CHAPTER V.


POSSIBILITIES IN SIGHT PROVIDED THE HOUSEWIFE IS PROGRESSIVE.

"We are far from the noon of man:
There is time for the race to grow."--TENNYSON.

"There appears no limit to the invasion of life by the machine."
H.G. WELLS.

The house as a centre of manufacturing industry has passed (for even if
village industries do spring up, the work-rooms will be separate from the
living-rooms); the house as a sign of pecuniary standing is passing: what
next? Why, of course, the house as the promoter of "the effective life."
Rebel as the artistic individual may at this word, it expresses the spirit
of the twentieth century as nothing else can. Social advance must be made
along the line of efficiency, even if it lead to something different and
not at first sight better. The appeal to self-interest is soonest
answered. The man or woman with any ambition will keep clean, will buy
better milk for the baby, will pay more for rent if he or she is convinced
that it will bring in or save money in the end, because money has been the
measure of success in the nineteenth century. But as the full significance
of this "machine-made" age is grasped it will be seen that it has set free
the human laborer, if only he will qualify himself to use the power at
his hand. The house will become the first lesson in the use of mechanical
appliances, in control of the harnessed forces of nature, and of that