dirt will not be permitted to come in on shoes and long dresses. Warmed or
cooled, moistened or dried air will be circulated as needed. In such a
house rugs may stay undisturbed for a month or more, books for years, and
the dust-cloth be rarely in evidence; the redding will consist of putting
back in place the things used; but as each member of the family will do
this as soon as he is old enough, there will be but a few minutes' work.

The breakfast will be of uncooked or simply heated food, parched grains
and cream, fruit fresh or dried, and nuts. If coffee or cocoa is desired,
the electric heater serves it to the requisite degree of heat. Each adult
member of the family will probably take this in his own room or at his own
convenience, without the formality of a meal. The few glasses and other
dishes may be plunged into a tank of water and left for future cleaning.
Luncheon will depend altogether on the habits of the family, but dinner,
at whatever hour that may be, will be the family symposium. Dressed in its
honor, with a sprightly addition to the conversation of experience or
information or conjecture, there will be form and ceremony of a simple,
refined kind, such that once again the family may welcome a guest without
anxiety. Good conversation and fresh interests will thus come into the
children's lives. How much they have missed in these days of the barring
out all hospitality! Is it perchance one reason, if not the chief, why
manners have degenerated?

This meal will not have more than four courses of food carefully selected
and perfectly cooked, whether in the house or out matters not so it is
served fresh and of just the right temperature. No kind of cooking will be
permitted which "meets the guest in the hall and stays with him in the
street"; therefore the dishes may be washed by neatly dressed maids or by
the children, who thus learn to care for the fitness of things; plenty of
towels and hot water, with all hands doing a little, leaves everything