The Cost of Shelter by Ellen H. Richards
page 41 of 105 (39%)
page 41 of 105 (39%)
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task was difficult, but now he will have to do with the young people who
know no other life and who will more readily fall in with the standards set by the house itself. For this very reason those who have social welfare at heart must come to the rescue, and devise and put up samples, of the best that modern science can offer, to rent for $300 to $500 a year. Let any one who loves his kind, if he have a talent this way, not wrap it in a napkin, but give it to the builder and the philanthropist to materialize. Now is the time to set standards for the next thirty years. The electric car is opening new country as never before. Who will make the practical advance? These new houses will be roomy and yet, I think, will not fail of sun-parlors or enclosed piazzas which will serve as extensions of the house when occasion demands. I am sure they will not contain the forbidding "front room" set apart for weddings and funerals and rare family gatherings. More open-air life will be fashionable and practicable as soon as we have learned that a wind-break and not a tightly-enclosed space is what we need. In northern latitudes especially it is the wind which makes the climate seem so inclement. The amount of accessible sunshine may be doubled with great advantage in most of the semi-country-houses. Shelter should not suggest a prison. The education of the child demands that housing shall include land for pets, for vegetables and flowers; not merely to increase beauty and selfish pleasure, but for the ethical value of contact with things dependent on care and forethought. The thoughtful sociologist recognizes as one of the greatest needs for the children of to-day a closer companionship with fathers--is urging that even money-making should be secondary to the time given to moulding the character of the little ones, |
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