America has revealed a state of physical ill-being most deplorable in the
present, and horrifying to contemplate for its future results. One has
only to keep one's eyes open in passing the streets to become aware of the
physical deterioration of thousands of the wage-earners. One has only to
listen to the housewife's complaints of inefficiency, lack of strength
among the housemaids, to realize that the world's work is not being well
done in so far as it depends upon human hands.

This loss of efficiency is usually attributed to insufficient food and
long hours, but it is at least an open question if housing conditions are
not the more potent factor not only in the case of the very poor, but even
in the case of the family having an income of $2000 a year. Life in a
boarding-house adapted from the use by one family to that of five or six
without increase of bathing and ventilating conveniences, with old-style
plumbing, cannot be mentally or bodily invigorating.

The house cannot be said to be a place of safety so long as the "great
white plague" lurks in every dark corner--tuberculosis, colds, influenza,
etc., fasten themselves upon its occupants. Explorers exposed to extremes
of weather do not thus suffer. The dark, damp house incubates the germs.

But homes there must be: places of safety for children, of refuge for
elders. Men will marry and women may keep house. How shall it be managed
so as to be in harmony with present-day demands? Certainly not by ignoring
the difficulties. Progress in any direction does not come through wringing
of hands and deploring the decadence of the present generation. President
Roosevelt's advice is to bring up boys and girls to overcome obstacles,
not to ignore them. Let the educated, intelligent young people join in
devising a way to surmount this obstacle as the engineers of 1890 invented
new ways of crossing impassable gorges and "impossible" mountain ranges.