But the Adamistic theory is based on the dream that women are
contentedly and efficiently conducting in their flats many occupations,
and longing to receive back into the life around the gas-log all those
industries which in years gone by were drawn from the fireside and
established as money making projects in mill or work-shop. And so Adam
addresses an exhortation to his Eve: "Don't buy bread, bake it; don't
buy flour, grind your own; don't buy soap, make it; don't buy canned,
preserved, or dried food, carry on the processes yourself; don't buy
fruits and vegetables, raise them."

Not a doubt seems to exist in Adam's mind as to the efficiency of
functioning woman-power in this way. According to the Adamistic theory,
work as mother used to do it is unqualifiedly perfect. This flattering
faith is naturally balm to women's hearts, and yet there are skeptics
among them. When quite by themselves women speculate as to how much of
the fruit and vegetables now put up in the home will "work."

They smile when the hope is expressed that the quality will rise above
the old-time domestic standard. The home of the past was a beehive in
which women drudged, and little children were weary toilers, and the
result was not of a high grade. Statistics have shown that seventy-five
percent of the home-made bread of America was a poor product. I lived as
a child in the days of home-made bread. Once in so often the batch of
bread "went sour," and there seemed to be an unfailing supply of stale
bread which "must be eaten first." Those who cry out against a city of
bakers' bread, have never lived in a country of the home-made loaf. It
is the Adamistic philosophy, so complimentary to Eve, that leads us to
expect that all housewives can turn out a product as good as that of an
expert who has specialized to the one end of making bread, and who is
supplied with expensive equipment beyond the reach of the individual to