evening hours on porches, or galleries, but think of what we gain in
bricks and mortar, in labor saved from splitting wood and shoveling
coal, in janitor service! The transition is now complete; the home is
simply that item in the economic machinery which will best furnish us
storage for our sleeping bodies and our clothes!

We are undoubtedly in a period of great changes in family life, and no
family can count on escaping the influence of the change. The one single
outstanding and most potent change, so far as the character of family
life is concerned, is, in the United States, the rapid polarization of
population in the cities. The United States Census Bureau counts all
residents in cities of over 8,000 population as "urban." In 1800 the
"urban" population was 4 per cent of the total population; in 1850 it
was 12.5 per cent; in 1870, 20.9 per cent; in 1890, 29.2 per cent; in
1900, 33.1 per cent; in 1910 it was estimated at 40 per cent.[2] Here
is a trend so clearly marked that we cannot deny its reality, while its
significance is familiar to everyone today.

However, the village type remains; there are still many homes where a
measure of family unity persists, where at least in one meal daily and,
for purposes of sleeping and, occasionally, for the evening hours of
recreation, there is a consciousness of home life. Yet the most remote
village feels the pressure of change. The few homes conforming to the
older ideals are recognized as exceptional. The city draws the village
and rural family to itself, and the contagion of its customs and ideals
spreads through the villages and affects the forms of living there.
Youths become city dwellers and do not cease to scoff at the village
unless later years give them wisdom to appreciate its higher values. The
standard of domestic organization is established by the city; that type
of living is the ideal toward which nearly all are striving.