ideals, the house built by or for the young people was used as a homestead
by their children and their children's children. Customs grew up slowly,
and for some reason. Furniture, collected as wanted, found its place; all
the routine went as by clockwork. Saturday's baking of bread and pies went
each on to its own shelf, as the cows went each to her own stall. If the
duties were physically hard, the routine saved worrying.

To-day how few of us live in the house we began life with! How few in that
we occupied even ten years ago! And this number is growing smaller and
smaller. The housewife has not time to form habits of her own; she engages
a maid and expects her to fall at once into the family ways, when the
family has no ways.

In the sociological sense, shelter may mean protection from noise, from
too close contact with other human beings, enemies only in the sense of
depriving us of valuable nerve-force. It should mean sheltering the
children from contact with degrading influences.

Charles P. Neill, United States Commissioner of Labor, in his address at
the New York School of Philanthropy, July 16, 1905, said: "In my own
estimation home, above all things, means privacy. It means the possibility
of keeping your family off from other families. There must be a separate
house, and as far as possible separate rooms, so that at an early period
of life the idea of rights to property, the right to things, to privacy,
may be instilled."

There may be such a thing as too much shelter. To cover too closely breeds
decay. Are we in danger of covering ourselves and our children too closely
from sun and wind and rain, making them weak and less resistant than they
should be? The prevalence of tuberculosis and its cure by fresh air seems