly pleasing for the
+time being, but there will be no difficulty in understanding that the
+process can only be repeated until the paint and varnish grow shabby or
+disappear.
+
+It is not wise for the inexpert housewife to trust to unscientific
+friends for advice as to the best materials to use when cleaning paint.
+A foreman painter once gave, as a recipe for this purpose, an
+instruction to add a tablespoonful of "salts of tartar" to
+three-quarters of a pailful of water. The result was a very rapid and
+complete removal of dirt from the paint, but the housewife, being
+dissatisfied with the rather dull appearance of the white varnish,
+stroked it with her finger and found that it was covered with a fine
+white powder. The maid's assurance that this was all right and only
+needed to be removed by dusting did not satisfy her, and she began to
+wonder what chemical action was to be expected from "salts of tartar." A
+first search for information revealed that salts of tartar was an old
+name for "potassium carbonate," but the housewife knew no chemistry and
+had never heard of potassium carbonate, so this information was useless
+to her. She had, however, had some scientific training and was not
+satisfied to rest in ignorance. A search in a book on elementary
+chemistry disclosed the further truth that the commercial name for
+"potassium carbonate" is pearlash! She then remembered that being
+desirous at one time to remove the paint from some oak carving said to
+be two hundred years' old, she had successfully used a solution of
+pearlash painted on with a brush. The paint when dry from the
+application had been scraped off in long, tough ribbons. Of course the
+mixture had been very much stronger than that prescribed by the painter,
+but the effect had been very much more apparent.
+
+Acids and alkalies are to some extent responsible for the fading of
+fabrics in the wash when these fabrics owe their colour to vegetable
+dyes. Acids turn vegetable blues red, alkalies turn vegetable blues
+green and vegetable yellows brown. It is easy to illustrate this action
+of acids and alkalies on vegetable colours. A blue liquid can be
+obtained by boiling a red cabbage in water. If we take two portions of
+this water and add any acid, say lemon-juice, to one portion we shall
+obtain a red liquid; if we add any alkali, say soda, to the other
+portion we shall obtain a green liquid. If we go a step further and add
+lemon-juice to the green liquid and soda to the red liquid we may
+approach very nearly to our original blue liquid. These experiments
+suggest a remedy for the change of colour in fabrics on washing with
+soda, but the dyes most commonly used are not vegetable dyes, and the
+fading of the fabrics is due to chemical changes, into which we have no
+space to enter.
+
+Strong acids and alkalies act as caustics; that is they destroy fabrics.
+Continued washing in strong soda and water not only tends to destroy,
+but also spoils the appearance of all kinds of wearing apparel and
+household linen. White silk and wool at once become yellow on being
+washed with soap that contains free soda, and linen is affected in the
+same way though not to the same extent.
+
+The widely advertised pastes and liquids for cleaning metal-work,
+particularly brass, often contain acids or alkalies that are injurious
+to metals. If after cleaning there should be a green deposit on brass or
+copper it will be wise to inquire into the composition of such deposit,
+and to discontinue the use of that paste or liquid. When brass pans are
+used for boiling fruit for jams, it is usual to rub them inside with a
+slice of lemon before putting in the fruit. A careful housewife will
+consider the reason for this custom. We remember once seeing a copper
+pan, that had been provided for the preparation of oatmeal porridge,
+with a band about an inch wide of green crystals on the inside. Inquiry
+elicited that the cook had thought it a convenient pan in which to
+prepare the fish (salt haddock) for breakfast. Ignorance of the chemical
+action of salt and acids on metals may lead to very serious results. The
+common name for the green deposit on brass and copper is verdigris, and
+most people know that verdigris is a poisonous compound; the difficulty
+is that, not knowing its chemical composition, they do not recognise
+verdigris when they see it. The cook thought that the complaint made had
+reference only to the misuse of the pan, and said that it was quite easy
+to clean the green deposit off!
+
+
+THE CHEMISTRY OF THE BODY
+
+It is to the science of chemistry that we owe our knowledge of the
+composition of the various foodstuffs from which dietaries are selected,
+as well as of the several parts of the human body which relies for its
+sustenance on those dietaries. But the adjustment of dietaries to the
+work they have to do is a more complex problem than those we have
+hitherto considered. We learn from the science of physiology that the
+human body is a laboratory in which certain juices are secreted for the
+digestion of foods, and that in this laboratory foods must be reduced
+to the consistency necessary for their passage through animal membranes;
+for it is by passage through membranes that the nutritive parts of food
+find their way into the general circulation of the blood which carries
+them to all parts of the system. Very few foodstuffs are available for
+use in their natural state, and the majority of them are prepared for
+consumption in the first place by more or less elaborate processes
+included in the art of cookery. When thus prepared they should be in a
+fit state to undergo in the body the physical changes comprised in
+mastication, and the chemical changes associated with the process of
+digestion.
+
+It might be surmised by the thoughtful parent that as the child's body
+lacks some of the external features of the adult body, such as hair and
+teeth, so there might, and probably would, be corresponding lapses in
+the internal economy, and that therefore the food prepared for the adult
+would be, even in the smallest quantity, unsuited to the child.
+Physiologists tell us that this is so, and in particular that the
+secretions which in adult life are called saliva and pancreatic juice
+and which have the function of preparing starch for digestion, are at
+this time scanty in amount and deficient in chemical action. But these
+secretions are essential for the digestion of starchy foods, and
+chemists tell us that starch abounds in the vegetable kingdom from which
+most of the food of children is derived. It is therefore a matter of
+some importance that every person in charge of an infant should have
+that amount of knowledge of chemical reactions which is requisite to
+enable them to detect whether a food does or does not contain starch. A
+child fed entirely on starchy foods suffers from malnutrition of so
+serious a character that death may, and often does, ensue. Even if other
+suitable food, such as modified milk, be given, the internal economy of
+the child will be seriously disturbed.
+
+The names by which patent foods are advertised are very often misleading
+to unscientific persons, and invalids have suffered much from the
+mistaken idea that jellies and meat extracts are foods. Meat extracts
+have their use, but any invalid fed on extract of beef only would die
+sooner than one left with no food at all. The reason for this can be
+learned from the knowledge of the constituents of beef extracts and the
+part they play in the human organism.
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+If we have seemed to lay stress on the value of a knowledge of the
+sciences of physics and chemistry to the exclusion of the mention of
+others, our justification of the fact is that space is limited, and that
+we believe that physics and chemistry underlie all the other sciences
+and are of paramount importance to students of all other subjects. In
+the sciences of biology, physiology, botany, geology, &c., little
+advance can be made without a knowledge of the fundamental laws of
+nature. The physical laws control movement, and the chemical laws
+control growth, whether of animate or inanimate nature. Physical and
+chemical phenomena are concerned in the upheaval of rocks and mountains
+which govern the contour of the continents of the world. These contours
+influence climates and peoples; as the contours change the people
+change. The dwellers in the mountain regions differ in character from
+the dwellers in valleys and plains; the inhabitants of cold districts
+differ from the inhabitants of warm districts; but it is people who make
+history, and historians cannot afford to pass by natural environments
+and natural laws.
+
+If a foundation of the fundamental sciences be laid at school the
+student can subsequently build upon it the special science that is
+suited to his career. It matters little what the calling in life of any
+person may be; if he aim at success in that calling he must acquaint
+himself with the laws by which he has his being, and by which he must
+perforce be guided in all his actions as well as in his intercourse with
+his fellow-men.
+
+The many avenues now open to women for public work entail on them the
+responsibility of fitting themselves for that work. They as much as, if
+not more than, the housewife need to study the sciences which treat of
+the safeguarding of human life. As councillors dealing with sanitary and
+building laws, as inspectors of workrooms, of institutions, and of the
+conditions of child-life, they owe it to themselves and to the community
+they serve not to undertake those duties without adequate knowledge.
+Adequate knowledge must be taken to mean scientific knowledge of those
+matters of which, by offering themselves for such appointments, they
+assume an expert knowledge. It is an irony that scientific training
+should be willingly and even eagerly acquired when it is a question of
+qualifying for a salaried post for work among strangers, and that a
+mother should be content to bring to bear on the well-being and lives of
+her own circle unscientific and amateur experience.
+
+We have only been able to touch the skirt of a great subject, but our
+end will have been achieved if we have succeeded in pointing the way for
+a fuller realisation of the aims of earnest men and women for the saving
+of child-life and the mitigation of disease, and if we have shown how
+great that subject is--how much too great for anything but the most
+superficial treatment in a single article.
+
+
+
+
+THE ECONOMIC RELATIONS OF THE HOUSEHOLD
+
+BY MABEL ATKINSON, M.A. (GLASGOW)
+
+
+I. INTRODUCTORY
+
+The household has been treated by economists with curious negligence.
+The founder of political economy showed so little insight into the
+real nature of the work carried on there as to class those whom he
+described as menial servants with unproductive labourers.[13] The
+later classical economists have followed his lead. Marshall, it is
+true, shows throughout his books an appreciation of the position and
+responsibilities of the housewife and the mother which is foreign to
+most of his colleagues.[14] But he has never attempted to analyse the
+economic functions of the household, or to show its varying relations to
+the rest of the community; neither has he pointed out the peculiar
+factors which differentiate the position and remuneration of the women
+employed in domestic activities from those of all other workers. On
+the other hand, the more modern school of economists, those who devote
+themselves to the history of economic development in the past or to
+the intensive study of special economic institutions in the present,
+have equally failed to discuss with any adequacy the organisation of
+the household.
+
+The economic historians describe with minuteness the rise and fall of
+gilds and chartered companies, the workings of different methods of
+education and of poor relief in successive epochs. They rarely indicate
+how the various forms of industrial organisation translated themselves
+into the domestic expenditure of the people. It would, for instance, be
+very difficult to extract from the pages of the economic historians an
+answer to the question, "What were the conditions determining the supply
+of domestic servants at the close of the Middle Ages, in the eighteenth
+century and in the nineteenth century respectively?" It is not easy to
+answer definitely even simpler and more fundamental questions than
+these. It is often stated, for example, that the household arrangements
+of the serfs on the mediæval manors were rude and uncomfortable to the
+last degree,[15] but it is certain that this is not so universally true
+as has been thought. Some at all events of the more prosperous
+inhabitants of the manors possessed household furniture and equipments
+of a kind not inferior to the outfit of the casual labourer to-day.
+Sheets, for example, are mentioned several times in extant inventories.
+But much more investigation than has yet been possible would be
+necessary before it could be determined whether these instances of a
+higher standard of comfort are or are not exceptions to a general rule.
+
+To take other instances of unsettled problems: How was pottery made in
+the Middle Ages--by travelling potters as in the East to-day, by gilds
+of potters, or by the inhabitants of the manor directly for their own
+use? Or again: When did the custom of building houses to let on rent
+first become general in England? It is clear that the habit of living in
+rented houses has and must have the most profound influence on family
+life and national character. But so far, neither from economic histories
+on the one hand nor from histories of architecture on the other, have I
+been able to obtain any reliable information on this point.
+
+When one turns to even more important questions--such, for instance, as
+the industrial position of women at different epochs--it is equally
+difficult to obtain precise and detailed knowledge. Without a very
+lengthy and elaborate investigation of the extant original materials,
+many of them scattered in municipal chambers in distant parts of
+England, it would be quite impossible to say on what terms women were
+admitted as members of the gilds and fraternities which extended over
+the whole area of industrial life in the Middle Ages. The character and
+organisation of the household and the position of women in the Middle
+Ages are subjects still practically untouched by the economic
+historians.[16]
+
+When we turn to modern times, a little more material has been collected.
+There is an investigation by the Board of Trade into the wages of
+domestic servants, and a book on domestic service by Professor Lucy
+Salmon of Vassar College. It deals of course mainly with American
+conditions, but cannot be neglected by any English student of the
+economic relations of the household.
+
+Humanitarianism has prompted studies more or less elaborate of the
+dietaries and housing conditions of the working classes, especially in
+towns,[17] but it would be idle to pretend that there has been yet more
+than a beginning made of the task of determining how for each class of
+the community its share of the national income as stated in money is
+translated into the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life, into
+house-room, fuel, food, cleanliness, clothing, insurance, domestic
+service, recreation, and culture. The generalisations available are of
+the most meagre description. We can, for instance, say with tolerable
+certainty that the agricultural labourer spends three-fourths of his
+income on food, the town labourer two-thirds, the artisan a half, the
+middle-class man from a third to a fourth; but there is practically no
+reliable information with regard to very large incomes, or to sums spent
+on clothing in _any_ section of the community.
+
+Moreover, there is one class--large, growing in importance, and an
+essential element in modern civilisation--about whose domestic
+expenditure we have no scientific knowledge at all. This is the class
+which may be named "the routine brain-workers," the people who as
+clerks, book-keepers, salesmen, typists, &c., are responsible for the
+routine administration of modern commerce. They have been compared to
+the nervous system, for like that system in the animal body they serve
+for the communication and the mechanical record of the life of the
+community on its industrial side. With them may be classed elementary
+school-teachers, reporters, and the lower ranks of the Civil Service,
+though I should not be prepared to say that some of these--especially
+the teachers--ought to be regarded as performing only routine
+brain-work. But all these workers can be conveniently studied together
+in that their labour is carried on under somewhat similar conditions--it
+is sedentary, highly regimented, exhausting to the brain and nervous
+system, and is generally remunerated by a fixed salary, &c. They earn an
+income larger than that of the manual labourer, but considerably less as
+a general rule than that of the professional man. There is a total
+absence of information as to the domestic expenditure of this class. It
+is sometimes declared that its less well-paid members suffer as severely
+from poverty as do sections of the working-class, and that the poor
+clerk is really much more to be pitied than the well-to-do trade
+unionist, the skilled manual worker.
+
+But no one has yet attempted to test the truth of this view by the only
+scientific means, namely, by the collection of precise details as to
+the domestic expenditure of the routine brain-working class, showing
+what sums are spent on house-room, food, clothing, &c., and what kind
+of accommodation is obtained for the money spent. In short, the
+investigation of domestic expenditure has never yet been carried out
+in a purely scientific spirit solely for the sake of the resultant
+knowledge. It has always been undertaken with some special practical
+problem in view, and is consequently always fragmentary and frequently
+biassed.
+
+Yet if it is important to know how the wealth of the country is
+produced, it is of equal importance to know how it is consumed, and that
+whether the consumption takes the form of porridge and flannelette for
+the child of a dock-labourer, of drink and admission to a football match
+for the miner or cotton-operative, or of a gardener, and a holiday in
+Switzerland for the hard-working doctor or stockbroker. Domestic
+expenditure should be investigated as impartially by the economist as
+are the variations of plants or animals by the biologist. His one aim
+should be the discovery and statement of truth, as complete and as
+unbiassed as he can make it.
+
+Hitherto, as I have said, this field of research has remained
+comparatively untouched. In the first place, economists have generally
+been men, and have naturally devoted their energies to the elucidation
+of the problems of industry and business which concern men most closely.
+Few women, on the other hand, have until recently received any training
+in economics, and it has never occurred to them that the familiar and
+wearisome problems of the rent, the butcher's bill, and the children's
+clothes, together with the difficulty of finding a satisfactory cook,
+may have a wider aspect than the narrow and personal one. But even as it
+is, the few women who have distinguished themselves in the sphere of
+economics have in a note or a casual remark pointed out distinctions
+between household management and other branches of industry which cast a
+flood of light on the whole subject. There is a paragraph in the second
+volume of "Industrial Democracy"[18] which lays down the difference
+between the underlying principles of business and of the administration
+of the home in a few words which might serve as the text for a volume.
+It is precisely this difference, first clearly indicated by Mrs. Webb,
+which constitutes the second ground for the common neglect of this
+branch of economics. A factory or a shop is run for profit; a household
+simply to provide comfort and convenience for its members. To put it in
+technical language, in the world of industry we are concerned with
+exchange values, but in the home with use values alone. From this
+distinction, overlooked by reason of its obviousness, there flow a large
+number of consequences which will be discussed later. At present we are
+only concerned to show that economists, with their eyes fixed on trade
+and the mechanism of trade, very naturally neglected that section of
+life in which values, material and immaterial, were being continually
+created, but for use alone, not for commercial purposes.
+
+The wife who cooks her husband's dinner, or caters, organises, and keeps
+accounts for him, is really engaged in work which in any rational
+interpretation of the word has far more right to be called productive
+than is much of the labour employed in manufacture or business. But the
+work accomplished by the wife in the household has never yet received
+its full acknowledgment from the economists. The truth is that, although
+they constantly warn students to avoid the vulgar error of confusing
+money wages with real wages, they themselves have been so biassed by the
+commercial conception of profit-making that they have almost completely
+overlooked even the purely economic value of much work, such as cooking,
+cleaning, and clothes-making, which is carried on within the home, not
+for profit-making or for a salary, but as part of the duties attaching
+to the status of wife and mother. It is acknowledged by the economists
+themselves[19] that although in theory they have set aside a section to
+be devoted to the discussion of "consumption" as other sections deal
+with "production" and "distribution" of wealth, yet in practice the
+treatment of consumption has been meagre and ineffective. This, perhaps,
+is inevitable--it is certainly regrettable--and women economists would
+be performing a most useful work if they were to undertake a careful and
+detailed investigation into the consumption of wealth at different
+epochs and by different classes of the community, and one, moreover, for
+which their connection with housekeeping, which is only the practical
+application of the science of the consumption of wealth, would have
+already partially prepared them.
+
+There is still another reason why a scientific treatment of the
+consumption of wealth has been delayed. It could not be developed until
+medicine and hygiene had provided us with satisfactory standards of the
+needs of the human body. When food, for example, was still regarded
+purely as a matter of individual likes and dislikes, it was impossible
+to discuss at all adequately the sufficiency or insufficiency of the
+food consumption of a given class. But now that we know that the varying
+tastes simply express in different ways the need for so much proteid,
+carbo-hydrates and fats, we have a firm basis on which to work. It is
+true that it is not yet quite so firm as we could wish; the scientists
+have not yet succeeded even for a single class in fixing a dietary
+standard which would be accepted by all in particular, and recently the
+investigations of Professor Chittenden have suggested that the amount of
+proteid hitherto thought essential may be excessive. Moreover, little
+attention has yet been paid to the need of different food for different
+work. Yet it seems probable, to say the least, that the sedentary
+worker, using his brain and not his muscles, may require lighter and
+daintier food than the labourer in the fields or the docks, and may
+really suffer as seriously if that better food be denied him as does the
+latter if he fails to secure a sufficiency of coarser and cheaper
+nutriment. This question would be of great importance in investigating
+the expenditure of the clerk class. But although the scientists have
+here failed to provide the students of domestic expenditure with all the
+data required, yet there is sufficient knowledge of the general
+principles of dietetics to enable us to base our study of food
+consumption on a fairly sound basis.
+
+In the same way a standard of housing accommodation establishing the
+minimum of space per head necessary for health is generally recognised;
+and on these and similar calculations, correlated with the cost of
+house-room and commodities, it will be possible to build up a science of
+consumption which will be really a science and not a series of guesses
+and vague generalities.
+
+It is true, again, that it is easier to deal with the grades of society
+practising the roughest and least-skilled labour than with those
+engaged in the higher forms of brain-work, but we can at all events set
+ourselves to discover what _is_ the average distribution of the
+expenditure of men earning £1000 a year, and can afterwards appeal to
+the hygienists to decide for us what kind of food, house-room, and
+recreation is essential for a man who makes his living by the higher
+activities of the intellect. A very close connection between economics
+and hygiene is essential if the division of our subject that deals with
+consumption is to be adequately treated.
+
+So, then, a scientific study of the economics of the household would
+fall into two divisions--(1) an endeavour to describe the industrial
+development of each country as it affects family life, house-room, food,
+and clothes; and (2) a descriptive account of the domestic circumstances
+and the expenditure[20] of each class of the community at the present
+time. Under each of these headings special sections should treat
+domestic service, the work of woman beyond the household, and the
+organisation of household work as compared with different branches
+of industry and administration. Finally, a supplementary section
+should set forth the practical applications of the conclusions arrived
+at, and should endeavour to help the housewife or, it may be, the
+superintendent of an industrial school, college, or boarding house
+in the administration of the income at her disposal.
+
+But much more careful investigation into the question of how incomes
+actually are spent is essential before we can deal satisfactorily with
+the even more difficult problem of how they ought to be spent. And there
+is, too, another factor which must be taken into consideration.
+Economists in defining wealth commonly admit nowadays that it includes
+collective and immaterial well-being of various kinds.[21] But having
+made this admission, they straightway put it aside and proceed to
+discuss wealth as though it consisted exclusively of material
+exchangeable commodities. Yet clearly the real income of a family is
+increased if the children have easy access to good free schools or to
+ample open spaces. It will not be possible to estimate precisely the
+money value of opportunities of this description. But we should at least
+notice their presence or absence for each class and for each stage of
+national development. It is clear that in the present paper no attempt
+can be made to deal with the problems of the economics of expenditure
+or of the household save in the merest outline, and therefore the
+following pages are to be taken simply as a sketch to be filled in by
+more extensive and more throughgoing investigation later on.
+
+
+II. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE POSITION OF THE HOUSEHOLD IN ENGLAND
+
+English industrial history has been divided into three main epochs with
+intervening periods of transition. These are (1) the mediæval period,
+(2) the period extending from Elizabeth's reign to the reign of George
+III., and (3) the modern period.
+
+In the first, the typical economic institutions are the manor and the
+gild; in the second, domestic manufacture and convertible husbandry
+are predominant; and in the third the factory system and capitalist
+farming take their places.[22] Trade, too, undergoes a similar
+evolution. In the first period it is intermunicipal rather than
+international. In the second period, within each nation trade is free
+and unfettered, and a considerable amount of territorial division of
+labour and regional specialisation results. But external trade is
+regulated by governments on the principles of the mercantile system. In
+the third period, with the increase and improvement of the means of
+communication, international trade becomes more and more important,
+markets are immensely widened, and the economic organisation of society
+reaches the complexity possessed by it to-day, which reacts in many
+half comprehended ways on the household and on family life.
+
+The main characteristics of these divisions of English industrial
+history are, on the whole, clear and well-marked. But the transition
+periods are more difficult to describe. It has often been pointed out
+that the two industrial revolutions, as they have been named by some
+writers, bear a certain resemblance to each other. Both involve a
+reorganisation of industry which results in increased productivity on
+the one hand, but in the demoralisation of certain classes of the
+workers on the other hand. Both therefore require a revision of the
+system of providing for the destitute. Both, too, produce the most
+far-reaching effects on home-life and the economy of the household, and
+influence profoundly the position of women. Both, too, are alike in that
+it is not easy to fix dates to the periods within which the revolution
+in industry takes place.[23] But roughly we may regard the late
+fifteenth century and the early part of the sixteenth as a time of
+stress and strain, due to the appearance of new methods both in
+agriculture and in industry, especially in the wool trade; and in the
+same way the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the
+nineteenth was a period of sudden and violent economic transition. In
+both cases alike the changes in agriculture preceded somewhat the
+changes in industry, and the revolution made itself felt in different
+ways and at different times in the various districts of the country.
+There are still backward areas in the south of England and in the west
+of Scotland where life has been very little affected, notwithstanding
+trains and steam-engines, by the alterations in industry which have
+produced the roaring mills and clattering shipyards of Lancashire and
+the Clyde.
+
+The task before us, then, is to sketch as clearly as possible from the
+scanty material available the main features of domestic life at each one
+of these epochs, and to show how the changes in industry reflected
+themselves in the life of the household.
+
+
+(_a_) THE HOUSEHOLD IN THE MEDIÆVAL PERIOD
+
+(1) _The Serf--his Position and Domestic Arrangements_
+
+In the mediæval period, outside the small and scattered towns, the
+prevailing form of economic organisation was the manor. We have to
+imagine the surface of England dotted over with stretches of cultivated
+land, with areas of waste, moorland or woodland intervening. Each
+stretch of arable land was cultivated more or less in common by groups
+of serfs, who lived generally in one long village street, with the
+church and the lord's hall near at hand. Usually, in addition to the
+arable land worked on the complicated "three-field" system soon to be
+described, there were also hay-meadows down by the river, sometimes
+permanent pasture held in common, while the waste was available for
+extra pasturage, and for cutting turf and wood for fuel. Each serf
+possessed, besides, a small croft attached to his house, and sometimes
+an orchard and rude garden. The arable land was divided into three large
+fields, not shut in as are our fields by hedges, but lying open. Each
+field, again, was partitioned into numbers of strips more or less
+regular in shape, and each serf possessed a certain number of these,
+not, however, all lying together, but intermixed "mingle-mangle" with
+the holdings of his neighbours. He was not allowed to cultivate these,
+or indeed any of the land save his own tiny croft, as he pleased, but
+was compelled to follow the traditional method of farming according to
+the customs of his manor. Usually the rotation was wheat or rye in the
+first year, oats or barley in the second year, fallow in the third year,
+while the other two fields followed the same course a year and two years
+later; so that in each year one field was fallow, one grew wheat or rye,
+and the other oats or barley. The animals belonging to the serfs and
+their lord were pastured on the arable fields when the crops were taken
+off, and on the fallow field. The lord of the manor also possessed
+strips in the common fields, and was regarded as the owner of the common
+and waste, subject to the pasturage and fuel rights of the tenants. He
+did not receive rent quite as we understand it, but each serf owed him
+dues calculated in labour, in kind, and occasionally in money.
+
+For instance, on the manor of Tidenham, in the time of Edward I., one
+serf worked for the lord for five days in every alternate week for
+thirty-five weeks in the year, two and a half days every week for six
+weeks in the summer, and three days every week for eight weeks during
+August and September (the three festival weeks of Easter, Christmas, and
+Pentecost were holidays). Then, in addition to this regular weekly work,
+he could also be required for extra work, commonly called boon-works or
+precariæ. "He made one precaria called churched, and he ploughed and
+harrowed a half acre for corn and sowed it with one bushel of corn from
+his own seed, and in the time of harvest he had to reap and bind and
+stack the produce, receiving one sheaf for himself on account of the
+half acre." And he had to plough one acre for oats. In addition, there
+were dues in kind--one hen at Christmas, five eggs at Easter, eight
+gallons of beer at every brewing, and also small payments in money,
+commuted, one would conjecture, for payments in kind, _i.e._ one penny
+for every yearling pig, and one halfpenny for those only of the half
+year.[24]
+
+In other cases the tenants paid dues of lambs, of fish, of honey, of
+clews of net yarn, of straw, &c. One of the tenants of the great
+monastic establishment at Glastonbury had to find thirty salmon, "each
+as thick as a man's fist at the tail."[25] A curious form of labour due
+is described in the Boldon Book. The tenants of certain manors in Durham
+had to build each summer a hunting-lodge for the bishop and his retinue
+when they came to take their pleasure in the moors in the west of
+Durham.
+
+At different periods and in different districts the subdivisions of the
+tenants vary greatly, and for complete details the reader must be
+referred to the special works on the subject. But two classes can
+usually be distinguished--(1) the villeins, who possessed oxen and
+worked the larger holdings (often about thirty acres--called virgates or
+yard lands); and (2) the cotters, who held about five acres, and whose
+domestic animals consisted of pigs and poultry. In addition there were
+often found socmen, who were personally free; and, at the other end of
+the social scale, slaves, who, largely through the influence of the
+Church, were manumitted before the end of the Middle Ages.
+
+The most striking feature about the manors is that each was almost
+completely self-supporting. Each manor provided corn, meat, eggs, milk,
+cheese, poultry, &c., for its own inhabitants. Fuel, and perhaps game
+and rabbits, came from the waste. The furniture was of rude wood, and
+the clothes would be sheep-skin and coarse cloth spun and woven from the
+wool grown on the sheep that were fed on the manor lands. The ordinary
+serf would very rarely either receive or spend coin of the realm. Salt
+he would buy and the metal pots and pans used for cooking, and, as
+Ashley suggests, tar.[26] But the greater amount of the goods required
+for himself and his family would be produced under what the economists
+call "natural economy," _i.e._ they were made by the people who intended
+to use them, directly, without the intervention of money or any
+mechanism of exchange.
+
+Together with this self-sufficiency would go a considerable amount of
+co-operation. Economists are not yet agreed as to the precise extent to
+which co-operation was used in the manorial village. But we know that
+tenants frequently lent their oxen to one another to make up the
+necessary team; that in some of the Durham manors there was a communal
+smith, who received payment in the possession of a strip of land; and
+that the tenants owned a common oven. It was customary, too, for one
+shepherd or swineherd to guard the sheep or the pigs of the whole
+community. The village mill, when first established, was also a common
+boon to the whole body of serfs, but later on the obligation to grind
+their corn at the lord's mill and to pay the dues came to be regarded as
+an onerous burden.
+
+A curious and important person on the mediæval estate was the
+bee-keeper. Particulars are given of his duties and rewards in one
+Durham manor by the Boldon Book.[27] He does no regular weekly work, the
+care of the bees apparently taking the place of this, but he must take
+part with the other serfs in the boon-works necessary at harvest and
+other times of pressure. As honey was almost the only source of
+sweetness in early mediæval cooking, it can be understood why the
+bee-keeper ranked only a little below the shepherd. The Boldon Book,
+unfortunately, since its aim is to define the relations between the
+villeins and their lord, does not tell us whether he superintended the
+bees belonging to his fellow tenants. On the analogy of the shepherd and
+swineherd, we should assume that he did.
+
+How, then, are we to describe the domestic life of the various
+sections of rural society at this time? Unfortunately, very little
+material exists on which to draw for the account of the household
+arrangements of the serfs. They have naturally left no account-books;
+they enter rarely into the literature of the period; there are no
+remains of their houses or clothing, and it is, in fact, far from
+easy to decide how they did live. But it seems probable that a rude and
+dirty plenty, procured by long hours of toilsome open-air labour, was
+the prevailing characteristic of the serf household. The house would
+be of clay or wattles or wood, probably without windows--and those
+certainly unglazed--and with a hole in the middle of the roof to let out
+the smoke, the fire being placed in the centre of the floor. The
+furniture must have been rough but solid, its most valuable items being
+the brass or iron cooking-pots. On the other hand, I do not believe
+that, in the more prosperous villein households at all events, the
+level of domestic comfort was so low as has sometimes been represented.
+Rough cloth was probably woven or sometimes bought. There is one case
+on record where, in return for a small piece of land, one family
+undertook to do the weaving for another, and Gasquet mentions[28] that
+to the common Christmas feast on one of the Glastonbury manors some of
+the tenants brought their own napkins, "if he wanted to eat off a
+cloth." I see no reason to doubt that some at least of the villein
+households were provided with coarse coverings for bed and table. On
+the other hand, it seems doubtful whether any form of artificial
+light was commonly used in the poorer households. The food, too, would
+show what to us would seem strange contrasts of plenty and of
+poverty. It would include neither tea nor coffee, neither sugar nor
+spices, nor yet potatoes. On the other hand, there was probably,
+save at times of famine, a sufficiency of bread,[29] and eggs and
+dairy produce would be used in quantities now quite beyond the reach of
+the ordinary working-man. The butter, it is true, was not of a high
+standard, for it was usually liquid, but the children must have had
+milk to drink and cheese and eggs to eat. Even the poorest serfs
+apparently kept a few fowls, since their dues are so often payable in
+eggs, and some of the eggs and the chickens would be available for
+family consumption. But their meat must have been much poorer than
+ours. Fresh mutton and beef were rarely eaten, except in the case of
+animals who had died a natural death. The others were much too valuable
+for draught purposes, for milk or for wool. Among the maxims of an
+old agriculturist of the thirteenth century we find the following
+remark: "If a sheep die suddenly, they put the flesh in water for so
+many hours as are between midday and three o'clock, and then hang it
+up, and when the water is drained off they salt it and then dry it. But
+I do not wish you to do this."[31] In the autumn, animals which it
+was impossible to keep during the winter, owing to the absence of
+root-feeding, were killed and salted down. Occasionally, however, fresh
+pork would be used, and no doubt every now and then a wild beast or
+bird from the common or waste would find its way into the housewife's
+iron pot. The food, then, would be rough and sometimes unwholesome,
+but on the other hand it contained many most desirable forms of
+nourishment which are absent from the labourer's diet to-day, and which
+are, it might be observed, those specially suitable for children.[32]
+
+The fuel used was wood or peat, or in some cases dried cow-dung.
+
+On the whole, then, the household arrangements of the mediæval serf were
+primitive, and in times of famine he and his family must have endured
+great hardships. The winters, too, when the tracks were deep in mud and
+artificial light was absent or scarce, must have been recurring times of
+considerable suffering. But on the other hand, fresh air and easy access
+to the land were benefits hardly valued until in later times they have
+been lost to whole sections of the population.
+
+
+(2) _The Lord of the Manor--his House and Household_
+
+There is more material available for the description of the household of
+the lord than of his serf. Account-books, directions for household
+administration, and in the fifteenth century very curious rhymed rules
+of behaviour and of precedence are available. Naturally, however, it is
+of the king's household and of the households of the nobles and of the
+great monasteries that we know most. Very little can now be discovered
+of the details of the domestic arrangements of the master in possession
+of one manor only, and it is not certain that we should be justified in
+supposing that what we find to be true of the great household will
+necessarily hold also for the smaller one. For example, in the families
+of which we have records the great majority of the servants are men,
+cooking in particular being in the Middle Ages a masculine vocation. But
+is it safe to assume that the same would be the case in the household of
+a simple knight? It must therefore be clearly understood that what
+follows has reference mainly to royal and noble families.
+
+The domestic buildings of all manors were on a more or less uniform
+plan. They were grouped round a quadrangle, one side of which consisted
+of the great hall where dinner was served, business transacted, and
+where servants and the humbler guests slept at night. The door was at
+one end, usually protected by screens, behind which was another door
+leading to the buttery, and above which the musicians' gallery was often
+placed. Opposite the door was a raised daïs, where stood the table
+reserved for the master, his family, and important guests. In the body
+of the hall dinner was served to the rest of the household. A private
+chamber called the solar or bower, reached by a staircase either inside
+the hall or placed in the quadrangle outside, was kept for the special
+use of the lord and his family. There occasionally they took meals,
+though it was regarded as a sign of luxurious self-seeking to avoid the
+formality and bustle of the meals in the great hall. In the solar, too,
+beds were placed for important guests, and any particularly valuable
+articles of furniture would be kept there. On the other sides of the
+quadrangle were the chapel, granaries, storehouses, dairies and
+bakehouses, and the kitchen. This was often placed at a little distance
+to guard against fire. The cooking was usually carried on at an iron
+grate placed in the middle of the floor, and pictures show us that
+sometimes it was even done in the open air. Refuse was carried off by an
+open drain running across the centre of the kitchen.
+
+As an illustration let me quote an account of a typical manor-house of
+the twelfth century. "The manor-house of Ardleigh consisted of a hall
+with bower annexed. Also a kitchen, a stable, a bakehouse, two stores
+for corn (granges) and a servants' house. In the hall were two moveable
+benches, a fixed table, and a buffet." [33]
+
+In course of time other rooms were added, and the furniture and
+equipment became more elaborate. But until Elizabeth's reign the great
+hall where master and servants dined together was the central feature in
+the wealthy English home.
+
+The food was derived from the manor, and purchases were only made of
+such things as could not be produced in England, notably red wine,[34]
+spices, almonds and rice, all much used in mediæval cookery. Sugar, too,
+would be bought, when it replaced honey for sweetening purposes. But the
+corn, meat, milk, cheese, and eggs would be all home-grown, and as it
+was easier in the state of transport at that time to bring the family to
+the food than the food to the family, part of the duties of housekeeping
+consisted in so arranging the sojourn of the household as to draw
+food-supplies from each manor in the most convenient way. The great
+Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grossetête, gives elaborate directions on this
+head to a widowed friend of his, Margaret, Countess of Lincoln.
+
+"Every year at Michaelmas when you know the measure of all your corn,
+then arrange your sojourn for the whole of that year and for how many
+weeks in each place according to the seasons of the year and the
+advantages of the country in flesh and in fish, and do not in any wise
+burden by debt or long residence the places where you sojourn.
+
+"I advise that at two seasons of the year you make your principal
+purchases, that is to say, your wines, your wax, and your
+wardrobe."[35]
+
+And there follows a list of the fairs recommended by the pious bishop.
+
+The materials of mediæval food, then, would be similar to the diet of
+the serfs already described, but would be used in greater plenty and
+would be supplemented by luxuries imported from the East and bought at
+the fairs. If we keep in mind these conditions, as well as the leisure
+and the large supply of labour available, we shall understand why
+mediæval cooking was so elaborate; for, contrary to ordinary opinion, it
+was distinguished by a large number of complicated made dishes. Small
+birds were commonly roasted, but other forms of meat were stewed or
+minced. They would in this way both be more easily dealt with at the
+open fire of the mediæval kitchen, and more easily served in the
+mediæval dining-room, where knives and spoons were the only implements
+in common use. Moreover, there was what seems to us an extraordinary
+liking for violent and mixed flavourings and brilliant colouring.
+Bucknade, for instance, was made of meat hewn in gobbets, pounded
+almonds, raisins, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, onions, salt and
+fried herbs, thickened with rice-flour and coloured yellow with saffron.
+Here, again, is the recipe for mortrews, a dish mentioned in Chaucer's
+"Canterbury Tales."
+
+"Take hennes and pork and seethe them together. Take the flesh of the
+hennes and of the pork and hack it small and grind it all to dust. Take
+bread y-grated, and add thereto and temper it with the self-broth[36]
+and mix it with yolks of eggs, and cast thereon powder fort,[37] and
+boil it and do thereto powder of ginger, saffron, and salt, and look
+that it is standing,[38] and flour it all with powder of ginger." The
+lavish use of eggs, pork, and chickens in this recipe could be
+paralleled in many others, and is evidently to be connected with the
+custom of receiving manorial dues in kind at stated intervals. Hundreds
+of eggs would be sent in by the tenants at Easter, and the problem of
+the housekeeper would not be how to lessen the consumption of eggs in
+order to keep down the bills, but how to get through those in store
+before they were hopelessly spoiled.
+
+For the earlier period menus are not available, but a curious rhymed
+treatise on servants' duties dating from the middle of the fifteenth
+century, entitled "John Russell's Boke of Nurture," has been reprinted
+by the Early English Lent Society[39] in the volume entitled "Meals and
+Manners of the Olden Time," and from it I extract the following:--
+
+  Furst set forth mustard and brawne of boore, the wild swine,
+  Suche pottage as the cooke hath made of herbis, spice, and wine,
+  Beef, mutton, stewed feysaund, swan with the chawdyn[40]
+  Capoun, pigge, venisoun bake, leche lombard,[41] fritter, viant fine,
+  And then a soteltie.[42]
+  Maydon Marie that holy Virgin
+  And Gabrielle greeting her with an ave.
+
+This is followed by two other courses rather lighter in character,
+though still including venison, peacocks, quails, &c., and then comes
+dessert:
+
+    After this delicatis mo,
+  Blanderelle or pepins with caraway in confite,
+  Wayfurs to eat, hypocras[43] to drink with delite.
+
+The service in the wealthy mediæval manor was as elaborate as the
+cooking, at all events in the later period. The Bishop of Lincoln finds
+it necessary to warn the Countess of Lincoln not to permit slovenliness
+among her retainers. She is not to allow "old tabards, and soiled
+herigauts, and imitation short-hose." But even this widow lady is served
+with considerable pomp. "Command that your panter[44] with the bread and
+your butler[45] with the cup, come before you to the table foot by foot
+before grace and that three valets be assigned by the marshal each day
+to serve the high table and the two tables at the side with drink. And
+at each course call the servers to go to the kitchen, and they
+themselves to go always before your seneschal as far as you until the
+dishes be set before you, and see that all servants with meats go
+orderly and without noise to one part and another of the hall to those
+who shall be assigned to divide the meats, so that nothing be placed or
+served disorderly."[46]
+
+In the "Boke of Nurture," which refers of course to a much later
+period, the service is even more elaborate, and we gather indeed that
+the dinner was a social function at which all classes of the community
+met together. Even the poorest were not forgotten, as there was a
+special officer whose business it was to distribute alms of broken meats
+to the beggars waiting at the door. The rules of precedence were most
+elaborate, and the serving seems on special occasions to have risen
+almost to the rank of a solemn ritual. In addition, dinner was
+accompanied by music and sometimes enlivened at intervals by pageants
+and shows.
+
+Domestic service in these great households was very different from what
+it is to-day. There was, in the first place, no fixed line drawn as
+there is now between the menial and the non-menial classes of the
+community. The higher servants were often people of nearly the same
+social rank as those whom they served. Sir William de Mortimer was the
+head-steward of Bishop Swinfield, Sir Gilbert Brydges the steward of
+Gloucester Abbey.[47] Young men who entered the service of a lord might
+one day be called on to carve or serve wine, and the next day might sit
+at meat in the same room.[48]
+
+Through the account-books and the household ordinances of the period, we
+can trace four grades of household servants--squires or gentlemen,
+valets or yeomen, grooms, and pages. The last grade had been recently
+introduced into the royal household in Edward IV.'s time, and they did
+not eat in hall. "A page etyth in his office or with his next fellow,
+not in the halle at noe place, taking dayly one lofe, one messe of great
+meate, half a gallon of ale; one reward quarterly in the counting-house,
+twenty pence of clothing when the household hathe at every one of the
+four feasts, one napron of one elle and part of the King's great rewards
+given yearly amongst them in household."[49]
+
+The last quotation illustrates also the method of remuneration. The
+money received was a very minor and unimportant factor. The servants
+were paid mostly in kind, and the share of each in food, fuel, and
+clothing is very fully and carefully stated. The chief porter of the
+Abbey of Gloucester, for instance, had a chamber next to the abbey gate.
+His weekly allowance was three white loaves, called myches, and two
+called holyers, with seven loaves of squire bread; for ale every quarter
+3s. 4d. On every flesh or fish day he had a mess of flesh or fish of the
+first course, as much as was set before two monks. He had a gown every
+year of the suit of the gentlemen of the Lord Abbot, and in addition
+13s. 4d. per annum. These fixed rations of food clothing &c., are called
+livery, a term now restricted to clothing alone.
+
+It is noticeable that these servants are almost all men. Washerwomen
+(lotrices) are women, and there are occasionally notices of young girls
+in attendance on the lady of the house. But so far as our information
+goes, cooking and cleaning and serving are carried on by men, though
+mention is made of women pastry-cooks who in monasteries, to avoid
+scandal, had to be accommodated in a separate kitchen, called the
+pudding-house.[50] But in the Middle Ages domestic service was not, as
+it is now, regarded as a menial occupation to be left, save in some of
+its higher branches, exclusively to women.
+
+I can find no trace at this period of any difficulty in obtaining
+service. Bishop Grossetête assures the Countess of Lincoln that she can
+easily obtain servers if she needs them, and the young men addressed in
+the rhyming exhortations preserved in "Meals and Manners" evidently
+regard it as promotion almost beyond their hopes to become members of a
+lord's household. Whether this would be equally the case if we had
+information about the smaller households, it is not easy to say. But
+when we remember that the alternatives were laborious and monotonous
+work at agriculture or the chance of finding a place in the gilds or
+fraternities which monopolised the trade in towns at that period, we can
+believe that the plentiful fare, the lively society, and the not too
+strenuous[51] work required of a serving-groom or yeoman would be
+regarded as a prize worth striving for and worth keeping.
+
+It would be interesting, had I more space at my disposal, to discuss
+mediæval town life and the domestic arrangements of the monasteries,
+which are very fully and interestingly described in Abbé Gasquet's book,
+"English Monastic Life." But I must content myself solely with one or
+two extracts illustrating the household furniture of the mediæval
+town-dwellers.
+
+In 1303, a certain Alan de Bedeford, a baker of London, was sold up for
+arrears of taxes, and the following were the goods seized by the
+inexorable tax-gatherer: "One brass pot weighing 18 lbs., value 2s. 6d.,
+and another brass pot weighing 13 lbs., value 21d., and one kettle value
+14d., the total whereof amounts to 5s 5d."[52]
+
+In 1337, an inventory was preserved of the goods of a felon. It was
+probably exhaustive, and may therefore be taken as indicating with
+tolerable precision the standard of household comfort of a London
+burgess at that time. It is too long to quote in full (the list of
+garments in particular is rather tedious), but it is interesting to note
+that it includes a mattress, three feather-beds, five cushions, six
+blankets, seven linen-sheets, four table-cloths, six whole brass pots of
+varying value and one broken one, one candlestick and two plates of
+metal, two basins and one washing-vessel, a spit, a frying-pan, and a
+funnel.[53]
+
+Further study of wills and inventories would yield a fresh store of
+information with regard to mediæval household equipment, and might not
+improbably upset some preconceived ideas as to the ordinary standard of
+life at that time.
+
+
+(_b_) THE POSITION OF THE HOUSEHOLD FROM THE FIFTEENTH TO THE NINETEENTH
+CENTURIES
+
+
+(1) _The First Industrial Revolution and its Effects_
+
+The fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century were
+marked by great economic changes. The manorial system, modified before
+this period by the gradual commutation of labour dues and especially by
+the catastrophe of the Black Death, was replaced on the one hand by
+enclosures for sheep-farming and on the other by convertible husbandry,
+when the farmer possessed or rented his own separate holding and managed
+it as he pleased, using the same land alternately for pasturage and as
+arable.[54] At the same time, the gild organisation of industry was
+replaced by the system commonly known as domestic manufacture. This
+spread largely in the country districts, and profoundly influenced home
+life and the position of women. At the same time both home and foreign
+trade greatly increased, and "natural economy" was almost entirely
+replaced by "money economy," the necessities of life being no longer
+produced by the family for their own use; men worked instead for
+payment, and then with the money so earned bought in the market the
+goods they required.[55] These changes, like the corresponding changes
+at the end of the eighteenth century, brought greater wealth and pomp to
+some classes, increased comfort to the bulk of the people, but called
+into existence a new class of landless labourers, whose needs and
+importunities finally led to the establishment of the poor-law.
+
+It would require a volume to describe how these changes reflected
+themselves in the daily life of the people, and at present I must
+content myself with noting very briefly the main effects of this first
+industrial revolution.
+
+In the country two classes appeared: the labourer, who, although he
+might possess a small piece of land of his own[56] or at the least had
+grazing rights over a neighbouring common, yet depended for his
+livelihood on the wages paid by his master. So far I have not discovered
+any reliable source of information with regard to the family expenditure
+of this class.[57]
+
+Next there was the farmer either renting or owning a farm. Very often
+farming would be combined with spinning or weaving wool. Agriculture
+of this kind, partly for subsistence and partly for the market,
+supplemented by the practice of domestic industries, remained the
+dominant type in England until the introduction of capitalist farming
+in the eighteenth century, and indeed can still be found in backward
+districts. The part played in it by women can be illustrated by a
+curious account of the duties of the wife of a husbandman given in
+Fitzherbert's "Book of Husbandry" (1534).
+
+"First in a morning when thou art waked and purposiste to rise, lyfte up
+thy hands and blesse thee.... And when thou art up and redy, then first
+sweep thy house, dress up thy dysshe-board, and sette all things in good
+order within thy house. Milk thy kye, suckle thy calves, sye up thy
+mylke, take up thy children and array them, and provide for thy
+husband's brekefaste, dinner, souper, and thy children and servants, and
+take thy part with them. And to ordayne corn and malt to the myll, to
+bake and brue withal whanne need is. And meete it to the mill and fro
+the mill, and see that thou have thy measure again beside the toll or
+else the miller dealeth not truly with the or els thy corn is not drye
+as it should be. Thou must make butter or cheese whan thou maist, serve
+thy swyne both morning and evening, and give thy poleyn[58] meat in the
+morning, and when tyme of the year cometh, thou must take heed how thy
+duckes henne and geese do lay and to gather up their eggs and when they
+wax brodie to get them.... And in the beginning of March or a little
+before is time for a wife to make her garden and to gette as many good
+seedes and herbes as she can and specially such as be good for the potte
+and to eat. [Then come lengthy and technical directions for sowing and
+working up flax and hemp] and thereof may they make shetes, bordclothes,
+towels, shirts, smocks and such other necessaries and therefore let thy
+distaff be always ready for a pastime that thou be not idle.... It is
+convenient for a husband to have shepe of his owne for many causes, and
+then maye his wife have part of the woll to make her husband and herself
+some clothes. And at the very least way she may have the locks of the
+sheep either to make clothes or blankets or coverlets or both. And if
+she have no wool of her own, she may take wool to spyn of cloth-makers
+and by that means she may have a convenient living.... It is a wife's
+occupation to wynowe all manner of corns, to make malt, to wasshe and
+wrynge, to make haye, shere corn, and in tiyme of nede to help her
+husband to fyll the muck-wain or dung-cart, drive the plough, to load
+hay, corn or such other. And to go or ride to the market, to sell
+butter, cheese, eggs, chekyns, capons, hennes, pigs, geese, and all
+manner of corns, and also to bye all manner of necessary things
+belonging to the household and to make a trewe reckoning and account to
+her husband what she hath paid. And if the husband go to the market to
+bye or sell, as they oft do, he then to show his wife in like manner."
+
+It is interesting to note in this extract the mixture of natural and
+money economy, the appearance of domestic manufactures, and the
+energetic co-operation of the wife in the work of the farm. The
+sixteenth century would have had little sympathy with the
+sentimentalists who hold that womanhood in itself is a burden so heavy
+that all active occupations should be forbidden to the married woman.
+
+According to Harrison[59] the standard of comfort among the agricultural
+classes rose markedly at this time. Chimneys became common, pewter
+plates and silver or tin spoons are used in place of "tinn platters and
+wooden spoons." A farmer thinks his gains very small "if he have not a
+fair garnish of pewter on his cupboard, with so much more in odd vessels
+going about the house, three or four feather-beds, so manie coverlids or
+carpets of tapestry, a silver salt, a bowl for wine if not a whole nest,
+and a dozen of spoons to furnish up the suit."
+
+Food, too, according to Harrison, was plentiful and varied. The increase
+in pasture farming and the decrease in arable land had made meat (often,
+it is true, salted) cheaper and corn-stuffs dearer, at least in
+proportion. This tendency can be traced in the menus and accounts of the
+period, and certainly appears in the following extract:[60] "The
+artificers and husbandmen make greatest account of such food as they may
+soonest come by and have it quickliest ready. Their food also consisteth
+principallie in beef and such meat as the butcher selleth; that is to
+saie, mutton, veal, lamb, pork, whereof he findeth great store in the
+markets adjoining, besides souse,[61] brawn, bacon, fruit, pies of
+fruit, fowles of sundrie sort, cheese, butter, eggs." A little lower
+down he notes that venison and a cup of wine are luxuries reserved for
+special occasions.
+
+It is not easy to estimate the worth of Harrison's testimony to the
+social habits of a class which he did not probably know intimately. It
+is certain, too, that he was not speaking here of the poorest class of
+labourers,[62] those who later recruited the class eligible for poor-law
+relief. But even making these admissions, his words seem to be evidence
+of a standard of comfort higher in some respects than could be attained
+by the corresponding classes to-day. Chicken, for instance, practically
+never forms part of the dietary of even the well-to-do urban artisan of
+the present time.
+
+In the organisation of the wealthy household, the economic changes of
+the time produced important alterations. The increase in buying and
+selling made the landlords more anxious to dispose of their surplus
+produce in the markets, and on the other hand provided new luxuries on
+which money could be spent. There resulted a tendency, which can be
+traced in all the household books of the period, to limit the numbers of
+servants and retainers. At the same time there was a growing desire for
+privacy, and a widening gulf between the upper and the lower classes of
+society. Hence the hall, the general assembly-place for the entire
+household, lost its importance; dining-rooms and withdrawing-rooms for
+the exclusive use of the family and guests, took its place, and the
+servants were relegated to their own part of the house. Partly as cause
+of this, partly as effect, domestic administration ceases to be a career
+for men of better social rank, a tendency which would of course be
+intensified by the fact that in commerce, in literature, in exploration,
+&c., new opportunities were perpetually being opened up. Hence
+Elizabeth's reign is a turning-point for the history both of domestic
+service and of domestic architecture. It was probably about this time
+that women superseded men as cooks and cleaners, and it is certain that
+the increase in Elizabeth's reign of industries worked for profit must
+have diminished the production for use in the household of many articles
+of common domestic utility.[63]
+
+
+(2) _Life in the Stuart Period_
+
+For 150 years after the death of Elizabeth no startling changes occur in
+the organisation of the household or in its economic relations. The
+marked feature of this period is the existence of domestic manufactures,
+engaging the head of the household and his family, one or two
+apprentices, and sometimes a journeyman or two. It was common, indeed
+all but universal, for the small master manufacturers to board and lodge
+their employees, as it was common for farmers to board and lodge their
+labourers. The larger households carried on at home many of the
+operations--baking, brewing, washing, jam-making--which have now passed
+to the factory. There was a steady growth of domestic luxury and of
+convenience. The development of commerce made available new commodities,
+such as tea, coffee, cocoa, and thereby influenced social life.
+Furniture became more elegant, and perhaps at the same time more
+stuffy.
+
+It would require much reading and research to elaborate the details of
+this progress, and for our present purpose it is hardly necessary, as it
+involved alteration in particulars but not in the general organisation
+of household economy. The difficulties of finding domestic servants
+begin, however, to make themselves felt, and are amusingly discussed by
+such writers as Defoe and Swift. It is at some time during this period
+that houses are first built in terraces and squares on an identical
+plan for letting purposes. But there are no sweeping changes, such as
+mark the eighty years before the accession of Victoria.
+
+
+(3) _The Influence of the Second Industrial Revolution on the Home_
+
+In the last half of the eighteenth century agriculture and industry
+were once more revolutionised, the former by the introduction of
+capitalist farming, the rotation of crops, and the further enclosure of
+common fields, commons, and wastes, the latter by the introduction of
+machinery and mechanical motor power. For a detailed account of the
+enormous changes consequent on these new methods of production, I must
+refer the reader to the special treatises on the subject,[64] but we
+must spend some time in considering the ways in which the home,
+family life, and the position of women have been modified by these
+industrial developments.
+
+In the first place, the introduction of machinery meant the growth of
+the factory system, and in consequence work left the home, which ceased
+to be the institution where productive industry was carried on, and
+became instead a centre solely of emotional and domestic life. At the
+same time, the alteration in the land system made it impossible any
+longer to combine home weaving, spinning, &c. with subsistence farming;
+the worker becomes an employee in a business where the capital is owned
+by his employer, and he depends absolutely on the skill of his own hands
+for his livelihood.
+
+Nothing could be more curious than to contrast Defoe's celebrated
+picture of the wool-weaving districts of Yorkshire[65] with those
+districts in their present condition. Then the workers,
+semi-independent, farming small enclosures of two to six or seven acres,
+laboriously produced cloth by hand processes in their own houses. Now
+they work in enormous factories, fitted up with machinery which can spin
+and weave wool both easier and better than in earlier days. They return
+to their homes for rest and leisure alone. Work for wages and the home
+are now separated, and, unless the use of cheap electrical power brings
+about a counter-revolution, are likely to remain so. At the same time,
+since mobility is in modern economic conditions of prime importance, it
+is becoming less and less common for the manual worker, or indeed for
+the citizen of any class, to own his house, and therefore the new trade
+of the speculative builder comes into existence, its place being taken
+in some cases, specially in mining districts, by the "company" houses
+provided by masters for their employees.
+
+These alterations in the framework of society inevitably influenced home
+life, which was still further affected at a later period by an analogous
+movement. Not merely the work done for wages left the home, but also
+many of the commodities formerly produced for its own use by each
+household came to be made by outside labour.
+
+A very interesting and quite untouched field of inquiry here awaits the
+economist. Why, for instance, is it customary to bake bread at home in
+some districts and to buy it from a shop in others? Probably the
+explanation is to be found in the relative cheapness of fuel. Yorkshire
+and the North of England are close to abundant coalfields, and in the
+days before cheap and quick transit the difference in the price of coal
+in the South and North of England must have been even greater. At a
+time, too, before the improvement of ovens, owing to the introduction of
+the iron range and kitchener, the amount of fuel used for baking bread
+would be even larger than at present. Therefore in the south there grew
+up a race of housekeepers and servants unskilled in the making of the
+delicious, crusty home-baked loaf, while in the north, even though
+conditions have changed, the tradition still remains, and the weekly or
+bi-weekly baking day is a regular institution. But this theory does not
+explain why bread is not baked at home in Scotland, even in Glasgow and
+the districts near it, or in Fife, which are all situated right in the
+coal-bearing areas.
+
+And at present there is little material for describing how brewing, jam
+and cake-making, biscuit-making, the making and the washing of clothes,
+the cleaning of furniture and carpets, &c., passed from the household to
+the factory and laundry. It is a process which has evidently been much
+quickened by the growth of town life, itself one of the most important
+effects of the industrial revolution.[66]
+
+The aggregation of population in towns in the first place made the
+space available for household operations much smaller than was the case
+when the kitchen was supplemented by rows of outhouses, a green and a
+garden. In modern conditions, washing at home results in the discomfort
+of the whole family, whether that family lives in a single room or in a
+decent middle-class house of ten or twelve rooms. In the second
+place, the massing into a comparatively small area of a homogeneous
+population makes it easy to arrange for other methods of cleansing
+clothes, either in the working-class districts by the provision of
+municipal washing-houses, or in the more well-to-do suburbs through
+the appearance of steam laundries. In the same way, when each
+household possessed a garden it was natural to pick the fruit and
+make it into jam. It is a different thing to buy fruit specially for
+the purpose. Many housewives find that when the cost of the fruit,
+sugar, and extra fuel is calculated, taking into account also the
+dislocation of the regular routine of the household caused by the extra
+work, it pays them better to buy the jam ready-made. On the other hand,
+the use of machinery, the existence of cheap methods of transit, and
+the multiplication of grocers' shops makes it increasingly possible to
+produce jam in large quantities actually cheaper than it can be made
+at home, and to distribute it quickly to the consumer.
+
+The same cause, acting within and without the home in different ways, is
+resulting in a steady transference of these domestic avocations from the
+household. Moralists often lament this tendency, and attribute it
+entirely to increased love of ease and leisure among women. But it is no
+more possible to draw an indictment against a whole sex than against a
+whole people, and an alteration in custom so widespread as this which we
+are discussing must have deeper roots than a personal defect of laziness
+in particular individuals.
+
+This removal of production for domestic use from the home operates,
+however, in very different ways in different cases. Sometimes the
+article is produced much more cheaply outside the home than within,
+owing to the lower cost and greater efficiency of large-scale methods of
+manufacture. But this is not invariably the case. Laundry-work, for
+instance, is probably done more cheaply in the private household. The
+few attempts hitherto made to provide hot cooked food from a central
+kitchen at a reasonable price have not been successful. On the other
+hand, no individual household could hope to rival Messrs. Huntley &
+Palmer as producers of biscuits. The factors which prevent the full
+economies of the large-scale method of production from being realised in
+the making of certain commodities are twofold. (1) Some goods are of
+such a kind that they must be consumed where they are produced. Jam or
+even plum-puddings can be made in a factory in the North of England and
+afterwards transferred to London. But roast beef, omelettes, and
+rice-puddings must be eaten within at least a hundred yards of the place
+where they are cooked. This obvious fact effectually retains the
+supremacy of the home in the provision of hot cooked food, and disposes
+once and for all of the cruder arguments for co-operative housekeeping.
+(2) Certain commodities must be made for or returned to individual
+owners. If, for instance, we did not trouble to receive our own sheets
+and towels from the laundry, but simply made a contract that each week
+we should be supplied with a certain number, then the washing and
+sorting could be done wholesale at a much cheaper rate. If we sent our
+own fruit to the factories to be made into jam, jam would be much more
+expensive.
+
+Thus the household will compete successfully with outside agencies, in
+the case of all commodities which must be consumed on the spot, and the
+outside agencies will have only a small advantage--will do the washing
+or dressmaking more conveniently, but not much cheaper--when wholesale
+methods are forbidden by the personal interest of each consumer in one
+special portion of the commodities dealt with.[67]
+
+Still, regarding the matter from the general economic standpoint, it
+cannot be denied that the result of the industrial revolution has been
+to transfer many branches of production both for profit and for use from
+the home to the factory.
+
+
+(4) _The Position of Women as Affected by the Industrial Revolution_
+
+This in its turn affected the position of women, and is probably, if not
+the sole, at least the most important reason for the discontent and
+unrest to be traced among women of many different classes in the
+nineteenth century. But the women belonging to the manual labouring
+class and the women belonging to the upper classes were influenced in
+different ways.
+
+The former had always been accustomed to work for their living,
+indirectly if not directly. On the little farms they looked after the
+cow, the hens, and the garden. They did the carding and the spinning of
+flax and of wool. True, these industries were carried on at home, and
+probably the decent "manufacturer," then literally a hand-worker, would
+have regarded himself as disgraced had his wife or daughters needed to
+go outside his home to find work.[68] But when the factory system came,
+with the horrible sufferings caused by the transition from one system of
+industry to another, the women and children always accustomed to toil at
+home followed their work to the factory, and there, owing to the new
+methods of competition and to the absence of any regulation of industry,
+they suffered hardships of overwork and underpayment which seem to the
+present generation nearly incredible.
+
+Home life for a time almost disappeared, and the suffering and
+degeneration was only checked by the series of Factory Acts, imposing
+ever fresh and fresh restrictions on the treatment of women and
+children.[69] The policy underlying these acts was much criticised at
+the time, and was indeed not fully comprehended until recently. But it
+is now all but universally admitted that the Factory Acts have in the
+main achieved their object, and have greatly improved the position of
+women in the districts most affected by them; and reformers are
+constantly urging their extension to fresh trades.
+
+This movement was not understood, and was in consequence opposed by
+the women of the middle-classes, whose position was affected quite
+differently by the industrial revolution. They too found their
+occupations within the home to a large extent destroyed. And in
+other ways their situation was altered. For some reason not yet
+explained, there appeared in the middle-classes a surplus of women.
+This is no doubt partly due to the colonial expansion of the period,
+which sent young men out to Australia, Canada, and South Africa,
+while their natural mates remained behind in England. It is not easy to
+give precise statistics, as our statistical tables make no distinction
+of classes, but common observation and the description of social life
+in the novels of the nineteenth century afford evidence of this fact.
+Some statistics bearing on the subject can be found in Miss Clara
+Collet's[70] article, "Prospects of Marriage for Women," and also in
+"Die Frauenfrage," by Lilie Braun, pp. 157 _ff._ Frau Braun, whose
+book is marked throughout by characteristic German thoroughness, sums
+up:[71] "Es hat sich gezeigt, dass die Zunahme der allein stehenden
+Frauen, die Abnahme der Heiratsfrequenz und die wirtschaftliche Not
+als Ursache der Frauenbewegung in aller Lände anzusehen sind."
+
+But it was not merely the decreased chance of marriage which made the
+lives of middle-class women difficult in the last century. There was
+also a change in the position of the fathers, which decreased their
+opportunity for providing for their unmarried daughters. The
+middle-class man is now less and less frequently at the head of a
+business of his own, and is more and more frequently a salaried clerk,
+manager, or engineer.
+
+Formerly the shop or farm when it passed to the eldest son was burdened
+with the charge of the spinster sisters, who often would help in the
+dairy or behind the counter. Now, when a middle-class man dies, his hold
+on the industrial world, so to speak, passes away with him, unless he
+has been at once able and willing to lay by savings out of his salary, a
+duty too often neglected. Briefly, therefore, the unmarried woman of the
+middle-classes is less likely to marry, has less to occupy her at home,
+and cannot so easily be provided for by her father if she remains a
+spinster.
+
+Is it then to be wondered at if women insist, in increasing numbers,
+upon a thorough education as well as the right to enter a profession in
+which they can be self-supporting?[72] But the first women who decided
+that a way must be opened by which they could earn for themselves
+honourable maintenance not unnaturally fell into what we cannot but
+regard now as regrettable mistakes, however unavoidable these errors may
+have been at the time. Their great difficulties were to win admission to
+the universities and permission to practise what had hitherto been
+regarded as men's professions. Therefore they dreaded all restrictions
+liable to be laid upon the entrance of women to occupations, and were
+led in consequence to oppose the Factory Acts, designed for the
+protection of women of the working-classes. It is only to-day and only
+partially that the woman teacher, doctor, or journalist has come to
+understand that the position and problems of the factory-hand are very
+different from her own, and that confusion is created if she insists on
+judging them from her own standpoint.
+
+In the next place, they were almost forced to become masculine and
+aggressive in their manners and outlook upon life. In particular, the
+need of conformity to a system of education framed for men and not for
+women led to an undervaluation of domestic pursuits. It was not realised
+that in managing a household and in bringing up children there was scope
+for the most developed character and the finest education.
+
+But with the twentieth century,[73] college-trained women themselves are
+coming to see that their previous neglect of those principles of science
+and economics which underlie household administration was unwise and
+unwarranted. Of that change of attitude, the new courses in home science
+at King's College are the firstfruits, and this book is a small
+contribution to a movement which is destined, perhaps, to revolutionise
+housekeeping, as a band of devoted women succeeded some few years since
+in revolutionising the profession of nursing.
+
+The main lines on which the influence of the industrial revolution on
+women's position has operated can be but briefly indicated in this very
+summary sketch. Want of space prevents me from doing more than allude to
+other aspects of the question, such as the employment of married women,
+the status of women in government offices, women's trade unions,
+homework and sweating, the prevention of infant mortality, the work of
+women in the administration of charity and in local government, together
+with many other developments of the one cause--the alteration between
+the relations of the home and of society due to the changes in our
+commercial and manufacturing system.
+
+I must turn now to a study of the economics of the household as it
+actually exists to-day.
+
+
+III. THE PRESENT ORGANISATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD
+
+To begin with, it is perhaps worth while to notice certain broad
+distinctions which differentiate the household, considered merely as an
+economic institution, from other agencies engaged in the production of
+commodities and services.
+
+One main difference is, as was noticed earlier, that the household
+produces use-values, and all other organisations (save some public
+bodies) exchange-values. Or to put the same thing in another way, the
+industrial world is run to make a profit; the household, on the
+contrary, is kept up by the contributions of its members, and exists
+to provide for them the necessaries and comforts of life. None the
+less is the work of cooking, cleaning, and serving of real economic
+value when carried on within the household, as people discover when
+they have to pay for the organisation of the same services in hotels
+or boarding-houses.
+
+The second great distinction is that while any other business may expand
+to meet the demands of a growing market, and as a result of the
+increasing competency of its organiser and work-people, the household is
+definitely limited in scope by the numbers of the family included within
+it. Biscuit-makers or jam-makers, to put the matter concretely, may
+succeed by skilful management in enlarging their businesses until they
+supply their goods to hundreds of thousands of people, and earn a large
+profit by doing so. But the most efficient housekeeper continues all her
+life to organise and cater for the same number of people, and her reward
+for her good management does not consist in a raised salary or increased
+profits. It is, in fact, not pecuniary at all, but is the increased
+well-being of those whom she serves.
+
+Important consequences follow from these two distinctions, some of them
+desirable, others the reverse. The household is preserved, as it were,
+as a little oasis in the midst of the surrounding commercialism. There
+at least exists no temptation to adulteration or sophistication, or to
+shoddy work intended to sell but not to last. No housewife would be such
+a fool as to put alum in the bread baked at home, to use decaying fruit
+in the tarts, or questionable meat in her pies. She can have no object
+save to provide the best she can for her family with the means at her
+disposal. This is an enormous advantage, the value of which it is hardly
+possible to overrate.
+
+But the absence of profit-making has certain disadvantages. It means
+that while other economic organisations are being constantly spurred to
+increasing efficiency by the stimulus of competition, the household
+remains backward. A manufacturer knows to-day that he must use the most
+up-to-date machinery and employ the most skilled management or be beaten
+in the race for commercial supremacy. But housekeepers may continue (and
+do continue) to use old-fashioned ranges or antiquated systems of
+hot-water heating without any reference to the proceedings of their
+neighbours. Without doubt it results that new inventions make their way
+much more slowly in housekeeping than in profit-making industry. How
+rare, for instance, it is to find properly constructed grates outside
+very wealthy households. How badly the kitchen, larder, and scullery are
+planned in relation to one another. In how few cases is any attempt made
+to utilise electricity for cooking or removing dust, for both of which
+purposes admirable machines are already on the market.
+
+But there are other factors which also contribute to the backwardness of
+domestic engineering. The smallness of the household is one. It pays a
+large hotel, for instance, to buy special machines for cleaning knives,
+or to instal superheated steam, for washing plates and dishes. But
+neither the initial expense nor the cost of running could be met out of
+the funds at the disposal of the small household. Another reason exists
+in the fact that the average housewife does not distinguish between
+annual and capital outlay. Unaccustomed to finance, and keeping
+accounts--if she keeps them at all--in a very amateurish fashion, she
+fails to understand that capital expenditure, let us say, on one of the
+little electric vacuum cleaners now on the market might pay for itself
+in a short time by saving the wages of a charwoman.
+
+
+(_a_) THE ORGANISATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD AS AFFECTED BY THE HOUSING
+QUESTION
+
+Then, finally, few people own their houses, and are therefore
+disinclined to make an outlay which would benefit their successors
+rather than themselves. Landlords (who are frequently retired tradesmen
+or elderly ladies depending on the rent of a row of houses for their
+sole income) are in their turn unprogressive and unenlightened. It is
+often hard to induce a landlord of the type indicated to consent to
+structural changes even if carried out at the tenant's expense. The
+builders of new houses, again, are not, to put it mildly, educated in
+the best schools of household architecture and domestic engineering. It
+is true that in some suburbs, largely under the influence of the more
+competent architects employed by the garden city organisations, a marked
+improvement in domestic building is noticeable. But only too often the
+hot-water system is inefficient, the ventilation poor, the grates
+wasteful, and so on. I have never yet heard of a speculative builder who
+deliberately planned the laying out of the streets in the area which he
+was developing in such a way that the living-rooms might have a maximum
+and the larder and pantries a minimum of sunlight. The new roads are
+usually all set at right angles to the main street, and the houses
+rigidly planted square to the roads, regardless of the points of the
+compass.
+
+All these factors, acting together, prevent that general improvement in
+the construction of houses which is noticeable in other branches of
+industry. Progress does, of course, take place. The pressure exercised
+by the local health authorities leads to improved drainage and plumbing;
+lighting, owing to the recent competition between gas and electricity,
+has become both cheaper and better. But an intelligent application of
+science and investment of capital when a house is under construction
+could easily effect still further improvements.
+
+Since, however, the household is not influenced by the ordinary
+processes of competition, advance will probably depend on some form of
+co-operation among tenants. The principle of tenant co-partnership has
+hitherto been applied only to the construction of working-class houses,
+but there seems to be no reason why it should be not equally useful
+among the middle classes. The advantages of the organisation are that it
+secures to the tenant a well-built house, sometimes specially
+constructed to meet his wishes, while his complete mobility is not
+interfered with as it is by ownership of his dwelling. These apparently
+opposed results are obtained by the formation of a company which is the
+legal owner of the land and the houses; but no one is allowed to rent a
+house until he invests a certain amount of money in the company. Thus
+there are two classes of shareholders--tenant shareholders and ordinary
+shareholders. If a man wishes to move from the neighbourhood, then he
+ceases to be a tenant and becomes only an ordinary shareholder, and if
+he needs the money he can always sell out. Rent is paid in the ordinary
+way, and so too are dividends on the shares. Thus groups of people are
+enabled to control the conditions under which they are housed, without
+being hampered by the possession of a dwelling-house, which in an
+emergency they may be forced to sell at a serious loss. Minor advantages
+are greater cheapness of construction owing to wholesale buying of
+materials, and the provision of a more liberal repair fund than is
+contemplated by the ordinary landlord. It is possible, too, to provide
+common tennis courts, children's playgrounds, pleasure gardens, &c.,
+which are kept up out of the general funds of the company.[74] The
+"co-partnership tenants'" villages at Bournville, Hampstead, Ealing,
+&c., are all doing well,[75] and we may venture to hope that if the
+same principle were applied to the housing of the middle classes, the
+worst horrors of the dreary and yet pretentious suburbs constructed by
+the speculative builder would soon be checked.
+
+
+(_b_) THE PROBLEMS OF DOMESTIC SERVICE
+
+The position of the domestic servant is the next subject which demands
+consideration. It is a question which has aroused much acrimonious
+controversy, mistresses accusing maids of ignorance and inefficiency,
+maids objecting in their turn to the menial position and lack of freedom
+involved in domestic service. Yet it is curious to notice that the
+conditions of this branch of work have been little studied by the
+economist. The number of domestic servants as enumerated in the census
+of 1901 was 1,330,783, the largest single occupation in the country.[76]
+But while dozens of books and blue-books could be named discussing the
+position of the textile worker or the agricultural labourer, not more
+than three or four investigators have concerned themselves with the
+domestic servant, on whose efficiency our health and comfort absolutely
+depend.
+
+Another curious anomaly is that domestic servants are becoming fewer in
+proportion to the population, although the level of their wages is very
+high in comparison with the usual payments for women's work. Between
+1881 and 1901 female indoor servants increased from 1,230,406 to
+1,330,783, an increase of 8.2 per cent., while the population increased
+25.2 per cent. Actually, then, there was a smaller proportion of the
+population engaged in domestic service in 1901 then in 1881.[77] What is
+still more remarkable is that at the younger ages the number has
+actually decreased. Between the ages 15-20, there is a decrease of 7.3
+per cent., while in the number of females living at those ages there is
+an increase of 28.1 per cent. This suggests that the difficulty of
+finding servants will intensify as time goes on, as is indeed borne out
+by observation. Other women's industries are growing very rapidly. The
+number of female clerks more than trebled between 1891 and 1901. In the
+same period, female elementary school teachers increased by over 50 per
+cent., and the women engaged in hospital and institution service and in
+workhouses and workhouse infirmaries by 41 per cent. These facts
+indicate that domestic service is becoming less and less popular and is
+losing ground, while other women's industries are gaining.
+
+It is our duty then to consider the causes of this state of things,
+which cannot be regarded with equanimity. Our steadily increasing wealth
+ought to make it more and more possible and desirable for more women to
+specialise in those basic industries of cooking and cleaning, which are
+of the utmost importance for the right ordering of life.
+
+The question must be treated in reference to the general industrial
+and social changes of our time. Many ladies, knowing nothing of
+economics, discuss the matter as one of personal relations only, and
+when they find themselves annoyed with one incompetent servant after
+another, content themselves with blaming the servants as individuals
+without inquiring whether the difficulty has any deeper root. Or they
+take up a reactionary attitude, and declare that the lower classes are
+over-educated and too well off, and are in consequence refusing to
+perform their natural duties. But neither personal blame nor the
+semi-feudal belief that the one and only rightful destiny of daughters
+of bricklayers, coal miners, or small clerks is to become cooks or
+housemaids in the service of their betters will avail to throw any
+light on the difficulty of obtaining competent domestic workers. We
+must study carefully and without bias the conditions of that industry as
+compared with other industries, in order to solve the problem.
+
+In the first place, we may note the advantages of domestic service. It
+is, as has been already observed, well paid. Some investigations carried
+out by a group of my students last year led to the conclusion that the
+ordinary cook, housemaid, or general servant in middle-class households
+costs her employer in wages, food, house-room, heating, lighting, and
+insurance about £50 a year.[78] I have been informed by a lady
+accustomed to deal with servants in a wealthy household, that board
+wages are usually 14s. 6d. for men servants, and 12s. 6d. and 10s. 6d.
+for women servants. When we remember that in the ranks from which
+servants are drawn,[79] a workman is comparatively well off if he is
+earning 35s. a week for the support of himself and his family, and that
+a woman who makes £1 a week is a rarity,[80] we should expect to find
+domestic service one of the industries in which the supply outruns the
+demand. Again, there is no period of apprenticeship or training
+necessary. The servant earns from the first day she enters service, and
+is often carefully trained by a mistress in cooking or waiting at table,
+only to leave that mistress for a better situation the moment she
+thoroughly understands her duties. Again, in many households the maids
+share in the family holidays. They spend a month at the seaside or in
+the country, having all their travelling expenses paid as a matter of
+course. Their allowance of personal holidays may not be large, but at
+all events their wages run on without interruption. These advantages
+are the more remarkable, when it is considered that they have been
+attained without the aid of any trade organisations at all. Trade unions
+for domestic workers have been formed from time to time, but their life
+has been ephemeral and their membership of the smallest. High wages,
+practically continuous employment, food and lodging usually of a
+standard much above that in the servant's own home--all these are to be
+found in domestic work. Why, then, does it remain unpopular?
+
+In the first place, the hours are long and irregular. A domestic
+servant, especially in a place where only one or two are kept, is "on
+duty" for at least fifteen hours a day--from 7 A.M. to 10 P.M. Even
+meal-hours are not free from interruption. The thoughtful mistress, it
+is true, will not summon her maids at dinner-time or supper-time if she
+can help it, but all mistresses are not thoughtful, and in any case
+there is the doorbell to be answered. Much of the work is not hard; in a
+well-managed household there should always be an hour or two of
+comparative leisure in the afternoon and again in the evening. But the
+average maid is never sufficiently free through the whole day to go out
+without asking leave, or to lie down for an hour should her morning work
+have been unusually heavy. Of some households a much blacker picture
+could be painted. Not merely do the maids have no leisure, but they are
+actually hard at work washing, cooking, ironing, serving meals, washing
+up, carrying coals and hot water, &c., for even a larger period than
+the fifteen hours which, as noted before, is the minimum of time "on
+duty." These hours compare very unfavourably with the six or seven
+hours' day of the elementary school-teacher, the eight hours' day of the
+Civil servant, and the nine or ten hours worked in factories and in
+offices.
+
+Next, there is the lack of personal freedom. This may seem a mere
+sentimental objection not to be weighed in the balance for a moment by
+sensible persons as against the solid advantages of domestic work. But
+sentimental objections count more decisively with women than with men.
+Miss B. L. Hutchins points out in a recent article that respectable
+girls of the working class often accept quite low wages, provided only
+their employment is light, clean, comfortable, and affords abundant
+hours of leisure. And women enter on domestic service exactly at the age
+at which freedom and some amount of leisure seem more valuable than high
+wages. Doubtless in later years many sweated drudges have wished that
+they had become servants instead of entering the jam-factory or the
+steam-laundry. But at sixteen and seventeen, when the choice was made,
+the situation appeared very different. I have very little doubt that one
+of the greatest objections to domestic service is that it removes the
+young woman from her own class just at the marriageable age, and
+therefore decreases her chances of marriage, while in some ill-governed
+households and in hotel and restaurant service she may be subjected to
+severe temptation. The widening of the gulf between rich and poor and
+their segregation into distinct districts increases this disadvantage.
+
+Again, there is the fact that domestic service is strangely enough
+regarded as a peculiarly menial occupation, in itself a mark of a lower
+social grade. This is indicated by the use of the Christian name, the
+insistence on a uniform, and the commonness of contemptuous terms such
+as "slavey." Refined people are careful to avoid the use even of the
+word "servant," replacing it by "maid," so strong is this connotation of
+inferiority. Here again we are on sentimental grounds. But it certainly
+seems undesirable, in view of the spread of doctrines of social
+equality, that this suggestion of a low social status should cling
+around the person who undertakes such important duties as cooking and
+washing.
+
+Another disadvantage is the loneliness of domestic servants. In other
+occupations women have colleagues and companions. The general servant,
+coming as she does from a lively even if poor working-class home, with
+neighbours at hand for gossip in moments of relaxation, may find it very
+hard to bear up against the restraint and unnatural quietude of her
+first place,[81] and often ends by returning in haste to the factory
+industry she had been persuaded to abandon, when she will find the
+gaiety and lively society of girls and young men of her own age. Even
+when two maids are kept, they may not be congenial to one another, and
+one cannot deny that to share work, meals, and often bed with a woman
+whom one has reason to dislike, is a fate we would all wish to avoid.
+
+Girls of higher status and more intelligence are often turned from
+domestic service by the fact that it affords little or no opportunity
+for self-improvement or recreation, or for promotion inside its own
+ranks. Servants cannot go to lectures or evening classes. The servant's
+piano or bicycle is a common theme for jesting in the comic papers. In a
+large household or in a hotel promotion may be obtained, but the maid
+who becomes a general servant or a single-handed cook reaches the limit
+of her increase in income at an early age.
+
+Many of the disadvantages noted do not apply to large households. There
+companionship is to be found, and promotion may be looked for. The hours
+are more regular, meals less interrupted, and free time easier to
+obtain. Hence I was not surprised when I questioned proprietors of
+clubs, residential hotels, and the mistresses of wealthy households to
+learn that most of them considered the servant difficulty to be greatly
+exaggerated. The housekeeper of one suite of residential flats told me
+she had no trouble at all in getting servants, and that she sent them
+off at a week's notice if they proved unsatisfactory. "Even if I cannot
+get a maid to live in at once," she added, "I can always supplement the
+work of the others by an extra charwoman. There are any number of
+outworkers to be had." In another residential hotel all the women
+servants had two evenings a week free from 5 to 10.30. Here, too, there
+was never much difficulty in obtaining workers.
+
+Another disadvantage of the small as opposed to the large household is
+that the management is often inefficient, and the equipment poor. In
+these residential flats, for instance, each suite had its own bathroom
+and lavatory, and consequently the work of carrying water was reduced to
+a minimum. I think, too, that the regularity of the discipline is often
+liked by girls, who find it hard to keep to good ways when they work
+alone.
+
+On the whole, then, I see no reason to believe that domestic service is
+unpopular because cooking and cleaning are regarded as disagreeable
+occupations in themselves. It is the conditions under which it is
+carried on that are disliked, and if mistresses desire to have better
+servants, those conditions must be altered. Some of them, it must be
+admitted, are inherent in the present organisation of the household.[82]
+Some form of co-operation might obviate certain of these defects; in
+groups of associated homes, the domestic equipment could certainly be
+improved, skilled supervision and proper discipline could be more easily
+carried out, and the maids would have the advantages of shorter and more
+regular hours and of companionship with their equals. Here again it may
+be possible to apply the co-partnership tenants' organisation. Many
+people, however, not unnaturally dread the lack of privacy and
+independence which such a mode of life would, they think, entail, and
+would prefer to endure the disadvantages of the present system rather
+than lose control over their own kitchen and their own servants. It is
+too soon yet to express an opinion. Fortunately, at Letchworth, at Brent
+Lodge, Finchley, and elsewhere, experiments in the provision of
+associated homes with a common kitchen and a common staff of servants
+are shortly to be tried. If successful, they will no doubt prove a boon
+to many people.
+
+In the meantime one can only suggest that mistresses must endeavour
+individually to mitigate some of the disadvantages of domestic service.
+It is not higher wages that are needed, but more leisure and more
+society, and an absence of the foolish snobbery which regards it as an
+amusing joke that a servant should wish to possess a bicycle or go to a
+meeting or concert.
+
+The suggestion has sometimes been made that distressed gentlewomen might
+find a refuge in domestic service. But "lady servants" or "mothers'
+helps" only rarely prove a success. Their presence is inevitably a
+hindrance to the full enjoyment of family privacy, and often enough
+their gentility is an excuse for incompetence. But in special cases
+lady servants turn out well, especially as children's nurses. The
+most interesting attempt to introduce them into general domestic service
+is that started by the Guild of the Dames of the Household at
+Cheltenham. A short period of training is insisted upon, while on
+the other hand certain privileges not usually conceded to maids must be
+granted, in particular, a period of two hours each day free from
+duty. In small and quiet households, specially in those composed of
+ladies only, a "Dame" would be welcomed in place of the incompetent
+general servant, or two Dames might take the place of the regulation
+cook and house-parlour maid. But it would not be easy to have one Dame
+demanding special privileges and imbued with different traditions in
+a larger household.[83]
+
+Nor do I see any reason to expect that increased provision for domestic
+training alone is likely to improve the lot of mistresses who want
+maids. The training in the elementary schools is often given to children
+too young to profit by it, and is besides designed rather to enable them
+to be of use in their own homes than to qualify them to become cooks or
+housemaids in middle or upper-class households. Again, the girls who
+attend at the special domestic economy schools are not usually available
+for ordinary domestic service; the greater number of the students are
+being prepared either for teaching or for positions as housekeepers and
+matrons. While untrained girls can find a place and wages without any
+difficulty, working-class parents are not likely to spend money on
+training for domestic service; and the numbers for whom scholarships
+are provided must naturally be limited.
+
+Improvement is much more likely to result from alterations in the
+condition of domestic service. If, as regards leisure and social status,
+that occupation could be put more nearly on a level with other women's
+trades, the outlook would be much brighter, and then training in
+domestic economy in continuation schools or trade schools for girls from
+fourteen to sixteen would be valuable.
+
+Failing these reforms, mistresses will probably continue to find
+themselves obliged to put up with cooks who cannot cook, and housemaids
+and laundresses who are both ignorant and incompetent. The irk and
+irritation of living all day long at close quarters with an impertinent
+and inefficient person, which often severely tries the nerves of the
+women of the professional classes, will continue. These things are
+inevitable so long as domestic servants do not choose their occupation
+because they wish to follow it, but because they have been failures in
+other directions. Therefore no improvement would be attained by shutting
+other avenues of employment to women and forcing them back into this.
+Such a line of action is, of course, quite impracticable, whatever be
+the difficulties of mothers of families and mistresses of households;
+factories, offices, shops, elementary schools and post-offices will
+continue to offer employment to women. But even if it were practicable
+it would fail of its aim. Work is only well done when it is chosen for
+its own sake, not when it is unwillingly accepted because the worker is
+fit for nothing else. And a genuine improvement in domestic service can
+only come about by an alteration in its conditions.
+
+A systematic investigation into English domestic service similar to that
+carried out in America by Professor Lucy Salmon of Vassar College would
+be most useful at the present juncture, and may possibly be undertaken
+by the household economics class at King's College. Professor Salmon
+issued 5000 schedules to employers and 5000 to employees, and received
+in all 1744 answers. On the answers received she based the conclusions
+arrived at in her book, "Domestic Service," which are not dissimilar to
+those set forth in the preceding paragraphs. Conditions in America are,
+however, so unlike those in England that a separate investigation for
+this country would be most valuable.
+
+
+(_c_) A DISCUSSION OF DOMESTIC BUDGETS
+
+
+(1) _Working-Class Budgets_
+
+I have left myself very little space for dealing with another important
+section of household economics, namely, domestic budgets. Unfortunately
+the material for a satisfactory study of the actual and the advisable
+division of household expenditure is only abundant in certain classes.
+There are a considerable number of investigations into the cost of
+living among the working-classes.[84] From these it is clear that we
+must make a very marked line of distinction between the domestic
+circumstances of labourers and of artisans. The former spend at least
+from 75 to 80 per cent. of their income on food and lodging alone; yet
+if the family is of ordinary size and none of the children are earning
+anything, they are commonly under-nourished and badly lodged. The
+remainder of the income is devoted to fuel, clothes, savings, insurance,
+and recreation.
+
+Members of this class commonly wear second-hand clothes, and live in
+tenement houses, originally built for a wealthier section of the
+community. It is they who send their children to work at any employment
+that turns up at the earliest moment allowed by the law. The burden laid
+on the women of this class is peculiarly heavy. They must work for wages
+if possible, for every extra shilling adds immensely to the family
+comfort. Hence they go out charing; they undertake ill-paid home work;
+and at the same time all the toil of keeping the house and children
+clean and of doing the cooking and washing falls on the mother. Add to
+this the fact that if the food supply runs short, then the children and
+the husband have their share first and the mother takes what may be
+left. It has been calculated[85] that this class amounts to about
+one-third of the population, and is the source whence comes the greater
+part of the pauperism with which the country is afflicted.
+
+The artisan class was found by Mr. Rowntree to comprise about one-half
+of the working-class population. Its domestic circumstances differ in
+several respects from those of the class already described. Food and
+housing were adequate; and, save in the textile districts, the wife
+commonly remains at home and the children stay longer at school. It is
+this class that is the backbone of trade unionism and the co-operative
+movement; it is in fact the true "middle-class" of Britain.
+
+Lady Bell in her book "At the Works" gives a very sympathetic sketch of
+the home life of the ironworkers of Middlesborough, pointing out that
+the monotony and narrowness of the lives led by the women and the
+ugliness of the surroundings of the workers' houses are the main defects
+from which they suffer. Roughly half their income goes on food, which is
+plain but adequate. The proportion of rent varies very much from
+district to district. In York it was 12.8, but in such crowded towns as
+London and Glasgow it would be higher. There is, however, a surplus
+sufficient for clothing, saving, holidays, and reasonable recreation.
+
+It is conjectured that the excessive expenditure on drink in the United
+Kingdom[86] must be largely due to this class. But the evidence is
+insufficient to show whether the labourer or the artisan is the more
+guilty.
+
+
+(2) _Lower Middle-Class Budgets_
+
+The next class which should be examined is that made up by the clerks
+and routine brain-workers. As already noted, there is little or no
+material available for the study of the budgets of this class. The
+Economic Club published a few years ago a collection of family budgets,
+four of which might be taken as illustrating the home life of this
+important section of the community. From these and from the rather
+unreliable divisions of income given in some of the smaller women's
+papers, I have come to the conclusion that food absorbs 30 to 40 per
+cent. of the income, and rent 15 to 20 per cent. The expenditure on
+clothing is much more liberal, and I am inclined to believe that the
+poorer clerks are sometimes insufficiently fed.
+
+It should be noted that in this class the cost of education tends to be
+borne by the parent and not by the State; no doubt there is here a
+genuine grievance, one, however, which the provision of municipal
+secondary schools is gradually removing. But a thorough and accurate
+study of the circumstances of the lower middle-class would be of the
+utmost value at the present time. It is certain that its needs and
+demands are to some extent at all events overlooked through the
+increasing power of organised labour on the one hand and the increasing
+wealth of the upper classes on the other.
+
+
+(3) _The Budget of the Well-to-do_
+
+Probably it is in the budgets of these wealthier classes that the reader
+of these pages will be most interested from a personal standpoint. Under
+this head there is very little scientifically collected material; but on
+the other hand the ladies' papers and the housekeeping handbooks afford
+considerable information of somewhat varying value.
+
+It is in this class that service becomes an important item; it is in
+this class that the artistic side of life, the enjoyment of physical and
+intellectual luxury, first becomes possible. In a sense the study of
+expenditure here is both more useful and more interesting. A fraction of
+the income would suffice for the satisfaction of the mere physiological
+needs, and there is a real choice possible in the disposition of the
+surplus.
+
+Therefore, in the case of these larger incomes, I propose to discuss
+rather the general principles of expenditure than the statistical facts.
+The latter are not thoroughly reliable, and at the same time the
+circumstances of the class in question are better known to my readers.
+
+The fundamental principle, as Marshall[87] states, is that the marginal
+utility of each separate division of expenditure should be equal. He
+means by this that our income should be so distributed that the last
+sixpence we spend on clothes should yield us the same amount of pleasure
+as the last sixpence expended on food or on books. And he rightly
+remarks that to the housekeeper the value of keeping accounts lies
+precisely in the fact that it makes the application of this principle
+easy.
+
+If we know exactly how money has been spent, then it is possible to see
+that expenditure has been wrongly balanced, that impulsive extravagance
+on hats or on out-of-season delicacies has unduly curtailed the amount
+spent on holidays, books, or concerts. It is for this reason that
+itemised tables are more useful to the housekeeper than is the ordinary
+creditor and debtor method of account-keeping. She should of course be
+able to present an accurate statement of the money spent and received,
+but she should not be content with this. She should further show for
+each quarter the amount spent on rent, food, fuel, &c.
+
+QUARTERLY SUMMARY OF HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURE
+
+  Columns:
+  A  Food and Cleaning Materials.
+  B  Household Washing.
+  C  Service.
+  D  Coals.
+  E  Gas.
+  F  Electricity.
+  G  Rent.
+  H  Rates.
+  I  Garden.
+  J  Miscellaneous.
+  K  Total.
+  L  Guests.[88]
+  M  Remarks.
+
+  +---------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
+  |Weeks    | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M |
+  |Ending.  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  +---------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
+  |Jan.   9 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  | "    16 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  | "    23 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  | "    30 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  |Feb.   6 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  | "    13 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  | "    20 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  | "    27 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  |March  6 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  | "    13 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  | "    20 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  | "    27 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  |April  3 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  +---------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
+  |TOTAL.   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  +---------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
+  |Weekly   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  |Average. |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
+  +---------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
+
+The table appended has been in actual use for some time, and has served
+on more than one occasion to check expenditure which was unduly
+increasing. It could easily be modified in various ways. Food could be
+further subdivided, and headings for dress and other personal expenses
+could be added. Probably, however, it will be found better to keep one
+card for the quarterly household expenditure, and others for the
+personal expenditure of the separate members of the household. The
+amount of trouble involved is comparatively small, provided that the
+different items are summed up and entered regularly each week when the
+household books are examined. If the quarterly cards are then filed in
+order, they afford a most valuable record of household management in a
+small and easily handled form.
+
+When deciding on the amount of money to be allotted to the separate
+items, the first thing to be kept in mind is the necessity of
+preserving efficiency; and brain-workers ought to remember that
+thorough mental alertness and competency can only be secured by
+well-chosen, well-cooked, and daintily served food, by sufficiency of
+sleep, by frequent intervals of rest and recreation, and by thoroughly
+invigorating holidays. Extravagance should of course be avoided, but
+the journalist or scientist who is niggardly of expenditure on these
+items will probably later on be obliged to spend his savings on
+doctor's bills or a rest cure. A high standard of comfort and efficient
+work is the cheapest way of living in the long run. Whether, however,
+all the conventional necessaries now included by custom in the upper
+middle-class expenditure are really essential to the brain-worker's
+standard of life is perhaps another question.
+
+The "simple life" which consists in doing without all the conveniences
+of civilisation has been proved a failure by many experiments, but a
+"simple life" which accepted the comforts of electric light, gas stoves,
+and laid-on hot water, but abolished heavy curtains and carpets and that
+multiplicity of ornaments and of dishes, which increases the complexity
+of life without adding to its beauty, might turn out to be a success. In
+many cases, however, conventional expenditure is essential for
+professional advancement. The doctor, for instance, must live in a house
+of a certain size and importance; the high school teacher or woman
+journalist must be well dressed. Expenditure of this character is really
+of the nature of advertisement, and it is foolish to endeavour to
+curtail it.
+
+After the claims of efficiency have been met, saving and insurance come
+next. Life insurance is of course almost universal among the salaried
+classes, and is a duty imperatively laid on every man whose death would
+leave his family without means. But it is curious that other forms of
+insurance are not more practised. A small yearly payment for each child,
+commencing at its birth, would provide a convenient sum for its
+education, its start in life, or, in the case of a girl, for her
+trousseau and dowry. Insurance against illness also is much rarer among
+the upper middle class than among the working-classes. Possibly this is
+due to the fact that, save in the case of prolonged disease, salaries
+are paid during illness, while wages cease as soon as the worker is
+compelled to stay at home; also partly no doubt to the fact that
+provision for contingencies is made in other ways.
+
+Saving and insurance will be less necessary in the case of those whose
+income is derived from land or from invested capital, but should be
+considered absolutely essential by all those in receipt of a salary. In
+addition a small sum saved and invested in some easily realisable
+security will be most valuable to meet special emergencies.
+
+If after all these needs have been met, _i.e._ (1) full "efficiency"
+and "conventional" expenditure (including, of course, such an education
+for the children as will prepare them in their turn to earn an income
+in the same rank of life as their father), and (2) saving and
+insurance to provide against all contingencies that may reasonably
+be anticipated--if, then, a surplus still remains, its disposition
+must be a matter of individual choice, and it is impossible to lay
+down general rules.
+
+In some cases it will be saved, in others it will be used to provide
+more material and conventional luxuries, in others it will supply the
+needs of what American writers rather unpleasingly call the "higher
+life." Certainly the claims of generosity, charity, and culture should
+first be met, and it is the right and wise disposition of this surplus
+income which might well tax the highest powers of any human being. It is
+commonly supposed to be a difficult thing to earn money, but a simple
+matter to spend it. On the contrary, to spend with wisdom and discretion
+is always hard, and is hardest when the income is so elastic that a
+slight deviation from the best method is not immediately visited on the
+head of the person who has offended.
+
+The artisan's wife has no easy task, it must be confessed, but the
+results of any mistakes she may make fall at once upon herself or her
+children. But if the mistress of a large household is careless or
+incompetent, then she may cause untold waste, inefficiency and
+degeneration among her servants and tradespeople, and may never even be
+aware of it.
+
+A recent book by Mr. A. Ponsonby[89] gives some extraordinary instances
+of unnecessary expenditure on food. Mr. Ponsonby is not, of course, to
+be taken as an unprejudiced investigator; he is writing rather from the
+standpoint of the preacher than from that of the unbiassed sociologist.
+But his figures are not likely to be absolutely false, and it is safe to
+say that if in a household containing four in family and fourteen
+servants the food bills amounted in a week when there was little
+entertaining to £60, 12s. 7d. (£3, 7s. 4d. per head),[90] either the
+servants were being fed in a way that was quite absurdly lavish, or much
+of the food was absolutely wasted, or there was dishonest collusion
+between the housekeeper and chef and the tradespeople. In any case, the
+ignorance and negligence of the mistress of the house were corrupting to
+her staff.
+
+
+(_d_) CONCLUSION
+
+In short, in place of regarding the household as standing in no special
+relation to the rest of the community, it ought to be understood that
+the function of the housewife is of the utmost importance, not only to
+her own family, but to the whole nation. It is she who is finally
+responsible for the education of the children; it is she who, in the
+quiet and restful charm of the home, provides (or should provide) for
+her husband and grown-up children the recreation and refreshment which
+they need. If she employs many servants, then the example of her
+household will influence for good or for evil the homes of many
+working-class couples. It is the demand of the household that determines
+whether the labour of this country shall be employed on debased articles
+of sham luxury or on well made and artistic goods.
+
+The conscientious housewife could also to some extent discourage
+sweating, if she refused to buy products which to her knowledge were
+made under bad conditions. The responsibilities of the housewife place
+her at every turn in economic relations to the rest of the community,
+and therefore it is only right that coming housewives should be trained
+not alone in the manual crafts of cooking and laundry-work, but also in
+the general principles of economic science which underlie the
+development and present organisation of the household. We may perhaps
+hope too that the principles of household management may in turn react
+on economic science, and may show to its professors that value in use,
+though more difficult to detect and estimate than value in exchange, has
+been unduly neglected both in theory and practice.
+
+If to the management of our towns--which are, after all, only our homes
+on a larger scale--were applied the principles used by a good
+housekeeper in ordering her home, then cleanliness, beauty, and
+convenience would increase around us. A science of economics so modified
+would recall to a scholar the original meaning of the word; for what,
+after all, did the craft of oikonomikê, as first developed by Xenophon
+and Aristotle, mean but just "the management of the home"?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [13] Smith, "Wealth of Nations," edited by J. S. Nicholson, pp. 135 and
+        280. It is of course true that Adam Smith meant by this merely
+        what is in a way true, that domestic servants earn no profit for
+        their employers. He does not deny (p. 136) that their labour
+        "has a certain value." But, like all the economists who followed
+        him, he is content to dismiss domestic workers with this cursory
+        treatment and to identify labourers with the workers hired for
+        profit-making purposes.
+
+   [14] See "Principles of Economics" (4th ed.), pp. 192, 772.
+
+   [15] Marshall, "Principles" (4th ed.), p. 764: "The working classes had
+        then no other beds than loose straw, reeking with vermin and
+        resting on damp floors."
+
+   [16] Thorold Rogers is a partial exception.
+
+   [17] _e.g._ Rowntree, "Poverty: a Study of Town Life;" portions of
+        Booth's "Life and Labour of the People;" reports to the Board of
+        Trade on the cost of living.
+
+   [18] Webb, S. and B., "Industrial Democracy" (cheap edition), p. 674.
+
+   [19] Marshall, "Principles of Economics," vol. i. p. 159.
+
+   [20] There is an assumption here which needs perhaps some discussion,
+        _i.e._ that expenditure or consumption of goods can be most
+        conveniently studied on the basis of family life. This is
+        obviously the case with house-room, food, fuel, cleanliness,
+        &c., less so with regard to clothes or recreation; it was truer
+        of the past than of the present, and is truer of the poor than
+        of the rich. In some classes, _e.g._ the professional class,
+        where marriage is commonly delayed and a considerable period may
+        intervene between the end of education and the establishment of
+        a fresh household, it may be necessary to supplement the study
+        of family expenditure by a consideration of the standard of
+        living of unmarried men and women. Attempts, too, must be made
+        to deal with the various forms of institutional life, varying
+        from prisons and workhouses on the one hand to expensive
+        boarding-schools and hotels on the other. But when all these
+        necessary deductions have been made, it remains true that in
+        order to study expenditure we must in the great majority of
+        cases take the family as our basis of investigation. Consumption
+        is organised on a family basis.
+
+   [21] See Marshall, "Principles," book ii. chap. ii.
+
+   [22] Ashley, "Economic History," vol. i. part ii. p. 262.
+
+   [23] The economic historian must always be prepared to acquiesce in a
+        certain vagueness in the matter of dates. He is not dealing with
+        definite events, such as battles and the enactment of special
+        laws, but rather with social tendencies, each constituted by a
+        large number of small events; such as, for instance, the
+        replacement of hand labour by machinery, the appearance of
+        limited liability companies in the place of the single employer,
+        or the determination of middle-class girls to earn their own
+        living instead of remaining dependent on father or brothers.
+        Tendencies such as these appear at different times in different
+        industries and in different parts of the country, and only a
+        misleading precision can be gained by any mention of definite
+        dates.
+
+   [24] Summarised from Seebohm, "Village Community," pp. 156-157.
+
+   [25] Gasquet, "English Monastic Life," p. 197.
+
+   [26] "Economic History," vol. i.
+
+   [27] Surtees Society, Boldon Book, p. 28.
+
+   [28] "English Monastic Life," p. 198.
+
+   [29] The English were famed in the Middle Ages for their preference for
+        good bread. They would eat no bread
+
+                  "That beans in come,
+          But of cocket[30] or clerematyn[30] or else of clean wheat."
+
+            --_Piers Plowman_, A. vii. 292.
+
+   [30] Better kinds of bread, but not the best (wastel).
+
+   [31] Walter of Henley, p. 29.
+
+   [32] Apparently, it is only within the last hundred years that the cow
+        has ceased to be a normal possession of the agricultural
+        labourer. See Slater, "English Peasantry and Common Fields," pp.
+        122-128.
+
+   [33] Eddy, "English House," p. 133.
+
+   [34] England at that time possessed her own vineyards, _e.g._ near
+        Gloucester, and produced white wine.
+
+   [35] Rules of S. Robert as given in "Walter of Henley," p. 145.
+
+   [36] Broth in which the meat had been boiled.
+
+   [37] Pepper.
+
+   [38] Stiff.
+
+   [39] "Meals and Manners of the Olden Time," p. 164.
+
+   [40] Kind of sauce.
+
+   [41] Pork, eggs, cloves, currants, dates, sugar boiled in a bladder,
+        cut into strips and served with hot rich sauce.
+
+   [42] A soteltie was an elaborate confection of pastry painted or
+        adorned with paper to represent a saint or a figure of spring,
+        summer, &c.
+
+   [43] Spiced wine.
+
+   [44] Panter and pantry, from pain.
+
+   [45] Butler = bottler.
+
+   [46] Rules of S. Robert in "Walter of Henley," pp. 138-140, _passim._
+
+   [47] Webb, "Essay on Gloucester Abbey," p. 13.
+
+   [48] "Meals and Manners," p. 74.
+
+   [49] _Libes Niges Domus_, p. 65.
+
+   [50] Gasquet, "English Monastic Life," p. 211.
+
+   [51] The maintenance of a large retinue was one of the easiest ways
+        available for indicating the possession of surplus wealth. This
+        fact, coupled with the almost absurd over-elaboration of the
+        details of serving, incline me to believe that in the mediæval
+        castle servants were numerous and not overworked.
+
+   [52] Riley, "Memorials of London," p. 48.
+
+   [53] Riley, "Memorials of London," p. 199. There is, unfortunately, no
+        indication of the social standing of this felon, Hugh le Bevere
+        by name. The list of clothes suggests that he was fairly
+        well-to-do, in which case his equipment of cooking and table
+        utensils is certainly meagre. It is curious that pottery is not
+        mentioned; it can hardly be urged that although in use it was
+        too unimportant for a place in the inventory, since room is
+        found for one small canvas bag, value 1d.
+
+   [54] Hence the name convertible husbandry.
+
+   [55] This is, of course, a very summary statement of changes which it
+        took centuries to bring about. On the one hand, money economy
+        existed in the mediæval town; on the other, subsistence farming
+        continued in England to some extent until within a hundred years
+        ago. Yet it is roughly true that in the fifteenth and sixteenth
+        centuries production for the market and not for use markedly and
+        suddenly increased.
+
+   [56] By an Act of 1589, it was ordained that four acres of land should
+        be attached to every cottage. _Cf._ Hasbach. "English
+        Agricultural Labourer," p. 40.
+
+   [57] See Cunningham, "English Industry and Commerce," vol. ii. p. 40
+        (4th ed.).
+
+   [58] Poultry.
+
+   [59] "Description of England," p. 238 _ff._
+
+   [60] _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 150.
+
+   [61] Pickled pork.
+
+   [62] This class is never described by him.
+
+   [63] See Cunningham, ii. p. 78, "Issue of Patents for making Soap and
+        Vinegar."
+
+   [64] _e.g._ Slater, "English Peasantry and the Enclosure of the Common
+        Fields." Hasbach, "History of the English Agricultural
+        Labourer." Toynbee, "The Industrial Revolution." Hobson,
+        "Evolution of Capitalism."
+
+   [65] [Near Halifax]. "After we had mounted the third hill, we found the
+        country one continuous village ... hardly a House standing out
+        of speaking distance from another, and as the day wore on we
+        could see at every House a tenter, and on almost every tenter a
+        Piece of Cloth, Kersey or Shalloon, which are the three articles
+        of this country's labour.... Then as every clothier must
+        necessarily keep one horse at least to fetch home his wool and
+        his provisions from the market, to carry his yarn to the
+        spinners, his Manufacture to the fulling mill, and when finished
+        to the market to be sold and the like; so every one generally
+        keeps a cow or two for his Family.... Nor is the industry of the
+        people wanting.... Though we met few People without Doors, yet
+        within we saw the Houses full of lusty fellows, some at the
+        dye-vat, some at the loom, others dressing the cloths, the women
+        and children carding or spinning. All employed from the youngest
+        to the oldest. Scarce a thing above four years old, but its
+        hands were sufficient for its own support." Defoe, "Tour through
+        Great Britain" (1769), vol. iii. p. 146.
+
+   [66] "The increase of urban areas can be gathered from the Census
+        Reports. In 1851 ... the population of such areas amounted
+        approximately to 9,000,000, or 50 per cent. of the total
+        population of England and Wales; by 1881 the population of urban
+        sanitary areas, as defined by the Public Health Acts, 1872 and
+        1875, was 17,600,000, or 68 per cent. of the aggregate
+        population; by 1901 ... the population of boroughs and urban
+        districts amounted to 25,000,000, or 77 per cent. of the
+        aggregate population."--Blue Book on Public Health and Social
+        Conditions, p. 6 [Cd. 4671 of 1909].
+
+   [67] It should be noted, too, that the advantages of the large-scale
+        method of production are greatly diminished by the dangers of
+        adulteration. _Cf._ p. 177.
+
+   [68] In the absence of an efficient system of police, it probably was
+        not safe for women to walk or travel alone. In the security
+        provided for us by paved and lighted streets, guarded by trained
+        constables, and in the complete safety of modern methods of
+        travelling, some of us are apt now to forget these elementary
+        considerations, once of supreme importance.
+
+   [69] For the whole subject, see Hutchins and Harrison, "History of
+        Factory Legislation."
+
+   [70] In "Educated Working Women," by Clara E. Collet, 1902. Miss Collet
+        says: "Were statistics available it might perhaps be shown that
+        the unmarried women are to a large extent the daughters of
+        clerks and professional men.... Emigration is probably more
+        frequent in the salaried class; and where the sons are obliged
+        to emigrate, it frequently happens that the daughters have to
+        work for their living. In this class I believe the inequality of
+        the sexes is greatest and the chances of marriage least" (pp.
+        37-38).
+
+   [71] P. 171.
+
+   [72] I cannot refrain at this point from inserting the following
+        quotations from "Shirley" (chapter xxii.). Charlotte Brontë's
+        genius illumined the situation of many girls even in her time,
+        and of a larger number since. Caroline is speaking. "Old maids,
+        like the houseless and unemployed poor, should not ask for a
+        place and an occupation in the world; the demand disturbs the
+        happy and rich; it disturbs parents. Look at the numerous
+        families of girls in this neighbourhood. The brothers of these
+        girls are every one in business or in professions ... their
+        sisters have no earthly employment but household work and
+        sewing.... Men of England! look at your poor girls, many of them
+        fading around you, dropping off in consumption or decline; or,
+        what is worse, degenerating to sour old maids, envious,
+        backbiting, wretched, because life is a desert to them; or, what
+        is worst of all, reduced to strive, by scarce modest coquetry
+        and debasing artifice, to gain that position and consideration
+        by marriage which to celibacy is denied."
+
+   [73] I am not suggesting here that the pioneers of women's higher
+        education were wrong in the attitude they adopted. To win for
+        women intellectual freedom was the most important duty for them,
+        and that could only be achieved by women submitting to the same
+        intellectual tests as men. But the problems which call for
+        solution by their successors of a later generation have assumed
+        a new form.
+
+   [74] See Raymond Unwin, "Housing and Town-Planning."
+
+   [75] In June 1908, the value of the property of the various tenants'
+        companies was only a little short of a quarter of a million
+        pounds, and their operations have since then been extended in
+        various directions.
+
+   [76] For comparison:--
+
+                                     Number of
+          Occupation.             Persons Employed.
+
+          Agriculture                1,197,922
+          Textile fabrics            1,155,397
+          Professional occupations     606,260
+
+   [77] Owing to a change in the system of enumeration which alters the
+        basis of comparison, the year 1891 cannot be used in our
+        calculations.
+
+   [78] The competent single-handed maid is meant here, not the little
+        "slavey" who assists her mistress in the rougher part only of
+        the work.
+
+   [79] A further inquiry is needed into this matter. I am not at all
+        clear whether servants are derived from the class of the fairly
+        prosperous artisan or from the unskilled labouring class.
+
+   [80] "There are unfortunately no reliable statistics as to the average
+        wages earned by women workers, but, speaking from a large
+        experience, I estimate that the average wage of the manual woman
+        worker, taking into account slackness, sickness, &c., is
+        certainly not more than 7s. 6d. all the year round."--"Trade
+        Unions," by Mary Macarthur, in "Women in Industry from Seven
+        Points of View," p. 66.
+
+   [81] Stephen Reynolds in "A Poor Man's House" paints this situation
+        with great psychological insight.
+
+   [82] Compare Salmon, "Domestic Service," pp. 145-6.
+
+   [83] Compare "Englishwomen's Year-book for 1910," p. 69.
+
+   [84] _e.g._ Rowntree, "Poverty: a Study of Town Life"; Liverpool
+        Economic and Statistical Society, "How the Casual Labourer
+        Lives"; "Study of the Diet of the Labouring Classes in
+        Edinburgh" (published by Otto Schulze & Co., now out of print);
+        Recent Blue-books on the Cost of Living, &c.
+
+   [85] Rowntree, "Poverty: a Study of Town Life," pp. 117, 298 _ff._, as
+        to inadequacy of diet of labourer, pp. 235 and 303. Mr.
+        Rowntree's conclusions have been impugned by several critics,
+        and it may be that his dietary standard is too high. But even if
+        it turns out that only a quarter and not a third of the
+        population are in receipt of incomes insufficient for the
+        expenditure necessary to secure bodily efficiency, the fact is
+        serious enough.
+
+   [86] Calculated by Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell to amount to 6s. 10d.
+        per family of the working-class population. "Temperance Problem
+        and Social Reform" (7th ed.), p. 20.
+
+   [87] "Principles" (4th ed.), p. 194.
+
+   [88] A special charge was made for guests in this household, and the
+        amount received was deducted from the weekly food bill.
+
+   [89] "The Camel and the Needle's Eye."
+
+   [90] "The Camel and the Needle's Eye," p. 153.
+
+
+
+
+SOME RELATIONS OF SANITARY SCIENCE TO FAMILY LIFE AND INDIVIDUAL
+EFFICIENCY
+
+BY ALICE RAVENHILL
+
+
+Among the many notable characteristics by which the last half century
+has been distinguished, there are two which bid fair permanently to
+colour its records and materially to influence the future of our
+country. I refer in the first place to the scientific study of man, his
+nature, his needs, and his potentialities; and in the second to the
+growing appreciation of the fact that the centre of ethical gravity must
+be shifted from absorption in the sole concerns of self to an
+intelligent interest in the affairs of others--that is to say, that
+selfishness must yield to well organised and discriminating social
+service.
+
+
+I. MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE
+
+It is of course no new thing for questions upon the real nature of that
+complex creature, man, to force themselves upon the attention of the
+observant, and from time immemorial the philosophical have spent
+themselves in efforts to solve this problem by theories designed to
+detect, even if not to account for, the agencies active in the
+formation of the human mind and body. The records of older civilisations
+bear testimony to their labours, and are familiar to most students of
+ancient literatures. But it was not till the resources of modern science
+forged new tools for the inquirer that it became possible to chisel out
+from the bedrock of fact the main features of man's physical and social
+history.
+
+With admirable patience and infinite skill, the scientific craftsmen of
+recent times have laboriously pieced together the scattered chips of
+biological research, of human tradition, of tribal customs and of
+world-wide folklore, until the dignity and power, the beauty and the
+possibilities of human nature have emerged from the dust of ignorance
+and the veil of superstition. The result is that it is no longer
+permissible to deplore in pessimistic tones the inevitable degradation
+of the race, nor to accept with supineness the threatened deterioration
+of a population. The forces by which humanity is moulded are no longer
+unknown; the principles which underlie social stability have been
+identified; the means by which the arts may be developed, which make
+life not only tolerable but healthful, are ready to our hands.
+
+The far-reaching significance of these facts in connection with human
+health and progress become apparent when considered in more detail.
+Observers throughout the ages have gradually noted, and subsequently
+turned to practical account in garden, meadow, and farmyard, certain
+characteristics common to all known forms of vegetable and animal life.
+By due consideration of these it was found possible to improve breeds,
+to strengthen and lengthen life, to avert disease, and generally to
+enhance economic value. It may now appear simple enough, to extend and
+apply these observations to the betterment of human life; but many
+generations of human beings slipped away before the facts, dimly
+discerned by Aristotle and Lucretius, by Buffon and Lamarck, were
+clearly focussed by Darwin,[91] Wallace, Spencer, and Huxley, through
+whose skill and labours the continuity of the web of life was first
+displayed to the world at large. The design may here be almost
+elementary in its delicate simplicity; there its subtle intricacies
+well-nigh baffle description. The variety of pattern is marvellous
+indeed, as Nature weaves with ceaseless industry the woof of progressive
+development. But the warp of this wondrous web is nevertheless
+continuous throughout its length, uniting the whole into one vast
+fabric.
+
+This basic unity of all manifestations of life has been further
+substantiated by another group of scientists--Schleiden, Schwann,
+Kölliker, and Virchow, for instance--who gradually and conclusively
+proved the identity, in their simplest form, of those living bricks
+(_i.e._ microscopic particles of protoplasm) from which the whole vast
+edifice of life is constructed. The capacity they possess for
+differentiation in their functions and in modes of combination long
+masked recognition of the fact that each commonwealth of cells, whether
+plant or animal, is developed in the first instance in orderly
+progression from a similar minute speck of protoplasm, acceptation of
+which has sufficed to bring about a complete revolution in the
+scientific world. To these discoveries were shortly added Pasteur's
+conception of the nature and causation of infective diseases; a
+knowledge which brought with it a great accession of power over hitherto
+mysterious and uncontrollable conditions. And finally, man's eyes have
+been opened to the comprehension of Nature's means of self-defence
+against the micro-organisms of disease. Thus, while humanity is by these
+means armed with most potent weapons against the inroads of infection,
+decay, and death, the light thrown upon the mystery of the origin of
+each individual life has shown man his true place in the kingdom of
+nature. The application of these great discoveries, together with
+increased opportunity for and accuracy in their utilisation, constitute
+the basis of the modern methods of hygiene.
+
+It must be borne in mind that until less than a century ago it was man's
+custom to dissociate himself wholly from the less highly developed
+animals and plants which he employed so freely for his support and
+convenience. He set himself on the highest pinnacle, as it were, of the
+edifice of life, believing himself to be independent of the influences
+by which the rest of the building was dominated. And thus through
+countless ages he suffered, languished, and died, unconscious that the
+forces he had learned more or less to control in husbandry and farmyard
+were in their turn controlling him in the conduct of his life. Ignorant
+alike of the influences of his own inherited nature or of those of his
+environment, he paid no heed to the responsibilities of transmitting the
+torch of life undimmed to succeeding generations, and gave no thought to
+utilising to his own personal perfecting the resources of Nature, which
+he habitually employed to increase his wealth or to improve his crops
+and stock.
+
+It was indeed to the control of his _surroundings_ that man first gave
+more or less careless heed. The fact that environment can either
+stimulate or stunt both physical and mental powers, thrust itself too
+persistently on his attention to be ignored; but the influence of a good
+parentage or of sound ancestry was less obvious, and for generations
+received little or no attention. Vague talk on "family temper," "family
+habits," "family voices" was common enough, but no more than a passing
+curiosity was aroused as to their hidden import, nor was their profound
+significance suspected.
+
+Thus, though half a century has passed since Darwin placed man[92] "in
+his proper position in the sequence of biological forms," during which
+interim enormous strides have been made in applying to the betterment
+of human existence the principles found to hold good in the case of
+lowlier type of life, public sentiment has so far only supported
+sanitary reforms directed to the promotion of improved environment. And
+this in spite of Sir Francis Galton's[93] first appeal in the cause of
+eugenics more than forty years ago. The distinguishing characteristics
+of progressive races and the right of every unborn child to be the
+offspring of healthy, self-respecting, virtuous parents have been
+repeatedly pointed out; while attention is drawn to the accumulating
+evidence in favour of the fact that of all influences upon the
+individual his inherited nature is the most powerful. Yet the public ear
+remains deaf to the cry that the present generation is largely
+responsible for the weal or woe of their children's children.
+
+This is not the place in which to discuss Darwin's theory of heredity
+nor its subsequent elaboration and amplification by his contemporaries
+or successors.[94] But the time is come when emphasis _must_ be laid
+upon the duty of gaining some general acquaintance with the subject and
+its applications in the case of an Imperial people.
+
+It may be also well to point out that pessimism is not necessarily
+associated with the fruits of the studies carried on by our students of
+inherited qualities, such as Sir Francis Galton or Professors Thomson,
+Bateson, Karl Pearson, and others; only their results give us reason to
+pause, for they cannot lightly be disregarded. They tell us that we hold
+in our hands to-day the mental vigour and bodily powers of an untold
+number of descendants, therefore it behoves us to consider our ways and
+be wise while there is yet time. For our encouragement also be it known,
+that while the lamp of modern hygiene illuminates the errors of the
+past, it sheds its bright rays over the paths of the present, and
+penetrates to some extent the dim twilight of the future.
+
+
+II. FACTORS ADVERSE TO HUMAN PROGRESS
+
+It is a matter for regret that the sympathetic consideration for the
+sufferings of others, which found such grand exponents in John Howard,
+in Elizabeth Fry, and in thousands more since modern methods of
+philanthropy were initiated in the eighteenth century,[95] has tended
+latterly to lose its virility. It is giving place to a maudlin
+sentimentality, which seeks not only to preserve life at all costs, but
+to permit, nay to encourage, the production of a quality of human life,
+so defective, so devitalised, that it threatens to minimise the
+multiplication of the fit, by taxing them to their detriment with the
+care and support of the unfit. So to smooth the path of the weakly and
+unsound as to put a premium on their fertility is false philanthropy and
+faulty hygiene; for it is well to remember that reasonable exertion is
+beneficial to health; that to overcome obstacles is stimulating to the
+energetic; that some struggle for the means of livelihood calls forth
+resourcefulness and adaptability in the intelligent. Success in the
+battle of life comes to those made of stuff equal to the wear and tear
+of daily existence, and possessed of the qualities which conduce to
+progress. These are they who are competent to perpetuate the best
+qualities of a good stock; these should be the chosen bulwarks of a
+nation's progress; nor must their numbers be swamped by the ailing, the
+crippled, the defective, and the insane.
+
+A proportion probably of some of the deeply seated, complicated, social
+problems which have presented themselves, unperceived and almost
+unconsciously, are the outcome of a one-sided study of hygiene: these,
+combined with the slow growth of social science, and a sickly,
+easy-going susceptibility, have been allowed to obscure the real issues
+of many well-intentioned but unwise and ill-considered philanthropic
+measures. The necessity, the _urgent_ necessity, has now, however,
+arisen for the bold and scientific solution of these social problems.
+The work of biologists, sociologists, and students of history during the
+last ten years has illuminated the whole question of race progress and
+public health with a light so powerful and clear that even he who runs
+can read the signs of the times by its clear rays; while to the millions
+of parents and guardians whose lives are spent in the care of children
+and home, its brilliance throws into high relief the dignified
+responsibility of their work, its far-reaching worth and enduring
+influence, as well as the fact that for its adequate performance
+something more is necessary than a bowing acquaintance with modern
+sanitary science.
+
+For what is the message of scientific hygiene to the parent and
+householder of the twentieth century? Dr. W. H. Burnham, of Clarke
+University, U.S.A., a world-wide authority on the subject, has
+formulated this message for us into three terse, but telling and
+suggestive, commands.
+
+The first gives solemn warning to beware of fads and of the many popular
+doctrines which are mediæval in their crudities and damaging by their
+unconsidered acceptance.
+
+The second preaches the gospel of _work_ and self-control, which must be
+practised in this as in every other connection where progress and good
+results are desired.
+
+The third enforces the doctrine of cleanliness to a degree as
+comprehensive as it is unusual--cleanliness in person, dwelling, and
+food; in air, water, and decoration; in occupation, environment and
+morals; the work of home hygiene being to secure for each family
+conditions which will permit normal and unhampered functioning for all
+the organs of each one of its members; elasticity and pliancy in the
+functions being a primary characteristic of health.
+
+If once it be accepted that health, capacity, endurance, and energy are
+more powerful weapons for a progressive people than are sword or gun,
+obedience to these commands will be general and their results enduring.
+The pages of history teach us that each nation in turn has exhibited
+these qualities at its zenith of success, whether it were the relatively
+highly civilised inhabitants of Greece and Rome, or the barbarian hordes
+under Attila. They characterise equally each group of successful
+pioneers, whether they be the Pilgrim Fathers of the sixteenth, the
+Huguenots of the seventeenth, or the successful colonist of the
+nineteenth century. When however their cultivation is neglected the
+force of the life current of a people or community is lost; the mighty
+river of a nation's prosperity dwindles to an insignificant streamlet of
+mere existence, soon to be lost to view in the morass of oblivion.
+
+To what general causes may such deterioration be attributed? Among
+the more prominent must be mentioned ignorance of man's physical
+nature and of the nurture essential to his welfare; subtle forms of
+self-indulgence; lowered standards of morality; enervating luxury, or,
+in some cases, so severe a struggle for existence among the salt of
+the population (the upper, middle, and professional classes, superior
+mechanics and artisans), that even patriotism does not justify a
+quiverful of children. But the persistence of these causes is a
+national calamity. It is the science and art of hygiene which is
+emphasising their disastrous consequences. No longer in its infancy, no
+longer a mere collection of fads, questionable statistics, and
+empirical doctrines, hygiene is prepared to inform us how to
+promote human efficiency in every relation of life--domestic,
+occupational, social, and imperial. Its tenets are firmly based upon a
+goodly group of sciences, and their utilisation call into play a
+whole range of arts. Its theories find confirmation in the social
+problems of the day, and the experience gained from their tentative
+and partial application affords sound evidence of their worth to the
+world. The "expectation" of life, for instance, has been extended ten
+years in half a century; in twenty years the death-rate has decreased
+thirty per cent. Disease has been found in most instances to be
+controllable, and has been controlled; unhealthy occupations have had
+their dangers curbed if not entirely banished, and the lot of many has
+been immeasurably brightened. _Yet_ the weak joints in the nation's
+harness are gaping, and the vigour and virility of the masses appear
+to be diminishing. Again we ask, Why?
+
+
+III. STAGES IN THE GROWTH OF SANITARY SCIENCE
+
+The answer may be found by reference to the late Professor de Chaumont's
+now classical outline of the stages to be identified in the hygienic
+education of a race. He divided these into three periods, of which he
+described the first as merely "Instinctive," for efforts after sanitary
+practice were dictated solely by the personal discomfort associated with
+their neglect. In those far-off prehistoric days, Professor Boyd
+Dawkins tells us that primitive man, then in his nomadic stage, would
+dig runnels to carry off the rain water from the near neighbourhood of
+his shelters, or would move on to fresh pastures when his family and
+herds had fouled the nearest stream, or change his camping ground when
+the accumulated refuse of his food and his prowess as a hunter
+interfered with convenient access to his dwelling; but he took no
+precautions to prevent the recurrence of these discomforts, and his
+efforts to remove their consequences were purely temporary.
+
+To this there succeeded what Professor de Chaumont designated the
+"Supernatural" period,[96] which extended over many thousands of years,
+during the dawn of which Eastern rulers often combined in their own
+person the triple callings of priest, prophet, and physician. Whether it
+be in China or in Persia, in Egypt or in India, among the Greeks, the
+Arabs, or the Hebrews, the practice of physical morality and of personal
+cleanliness, of restrictions of diet or protection from infection, were
+closely woven into the religion of the people. Reasons of health and
+sanitary advantages permeate the rules of more faiths than that of the
+Jews--whose Lawgiver embodied in the Pentateuch health maxims now known
+to have been derived from earlier civilisations.
+
+But, remarkable and interesting as are the ancient sanitary codes to a
+generation which professes to believe in the necessity for hygienic
+practice, their usage was tinctured from the first by a mass of
+superstition. Tradition and fatalism hampered true consistency between
+faith and works; the often sound regulations suffered from their
+empirical foundations. Constant warfare, varied by alternations of
+luxury with asceticism, combined to absorb men's minds and to pervert
+their common sense, so that plague and famine, disease and penury, were
+superstitiously regarded as discipline from the Deity, not to be averted
+or avoided, but rather to be accepted as a chastisement prompted by
+love. The creed that to save suffering to the vile body might risk the
+salvation of the soul, cost Europe far dearer than is at all generally
+recognised; for the noble, the pure, the high-minded, the intellectual,
+segregated themselves for centuries in monastery and convent, in the
+firm faith that by denying to themselves the joy of parenthood they
+promoted the spiritual welfare of their country. Ignorant of their
+racial responsibilities, they left as progenitors of the next generation
+the less refined and ruder elements in the population. It is no cause
+for surprise, therefore, that progress in sanitation moved slowly.
+Domestic and urban conditions were permitted of a character well defined
+by the facts that, in mediæval times, a man of forty-five or fifty was
+considered long lived, and that first attempts to control disease were
+based upon commercial convenience rather than upon the saving of life.
+
+To this long night of superstition succeeded the third and last period,
+known as the "Rational," of which the first dawnings can be detected
+even in Plantagenet days. In this period it is desirable further to
+differentiate three stages of progress--(_a_) that of Development, when
+uneasiness made itself felt, but from absence of knowledge efforts at
+reform and control were crude, though often intelligent; (_b_) the stage
+of Legislation, and (_c_) the stage of Freedom.[97]
+
+In the first of these, for instance, Henry III. effected an improvement
+on any former practice by bringing water to the city of London in pipes,
+made by boring or burning a channel through the trunks of large trees.
+Half a century later, in 1297-8, laws were promulgated upon the subjects
+of offensive trades, food adulteration, and wandering pigs; while
+Richard II. imposed penalties upon those guilty of fouling rivers and
+ditches. Out of sight out of mind, however, was the sanitary creed of
+this and many succeeding generations, so that too often the apparent
+gain of the moment sowed the noxious seed of intensified subsequent
+ills.
+
+Sir John Simon has pointed out that it was not until the early part of
+the eighteenth century that hygiene in its modern significance loomed on
+the social horizon with clearer outline and more definite aims. A
+gradual transformation took place in the next hundred and fifty years,
+when the national records, as well as the reports of philanthropic
+organisations, indicate the gradual growth of a public opinion which
+presently sought its sanitary salvation in legislation. The nineteenth
+century saw, as a consequence, the accumulation of a huge mass of public
+health laws, designed to accomplish reforms where philanthropy or
+self-interest had failed to influence habits.
+
+The suggested designation, namely, the Legislative, is therefore
+peculiarly appropriate for this, the second stage of progress in the
+third period of our country's hygienic education. To legislation men
+pinned their faith as the most potent weapon of reform. From the first
+most inadequate and ineffective Factory Act of 1802 until the enactments
+of the last parliamentary session, each year has seen substantial
+additions made to the growing mass of sanitary legislation, which has
+become unwieldy in bulk and intensely complicated in machinery.
+
+Any attempt to enumerate even a few of the public health laws which
+crowd our statute books would here be tedious and out of place, though
+the community in general ought to be better acquainted than it is with
+its powers and obligations. For, truth to tell, fifty years of public
+health administration has proved that human beings are not yet consumed
+with a sufficiently strong desire for health and efficiency to be
+willing to change objectionable or unwholesome habits or to sacrifice
+their conception of comfort at the _suggestion_ of officials. Indeed
+the sterner measures of compulsory conformity were so necessary to the
+education of the public in the elements of healthy living, that the year
+1866 saw the commencement of a new era in Public Health Department of
+the Government. "The grammar of common sanitary legislation,"[98] writes
+the historian of our "English Sanitary Institutions," "then first
+acquired the novel virtue of an imperative mood." "Must" was substituted
+in some laws for "may," and though the permissive has not, even in fifty
+years, entirely given place to the peremptory, the efforts to effect
+individual reform by Act of Parliament have, since the formation of the
+Local Government Board in 1872, assumed more importance and vigour.
+
+Since that date the reports of health committees all over the country
+record the substantial results of persevering work in the interests of
+hygiene, qualified by the fact that the experience of other nations has
+been abundantly confirmed by our own, namely, that it is futile to
+legislate in advance of public opinion. Until the populace has been
+impregnated with a knowledge of what is right, right action, though
+demanded by its legislators, will be perverted by ignorant intention or
+by resentful indolence. Even those who have served the cause of
+sanitation most loyally recognise that coercion is but a poor yeast with
+which to leaven measures for the public weal; the product is liable to
+become sour and worthless rather than wholesome and effective. One
+higher grade must be passed by the nation under the tutelage of a
+sanitary reform before its education can be called complete.
+
+The final stage in this last long period is described by Professor de
+Chaumont as that of "Freedom," of which the attainment is not possible
+until action is based on intelligent individual conviction. Then and
+then alone there will be a general recognition that "rights" are
+inevitably associated with responsibilities, and that true liberty is
+followed not by license, but by self-control and respect for the rights
+of others.
+
+
+IV. WHY THE IDEALS OF MODERN HYGIENE ARE NOT ATTAINED
+
+And so it has come about that, with this ideal in view, the methods of
+modern hygiene are directed to awaken the nation's sanitary conscience
+and to stimulate the growth of true civic freedom. These methods may be
+fairly defined as the working of common sense aided by the results of
+scientific research, in their turn supported by very carefully tested
+applications. Necessarily it is assumed that each individual will accord
+to them intelligent, personal support and, where necessary, will be
+willing to sink unreasonable likes and dislikes in the sea of social
+service.
+
+Examples of the enormous benefit inseparable from well-considered
+sanitary legislation could be multiplied; though, on the other hand, it
+is also necessary to check optimism by many illustrations of the
+grievous harm still being wrought by want of thought. Hindrance to
+possible progress is also associated with the ignorance of those whose
+development has not yet attained the level when freedom of action can be
+permitted. It is some of the results of this ignorant indolence which
+cause the minds of the thoughtful and far-sighted to be tense with
+anxiety for the welfare of their country, and arouse a wish for further
+and more stringent public health enactments. Nevertheless, again it must
+be said that to legislate in advance of public opinion is futile. Only
+after stupendous exertion, for instance, has the serious and continued
+mortality among infants excited general attention; and the curious,
+widespread indifference to the recommendations of recent Royal
+Commissions on the Poor Law and the Care of the Feeble-minded indicates
+that, were infant mortality controllable by legislation, such
+legislation would still fail of its object unless it were also realised
+that a child's hold on life is practically dependent upon parental care,
+and is intimately associated with maternal nutrition before its birth.
+
+Or again; the law relating to the protection of the public food supply
+is approaching a high pitch of excellence; the penalties on adulteration
+or on the sale of diseased or otherwise unwholesome foodstuffs are
+severe and quite frequently inflicted; _but_ these regulations are
+powerless to influence the errors of nutrition constantly reflected in
+the features of our population at each age period, neither can they stem
+the tide of self-indulgence, emotionalism and luxury which enervate and
+deteriorate thousands of our people. Vain indeed are their endeavours to
+disguise by alcoholism and drugs the traces of their misfortunes. Stern
+Nature is relentless; her laws are as those of the Medes and Persians;
+the children's teeth _shall_ be set on edge by the fruits of the
+reckless folly and intemperance of their ancestors.
+
+Is sanitary legislation therefore a failure, or by what means can light
+from the sun of knowledge penetrate this dense mass of ignorance and
+apathy? For what reason has it opposed such a resistant surface to the
+manipulations of the reformer or to the coercions of the official? These
+questions do not, unfortunately, admit of concise or conclusive
+replies.
+
+Each political party in turn points the finger of reproach and derision
+at its opponents for the modest success by which their legislative
+efforts at social reforms are attended. Disease, malnutrition,
+alcoholism and overwork continue to hamper their efforts, and will
+continue so to do, until a sanitary conscience is awakened in each
+breast, at an age when habits and ideals are still unformed.
+
+There is no royal road to the solution of these serious problems. They
+call for infinite, patient and untiring tact, while they also demand the
+employment of many and varied well-considered methods, based on a sound
+foundation of sanitary and social science. The day for reform by theory
+is over; the moment for practice by individual example and co-operative
+effort has arrived.
+
+
+V. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MAN'S PHYSICAL NATURE
+
+Before proceeding to suggest some means by which to increase the
+stability of the national health through the agency of family life, it
+will be advantageous to recall the advice given to students of any form
+of life by Professor Arthur Thomson:--that they should, before
+attempting to form conclusions as to its nature, submit its constitution
+to analysis, with the assistance of what he described as the biological
+prism. This, he says, will throw light on the inherited nature of the
+creature--the capital, so to say, with which it is endowed at birth. It
+will illuminate the functional nature of its parts, and will reveal what
+it does in the course of its ceaseless activities--nervous, muscular and
+organic. Further, the prismatic rays will render visible the results of
+some of the influences dependent upon the environment with which it is
+surrounded, which play upon it before and after birth. Unfortunately
+these rays, when directed to human nature, cannot penetrate so deeply
+nor divulge so clearly the secrets of this the highest and most complex
+form of life, as they do when directed to its simpler manifestations.
+All ordinary difficulties are enhanced by our human capacity for racial
+admixture and the creation of an artificial environment.
+
+This much, however, is clearly revealed by a partial analysis. Human
+beings, in common with all life, are distinguished by the power of
+movement, and are sensitive to many forms of external stimulus:--heat,
+cold, electricity, or pressure. They pass their lives in rhythmic
+alternations of activity and repose; they breathe; they absorb food to
+supply energy and to maintain unimpaired the substance of their bodies;
+they excrete waste products. They share with plants and animals an
+intrinsic tendency to continue their growth for a certain period and up
+to a definite amount, while, at the close of the most pronounced period
+of growth, ability to transmit life absorbs the energy hitherto utilised
+for personal development, by which means the perpetuation of a species
+is secured. Research shows, also without possibility of question, that
+certain similar characteristics distinguish the mechanism of every type
+of animal life; though the machinery be in some cases of the simplest,
+in others highly complex. Thus have been revealed many secrets of man's
+physical nature; as, for instance, the knowledge that, in the earliest
+stages of their existence, higher forms of life recapitulate more or
+less imperfectly certain far-off ancestral phases of development, of
+which living specimens are still to be found on the lower branches of
+humanity's huge genealogical tree. By means also of the close and
+detailed observation of these lowlier organisms a clearer conception
+has been formed of the intricacies of growth and the prolonged process
+of development in mankind. Just how human beings have come to be what
+they are, mentally and morally as well as physically, is a still
+unsolved problem. There are, of course, many missing chapters in the
+long story of life, though so far no contradictions have been detected
+in its arguments. The sad side of this biological lore exists in the now
+ascertained fact that the highest intellectual and moral powers, those
+last to develop, are the first to suffer arrest or to die away when the
+organism is subjected to premature exhaustion or to precocious
+responsibility. Predisposing causes are found in disease, dissipation,
+or defective nurture.
+
+Another of the more important lessons to be learnt from the pages of
+this book of life's history is the conservative influence of the law of
+inherited nature; a law which makes for the preservation of racial types
+by suppressing wide deviations from the normal. A familiar illustration
+of this may be found in the fact that the children of parents of great
+height or of very short stature usually revert to the average of the
+race. The significance of this genetic relation in maintaining an
+efficient people was unrecognised until quite recent times, and though
+valuable evidence is accumulating on the descent of hereditary character
+in mankind, no definite conclusions have yet been reached on the
+_intensity_ of the transmission of qualities. It is, of course, a
+subject of intense complexity, the full discussion of which is here
+impossible. In the interests of future generations it is, however, to
+be wished that more thought were given to the conclusions it is
+allowable to draw. "If," for instance, says a recent writer, "instead of
+allowing the race to mate at random we selected both parents for some
+one quality, we could raise the intensity of inheritance and establish
+gradually, by continued selection, a strain in which the quality reached
+a value much higher than the average in the original mixed race...."[99]
+Thus could a race be strengthened for life's calls, or, on the contrary,
+until and unless the people are awakened to the existence and bearing on
+their national security of such fundamental hygienic influences, it can
+be emasculated. No such selection is likely ever to dominate human
+marriages, but an appreciation of these and similar facts is fundamental
+to national progress; and in time the dissemination of such knowledge
+will be considered a parental duty, the more urgent since the resources
+of civilisation and ill-regulated sympathy have combined to brush aside
+the sterner laws of nature, so that the deteriorated threaten to become
+the chief progenitors of the next generation.
+
+During the process of studying the abundant evidence of life's progress
+from the simple to the complex, it becomes also apparent that it is
+affected by forces other than heredity. Recognition of the ever-present
+influence of these potent but often disregarded forces makes for
+harmonious living, whereas their neglect is associated with heavy
+penalties. I refer to the capacity for individual variation from the
+racial type; to the modification of each individual by his or her
+surroundings; and to the personal predisposition, technically described
+as diathesis, which influences the reaction made to every form of
+stimulus. Of these three forces, the first is the result of an inborn
+tendency to deviate from the ancestral type; an orderly process with a
+definite intention, by no means a mere chance fluctuation. This
+certainly makes for progress as well as for interest in life, though it
+enhances the difficulties of education, because it demands the
+adaptation of conditions to each individual's requirements. The second,
+the law of modification, takes into account the influence of environment
+upon inherited nature; the effects of climate, and food, for example, or
+of forms of occupation. Predisposition is, of course, a personal
+quality--a factor of primary importance in our susceptibility to or
+power to resist disease or in our capacity to withstand adverse
+conditions. This property is responsible for the greater or less degree
+of adaptability to new conditions possessed by each of us, and is
+concerned with our power to live in tune or at discord with our
+surroundings.
+
+Another biological law, that of periodicity,[100] or of rhythmic
+alternations of activity and rest, has hitherto often suffered among
+human beings more in the breach than in the observance of its tenets;
+though unquestionably conformity to its requirements makes for health
+and stability. Throughout nature habits of rhythmic, organic activity
+are too familiar to attract attention. Of these, the periodic return of
+the seasons, for instance, or the daily tides, the flowering of plants
+and the ripening of fruit, the migrations of birds and the hibernation
+of certain insects and animals, are obvious examples. These rhythms have
+been proved by experience to be advantageous in the world. They make for
+efficiency and economise energy, and, from their high degree of
+development in man's nature, it may be fairly assumed that to him their
+observance is of great consequence. Many of them are beyond his control;
+such, for example, as the diurnal variations of his body temperature,
+the beating of the heart, the call of hunger, or the rhythm of growth.
+Others he can observe or abuse according to his pleasure; sleep, for
+instance, or the rhythm of work, or the daily discharge from his body of
+its waste products.[101] It is the work of hygiene to demonstrate how to
+combine obedience to all these laws with the demands of modern
+existence, and it is the duty of man to conform reasonably to modes of
+life based on these demonstrations. More especially does responsibility
+for the establishment of certain rhythms, such as sleep, devolve upon
+the organiser of a child's early life.
+
+
+VI. THE ORIGIN OF FAMILY LIFE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO SANITARY SCIENCE
+
+Further researches into the records of the past, and a closer study of
+the underlying principles upon which humanity has formulated many
+generally adopted customs, indicate how unexpectedly intimate is the
+relation between the growth of a social organisation and the origin of
+primitive efforts after the preservation of life and health. The world
+at large is so accustomed to the widespread existence of family life
+that curiosity is rarely aroused as to its origin, intention and worth;
+consequently to ignorance of its significance must be attributed the
+assertion that the custom is well-nigh obsolete and the proposal of some
+would-be reformers to abolish the institution and to instal the State
+_in loco parentis_.
+
+Professor McDougall[102] assures us that such is the social importance
+of the family that all who have given serious attention to the question
+are agreed that the stability of the family is the prime condition of a
+healthy state. This opinion is supported by other writers,[103] who have
+emphasised their conviction that the healthful development of the
+individual--even the possibilities of racial progress--depend to a large
+degree upon maintaining intact the integrity of family life. Their
+conclusions are based upon recent researches into the sciences of
+biology, sociology, and economics.
+
+The origin of this relation is apparently traceable to one of the many
+forms of human association which have proved advantageous in the
+struggle for existence, when the value to a man and his wife of so
+protecting their offspring during childhood that there should be later
+on an array of lusty sons and industrious daughters thrust itself on
+their notice. The division of strenuous work, for instance, the pursuit
+and preparation of food, the effective defence of their rude shelters
+against the depredations of their foes, were substantial advantages to
+be derived in primitive times from the possession of a large group of
+children. Upon the youthful vigour and strength of their family the
+parents could rely also when overtaken by the weakness of old age or by
+accident or disease.
+
+These economic and sociological advantages were so early appreciated
+and are so widely adopted that traces of family life are to be
+detected in the history and customs of every tribe or community
+hitherto investigated. The bond thus formed, even amongst the lowest
+savages, first developed, then strengthened the ties of natural
+affection between a mother and her children and prolonged its
+emotional existence. In the case of the paternal parent, it is
+probable that the motives which incited him to make the efforts
+necessary for the protection of his helpless infants might more
+probably be found in the desire to leave an avenger on individual
+enemies and a feeling that funeral rites would be duly performed
+after his death, as well as his tribe strengthened in war.
+
+The gradual development of the human home has been admirably described
+by more than one writer, who has associated its evolution with the
+gregarious instinct, recognised in many of the higher forms of animal
+life.[104] Within reason, associated numbers represent power--power
+to preserve the progeny, therefore to maintain the numbers, which
+again in reason make for social support and independence. Power for
+defence, power to secure an adequate supply of food and ability to
+differentiate occupations, thus dividing labour, so that while the men
+of a family group were engaged in war or the chase, their womenkind
+devoted their attention to the creature comforts which promote
+health and efficiency--these are all factors which make for progress.
+
+
+VII. WOMAN'S VOCATION IN HOME AND FAMILY LIFE
+
+And so it came about that to some extent woman's special and privileged
+vocation as a home-maker began even in prehistoric times. Upon her it
+devolved to rear the children she bore; to cook, to mend, to make, to
+spin and dye and weave; to prepare a welcome for the victor and to
+minister to the sick or wounded. No sense of menial limitation in
+their duties was apparent among the notable women of the past. They
+were skilled workers, capable and respected managers, under whose
+direction men as well as women carried out the details of daily work,
+to whose care in later centuries castle and garrison were entrusted in
+the absence of their lords, and who most evidently assumed this
+responsibility with confidence and success.
+
+The changing conditions of the last three centuries, however, reacted in
+many ways to the detriment of women's domestic energies and sapped their
+pride in the vocation of housewife. Industrial developments took much
+occupation out of their hands, and they were not apparently concerned to
+undertake others more in consonance with modern life. As concentration
+of the population in large centres undermined the last survival of
+feudal conditions, the strong conservative instinct of women made it
+hard for them to adapt themselves and their households to revised
+methods:--to substitute "new lamps for old," so that gradually it seems
+women became split up into two parties, somewhat out of sympathy one
+with the other. Adherence to the traditions of the past and the
+attractions of social life distinguished the one party; a restless
+desire to give scope to their whole nature and to work out their own
+salvation on unconventional lines possessed the other. In the one case
+there was no desire for domestic reformation. What methods could be
+better than their great-grandmother's! In the other, glimpses of what
+seemed a far wider and more intellectual life than that of the ordinary
+housewife diminished interest in the physical needs of human nature,
+which it was thought made no claims on mental faculties, and of which
+the daily care was constantly associated with irksome restrictions and a
+position of financial dependence.
+
+It is not possible here even to outline the numerous social and
+commercial innovations which have modified every side of daily life
+for the last two hundred years; but, when inclined harshly to rebuke
+women for some of their now almost inexplicable blindness to these
+changes, it is well to remember that the flood of new discoveries, new
+inventions, new modes of transit, new forms of occupation and
+amusement, new means of money-making and fresh excitements imposed an
+enormous strain upon nervous systems, still but slowly adapting
+themselves to the stir and stress of the modern world. That eyes
+should be temporarily dazzled by the brilliance of the "wonderful
+century"; that the first results of freedom from a period of unnatural
+restraint should be intoxication with liberty, is not surprising. Full
+of encouragement is, however, the fact that an increasing number of
+women of all ranks are engaged to-day in efforts to direct the light
+of modern knowledge to the betterment of human life; the movement
+speaks for the innate soundness of their womanhood and for their
+realisation of their imperial responsibilities. Many of these efforts
+are still unsystematised, many good intentions are held to be of
+equal worth with organised practical knowledge; many women are alive
+only to the needs of the least favoured of the community and are dead
+to the urgent calls for intelligent reforms in their own domiciles. But
+if the willing mind be there, the direction of the work into desirable
+channels will slowly though surely follow. It is most certainly
+unnecessary to pour every girl into the mould of a conventional
+German hausfrau in order that she may perceive the inner meaning of
+family life. God fulfils Himself in many ways, and diversity of training
+and of interests is as beneficial as it is desirable. Neither can the
+women of a country single-handed conserve this great institution of
+family life. The loyalty of boys and the co-operation of men are
+imperative to its preservation. They as well as their mothers, wives,
+and sisters must realise its responsibilities and opportunities, and
+must maintain the dignified position of those who preside over this
+unit of community life; they also must respond to the crying need for
+its adaptation to the requirements of modern civilisation.
+
+
+VIII. THE FUNCTION OF THE FAMILY IN NATIONAL LIFE
+
+Mrs. Bosanquet[105] has told us that the most important economic
+function of the family to-day is its direct control of the prosperity or
+ruin of nations; for here alone are found in combination the forces
+which determine the quantity of the population with the forces which
+determine its quality. To control these forces offers, to say the least,
+a life-work for countless men and women. Both parents must safeguard the
+character of their children's inherited nature; both sexes are more or
+less directly or remotely concerned in the provision of a suitable
+environment for human lives, infant or adult. Under the circumstances it
+may well be a matter for surprise that we have been so slow to perceive
+that the right performance of these duties demands a preliminary study
+of the art of preserving health and promoting progress, and we marvel at
+the placid spirit of content which has sanctioned the conversion into a
+stronghold of empiricism, the very place where a sound knowledge of
+progressive sanitary science is of primary importance.
+
+In the book to which reference has been already made, Mrs. Bosanquet
+also enumerates the causes which in her opinion militate most actively
+against the continuance of family life at the present day. Among others
+she mentions evasion of responsibility, self-indulgence (with which we
+are very familiar), reliance upon external sources of maintenance, and
+the unequal distribution among the members of a family of the burden of
+support. Further, she refers to the unfortunate failure among parents to
+realise that the old Roman customs of parental possession and filial
+submission are out of date to-day, and calls upon the wise guardian to
+substitute others which lead to loyalty and love.
+
+The new movement for a study of the characteristics of childhood and
+adolescence should materially contribute to the realisation that this
+parental attitude of dominant authority must be now associated with and
+modified by a more balanced understanding of the phases of youthful
+development and of the intricacies of individual temperament.
+Convenience has hitherto encouraged the customary regulation of a group
+of young lives as if they were one and the same individual, no allowance
+being made for variation in character or in age, in propensities or in
+health. Each nursery party or infant school serves to illustrate the
+point. Individual tendencies to cold or to fatigue, to nerve storms or
+to indolence; individual capacities in diet, occupation or exercise,
+must be intelligently respected if potentialities are to become
+actualities.
+
+In the well-conducted home, for example, a study of individual character
+must in the future replace cast-iron discipline or easy-going,
+child-spoiling indulgence. The fact that the early cultivation of good
+habits makes for healthful happiness must be generally appreciated; and
+the duty of the home to provide opportunity for the exercise of personal
+tastes, the importance of training as a relief to nervous strain and as
+the best means to develop resource and skill, must be perceived. It will
+be by this constant understanding supervision in early years, and later
+by the cultivation of an intimate sympathetic comradeship with his
+children, that the modern parent will retain for his country the
+cementing force of family life.
+
+
+IX. THE MEANING OF INFANCY
+
+The great discovery of John Fiske as to the reasons for the long
+continuance of childhood in man must not be overlooked in this
+connection; it bears so directly on health and efficiency, and is
+closely associated with the importance of the family to the individual
+as well as to the nation. Why, it may be asked, is man's period of
+helplessness so prolonged; why, when his brain development reaches so
+high a standard, is he for years in a position of entire dependence,
+whereas snakelet and chick are practically self-supporting from the hour
+of hatching? When the lower forms of animal life are compared with
+mankind, the non-existence in their case of any such stage as infancy is
+at once apparent. They are brought into the world able to take care of
+themselves and to live an independent individual existence. Young pigs
+run almost as soon as they are born, young swallows fly directly they
+are fledged.
+
+Now, if the structure of lower animals be examined, it will be found
+that they have no central warehouse corresponding to the human brain for
+the storage of new sensations or for an elaborate and original response
+to them. Each such animal repeats the life of its parents; each responds
+in exactly the same way to the contact of air, of earth, of food, or of
+water. Their activities, it is true, are distinguished by accuracy and
+despatch, but the offspring of a hen of the twentieth century has no
+larger capacity for the variation of these activities than has the
+chick which was hatched out six thousand years ago. The guinea-pig of
+to-day, for example, remains mentally at the level of his thousandth
+ancestor. Wherein then lies the difference between the pig and the
+baby?
+
+As animals rise in the scale, as their brains become more subtle, more
+elaborate in structure, their actions become correspondingly more
+numerous and complicated, more varied, more individual. The nervous
+systems of such animals are characterised by an increasing complexity of
+development, and this provides the machinery necessary to the
+performance of an increasing number of muscular and mental
+co-ordinations; they can adapt themselves to unfamiliar surroundings and
+possess much enhanced advantages in the struggle for existence. _But_,
+associated with these advantages, is a much longer period of immaturity,
+because, where the capacity for flexibility and progress is great, the
+antenatal period is insufficient for the establishment of the necessary
+nervous connections or even for the development of the brain cells
+between which these connections will be formed. The chick will have its
+full plumage in ten weeks, but mentally it is far below a dog or a
+monkey, whose period of immaturity is much longer. Similarly, the dog
+attains his maturity long before the monkey, who is infinitely his
+superior in fertility of resource, power to learn through imitation, and
+capacity for attention. The infant in its turn is far longer in a
+dependent condition than the highest ape.
+
+Relatively large in bulk at birth, and reaching usually its full mass in
+the first fourteen years of life, the human brain possesses throughout
+childhood vast silent areas, big with future potentialities, areas in
+which the cells are slowly ripening to function. Even after full growth
+in size is reached, many more years must pass before capacity for the
+higher mental functions or for the complete control of such functions
+has developed. It must be borne in mind that, throughout this period of
+immaturity, errors of nutrition or defective stimulation may interfere
+with function. One of the most important duties of the home is to
+provide the suited environment for its child occupants during these long
+and anxious years. How long they are has been emphasised by Dr.
+Clouston,[106] who has said that, of all the periods of brain growth,
+the most important, as regards the development of our highest moral and
+mental potentialities, is that between eighteen and twenty-five years of
+age, when the capacity for self-control should be coming into function
+in its highest relations, and when failure to ripen in due course is
+fraught with most serious consequences for the future.
+
+There is no such thing, therefore, as infancy or parental care in the
+lowest orders of animal life; of which, one result is a gigantic
+mortality among their offspring. Enormous numbers of eggs are laid to
+ensure the preservation of the species when left to fend for
+themselves. The turbot, for instance, must deposit millions of minute
+glassy ova or the species would become extinct. Even among frogs the
+destruction of tadpoles is so great that provision must be made to allow
+for this loss. The fostering care of birds for their young at once
+permits a great reduction in the number of the offspring; but, though
+birds give evidence of some capacity for parental care, infancy, as
+such, is really confined to mammalian young. Even here it is curtailed
+in a vast number of species; but wherever it exists it stands for power
+to progress, and represents capacity for benefiting by, indeed depending
+upon, education, if only in the simple form of learning by imitation--a
+form familiar to readers of such books as Long's "Schools of the
+Woods."
+
+Plasticity is the hall-mark of progress; educability indicates a brain
+more or less competent to assimilate, to remember, to compare, to
+discriminate. This door of progress has been merely set ajar for even
+the higher apes; it is open to man only. The period of plasticity is
+evidently prolonged in proportion to the degree in which conscious
+intelligence has superseded mere brute force in promoting successful
+survival--that is to say, the transmission of _mental ability_ rather
+than of _physical strength_ postpones maturity. Man alone possesses in
+full the powers of selection and adaptation, of reason and of emotion,
+of memory and of mental originality, which are included in his rich
+heritage of life. If he is to realise his full potentialities, he must
+have protection for years after birth and an extended time for
+development. The immature infant must be fed, sheltered, and stimulated,
+if the inherent powers of adjustment to surroundings are to develop
+normally. But so great is the instability associated with human
+immaturity and future potentiality, that arrested development is too
+often the heavy penalty paid by the child for the ignorance and
+carelessness of his parents.[107] Faults of food and clothing,
+insufficient warmth, cleanliness, or exercise, premature work or
+precocious responsibility and independence, prolonged overstrain or
+insufficient stimulation of mind and body, are the prevalent causes by
+which a child's normal growth is warped and prejudiced. Where this
+occurs he never enters into his birthright of power; it has too often
+been thoughtlessly bartered by his natural guardians, literally for a
+mere mess of pottage.
+
+
+X. CAUSES WHICH MENACE HEALTHFUL INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD
+
+Perhaps one of the greatest inconsistencies of an inconsistent nation
+lies in the fact that the extraordinary ignorance of the elementary
+needs of a tender infant is not confined to one section of society; it
+is found in Belgravia as well as in Bermondsey. Thus, though the chief
+sources of the tuberculosis which is responsible for the presence of 45
+per cent. of the children in the London Invalid Schools are confined to
+the homes of the poorer classes,[109] inquiries into the incidence of
+rickets among children in Glasgow show a higher percentage of cases in
+the families of mechanics than of labourers[110]--a clear illustration
+that ignorance and not poverty is here the predisposing cause. Impure
+air and stuffy, ill-ventilated rooms are concerned in the susceptibility
+to both diseases, as is also malnutrition with its associated diminution
+of the innate powers of self-protection. But, in the one case, inability
+to provide suitable food is the general cause; while in the other,
+inexcusable ignorance of the right forms in which food should be
+supplied to young children is a certain source of the evil.
+
+The thought is pathetic, for the causes are wholly preventable. Pitiful
+also, because less excusable, is the grievous injury to health
+associated with a mouth full of rotten teeth, permitted as it is among
+families possessed of sufficient means to meet the cost of cure, who
+prefer to spend their money upon dress and amusement, or among the
+members of which necessary endurance of a trifling shock has not been
+cultivated. Were the foulness of the discharge from a carious tooth to
+be externally visible, the æsthetic instinct among the refined would
+clamour for prompt treatment; but, unfortunately for health, the results
+of the disease are concealed, and consequently condoned.
+
+Again: light, sunshine and quiet are now known to be essential to
+physical development and to the possession of a sound nervous system;
+the statement amounts to a platitude, for is not every wealthy invalid
+despatched to complete convalescence by the sea or in the country, and
+is not the custom of a general annual holiday due largely to the
+conscious benefits derived from an open-air life far from the bustle of
+towns? Yet physical morality is so poorly developed that the atmosphere
+of suburban as well as urban districts is permanently obscured by the
+preventable and wasteful results of imperfect combustion, though the
+detriment is incalculable to those whose lives see no change of air.
+The ceaseless rumble of noisy traffic, allowed to disturb the rest of
+thousands, or more probably of millions, of our population, is another
+factor responsible for the prevalence of unstable nerves and of
+ill-balanced brains. It assumes great gravity when it is realised that
+among these sleepers are numbered the children whose hours of rest are
+already most seriously curtailed.
+
+Another sin against childhood bears long enduring fruits. I refer to the
+terrible results upon the lives of those infants who survive efforts to
+prevent their birth. The fact ought to be, if it is not, common
+knowledge; yet the sale of the infamous drugs, necessary to the crime,
+by pennyworths, in every drug-store, is tacitly sanctioned by the
+community.
+
+Professor Sadler's[111] determination to direct attention to the
+requirements of our adolescents has aroused such response, that excuse
+is now impossible for ignoring the detrimental effects upon young people
+of unskilled, exhausting "blind alley" work, or of removing prematurely
+the restraint of moral discipline and systematised training.[112]
+Statistics show not only the economic disasters which result from the
+unsatisfactory methods of past years; they bring home also the steady
+increase in the percentage of the proportion of nervous instability as
+well as of anæmia, which interfere with the form of brain growth so
+rapid in adolescence (namely, increase in complexity of association, and
+in power to inhibit, to reason, and to concentrate). Another result of
+these investigations is to draw attention to the increase in organic
+heart disease, which has been shown to occur in more than thirty per
+cent. of the London errand boys who are engaged in prolonged work on
+Saturdays, as well as in out-of-school hours during the week.[113]
+
+Should not parents inform themselves diligently on these matters? for
+there are warnings and to spare from physician and educationalist upon
+this reckless wreckage of the nation's most valuable asset. It was
+pointed out ten years ago that the imposition of adult duties upon the
+child, or even upon the young adolescent, is the most effective
+machinery for the manufacture of the unemployed and the unemployable.
+Only now, however, are bye-laws being sanctioned which impose at all
+adequate restrictions upon child labour. For a longer period the steady
+migration of the rural population from country to towns has been
+bemoaned, as coupled with the risk lest the deterioration of the
+individual decline into the degeneration of the race. Nevertheless, in
+spite of the sustained efforts of the Rural Housing Association and of
+private individuals, the housing problem still lies at the root of some
+at least of this exodus. Miserable and inconvenient as are hundreds of
+our cottages, their number is still insufficient in many places to meet
+the demand; so perforce the young people of marriageable age must go, or
+the elementary code of decency must be violated.
+
+The curse of alcohol,[114] too, lies heavy on our land; it shortens
+life, incapacitates for work, impoverishes and degrades; visits in
+innumerable forms the sins of the parents upon their innocent yet
+grievously afflicted children; promotes crime and perverts judgment.
+Each year brings more statistical and biological evidence of its
+enduring and deteriorating effects upon humanity. It seems strange,
+therefore, that the law to insist upon the provision of an adequate
+water supply for every dwelling remains entirely insufficient to meet
+the most urgent needs of many town streets as well as country villages.
+Cleanliness is consequently impossible, and the public-house must be
+perforce frequented, for it provides a beverage more palatable and
+perhaps as wholesome as the cottager's nearest supply.
+
+
+XI. THE SOURCE OF THESE CAUSES TO BE FOUND IN FAULTY ADMINISTRATION OF
+THE HOME
+
+May not the causes of some considerable proportion of this apathy be
+traced to a want of popular faith in the teachings of hygiene? Is not
+one source of the prevalent unbelief in its tenets to be found in the
+widespread ignorance of the right administration of human life in the
+home, which turns out therefore a product of unhealthy, inharmonious
+citizens, who are a source of weakness to their country and a menace to
+civilisation? How could it be otherwise? If the cradle of life be
+defective, and its occupants be debilitated, it is not the nurslings
+alone upon whom the penalties will fall; whereas if home administration
+be guided by intelligence, and the quality of the inmates be high,
+individual and national prosperity are assured. The burden of
+responsibility or the privilege of promoting progress (according to the
+spirit in which obligations are assumed) rests with those who propose to
+be or already are parents; they being influenced in their turn by the
+educational and social conditions of their surroundings. Parental care
+and intelligent home management are thus intimately concerned with the
+physical evolution of the race, as well as with its moral development.
+They must, therefore, assume an increasing rather than a diminishing
+importance, if the full development of potentialities is to be insured
+in the rising generation, and racial progress promoted. Any proclivity
+to depreciate the dignity or to undermine the influence of these
+institutions must be carefully examined and, if necessary, sternly
+repressed.
+
+The fact that such tendencies show signs of sprouting is, it seems to
+me, a serious reflection upon the parental and domestic methods of the
+day. There is no smoke without fuel; faults are rarely all on one side;
+the young are not necessarily always in the wrong; therefore, a course
+of self-examination into their methods and motives may be a wholesome
+and fruitful discipline for those who are responsible for the nature and
+nurture of our children, and for the stability and efficiency of
+adolescent and adult. The absence of elasticity and adaptation to modern
+requirements among the elders of a family is often responsible for
+miserable homes, and for much arrested development in their inmates.
+
+
+XII. HARMONIES AND DISHARMONIES IN HUMAN LIFE
+
+Such a condition of affairs is, however, no longer to be tolerated;
+for the result of research carried out during the past and present
+centuries has opened up a hitherto unsuspected vista of progress to
+mankind, if and when he is intelligent enough to establish an
+harmonious unison between himself and his environment. Once the
+jarring discords of debility, disease, and deterioration have been
+modulated into the major chords of health--moral and physical--the
+latent potentialities of his higher life will be quickened into
+productive activity. The misconception of humanity which has denied
+to it the power to rise above the level of present attainments, which
+has dwelt insistently upon the hopeless degradation of the body, has
+brought about a condition of enervating and passive fatalism, based
+upon the conviction that all reforming efforts must be directed
+solely to the preparation of one part only of man's triune nature for
+another and future sphere of existence. The duty and possibility of
+building a fit temple for man's spiritual nature here and now is the
+ideal of a minority to-day--in the future it will be that of an
+overwhelming majority; for the proofs of human capacity for progress, of
+man's power to control the forces of nature, are ever becoming more
+firmly authenticated, and all that they imply will soon become far
+better understood.
+
+Though our knowledge of the subject is still incomplete and often
+tentative, much progress has been made, for instance, in a correct
+conception of the means by which the physiological balance of human life
+is adjusted, since Metchnikoff[115] drew attention to the interference
+brought about in man's normal development by certain fundamental
+disharmonies in his constitution, of which the end is premature death,
+if not a pathological old age. It is quite evident that unjustifiable
+encroachments upon the reserve powers of the human body have been
+commonly permitted hitherto, and though each year brings fresh proof of
+the extraordinary endowment which it possesses to respond to the
+demands made upon it, yet each year also confirms the conviction that
+this reserve fund must in future be husbanded and used with economy.
+When these powers are constantly drawn upon the body is necessarily
+reduced to a lower level of health. If the metaphor be employed of the
+body as a building in course of erection, it becomes obvious that if one
+of a group of converging thrusts be much weakened or withdrawn, a
+skilful rearrangement of forces may meet the strain, but the total
+strength of the structure is reduced. In how many cases has the temple
+of a child's body been permanently damaged by such withdrawals, or how
+many adolescents are launched into life with their capital of health
+seriously diminished by premature calls upon its resources.
+
+The duty to maintain so far as possible a condition of physiological
+equilibrium in ourselves and in our children amounts to an obligation;
+for which reason health promotion during the plastic period of early
+life assumes a new importance. Of course, a certain capacity for
+vicarious activity is associated with the various organs of the body in
+order to maintain their functions against temporary failure. Healthy
+tissues are furnished with power to respond to increased call for
+exertion. How often are they most sorely abused and unwisely taxed? Even
+now, when made aware of these facts, we are slow to apply to the conduct
+of life the lessons thus taught us, and continue to be filled with
+self-commiseration for the results to our bodies of overtaxing their
+capacity for accurate readjustment.
+
+It is not possible, much less desirable, that the whole population
+should plunge into amateur studies of recent physiological advance, nor
+even that it should dabble, as its units are too much disposed to do, in
+pseudo-scientific pathological publications. But it is both possible and
+desirable for all who assume the direction of their own lives or those
+of children to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest" some fruits of
+the labours of others in the garden of health.
+
+Were there one fixed standard of health to which all could attain, the
+practice of hygiene would be attended by a charming simplicity.
+Unfortunately, modern science forces us to conclude that each individual
+can only reach his own particular standard of well-being. The grades of
+health are consequently infinite in number, and the task which devolves
+on parents and guardians to secure that the standard possible to each
+child under their care be attained is no light one. So general is the
+blindness to these truths, that the degree of health enjoyed is in most
+cases far below the possible standard; the results of ancestral vice, of
+parental ignorance, or of defective environment having sapped
+prematurely the springs of progressive potentiality.[116] The mental and
+physical balance is thus rendered relatively less stable and the powers
+of resistance to adverse conditions are diminished.
+
+Happily, by virtue of its inherent power, but strictly in proportion to
+the vigour of this power, an organism is usually able to strike a new
+balance; for the capacity to regain its equilibrium is exquisitely
+delicate in human nature, _if_ the change be neither too sudden nor too
+severe. Throughout life this process of self-adaptation to the presence
+of morbid influences is constantly exercising its protective power. If,
+however, the effort to overcome disadvantageous conditions be very great
+or much prolonged, the life of the individual is never quite so vigorous
+and symmetrical as it might and should have been. In a luminous address,
+delivered at the University of Leeds some few months ago,[117] Lord
+Justice Fletcher Moulton instituted a comparison between the human
+organism, which invariably tends to swing back to the normal whenever
+the balance of health is disturbed, and a ship which has safely
+weathered a stormy voyage. The ship, he writes, "is not stable, if
+stability means that she can defy the forces that bear on her to move
+her from her normal upright position, for ... the slightest roll of the
+sea ... will make her heel over. But she is stable, because when made to
+lean over, there is thereby generated a system of forces tending to
+return her to her place, which grows greater the greater is the
+displacement, and thus ultimately becomes sufficient to overpower the
+disturbing forces.... As the ship arrives safely, her construction must
+be such that disturbances tend to right themselves when stability is
+seriously endangered. Some corresponding righting force also tends to
+bring back an organism to its normal state."
+
+The caution may not be amiss that the amplitude of the swing of a human
+pendulum, as well as the accuracy of its final balance, depends not only
+upon inherited nature and the amount of reserve force possessed, but
+will be stable or feeble, durable or transient, according to the
+influence of environment.
+
+In what way, it will be asked, can individual capacity for health be
+gauged? to what degree can the power to progress or to resist
+encroachments be strengthened? at what age is intelligent supervision
+most important?
+
+No concise and conclusive answers can be given to these most natural
+inquiries, but much light has been recently thrown upon the long
+duration of immaturity and associated instability in mankind; upon the
+power of self-protection inherent in the body;[118] upon the influence
+thereon of its environment; upon the penetrating power of heredity; and
+upon the urgent importance of the adolescent period.
+
+Further, it appears that the healthful body is equipped to withstand the
+attack of the bacteria of most diseases, though the mechanism of
+self-defence is of more kinds than one. Of the different pathological
+bacteria identified up to the present, for instance, some appear to be
+eminently sensible to one kind of action of normal blood fluids, while
+they are in a much less measure sensible, or are, perhaps, entirely
+insensible to others; a complication which enhances our respectful
+admiration for the marvellous and intricate system which provides for
+our bodily welfare. Obviously, human nature would be practically immune
+from disease if this protective machinery were always in good working
+order: unfortunately this is not invariably the case--hence disease. It
+is the duty of hygiene to insure constant physical equilibrium, but the
+intricate tactics of Nature are as yet so imperfectly understood that
+man is not yet an ally of great worth in her operations.
+
+Nevertheless, the perception that the secret of individual health lies
+in fostering the resistant or protective elements, which should be
+present in normal blood, marks a great step in advance; for from it have
+originated measures to curtail the course of an illness and to reduce
+the risk of its recurrence. It is hardly Utopian to forecast, as Sir
+Almroth Wright has done, that the physician of the future will take upon
+himself a still higher rôle than he has hitherto assumed in this work of
+the prevention of ill-health, for he will attempt, by means of
+systematically strengthening individual capacity for resistance to
+disease, to remove the necessity for curing those who have fallen
+victims to its attacks. The gain in health, in happiness, in time and in
+money would be incalculable. For instance, had the death-rate _all_ over
+England during 1908 stood at 13.8 per thousand, instead of at favoured
+places only, no less than 33,831 lives would have been saved. Of these
+deaths, one-fifth were those of infants under twelve months old, the
+majority of them wholly preventable. What a reckless waste of racial and
+national capital; what an unnecessary cause of bitter sorrow and
+disappointment; what a source of unprofitable expenditure! The
+calculation has been made that for each death there are at least six
+cases of more or less serious illness, involving confinement to bed for
+a few days or a few weeks as the case may be. A simple multiplication
+sum will enable the reader to estimate the amount of serious illness
+represented by the total arrived at: the loss in time, health, happiness
+and efficiency is incalculable.
+
+The bright prospects for human health in the future, therefore, rely
+largely upon the use which will be made of this protective machinery,
+and the prospective gain to humanity lies in the hope that when family
+histories are kept systematically and the inherited tendencies of a
+child are far more accurately known, the invading forces of disease will
+never get a footing, because precautions to strengthen the body's own
+defensive powers will be taken as a matter of routine practice. The
+physiological balance being thus preserved from disturbance, the great
+fund of energy now utilised to resist encroachments will be available
+for productive purposes.
+
+So great a reformation cannot of course be brought about till shame is
+felt for the scandalously low standard of health now common among all
+classes, nor until a general determination is developed to remove the
+minor miseries from which we all suffer more or less impatiently.
+
+
+XIII. THE IMPORTANCE OF MENTAL HYGIENE IN FAMILY LIFE
+
+The result of a curious obtuseness to the economics of personal and
+domestic hygiene is also responsible for another serious dereliction of
+parental duty, by which health and progress have been grievously, though
+quite unnecessarily and constantly, hampered. I refer to the general
+failure to economise nervous energy or to take any interest in what is
+rightly called mental hygiene. Yet Press and people alike deplore the
+evident increase of mental abnormalities, and anticipate the future with
+undisguised anxiety. It has been well said that though men carry more of
+the wood, women carry not less of the worries of life. They _may_ in
+some cases escape the physical toil which strengthens; they do _not_
+escape the mental toil which demoralises and kills spirit and energy if
+not body and health. Now, though the brain tissues do not create mental
+activities, nevertheless we all know that they are conditioned in some
+inexplicable way by that organ. Derangement in any part of the brain
+deranges or diminishes its functions; non-development in any part of the
+brain can and does arrest mind growth. Chronic over-fatigue and
+exhaustion, anæmia however produced, the circulation through the nervous
+tissues of impure blood, alter the character of the mental processes.
+The results of starvation may so distort them, that the horrors of the
+French Revolution are attributed by some authorities to this particular
+cause. That the imperfect lymph circulation associated with adenoid
+vegetations accounts for much so-called stupidity is one of the first
+fruits of the medical inspection of school children; that a severe shock
+may destroy intelligence is a fact familiar to every expert in mental
+hygiene. If it were generally known to parents that every impression
+received by this, the most sensitive of all organs, is stored up from
+early infancy, albeit subconsciously, and can at some future time rise
+up into the field of consciousness, influencing both thought and action
+for good or ill, a very different line of conduct would be taken towards
+the persons or the places which make up a young child's surroundings and
+most indelibly impress his brain cells.
+
+It is surely time, therefore, that some broad outline of the process of
+normal development of the whole nervous system should be possessed by
+all in charge of children. Every mother, for example, should know that
+the movements of a new-born baby, such as the facial contortions
+observed during sleep, or the stretching and bending of the limbs in
+very young infants, involuntary and automatic in character, constitute
+the simplest form of nervous activity. They are the necessary precursors
+of that intellectual ability, to the development of which parental
+ambitions aspire, and should merge into more advanced forms of nerve and
+muscle co-ordination, which, rightly utilised, are invaluable agents in
+infant education.[119] An intelligent nurse possessed of even this
+outline could begin quite early that training in physiological
+righteousness and in the strict voluntary control of the whole group of
+emotional expressions, of which, as a little reflection will quickly
+show, good manners largely consist. Presently, as the brain cells are
+stimulated into function by nutrition and a quicker and more extensive
+recognition of external sensations is acquired, a child will perform
+instinctive movements, such as sitting, crawling, standing, walking,
+jumping and throwing. Though considerable latitude must be allowed for
+their wide individual variation, failure to display these evidences of
+mental progress should call for careful investigation. Later on, skill
+in a hundred different forms of muscular activity should be displayed;
+but many years will elapse before full control of the body in all its
+parts will be acquired, and more years still must roll by before
+reasoned control of the mental and moral actions is developed. The last
+years of this long period of development are, perhaps, the most critical
+of the whole; though all depend for their favourable fruition upon an
+infinity of loving care and suitable provision for their appropriate
+activities.
+
+There would be a marked reduction in exhausting disciplinary
+difficulties were every parent aware that, to the almost vegetative
+character of the first few post-natal months (when sleep will or should
+absorb at least twenty hours out of the twenty-four), will succeed a
+period of extraordinary activity, which lasts till about eight or nine
+years of age, when the mind is essentially an exploring organ;
+imitative, impressionable, retentive. Every legitimate opportunity for
+the liberal gratification of these characteristics should be provided,
+as well as suitable surroundings for the eager, inquiring brain.
+Elaborate toys are not necessary, nor is premature book-learning
+permissible; but freedom to investigate, to experiment, to test, to
+explore, is the child's urgent need, as well as suitable arrangements
+for the intervening periods of profound sleep. Repressed activity is
+often responsible for breaches of discipline; so is insufficient sleep,
+following on over-excitement, accountable for "temper" and passions.
+
+The next phase of growth is still distinguished by this continued
+capacity for and dependence upon muscular activity, but the mind
+becomes more reflective, more productive. The power to initiate should
+develop during this stage of development, as well as increased power to
+control mental and bodily functions; and, throughout each of these
+periods, there should be a steady, unintermittent formation of good
+habits. At first, the nature of these will be chiefly physical; the
+habitual performance of the bodily functions should be safeguarded,
+until their neglect is attended by discomfort and their violation
+becomes almost painful. Then, by degrees, the moral and mental nature
+develops.
+
+Thus is the child prepared for the stress and turmoil of the long and
+anxious years of adolescence; when, under the influence of new emotions,
+of fresh temptations, of unfamiliar powers, the character built on the
+sands of parental indulgence is undermined, if not swept clean away;
+whereas when built on the firm rock of good habits it emerges unshaken
+from the storm.
+
+That childhood is an honourable estate must be now evident; pregnant as
+it is with possibilities, pathetic in the risks associated with its
+plasticity and dependence. Should it therefore be necessary in the
+twentieth century to point out that, when the fund of nervous energy is
+constantly exhausted by deficient sleep and poor food; when a demand on
+function in advance of what nature is prepared to comply with is
+persistently made, as it has habitually been in our schools; when
+exaggerated and pernicious stimuli are allowed to fatigue and to
+paralyse our child population; when inadequate training in the right
+conduct of life is provided, and no information given on the dawning
+functions of potential parenthood; when premature responsibility is
+imposed or precocious and unwholesome independence is permitted; worst
+of all, when, through parental disease or alcoholism, the brain tissue
+is of too poor a quality to resist the strain of modern life--it is no
+matter for surprise that mental instability and insanity are on the
+increase, nor that degenerates hamper by their helplessness and crime
+the productive capacity of the normal.
+
+The importance of mental hygiene calls for no more emphasis on my part;
+though, did space permit, further illustrations might be given of its
+scope. It includes the methods in our nurseries, the curriculum of our
+schools, the care of our adolescents, the increasing differentiation of
+our industrial processes, the character of our often miscalled
+recreations. It is concerned with the warding off of nervous breakdowns,
+and, with Goethe, it would call the attention of all women to the fact
+that the secret of rest is found not "in quitting a busy career, but
+rather the fitting of self to one's sphere." It views with anxiety the
+growing disregard of religious obligations and restraints, and
+emphasises the grave antenatal responsibilities of parents for their
+offspring; they who should be the most ardent advocates of a sound
+heredity, as well as the promoters of a good home environment for their
+children.
+
+
+XIV. WOMAN'S RESPONSIBILITIES FOR HOME ADMINISTRATION
+
+Thus, though the human constitution is still imperfectly understood,
+though its intricacies and the details of environmental influences are
+still mainly undefined, the women of every nation must nevertheless see
+to it that progress in the administration of the home keeps pace with
+modern demands for revised methods and less conservative practice, in
+order to give every chance of normal health to their occupants.
+
+It is a serious reflection upon many housekeepers that the hall-mark of
+progressive civilisation, namely growth in power to organise, is
+generally absent from their domestic methods. The time will come when it
+will be to them a matter for the deepest searchings of heart that they
+are directly and inexcusably responsible for a mass of the disharmonies
+which disfigure the fugue of family life. The fact is too certain to be
+denied. Homes have not developed in proportion to the opportunities
+offered, and the chief opponents to progress have been their organisers.
+The economic link they form between the physical economics of the
+individual and the social economics of the nation has been unnoticed.
+Reference to the hygienic significance of due economy of time, of
+strength and of health, as well as of money, has hitherto been generally
+met with incredulous smiles; and though home has been extolled as the
+place for children, how scant has been the attention devoted to their
+legitimate requirements, and how few demands for special training have
+emanated from, or been attempted by, those who have undertaken the sole
+charge of young lives during their most important and impressionable
+years.
+
+The new movement, designed to foster the science and art of right
+living, cannot gain strength and influence unless it receives the
+whole-hearted support of the millions of women whose lives and energies
+are absorbed in the care of man's physical needs. It behoves _them_ to
+recognise that intuition and tireless industry are insufficient
+qualifications for their imperial service, and they must themselves
+promote the substitution of systematic training for rule-of-thumb
+anomalies.
+
+This training must be varied and comprehensive. No other profession is
+concerned with so many interests nor associated with more fateful
+responsibilities. For those who can afford the time, it should include a
+general acquaintance with the biological basis of life, and should
+further direct attention to the vast mental and moral endowments which
+give pre-eminence to our race. The products of literature and art and
+the records of natural and moral science afford ever present evidence of
+the extent of these endowments, and of the executive capacity associated
+with their utilisation.
+
+Chemistry must play a prominent part in the training, were it only for
+the insight it gives into the inviolable law of cause and effect!
+besides which physiologists tell us that the chief commerce of our
+bodies with their environment is chemical; therefore, this subject
+becomes an indispensable element in any comprehensive course of domestic
+training. Without a working acquaintance with the physics of water, of
+heat, or of air, a housewife is at the mercy of her architect, if not of
+her plumber and her servants. In the absence of an introduction to
+bacteriology she lives in constant perplexity over the vagaries of her
+larder; and is at a loss to understand the sources of fermentation or
+the methods of infection by the majority of known diseases. Without an
+insight into economics she is helpless in the hands of the advertiser or
+the vendor of patent preparations, all of whose wares are warranted to
+perform impossible feats with an infinitesimal expenditure of trouble.
+At their best these preparations are expensive, and at their worst they
+are injurious to health.
+
+Some personal practice of the domestic arts is also advisable even for
+the wealthy; it is indeed essential to a right adjustment of the daily
+duties in a home, though naturally the degree of skill acquired will
+depend on the style of living. A study of hygiene in sufficient detail
+is of course imperative, and while it will remove difficulties by
+explaining common errors in diet, habits, and dress, it will be found
+materially to lighten labour. Finally, hygiene will render extraordinary
+assistance in the right rearing of children and in the general
+arrangements of family life.
+
+The objections may here be advanced that the study of these scientific
+subjects is uncongenial to those whose temperaments are artistic or
+literary; upon these people sanitary science has surely meagre claims,
+while life is not long enough for all to pursue such exhaustive studies.
+The reply to the first objection must be in the negative. There can be
+no health under modern conditions of existence unless those who assume
+responsibility in the affairs of men possess a scientific acquaintance
+with its right regulation. The subjects just enumerated are the very
+pillars which support the temple of Hygeia. But, for the encouragement
+of these complainants, be it added that the temple walls demand
+decoration; the shelves must be filled with wholesome mental provender;
+the gifts of both artist and author are therefore contributory to
+harmonious living, and an unlimited scope is offered to their
+utilisation. The building which shelters a healthy family, for instance,
+should be characterised not only by advances on existing provisions for
+convenience but by symmetry in its parts. The test of beauty (use, ease,
+and economy) can certainly not be passed by a large proportion of modern
+houses, neither do they provide the space which gives to each occupant
+"a chance to utilise his own gifts or to pursue his own hobby." Space
+needs in its turn regulation, for the saving of steps must be considered
+and compactness is essential. Decorations and furniture should also be
+suitable in form and colour to their purpose, not a mere heterogeneous
+confusion of inappropriate colours and articles, out of tune one with
+the other.
+
+The natural needs of normal children, too, must be more taken into
+account in the future than in the past, and the conveniences offered by
+scientific progress must be far more generally introduced into the most
+modest homes. Here is a huge field for intelligent, artistic work; for
+true beauty and real utility are near of kin.
+
+It has been said that as in the world of life the localisation of
+function made the organ subsequently to become responsible for that
+function, so may the differentiation of labour develop individual
+talents, just as the exercise of our vital activities has led to the
+differentiation of parts in a house. Thus, as satisfaction of hunger is
+a first necessity, eating made the kitchen, where means for the
+gratification of this instinct were localised. By degrees the growth of
+men's social and intellectual demands led to the setting apart of a
+chamber for conversation; that is, the parlour. Storage of bread called
+the pantry into existence; increased refinement necessitated a scullery
+for the washing of cups and platters. Centuries, however, elapsed before
+the enlarging personality of the individual demanded privacy for the
+toilet and the right to isolate himself periodically from the bustle and
+publicity of group life. The general provision of separate bedchambers
+for each unit of a household is not even yet habitual, though most
+desirable in the interests of health. Reparation of the omission will
+mark a further phase of social evolution, and will remove one
+disintegrating force now continually at work in home life. Here again
+the artist will most advantageously collaborate with landlord and with
+health authorities to devise means for the suitable satisfaction of this
+laudable demand.
+
+Further objections to the adoption of any comprehensive schemes for
+training housewives of all ranks are found in the apparent want of time
+available for the purpose and the prohibitive cost incurred if the
+period of education be prolonged. The best answers to both objections
+are found in the movement now active all over Europe and North America
+to furnish more and fuller opportunities for this training, and to
+extend, not curtail, its duration. More than this: this movement, which
+generally originated in the desire to improve home life among the
+poorest, has recently extended itself just as generally to institutions
+for higher education, upon whose pupils and students its claims are now
+recognised. There is no suggestion, for instance, in Germany or England,
+Norway or the United States, of restricting the education of girls by
+this movement or of prematurely enforcing upon them technical
+instruction. The growth of public opinion is due rather to a belated
+realisation that the end of all education is the betterment of life, and
+that suggested applications to the practical concerns of daily life in
+the course of a girl's general education make for the sounder
+assimilation of theory by the pupil, and are thus contrived a "double
+debt to pay."
+
+The progress of preventive medicine has also introduced another
+incentive to the diffusion of this training; for it affords convincing
+proofs that the foundation of the national health is laid in the home.
+If, however, the foundation is permitted to be imperfect the edifice
+must necessarily be unstable.
+
+Among other influences prejudicial to family life, the force of
+which was for a long time unsuspected, mention must be made of modern
+industrialism, the reopening of professional life to women, with its
+associated financial independence and the increasing seductions of
+society. For a century past the tendency has been to discredit
+housekeeping as an unsystematised occupation, which has emphasised
+the common and sometimes humiliating financial dependence of its
+representatives. The first nation to perceive the importance of
+stemming this dangerous tide was the United States, where conclusive
+demonstrations are now offered of the fact that intelligent housekeeping
+calls for a high degree of capacity, and that its problems demand the
+resources of a university for their solution. By the recognition of
+housecraft as a profession, American colleges accomplished even more
+than at first they anticipated. A satisfactory proportion of their
+students return to home life convinced of its scope and importance, and
+satisfied to perform the duties which there present themselves, instead
+of seeking outside occupations and divorcing themselves from family
+interests. The King's College Course for graduate students in Home
+Science and Household Economics bids fair to exercise an influence of
+as satisfactory, though naturally of a slightly variant, character.
+
+
+XV. THE FUNCTIONS OF THE HOME
+
+If the functions of the home are briefly enumerated under three heads,
+no hint of exaggeration will attach to the assertion that by _its_
+atmosphere children are modified in soul and body, and that upon _its_
+outlook depends the ideals and health of all its occupants.
+
+The first function of the home may be fitly defined as _Protective_.
+If its evolution be traced it will be found that home life originated
+in a craving for warmth, safety, and shelter; in the desire for a place
+where the weary could rest and where security from ill was assured.
+Physical comfort, sympathy and sanctuary are, or should be, primary
+characteristics of every home.
+
+The second function of the home is _Educational_. It is largely
+responsible for the systematic formation of good habits, which should
+here be stimulated by example and precept, and every advantage taken of
+the imitative instincts so powerful in early life. Within its precincts
+care can be exercised to afford opportunity for the development of
+individuality; it is also, _par excellence_, the place for early
+training in the judicious expenditure of energy and in the acquirement
+of self-control. Such training improves brain power, relieves nervous
+tension, and obviates the tendency to mental and moral confusion and
+disorderliness which is associated with its absence. In a good home the
+child's sanitary education should be fairly complete, at least in its
+main principles, before the infection of bad habits from without can
+interfere with automatic practice or weaken faith in home standards and
+conduct. Regular washing of the teeth, for instance, should be early
+inculcated, and rigid conscientiousness in matters of personal
+cleanliness:--external, by bathing, rubbing, and brushing; internal, by
+strict daily attention to the bodily functions. Slow and thorough
+mastication of food should be cultivated, as well as good habits of
+posture, of enunciation, and of regular exercise. Last, but not least,
+habits of prompt and cheerful obedience, of truthfulness, and in due
+course of moral purity, must be wrought into the very fibre of a child's
+being. The discipline of home ought to be above all things consistent;
+gentle, though firm and well considered. The virtues of obedience, of
+self-restraint, and of respect for others should become instinctive
+almost from infancy; for they sow the seeds of physical morality in
+later life.
+
+The third function of the home is _Social_. Before the present era of
+"only" children, the exaggerated individualism was uncommon, of which
+many of them are now unfortunately the victims. When large families
+were the fashion, the give-and-take in nursery and schoolroom gave
+early training in the duty of participation in the interests, the
+pleasures, or the sorrows of others; it rubbed off the rough angles
+of selfishness and gave invaluable lessons in consideration for those
+whose circumstances varied from immediate individual experience. The
+wider social sphere, for which much of the rough and tumble of
+family life was an excellent preparation, was not familiar then to
+young children as it is now, when the modern child's premature
+introduction to its attractions is not only a constant source of
+physical detriment and of mental exhaustion, but tends to disguise
+its real character and to stimulate precociously the capacity to
+respond to its demands. Occasional glimpses of this larger life are
+a desirable part of home education; but constant familiarity with
+its excitements is to be sternly deprecated in the causes of health
+and of mental stability.
+
+Where and when, then, are "only" children to receive this necessary
+social training, occupants as they are of solitary nurseries; or where
+are these qualities to be developed in the millions of children reared
+under circumstances of such acute overcrowding and poverty that the
+amenities of life are obscured by its fierce and exhausting conditions?
+Observation shows that the function of accomplishing this training is
+steadily devolving upon the school. Unfortunately, though the school
+_does_ offer necessary opportunities for social intercourse, this
+intercourse is relatively of an advanced type, which presupposes some
+previous training in the more elementary principles of community life,
+most fitly acquired at home. This tendency to force the school to
+_supplant_ instead of to _supplement_ home training must be resisted, as
+it involves loss to parents as well as to the children themselves.
+
+The stress here laid upon the social function of the home may seem to
+some exaggerated, and its association with the subject of this paper
+may appear far-fetched; but to the writer its pressing importance calls
+for this emphasis, for its connection with habits of sanitary practice
+within and without the home is of the closest. The social spirit is the
+very essence of sympathy; it exercises the imagination, it widens the
+horizon, it quickens the sense of duty and of self-respect. If
+graduation through the school of domestic, social training be omitted
+in childhood, the realisation of personal responsibility is too often
+indefinitely postponed. Consideration for others, care for their
+welfare and personal sacrifice for their protection, must ever bulk
+largely in importance throughout life, and must always be associated
+with self-respect and self-control. When this sense of personal
+responsibility is habitual, conduct which makes for limitations of
+health in self, family, or neighbours will appear unjustifiable; and
+neglect of either domestic or civic duties will become as unpardonable
+as it is unpatriotic.
+
+But antecedent to the attainment of this ideal, fundamental even to its
+entertainment, is the adjustment or readjustment of home influences
+or methods, as the case may be, to a higher standard. A better
+understanding of the constitution of those for whose welfare the home
+is established must also be insisted upon as an integral part of
+general education.
+
+It may be wise to point out that no proposal to sweep away in wholesale
+fashion all the domestic traditions and family methods of this or any
+other phase of civilisation is even suggested. Apart from the
+impossibility of such a holocaust, treasures of great worth have been
+handed on to us by our forebears, of which the majority only need some
+slight readjustment to enrich many generations yet to come.
+
+To take a somewhat extreme example. The mention of such homely,
+old-fashioned, domestic remedies as black-currant tea for a bad cough,
+or soap and sugar plasters for a boil--genuine relics from our
+grandmothers--now usually excite a smile of derision; nevertheless they
+have been instanced by one of our most able living pathologists[120] for
+their admirable adaptation to their purpose, and have been shown to rest
+upon a hitherto unsuspected basis of physiological therapeutics.
+
+Another illustration may be drawn from the nursery tradition that bad
+temper is often effectually cured by a dose of rhubarb.[121] Carefully
+conducted observations upon children confirm the conventional
+connection of peevishness with disordered digestion. It has been found
+that gastric indigestion produces oversensitiveness, fretfulness, and
+irritability, while chronic constipation results in erratic conduct,
+stupidity, languor, headache, and moodiness. These effects may be so
+far-reaching that, for no other reason than chronic constipation,
+children may lose a large proportion of the advantages provided in
+school life; they may even run the risk of being classed as "backward,"
+from the interference with mental progress of the food poisons
+reabsorbed into their circulation.
+
+Modern methods of child training lay great emphasis upon the prevention
+of these or kindred conditions by early formation of good habits; or,
+when carelessness necessitates curative treatment, our old nurse's
+panacea of drugs is the last resort; the first consists in attempts to
+re-establish normal functions by the more natural means of suited food
+and special exercise.
+
+It is time, too, that the so-called "hardening fallacies," responsible
+for the maiming of countless lives, were finally exposed and exploded.
+The idea, for example, dies hard that beneficial endurance is cultivated
+by exposure to cold; therefore, bare necks, arms and legs are lauded as
+means of developing a Spartan spirit in young children. Now no profound
+study of hygiene is required to demonstrate the close interdependence of
+warmth with growth and nutrition, or to show that the chilly and
+underclothed, sedentary child is both stunted and starved; whereas the
+suitably clothed and freely active child is able to carry on unhampered
+the necessary processes of growth and development.[122] So important is
+warmth to the infant, that _eighty per cent._ of the total energy
+derived from its food is utilised for the maintenance of the body
+temperature essential to growth and for the activities of the organic
+and muscular systems.
+
+Children, in accordance with the law of the relation between mass and
+surface in a cube, have, relatively to their mass, about thrice the body
+surface possessed by an adult. The greatest loss of heat occurs by
+radiation from the skin and by the evaporation of sweat, therefore undue
+loss from this extensive area should be prevented by its suitable
+covering; otherwise the child is placed at a far more serious
+disadvantage than would be suffered by an adult similarly situated; for
+in his case growth as well as equilibrium must be maintained. Few
+parents realise the further fact that the power of heat regulation is
+very imperfect at birth; indeed its slow development accounts for the
+instability of a child's temperature for many years after. The fallacy
+therefore of seeking to strengthen a young life by inadequate clothing,
+by enforced and prolonged inactivity, or by abstinence from the source
+of all energy--food--must be persistently exposed. Quite recently, also,
+Dr. Eurich has advanced evidence to show that the quality of sleep is
+adversely affected where the sleeper is insufficiently protected from
+cold, thus emphasising the injury to health associated with going to bed
+with cold feet.
+
+All parents are ambitious that their offspring shall be distinguished by
+the energy, the stability, the endurance and the power which
+characterise the cream of humanity. The lives of young people are
+carefully planned with this object in view. The waking hours of most
+girls and boys are distributed in ordered sequence between what is
+intended to be concentrated work and vigorous more or less exciting
+play. But the fact has been very commonly ignored that these young
+people are built up of young cells, which cells are passing through
+almost every conceivable phase of instability in the course of
+development; consequently recurring periods of leisure and rest are as
+important to nutrition and nervous stability, more especially in the
+case of girls, as are the most elaborate arrangements for exercise. Thus
+it comes about that many youths and maidens suffer from chronic though
+unrecognised fatigue, while others are unable to employ pleasurably even
+a short space of "time to themselves," finding no interest in
+occupations from which excitement is absent. The habitual limitation of
+the hours of sleep among the rising generation is equally serious. The
+loss which would be unbearable,[123] says Dr. Acland, even among our
+most favoured children, were it not for the indulgence permitted them
+during their long holidays. Is it not a parental duty to insist upon the
+necessary provision for rest being made in every school, and ought not
+inviolable rules upon the subject be laid down in their home circles?
+Sleep, be it remembered, is the property of animals possessed of brains
+and endowed with consciousness; it affords mechanical rest, and is
+accompanied by a respite from the chemical changes which are
+particularly rapid during childhood and adolescence. The intense
+activity of the child's waking hours must be counterbalanced by ample
+periods of entire rest. Habits of prolonged profound sleep are said to
+be the best investment against mental instability and insanity; yet
+parents permit a constant loss of from two to four hours' sleep each
+night throughout the long period of immaturity.[124] Our newspapers and
+lunatic asylums bear evidence to the price paid for this now inexcusable
+carelessness.
+
+Many more examples might be given of similar fallacies which apply to
+later periods of life. How soon will a loving daughter allow herself to
+learn that the consumption of large quantities of highly nutritious food
+will not make for the prolongation of an aged parent's life? The fact
+that abstemiousness and rigid conformity to the "simple life" are not
+coincidents of longevity, but contributory to it, should be now common
+knowledge. When will the day come that the fact will be accepted that
+alcohol does not warm and protect the consumer, but actually lowers the
+temperature, and by this means, in cold weather, renders him a more
+ready prey to the effects of exposure. When will the value of good work
+cease to be measured by the exhaustion it brings about or the breakdown
+to which it conduces? Is it not, time that the housewife should be
+abashed rather than self-commiserating when a bad cold runs through her
+household, for observation of certain elementary principles of
+disinfection would go far to avert such a catastrophe? When will the
+fallacy be destroyed which gauges the strength of a disinfectant by the
+pungency of its odour? The knowledge now available on these and many
+other points only awaits assimilation by the housekeepers of the empire,
+to serve as a powerful lever by which to raise the standard of health in
+its every part.
+
+
+XVI. HOME LIFE AN IMPORTANT SPHERE FOR SANITARY SCIENCE
+
+The urgent call for a more intimate acquaintance with these tenets of
+domestic sanitary science calls for no further examples, though at the
+risk of wearying the reader one or two more may be selected to
+illustrate their claims upon every member of a household.
+
+It behoves the householder, in the first place, to choose his dwelling
+with care; and, in the second, to maintain the health of its inmates by
+his own conduct and by compliance with the requirements of public health
+enactments. He must be generally acquainted, therefore, with the
+essentials of a healthy home and with the obligations he must fulfil or
+the demands he may legitimately make upon local authorities and
+neighbours; otherwise he cannot insure that his own care is not
+frustrated by derelictions of duty on the part of others. The selection
+and purchase of the family's food will probably devolve upon his wife,
+but it rests with him to insist that this food is produced, transported
+or distributed, with due observance of cleanliness, and that reliable
+protection from sophistication or adulteration is maintained. If
+conformity to necessary standards as well as the good quality of their
+products is to be safeguarded, the premises of dairy, bakehouse,
+slaughter-house, laundry, market, and local purveyor of goods should
+come under his intelligent inspection. The surroundings as well as the
+conveniences of a house also call for careful consideration, especially
+when some of its inmates are of tender years; and the reminder that to
+the provision for light and air in its rooms must be assigned a greater
+prominence than the mere prettiness of external elevation is still
+necessary. It is the householder who for some time to come must from his
+wider knowledge of economics personally safeguard his women-folk from
+unnecessary exertion and chronic fatigue, by the provision of efficient
+fittings and equipment, by a judicious expenditure upon labour-saving
+devices, and by insistence upon adequate rest, recreation, and
+remuneration. To the graduate in the school of personal experience the
+duty of public service will next arise, in order that the advantages
+enjoyed in his own home may be extended to those for whom cheap housing
+must be provided. Civic claims must in the near future appear much more
+prominently than hitherto in the balance-sheet of duty.
+
+The necessity for a study of child life and its requirements ought to be
+realised by both parents before the bitter results of inexperience have
+permanently shadowed their home. This should be pursued by the man as
+well as the woman before marriage is consummated, if their offspring is
+to be "well born" and well nurtured.
+
+Maternal care is of course the more conspicuous during the first ten
+years of a child's life; but during the next fifteen, more especially in
+the case of his sons, it is the father's example, sympathy, and
+companionship which will steer them healthily through the stormy seas of
+adolescence, which will safeguard them from pernicious habits and will
+extend a helping hand in moments of temptation.
+
+To enumerate the opportunities for hygienic practice by the prime
+organiser of domestic methods--the mother--is almost superfluous at this
+point. It is the foundation upon which depends the welfare of each
+member of a household; for it is the housekeeper who plans the food and
+is responsible for its character and suitability to age, season, health,
+and occupation. It is she who superintends, if she does not carry out,
+the details of cleanliness, so arduous and discouraging in our great
+cities. It is she who selects the clothing of her family; who directs
+the order of their lives:--their work and play, their rest and exercise,
+their sleep and their habits. It is her place to shake faith in popular
+patent preparations, by good reasons and demonstrations of their
+exaggerated claims on purse and person.[125] It is her example which
+sets the tone in recreation, pursuit of hobby, or choice of literature.
+It is her infinite, understanding patience which cements breaches in
+family love; it is her skilful treatment which heals wounds, spiritual
+as well as physical. It is her privilege to devise better methods for
+daily doings and to appreciate the principles of sound economics. It
+falls on her to discourage futile expenditure of health, time, or
+temper; to be alive to possibilities of progress; to show by her deeds
+how profound is her faith in the dignity of a home-maker and her
+recognition of the extraordinary demands made by her profession on
+intelligence, moral capacity, and mental attainments.
+
+It has been slowly dawning upon some minds for half a century at least
+that kitchen methods in many of their details fail to meet the
+requirements of sanitary science. The ordinary cook does not even
+suspect what cleanliness means from the laboratory point of view;
+neither, alas! does her mistress, in the case of 90 per cent. of
+middle-class housekeepers. Both alike cheerfully ignore the relative
+value as cleansing agents of boiling as compared with "scalding" water;
+and refer to the broad shoulders of the weather or, quite frankly, to
+bad luck, the waste of food directly attributable to ignorant and
+uncleanly methods in market, purveyor's cart, or scullery. Yet no valid
+excuse can now be offered for ignorance of the real causes of the
+souring of milk, the tainting of meat, or the decay of vegetables;
+neither is it permissible to entrust to the untrained the care of larder
+and refrigerator, except under intelligent supervision. It is of course
+a sign of progress that the modern housewife prides herself upon the
+delivery of the daily milk supply in bottles. But a quite superficial
+acquaintance with bacteriology would show the imperfect character of
+such a protection. The milk may still be poured by the cook from the
+unwashed mouth of a bottle, grasped, even if but momentarily, by the
+hand of a milkman, which shortly before was caressing his horse or
+serving him as a substitute for a pocket-handkerchief! When the numerous
+uses of paper in the kitchen are considered, the advantage of a
+scientific acquaintance with its constituents and absorbent properties
+should hardly need emphasis. But the _laissez-faire_ attitude, common in
+many households, permits newspaper or brown-paper bags of questionable
+antecedents to be used indiscriminately for the lining of cake tins or
+the draining of fried foods. Should this be tolerated any longer?
+
+A sounder knowledge of the risks to health associated with unwholesome
+food would surely check the growing disposition to purchase provisions
+over the telephone, instead of by personal inspection and careful
+selection; for the risks associated with stale vegetables or with
+"woolly" fish would be recognised, in the light of this fuller
+knowledge, as too serious to be encountered by any one responsible for
+the health of a household. Again, cold storage is so justly credited
+with the numerous and unquestionable benefits which it confers upon the
+housewife, that she is apt to forget the coincident dangers; only
+through tardily acquired experience does she become aware that foods
+which are thawed after freezing possess a singular faculty for rapid
+deterioration, and undergo subtle and detrimental changes when so
+preserved over a long period. No excuse for continued ignorance as to
+the changes responsible for such deterioration is now permissible;
+neither can it be condoned in connection with the "flora" of the
+refrigerator, now known to be accountable for the unpleasant and
+all-pervading flavours of the food stored in such a receptacle, and
+itself the product of defective cleanliness. The idiosyncrasies of
+different groceries, as regards temperature and receptacles, have
+hitherto received no attention, though the art of preserving fruits,
+fresh as well as dried, is better appreciated than was formerly the
+case.
+
+It would be easy to show, too, did space permit, what ample scope there
+is for the application of sanitary science in the storeroom, as well as
+the true hygienic inwardness of frequent coats of limewash in larder and
+scullery, not to mention the worth of impervious coverings to their wall
+surfaces and shelves. This suggests the inquiry: How many women to-day
+are versed in the external tests, simple as some of them are, which can
+be applied to tins containing foodstuffs, with the object of gauging the
+quality of their contents; or who among our ordinary housewives
+understands the reasons for the employment of reliable, _domestic_
+methods of preserving the contents of the larder, such as sterilisation
+by the use of heat, or why fat, sugar, salt, or vinegar are preferable
+to the seductive yet questionable chemicals, so attractive to the
+producer and purveyor of provisions?
+
+A better understanding of the relation of sanitary science to daily
+life would also facilitate some of the painful steps which must
+inevitably be taken, in order to bridge the gulf set between the feudal
+methods of the past and the modern problems of domestic service. That
+the isolation from her kind of a "general" servant predisposes to
+anæmia is stated as a fact on good authority, but it is certainly
+not generally known. That absence of opportunity for recreation or
+social intercourse has led and may lead again to deception, if not to
+worse, is recognised unwillingly, if at all. That human nature is
+physiologically similar, however diverse its external appearance and
+standards, is very hard to realise or to act upon; so the fact that
+suitable provision for bathing and wholesome sleep by dependents is not
+always made, is apt to be ignored on economic grounds; and the resultant
+complications are assigned to any but their real cause.
+
+The solution of another of the acute problems of the day depends upon
+the women also of this country. I refer to the character of the
+influence, an influence of the most intimate, to which young children
+are subjected during infancy. In addition to vulgarities of conduct or
+enunciation, actual moral harm may be suffered from want of care in the
+choice of a child's attendant. Bad habits, impossible to eradicate, are
+to be traced to this source only. Their hygienic import calls for no
+further stress. Their prevention rests entirely with the child's
+parents.
+
+Another illustration of the need for a better acquaintance with
+hygiene is found in the general custom of entrusting the preparation
+and care of the daily diet to empirically prepared, ill-informed,
+young women. Ascertained facts in connection with, for instance,
+"typhoid carriers"[126] should have surely created almost a panic in
+the households of England; but it is rare to learn that even one
+mistress has inquired into the personal habits of her cook, or that she
+has concerned herself personally in the cultivation of most careful
+attention to necessary hand-washing by her household. A mere tyro in
+sanitary science would take warning and be on her guard against this
+and other disgusting and preventable sources of domestic infection.
+
+Finally, the protective function of the home must not be allowed to
+obscure the educational and social. It is the right of all children to
+be trained in habits of social, as well as of family, sanitary service.
+Very early the love of ceaseless doing, by which these little people are
+distinguished, can be taken hold of as an agent in this department of
+education. Habits of neatness and order, of kindness and ready help, of
+self-sacrifice and self-control, become lifelong in their persistence
+and develop a physical as well as moral conscience which makes for
+public health. But, without appropriate stimulus this interest in
+others, this sense of civic obligation, remains in abeyance. Therefore
+girls should be encouraged in the educational practice of the domestic
+arts about the age of thirteen or fourteen; though instruction in the
+care of children may be postponed for a year or two. Always it should
+precede marriage and be adapted to the prospective social sphere of the
+pupils. It would be advantageous to foster the interest of boys in
+social sanitation by the introduction of some equivalent training into
+their curriculum.
+
+Enough has been said to show that knowledge of household administration
+must soon become an indispensable qualification for any woman who
+undertakes the charge of human lives, whether it be as wife or guardian,
+as official or philanthropist, as physician or educator, as head of an
+institution (such as orphanage, asylum, hospital or prison), or as
+almoner of public funds. To be practical and influential this
+comprehensive subject must be systematically acquired and securely
+based; it must be accorded the support of men, and it must receive the
+recognition due to its imperial importance. Thus sustained and
+fortified, acquaintance with all that is comprehended in the domestic
+administration for good of human lives will lead our women to redeem
+their many shortcomings in the past, and will stimulate them to assume
+with courageous confidence their weighty responsibilities in the present
+and future.
+
+Whether prepared or not for their discharge, these responsibilities
+cannot be evaded. Upon their capable fulfilment depend human health and
+happiness. "Health and good estate of body are above all gold," said
+Ecclesiasticus, "and a strong body above infinite wealth." Seen in its
+true light this great, beautiful, responsible work becomes the highest
+form of consecrated service to the Source of all Life and to the Giver
+of all those good things which humanity is intended richly to enjoy.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [91] "Darwinism and Human Life," by J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., &c.
+        (Andrew Melrose.)
+
+   [92] "The Descent of Man," by Charles Darwin. (J. Murray.)
+
+   [93] "Hereditary Genius," by Sir Francis Galton.
+
+   [94] "Heredity," by Prof. A. Thomson. (J. Murray.)
+
+   [95] "English Sanitary Institutions," chap. viii., "The Growth of
+        Humanity in British Politics." Sir J. Simon. (Cassell & Co.)
+
+   [96] _Les Pouvoirs en Matière d'Hygiène_--Part i. _L'Hygiène dans les
+        Législations de l'Antiquité._ Alfred Filassier. (Paris: Jules
+        Rousset.)
+
+   [97] "English Sanitary Institutions," part i. chap. i. Sir John Simon.
+        (Cassell & Co.)
+
+   [98] "English Sanitary Institutions," part i. chaps. iii., iv., v., vi.
+        Sir John Simon. (Cassell & Co.)
+
+   [99] "The Family and the Nation," chap. i. Whetham. (Longmans.)
+
+  [100] "Selected Essays and Addresses by Sir James Paget, F.R.S."--"The
+        Chronometry of Life," Royal Society Croonian Lecture, May 1859.
+        Edited by Stephen Paget, F.R.C.S. (Longmans & Co.)
+
+  [101] "The Diurnal Course of Efficiency." Howard D. Marsh. (The Science
+        Press, N.Y.)
+
+  [102] "Social Psychology," section ii. chap. x. William McDougall.
+        (Methuen.)
+
+  [103] "The Family," Lecture i. E. C. Parsons. (Putnam.)
+
+  [104] "The Family," Lecture ii. E. C. Parsons. (Putnam.)
+
+  [105] "The Family," part i. chap. ix. Helen Bosanquet. (Macmillan and
+        Co.)
+
+  [106] "The Hygiene of Mind," chap. iv. T. S. Clouston. (Methuen.)
+
+  [107] "Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on the Employment of
+        School Children, appointed by H. M. Principal Secretary of State
+        for the Home Department," 1901.
+
+        "Report of the Royal Commission on Physical Training
+        (Scotland)," 1903, Neill & Co., Ltd., Bellevue, Edinburgh.
+
+        "Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical
+        Deterioration," 1904.
+
+        "Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on the Model Course
+        of Physical Exercises," 1904.
+
+        "Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Medical
+        Inspection and Feeding of Children attending Public Elementary
+        Schools," 1905.
+
+        "Report of Dr. W. Leslie Mackenzie and Captain A. Foster on a
+        Collection of Statistics as to the Physical Condition of
+        Children attending the Public Schools of the School Board for
+        Glasgow," 1907.
+
+        "Report of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the
+        Feeble-minded," 1908.
+
+        "Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and the
+        Unemployed--Majority and Minority," 1909.[108]
+
+  [108] In each case, unless otherwise mentioned, these Reports are
+        published by Wyman & Sons.
+
+  [109] "The Hygiene School of Life," chap. viii. p. 129. Ralph H.
+        Crowley. (Methuen.)
+
+  [110] _Journal of the Royal Sanitary Institute_, April 1905--"Physical
+        Inspection of School Children in Relation to Public Health
+        Administration." A. K. Chalmers, M.D., M.O.H., Glasgow.
+
+  [111] "Continuation Schools in England and Elsewhere." M. E. Sadler.
+        (Manchester University Press, 1907.)
+
+  [112] Report of Departmental Committee on "Employment of Children Act,
+        1903." (Wyman & Son, July 1910.)
+
+  [113] "Report to the L.C.C. Education Committee of the Medical Officer
+        (Schools)," March 31, 1906. (P. J. King & Son.)
+
+  [114] "The Drink Problem," edited by T. N. Kelynack, M.D. (Methuen.)
+
+  [115] "The Nature of Man," parts i. ii. chap. vii.; part iii. chap. xii.
+        Metchnikoff. (Heinemann.)
+
+  [116] "Principia Therapeutica," chaps. ii. iii. Harrington Sainsbury.
+        (Methuen.)
+
+  [117] "Some Thoughts on Causation in Health and Disease." An address
+        delivered to the Faculty of Medicine, October 1909, by Lord
+        Fletcher Moulton.
+
+  [118] "Studies on Immunisation." Sir Almroth Wright, F.R.S. (Constable.)
+        "Immunity in Infective Diseases." Metchnikoff. (Cambridge
+        University Press.) "Immunity and Specific Therapy." W. d'Este
+        Emery. (Lewis & Sons.)
+
+  [119] "Infant Education." Eric Pritchard, M.D. (Kimpton).
+
+  [120] "Studies on Immunisation," pp. 279, 462. Sir Almroth Wright,
+        F.R.S., M.D. (Constable.)
+
+  [121] "Addresses and Proceedings of the National Education Association,
+        St. Louis, Mo.," 1904, pp. 952-962--"The Chicago Hospital School
+        for Nervous and Delicate Children," by Mary R. Campbell.
+
+  [122] "Children in Health and Disease," p. 41. David Forsyth, M.D.
+        (Murray.)
+
+  [123] "On the Hours of Sleep at Public Schools." A paper read before the
+        Medical Officer of Schools Association, May 11, 1905, by T. D.
+        Acland, M.A.
+
+  [124] "Some Results of an Investigation into Hours of Sleep of School
+        Children."--_International Magazine of School Hygiene_, vol. v.
+        part i. Alice Ravenhill.
+
+  [125] "Secret Remedies: What they Cost and What they Contain." British
+        Medical Association. "Popular Drugs: Their Use and Abuse."
+        Sidney Hellier, M.D. (Werner Laurie.)
+
+  [126] "Human Carriers of Typhoid and other Zymotic Diseases."--_The
+        Sanitary Record_, Sept. 8, 1910, pp. 215-216.
+
+
+
+
+MODERN WOMAN AND THE DOMESTIC ARTS
+
+BY MRS. R. W. EDDISON
+
+MEMBER, EDUCATION COMMITTEE, WEST RIDING COUNTY COUNCIL, ETC.
+
+I. NEEDLEWORK AND DRESSMAKING
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+Modern woman finds herself in the twentieth century heiress to an
+accumulation of domestic experience handed down from her primitive
+sisters, much of which originated in necessity, and survives from
+custom.
+
+It is said that "of the billion and a half human beings on the earth,
+about 700,000,000 are females, and what share their mothers and
+grandmothers, back to the remotest generation, have had in originating
+and developing culture is a question which concerns the whole race,"
+though allusion only can be made to it in this paper.
+
+If, from the study of anthropology, we find that man was the hunter, the
+killer of food, it was woman who cared for it, prepared it for use,
+tilled the ground, cleaned, dried, cut, and sewed skins for clothing and
+shelter. It is believed by many authorities that it was woman who
+invented and made many of the implements with which she worked, and who
+spun, wove, and dyed fibres of all kinds into strong, useful, and
+sometimes beautiful fabrics of varied and pleasing tints and colours,
+from dyes of her own making, which she obtained from animal and
+vegetable sources. The introduction of much plain and ornamental
+stitchery, the forerunner of the needlework of the present day, followed
+quickly upon the coming of textiles.
+
+Until the invention of machinery and the institution of the factory
+system, the practice of a large number of arts was in the hands of women
+as part of their lives and homes. Now, however, women are no longer
+leather-dressers, potters, or weavers in the home--these arts have
+become trades for men, carried on in factories; and even the more
+intimate arts of cooking, cleaning, and needlework are threatened from
+the outside.
+
+The cheapness and readiness with which the products of the factory can
+be obtained, whether for the purposes of food or of clothing, has to a
+large extent removed the desire to exercise these arts herself,
+especially from the woman whose time can be otherwise employed to her
+financial advantage in industrial pursuits. It would almost appear that
+she has failed to perceive the intellectual and æsthetic enjoyment to be
+derived from them, and has been content to permit the skill and
+knowledge she originally acquired and exercised to rust from want of
+practice as each generation succeeds its predecessor. On the other hand,
+as the accumulated profits from the factory have made it possible for
+well-off women to depute their own share of cooking, cleaning, sewing,
+and the care of children by payments to their less financially
+fortunate sisters, usually untrained women of narrow education, public
+opinion has shown a tendency to regard these arts as menial, and to some
+extent derogatory in practice to the educated and refined. Amongst this
+class of women, consequently, knowledge of these arts has steadily
+dwindled, until the home-made jams, jellies, cordials and pickles of our
+grandmothers, the linen they spun, wove, and fashioned, are no longer
+the glory of our storerooms and linen-presses; while the home has come
+to be less and less regarded as the right and proper place for
+instruction in the domestic arts.
+
+Deep down, however, in the modern woman's nature lies the old instinct
+for order, for caring for things animate and inanimate. This instinct
+has found expression since the early seventies among more fortunately
+situated women in an endeavour to arrest the decay of what I have
+called the more intimate household arts, to promote their revival
+and to raise their status in education--an endeavour due, shall we
+say, to "something in the air," a kind of "Zeit Geist"--beginning more
+or less contemporaneously on the Continent of Europe, in Great Britain,
+and in the United States and Canada; an endeavour not to benefit
+themselves alone, but to help their poorer sisters.
+
+It was soon agreed that the cultivation of the household arts belonged
+to education, and that they might and should be taught in schools; but
+the questions--What was their link with general education, by what
+methods they could be most appropriately taught, and in the curriculum
+of what schools they should find a place--have been the basis of
+prolonged experimental effort. It is now the opinion of a large section
+of persons of authority in education, that these arts are neither
+"sacred mysteries which can only be understood by patient life study,"
+nor, on the other hand, can any woman, whatever her intellectual
+ability, master them without training. It has been well said, in effect,
+that the former attitude leads to a contempt for the plain everyday
+things of life, while the latter is responsible for the cultivation of a
+girl's head at the expense of her hands.
+
+The arts of cooking and cleaning took the lead in order of experiment.
+The results, as recorded, have proved their position to belong directly
+to the region of applied science, and to be worthy of a place in a
+specially arranged course of household science and economics for women,
+of university standard. We may confidently expect that this result only
+anticipates a corresponding triumph, awaiting in its turn similar
+experimental work, which has been carried on for some years in respect
+of the teaching also of the art of needlework. These experimental
+efforts include the intelligent employment of the pencil, the scissors,
+and the needle in the production of garments, draperies, napery, and so
+forth. The lines along which at the present moment this development is
+proceeding have regard indeed not only to the practical worth of
+needlecraft, but to its intimate association with general education as
+well as to decorative and applied art.
+
+When we inquire what have been the results of past methods of teaching
+needlework in our elementary schools, and find that they are in no way
+commensurate with the time, labour, and money spent upon them, it surely
+is wise to call a halt and examine into our aims and methods. The
+circular of "Suggestions for the Teaching of Needlework" issued by the
+Board of Education in August 1909 is not the first authoritative
+pronouncement of the Board on this matter, but is the outcome of "the
+well-considered criticism" invited upon their "Suggestions" on the same
+subject issued in 1905, which teachers and others were asked to consider
+as a challenge to independent thought on the subjects of which it
+treated.
+
+
+THE "PRINCIPLES" OF NEEDLEWORK
+
+This challenge has resulted in the statement of certain important
+"principles" in the new circular and of the proper attitude of the
+teacher towards them, viz.:--
+
+  I. _The duplex aspect of needlework._
+
+    1. As a separate branch of instruction, the aim of which is
+    proficiency.
+
+    2. As a means to an end, other than (but not excluding) a
+    certain proficiency, _i.e._ to develop the intelligence and even
+    to form the character of the child.
+
+  II. _The subject must be made interesting_ if it is to be
+  educational. The making of specimens is not interesting, and should
+  be discouraged, excepting for the practice of new stitches before
+  they can be used on a complete garment or article, however small,
+  for the child herself or for others.
+
+  III. _Correlation of needlework_ with drawing and arithmetic in the
+  higher classes.
+
+    1. To train the eye in form and proportion.
+
+    2. To illustrate principles of arithmetic, by measuring and
+    deciding upon quantities and by calculating cost, introducing
+    incidentally ideas of economy and thrift.
+
+  IV. _Needlework lessons are ordinarily uninteresting_ and wearisome
+  to body and mind. This need not and should not be; if the subject is
+  taught with the why and wherefore of things, it should rather
+  stimulate intelligence and capacity.
+
+  V. _Opportunity is afforded_ by the lesson for practically and
+  tactfully inculcating the charm of neatness, cleanliness, and
+  tidiness in person and in clothing, encouraging the child in
+  self-respect and to regard as a matter of shame that any girl should
+  reach woman's estate without a practical knowledge of the use she
+  can make of the needle.
+
+Certain suggestions follow as a basis for a more detailed scheme,
+viz.:--
+
+  1. Classification of scholars as to age and capacity.
+
+  2. Size of illustrations and use of blackboard.
+
+  3. Instruction of weakly children, and care of eyesight.
+
+  4. Exercises in knitting and various forms of constructive handwork
+  for very young children, in preparation for definite instruction in
+  needlework at a later age.
+
+  5. Condemnation of habit of counting threads.
+
+  6. Order of teaching "processes" in needlework, from simple to
+  complex.
+
+  7. Suitability of materials, needles, and threads to each other, and
+  of the style of sewing to the garments which the children should
+  wear.
+
+  8. Direction of attention to the fact that hands and eyes which have
+  been sensibly trained to execute "plain work" will acquire "fancy
+  work" quite readily later on if leisure can be found.
+
+  9. New methods and stitches to be learned on waste material.
+
+  10. Importance of practice in mending at school and at home.
+
+  11. Importance of cutting-out and pattern-making.
+
+  12. Garments made to be worn, not kept at school.
+
+  13. Elaborate making-up of paper garments to be discouraged.
+
+  14. Rough sketches to train the eye to recognise the value to each
+  other of different parts of a pattern.
+
+  15. Importance of recognition of difference between a well-cut and
+  an ill-cut garment.
+
+  16. Calculation of kind, quantity, and cost of material to be worked
+  out in an arithmetic lesson.
+
+  17. Note-books and records to be kept.
+
+  18. Fixing to be done by actual maker of garment--not a joint
+  production.
+
+  19. Use of sewing machine permitted for long seams and hems.
+
+  20. No time to be wasted while waiting for teacher's help.
+  Independent work to be encouraged. Knitting and other suitable work
+  to be at hand.
+
+This excellent and sensible paper of suggestions means an offer of
+freedom on the part of the Board; it remains, therefore, but to accept
+and adopt its conditions. A practical difficulty, however, at once
+arises from the fact that, after a long period of bondage to many
+"Regulations," it is difficult for the teaching profession in general to
+realise that independent judgment is now expected of them, indeed is
+required, though this is a phase temporary and evanescent, which will
+quickly adjust itself.
+
+For lack of time and space we must here pass over the important question
+of the relation of the domestic arts to the general school curriculum,
+as well as the proportion of time to be allotted as between needlework
+and the other domestic arts, and dwell for a moment on the relative
+qualifications of our teachers in different sections of the whole
+subject taken at its widest, for these qualifications reflect the
+existing demands of the public. Taking England, for example--how do we
+stand with other countries in this respect? Speaking generally, and as
+one who, though not professionally a teacher, has for many years had a
+hand in the training of teachers, and who has given much time and
+thought to the comparative study, both theoretical and practical, of
+needlework and dressmaking, it seems to me that, as to sewing, we are as
+good, if not in some ways better than our neighbours, though we have
+been apt to regard the perfection of our stitches as an end in itself,
+which decidedly vitiates our conclusion. We also appear to have much to
+learn, or at least to practise, in respect of suitability of materials,
+needles, and threads to each other, and of the style of work to the
+purpose required. As to "cut" and "the hang of the thing," and the root
+difference between an "ill-cut" and a "well-cut" garment, I fear we make
+a bad third with France and Austria; but with our newly acquired freedom
+we can and we must change all that: the public begin to demand it.
+
+In the first place, we must clear our minds of the indefinite cloud of
+detail in which they have been so long submerged; or, to change the
+metaphor, whereas hitherto we have too often not been able to see the
+wood for the trees, we must now learn clearly to distinguish between
+"principles" and "methods," which in practice are over frequently
+confused: then, quite easily and naturally, the teacher will derive
+resulting details from the few definite principles which are the "basis
+alike of the simplest garment and the most artistic handicraft," and
+"the principles once understood, in one instance, the pupils will be
+able to make wider applications for themselves."
+
+It is important here to emphasise that some elementary knowledge of
+hygiene, physiology, and anatomy is necessary for the intelligent
+appreciation of the requirements of the body as to clothing, and of its
+alterations in shape when muscles are tense or relaxed. By a reliable
+system of drafting from direct measurement, such as one of those in use
+in the Ecoles Professionelles of Paris, a shaped bodice can be produced
+fitting the arms and figure easily and gracefully, and from this pattern
+can be deduced further patterns of other garments, whether tight, loose,
+or semi-fitting, which hang from the shoulder or the waist.
+
+When the theory of drafting has been learned, and the shapes and
+proportions of a pattern and its derivatives are understood, "moulage"
+or modelling on the figure in muslin, should be attempted; though, be
+it remembered, "moulage" should not be regarded as a substitute for
+drafting, but as its necessary accompaniment, for it affords opportunity
+for eye training, and for learning how and where at certain points the
+material should be stretched or held easily on the figure. The pupil is
+thus prepared to handle the pattern intelligently when cut out in
+material.
+
+I have seen it objected that only awkward and wooden lines can be
+obtained from drafting on paper because of its rigidity, and because the
+pattern is built up upon a framework of straight lines at right angles
+to each other. The objector cannot have understood that the rectangular
+construction lines have no connection with the outlines of the pattern,
+except as affording _points d'appui_, which are found by direct
+measurement. These construction lines stand for the warp and woof, or
+"thread" of the material to be used for the garment. Stress must be also
+laid on the fact that the grace or angularity of the pattern outline
+actually depend upon the eye training and perception of curves derived
+from drawing lessons, which must, for this as well as other reasons,
+form a part of the scheme of instruction.
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+Limits of time and space have only allowed me to touch the fringe of a
+fascinating and useful subject; but the frequent conferences of teachers
+now being held in different centres, and the new suggestions of the
+Board of Education are stimulating so much interest and discussion that
+I feel that the educational teaching of needlework in its broad sense in
+England has a cheerful future. There is already much excellent teaching
+and work done in some of the trade schools in London as well as in a few
+of its elementary schools, and others elsewhere, which leaves little to
+be desired from many points of view.
+
+Apart from the modern educational treatment of needlecraft and
+dressmaking, though arising directly from it, are the unquestioned
+advantages which may result to any woman of whatever rank or social
+position who is willing to devote, in the first instance, a little time
+and intelligence to mastering a few elementary principles introductory
+to their practical application, either by herself or by any one in her
+employment, to the cutting and making of her own garments from direct
+measurement, modified by measurements of individual carriage or
+conformation.
+
+When these modifications are clearly understood, the proving of the flat
+pattern on the table after drafting should produce a well-shaped and
+correct lining, without the misery of standing for hours in the ordinary
+way to be "fitted on." If finer touches are needed, they are of the
+nature of "moulage," or modelling; the different parts of the pattern
+retain their balance and relative proportions, and the length of the
+operation is much shortened.
+
+The majority of women, especially when past youth, are not so happy as
+to possess the theoretically perfectly balanced and well-proportioned
+figure which has been so successfully adopted by the best business
+houses as the basis for cutting high-class ready-made garments. Happy
+indeed is the woman who can "walk straight into them" without the
+offered "slight alteration" which so often spoils the cut and brings
+bitter disappointment to the wearer. There are few women who have not
+groaned under the waste of time and fatigue entailed by being "fitted
+on" under the hands of the "little dressmaker," or for that matter under
+hands of much greater pretension, with no idea of principles in cutting,
+who pinch and drag and smooth down by rule-of-thumb, producing garments
+without balance or ease, whose faults may be disguised by trimming or
+drapery, but whose discomfort is always present to the wearer.
+
+Women have in fact so long submitted to this tyranny of rule-of-thumb in
+dress-cutting, as inseparate from it, that, as is their nature, they
+continue to endure what they think cannot be cured. Nevertheless, the
+discomforts and uncertainties of this rule-of-thumb misery may be
+entirely eliminated, and it is for the modern woman to demand and insist
+upon its elimination.
+
+Let me especially recommend to ladies possessing the invaluable
+qualities in this connection of taste and style in dress, who may be
+thinking of taking up dressmaking as a profession, that as an important
+preliminary step they should master the principles of a good method of
+cutting. Let them make sure that the method can lay claim to this
+description; that it is reliable and not altogether empirical. Thus they
+will render themselves to some extent independent of the possible
+vagaries and misfits of their cutters and workers. The excellent courses
+of instruction now carried on in the trade schools already referred to
+should ere long create a supply of well-trained young women who will do
+their best work under an instructed head, and will be able to carry out
+intelligently her ideas and directions. Under such conditions there
+should be no room for failure in a business of this kind. As a result,
+the arts of needlecraft and of dressmaking will be raised to the plane
+of scientific certainty and success which is their due, instead of
+remaining at the often low level of the unorganised, empirical and
+inartistic occupations--a frequent source of financial disaster to their
+exponents and of perennial vexation to the helpless victims of their
+products.
+
+
+II. HOUSECRAFT
+
+The position of modern woman towards matters domestic is somewhat
+undefined, and at best can hardly be considered satisfactory. Her
+attitude towards housekeeping is not one of enthusiasm. The Lancashire
+mill-girl is proud to have a house of her own, but prefers her life at
+the mill to one spent in ordering that house; the elementary school
+teacher considers housekeeping of so little economic interest that she
+is injured if she may not devote her married life to a profession
+demanding the best of her energy; the university graduate pretends to a
+mind superior to physical comfort and welfare unless it can be produced
+by a creature less specialised than herself.
+
+In the field of paid occupations for women, educated and uneducated,
+domestic work stands low; not necessarily low in scale of payment, but
+uninviting as a sphere of work and lacking the dignity of skilled
+employment. That good housewives may be found in every grade of society
+is evident, but the general trend of our social evolution demands that
+some organised effort shall be made to simplify actual work and to raise
+the appreciation of that work.
+
+In history and philosophy, the moral advantages of a good home have been
+acknowledged and extolled. The physical advantages are only now being
+fully emphasised, and there is an ever-increasing demand that women
+shall diligently apply their best efforts, first to the problems of the
+individual household, and then beyond it to those forms of housekeeping
+that fall to municipal and national control. We need a different
+estimate, a better realisation, of the enormous responsibility that lies
+in feeding, housing, and general hygienic conditions, and such a
+realisation must work from the top downwards in our social and
+intellectual strata.
+
+In the care of the sick we have seen a complete revolution. Even so
+recently as the days of our grandparents "Sarah Gamp" was the
+general refuge--now her name is a byword. The work of nursing and the
+care of an invalid's room, be it home or hospital, has been raised
+from mere manual labour. Intellect has established formulæ and dogma
+on which workers can be trained, and the work itself has been proved
+not alone a suitable means by which a woman can earn her living, but
+also a profession demanding a dignified respect and admiration. The
+researches of medical laboratories--the accumulated experience of the
+great physicians and surgeons of the world--are constantly placing
+valuable knowledge in the hands of nurses and those who train them.
+Elaboration and fuss have gone in favour of a simplicity of service
+based on scientific facts; the influence of the trained worker has to
+some extent permeated the untrained service of home nursing. Great
+may still be our ignorance and great the need for a more adequate
+service, especially in the homes of the poor, but taken as a whole the
+care of the sick has been raised to what we may, without ambiguity,
+call a scientific art. Nursing may be popular from a love of such work
+and from its financial return, but the real strength of the nursing
+world lies in its organised provision of skilled women sent out to
+their work with a knowledge of its detail and a training in routine,
+paid for by service during years of apprenticeship.
+
+The changes that have been effected in regard to the care of the sick
+may not form a perfect analogy of what can be done in other forms of
+domestic work, but they at least constitute a lesson in cause and
+effect, with many suggestions for the would-be reformer. Improvement
+in nursing owes its first impetus to a realisation of the part a nurse
+must of necessity play in curing or alleviating suffering, and any
+real improvements in our general domestic work and conditions will
+only be seriously considered when they are properly appreciated in
+their relation to the health and efficiency of the nation. To bring
+this home to individuals and classes must be the work of education. Let
+us magnify the office of the housewife unduly rather than leave it
+unrecognised. We must demand something more than mere manipulative
+skill from the manual worker--a knowledge and interest from those who
+direct her work; a place in laboratories and schools for the many
+problems worthy of elucidation. To make lessons in housecraft a part
+of the curriculum of elementary and secondary schools has its own good;
+to make lessons in sick-nursing also a part might be good; but to leave
+both there would be only to patch, not mend, a rent in our social
+conditions. The matter must find its way into universities and
+research schools for its physical and economic investigation--as in
+other kinds of work we need an aristocracy of brains to guide the
+democracy of hands to found an apprenticeship system that shall
+provide efficient workers to bring the mighty forces of chemical,
+physical, and biological science to bear directly on such matters as
+selection of foods, methods of cooking, better apparatus for cleaning
+purposes, and an evolution of house-planning and furnishing that shall
+reduce the present elaboration of service and cleaning. It is not
+possible that every woman who cooks a potato shall be intimately
+acquainted with the structure of starch-cells or the effect of heat on
+those cells, nor is it likely that we shall aim at a system that makes
+the cooking of our food as exact as a laboratory experiment, but that
+thermometer, microscope, and test-tube have their own part to play
+is evident. The use of a disinfectant by a nurse is a scientific
+operation, the scope of which has only been made possible by many
+and careful investigations in which the specialised effort of the few
+has resulted in a definite formula and a handy preparation only to be
+used with intelligent appreciation of its purpose. She understands its
+use and abuse, how to adapt it to circumstances, and probably how to
+find a substitute for it if occasion requires.
+
+It is much on these lines that many of the problems of kitchen and
+household interest must be attacked.
+
+We need a simple and reliable classification of foods that shall be
+useful to the practical cook. A quantitative analysis of proteid or
+carbo-hydrate qualities of wheat, lentils, or milk may form excellent
+exercise for laboratory classes, but even there it is too often taught
+without any relation to the assimilative properties of the average
+digestion and their consequent effect on food values. For ordinary use
+we want all this brought to a general outlook of the value, and
+comparative value, of such ordinary food as bread, oatmeal, eggs, and
+beef; not only as to suitable proportions in our diet and to methods of
+cooking, but also as a help in providing suitable substitutes for a
+particular commodity in time of scarcity. Beyond the inevitable victims
+of the Irish potato famine, many suffered quite unnecessarily for want
+of ability to replace the familiar potato by a possible substitute; and
+to-day we are little more intelligent in our catering. Quantity and
+quality of the potato crop must each year to some extent make itself
+felt on small purses, and while not dependent on this one article of
+diet we might often help a meagre table by a good substitute such as
+rice, hominy, dumplings, and an increased supply of fresh vegetables.
+Substitutes for butcher's meat too often suggest the purely vegetarian
+dish that to most people is but a _pis aller_. To replace part or even
+most of the meat in a dish with a food of approximate dietetic value
+would generally be more acceptable. A dish of haricot beans cooked with
+a little minced beef is, for example, a very different dish from the
+vegetarian treatment of the same article. Pea-soup made with the
+addition of a ham or beef bone will generally win approval over its less
+"tasty" rival. The value of eggs and the many ways of using cheese--the
+possibilities of oatmeal beyond mere porridge--are all matters worth
+understanding; so also is the problem of our milk supply.
+
+The fact that legislation is active in securing the hygienic conditions
+of the wholesale milk supply cannot excuse individual indifference to
+either its actual value or suitable treatment. The inferiority of skim
+or separated milk to "whole milk" has been so emphasised that in many
+places a useful article is lying as a drug in the market. That skim milk
+is as useful as many "stocks" and much better than water for making
+porridge, maigre soups, sauces, for mixing bread and scones, has yet to
+be appreciated, and will only be so when the true economic use of food
+is removed from its present haphazard position among the instinctive
+arts!
+
+The constructive consistency of meat, fish, and vegetables must be
+clearly set out if we are to understand the effect upon them of heat.
+The primary methods of cooking and the standard proportions of
+ingredients may already be used with an intelligence that at least puts
+aside the recipe book; but the research that can produce a satisfactory
+system of catering and cooking has yet to invade the higher education of
+men and women. A suggestion of the scientific treatment of domestic
+matters too often presumes an elaboration of work rather than a
+reduction of it, and yet we all realise the labour-saving and economic
+return that has been the result of science applied to commercial
+industries. There must be a definite aim to simplify housekeeping and
+domestic work; the conditions of life have gone that made a women find
+scope for _all_ her energy in administering the affairs of her house or
+in employing others to that end.
+
+To the uninitiated the various culinary processes seem endless, and to
+arrive at a proper accomplishment of these is generally considered a
+matter of continuous practice. A better understanding of the matter
+readily shows that while many processes can only be perfected by
+repetition, there are even more that fall under science rather than art.
+Take, for example, the principles underlying the cooking of meat by
+stewing. This is surely a process where manipulation is _nil_. To make
+pastry or bread we must have a certain practice in the manipulation to
+give the deftness (on which final success depends) in addition to any
+understanding of the principles involved; but with regard to stewing and
+many similar processes it should be possible to have one lesson made so
+explicit that the actual process was known for all time--the Irish stew
+of an artisan's home or the dainty entrée of the "Ritz" being only an
+adaptation of given principles to different foods.
+
+In order to reduce primary methods to such business-like proportions, it
+is necessary to consider them in their effect on different foods, having
+due regard to texture and to the effect of a moist or a dry heat. It
+would be a matter of interest to know how the established methods of
+cooking meat and fish all really conduce to one end, viz. to soften the
+fibres by steam formed from their own juices. The rules for most methods
+of cooking these foods lead to this assumption, though nominally based
+only on a means of retaining these juices in order to save a valuable
+part of the food. The actual part played by the liquid in which foods
+are cooked is possibly very small, but not to be ignored; the presence
+of salt in the water in which beef or potatoes is cooked makes an
+appreciable difference in the flavour and probably in the food value.
+The relation of the fat used in frying to the food fried in it is too
+often quite misunderstood, and a dyspeptic patient consequently is
+ordered "no fried food."
+
+To "fry in butter" sounds well, but it is practically impossible; to
+_sauté_ in butter at a temperature allowing some of the butter to enter
+the food, is quite a valuable method of cooking; but to raise the
+temperature to a point at which frying can be done is to char the
+butter. To fry properly, the food should be immersed in fat so hot that
+the outside of meat is immediately "set." Then allow the heating of the
+juices inside the meat to perform the necessary cooking. The immersion
+of the cold food soon lowers the temperature of the fat and makes
+continued immersion possible. The best kind of fat for this purpose and
+the relative temperature at which different fats may be used needs more
+investigation. At present for ordinary kitchen use we have no more
+reliable test of temperature than to venture a bit of bread and judge by
+result. One thing we may accept--frying is not a greasy or rich method
+of cooking. The fat used is merely a means of excluding atmosphere and
+cooking food at a high temperature; it bears no more relation to the
+food itself than does the atmosphere of the oven in baking.
+
+This question of temperatures and their relation to the kind of food, as
+also to the various cookery processes, needs careful handling; we want
+not alone a definite dogma established on a scientific basis, but we
+want the means to apply it brought within easy reach--reach of a limited
+purse and a limited intellectual capacity, for we are not all scholars.
+There is no reason why a thermometer should not become part of our
+kitchen equipment just as readily as that old sand-glass which
+regulated the boiling of an egg, but, before it is the case, many other
+matters must fall into line. It is probable that a careful investigation
+of the best means of frying, boiling, stewing, &c. would effect a
+considerable revolution in our household pots and pans. Is it impossible
+to produce a pan in which a given quantity of fat or oil should be
+easily brought to, say, 400° Fahr., and yet be unable to exceed that
+temperature? It would so safeguard expense from burning that the most
+delightful frying medium, olive oil, would be readily used by many
+people.
+
+The matter of watching, and waiting, and judging the exact minute for
+certain operations takes far more time than is generally supposed, and
+the gloom surrounding the average kitchen range increases the
+difficulty. The cook who understands the use of double pans for oven and
+range has done something to save both time and anxiety, but it is
+evident that much more might be done to render many cookery processes
+almost automatic. The science that controls the production of such
+commercial products as biscuits, tinned foods, pickles, and jam, and
+turns them out to a uniform standard, is at present remote from the
+household kitchen. Such scientific knowledge has been produced at a
+commercial value for commercial enterprise. We need _our_ problems
+brought into universities and colleges; into the channels where research
+is made public; into the laboratories of schools, where, if no wonderful
+result may be proclaimed, we have at least established a scientific
+method of approaching the work of kitchen, laundry, and storeroom. The
+ordinary teaching of the domestic subjects too often tends to magnify
+the difficulties in order to show how they may be overcome. The
+simplification of methods by classification would do much, and the
+evolution of possible devices for saving labour would do still more, to
+establish a favourable view of housekeeping. What is worth doing is
+worth doing well; but it is "doing" unnecessarily that spells drudgery.
+
+Our attitude in considering household problems turns almost
+involuntarily to cooking, but the need for an intellectual grasp of
+matters domestic is equally potent in methods of cleaning. If the word
+"hygiene," which we use so glibly, were really understood and
+appreciated, the modern house-builder and furnisher would quickly be
+sent to swell the ranks of the unemployed, and we should demand
+construction and fittings which would minimise the problems of dust and
+tarnish, provide suitable storage for food, and allow cleaning to be
+simple, straightforward, and efficient. The advent of the vacuum cleaner
+is less valuable in itself than in the establishment of a new principle
+for dealing with dust, and one that may eventually revolutionise our
+house-cleaning. We need a simple appliance of equal scientific value to
+reduce some at least of the labour entailed in "washing-up." Pots and
+pans, plates and dishes may be economised in number by a careful
+worker, but cleaned they must be, and the average "sink" of scullery or
+pantry is little removed from the pristine incompleteness of its first
+appearance. There is, in the cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral, a sink,
+evidently used by the monks of the sixteenth century, which is identical
+with those found in sculleries of to-day, and yet chemistry and physics
+have revolutionised our industries and produced all sorts of scientific
+methods for cleaning, lighting, and heating on a large scale. Perhaps
+when the same woman who takes a D.Sc. bestows some of her energy on the
+washing of dishes we shall get to something less primitive than washing
+each individual greasy plate with a mop or cloth. The only scientific
+treatment of "washing-up" used at present seems open to criticism, and
+is only suited to large establishments, but it should be possible to
+construct every sink with some sort of douche and general fittings
+suited to this work.
+
+The question of the position of modern woman towards laundry-work
+seems to have resolved itself into one of income. If she can pay for
+the services of a steam laundry she does so. In the United Kingdom it
+is estimated that there are 30,000 public laundries, but we have yet
+to find one that can produce a list of charges within reasonable
+limits of a small income. In the homes that are run on incomes of
+£100 to £400 a-year, and where the laundry-work is done at the
+public laundry, the amount of "washing" must be small, or some other
+side of the expenditure must be seriously curtailed. Laundrying
+performed intelligently and under suitable conditions is neither
+difficult nor unpleasant. To stand over a wash-tub rubbing each
+article by hand; to strain every muscle emptying that tub; to dry
+garments on a rail across a kitchen and iron them near a blazing fire is
+_not_ intelligent, and can only be followed by women driven by
+custom to wash clothes at all. Perhaps in no section of household work
+are scientific methods within reach as in the laundry; the existence of
+the public laundry and the rivalry of different firms has produced an
+open market for appliances of all kinds, and the exhibition of
+laundry utensils, machines, &c., has become an annual event. Though many
+of the inventions are destined for the "power" and general scope of
+the public laundry, there are always a number of home appliances to
+be seen; many more would be adapted if there were more demand. Any
+real scope for these must rest in the first place with architect and
+house-builder. In the North of England it is usual to build a small
+"wash-house" to nearly every house, but the general construction of
+these wash-houses is such as to discourage any desire to use them.
+Only cold water is provided; the boiler is arranged as a detached
+unit; the possibility of a drying cupboard in connection with kitchen
+stove or hot-water cylinder is never considered, and the economical
+heating of irons is generally overlooked. The use of irons heated by
+gas, charcoal, and methylated spirit would be more general if these
+were more efficiently constructed and less expensive. The provision of
+electricity at a cost within the reach of ordinary folk will simplify
+many things in laundry-work as in cooking and cleaning. Instruction is,
+to some extent, already available as to soaps, detergent solutions and
+bleaching agents. We need more appreciation of the part that may be
+played by the process of "steeping" and the minimum of handling with
+which clothes may be efficiently washed and finished. The profit and
+loss in the matter cannot be estimated only in labour, time, soap, and
+firing; the wear and tear of fabric in public laundries compared with
+home handling and the risk of infection involved must both be taken
+into account. If we make laundrying easy we do much to make a frequent
+change of garment possible to a section of the community inclined to
+economise in this direction, and we should probably make fashionable
+those household materials that may be consigned to a wash-tub, instead
+of paying a reluctant visit to the dry-cleaner--chintz, cretonne, and
+Bolton sheeting instead of serge, tapestry, and plush. We owe one debt
+of gratitude to the public laundry--it has raised a section of household
+work to the level of a skilled industry, though as yet there seems
+no system of apprenticeship that turns out the "complete" laundress.
+
+For the limits of a short paper these matters have perhaps been treated
+somewhat discursively, but the object has been attained if, by the few
+illustrations selected, some attention has been drawn to the field of
+inquiry which lies open, and the urgent need for a definite application
+of scientific minds to problems which, amid all the advances of this
+progressive age, seem to lag behind. The inclusion of housecraft as part
+of the curriculum of elementary and secondary schools may do much to
+rouse interest and overcome some difficulties of cooking, &c., but to
+any one familiar with these classes it is evident that their scope is
+very limited, if only for the reason that the teaching so often treats
+the work of housekeeping as an imitative art, based, for want of
+reliable scientific data, on rules and recipes that are practically
+organised tradition no more. In secondary schools, the introduction of
+laboratory work has opened up fresh possibilities of a more reasonable
+treatment of housecraft, for it is certain that, when teachers are
+properly equipped for their work, biology, physics, and chemistry
+(organic and inorganic) can be successfully taught along lines that
+bring within the scope of school science such matters as food and
+feeding, cooking and washing, fuels, heating, ventilation, and hygiene.
+
+To teach chemistry and physics in the usual academic manner and then
+tack on a course of cookery and laundry-work at the end of school life
+cannot possibly be of the same value as the co-ordinated courses; we
+want scientific method even more than "science" for these schools girls,
+who shall so soon be the housekeepers and home-makers. We may say with
+Stevenson, "A dogma learned is only a new error--the old was perhaps as
+good; but a spirit communicated is a perpetual possession." For those
+girls who pass on to a university or technical school we want an
+intelligence alert to all that may lie in further investigation of those
+problems suggested at school.
+
+A certain jealousy may be pardoned that the possible evolution of
+housekeeping may be the work of women; the leaders of the "woman's
+movement" have so often spoiled their work by following the lines of
+men's activities and aiming at a goal essentially masculine. The things
+that go to housekeeping seem so intimately connected with motherhood
+and mothering that it must be hoped our most able women will bring
+their intelligence, their education, and their sense of national
+responsibility to the task of housekeeping--to the simplification of its
+problems, the reduction of the labour involved, and the organisation
+of the paid service. There is certainly scope for master-minds.
+
+We touched on the organisation of the nursing service. If it is
+possible to duly care for the sick and at the same time train an
+efficient nurse, it is surely possible to provide proper service in the
+huge caravanseries of our modern life, and at the same time provide a
+suitable apprenticeship for the domestic worker. Good instruction at
+school, followed by one or two years of definite training in a hostel
+or boarding-house, should produce a class of skilled women workers who
+can be organised and employed on the same lines as those of the
+nursing service.
+
+In many branches of labour the women are ousting the men; unless we can
+make good the present breach in our home bulwark and train our army of
+defence, we may find men ousting women in their own particular sphere.
+
+America and Canada, realising that their coveted nationality must be
+founded on homes, have brought into their universities the "science of
+home affairs." England, in spite of the warning note sounded by
+inquiries into physical deterioration, infant mortality, and kindred
+evils, has been content with a _tradition_ of good homes, and has so far
+done little more than provide a smattering of cookery lessons for
+elementary school girls.
+
+There is, however, a promise of better things. One university college
+has made a venture into home science, and other universities would soon
+be at work if the necessary money could be secured. Oh, for some
+silver-tongued evangelist to cry in the ears of our philanthropic
+millionaires all that might be done for this country by bringing its
+_best_ brains to consider the material things that go to the making of a
+good home!
+
+
+  THE END
+
+  Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+  Edinburgh & London
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Household Administration, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSEHOLD ADMINISTRATION ***
+
+***** This file should be named 36781-8.txt or 36781-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/8/36781/
+
+Produced by Katherine Ward, Jonathan Ingram, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.