LIBRARY OF THE 
 NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE 
 OF HOME ECONOMICS 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 ITHACA, NEW YORK, 
 
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 B Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
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WORKS OF ELLEN H. RICHARDS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 JOHN WILEY & SONS 
 
 43-45 EAST I9TH ST., NEW YORK. 
 
 The Cost of'Living as Modified by Sanitary Science. 
 
 By Ellen H. Richards, Instructor in Sanitary 
 Chemistry in the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
 nology, lamo. 124 pages. Cloth. $1.00. 
 Air, Water, and Food ; From a Sanitary Standpoint. 
 
 By Ellen H. Richards, with the assistance of 
 Alpheus G. Woodman, Instructors in Sanitary 
 Chemistry in the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
 nolqgy. 8vo. 230 pages. Cloth. $2.00. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 HOME SCIENCE PUBLISHING CO., 
 
 485 TREMONT STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 
 
 The Chemistry of Cooking; and Cleaning. 
 
 By Ellen H. Richards and S. Maria Elliott. 
 Cloth, 158 pages. Price $1.00. 
 
 Food iVlaterials and their Adulterations. 
 
 By Ellen H. Ricllards. Cloth. 183 pages. Price 
 $1.00. 
 
 Home Sanitation. 
 
 Revised Edition. Edited by Ellen H. Richards 
 and Marion Talbot. Paper. 85 pages. Price 25c 
 
 Plain Words about Food. 
 
 Edited by Ellen H. Richards. The Rumford Leaf- 
 lets. Illustrated, Cloth. 176 pages. Price $1.00. 
 
THE COST OF LIVING 
 
 AS MODIFIED BY 
 
 SANITARY SCIENCE. 
 
 ELLEN H. RICHARDS, 
 
 Instructor- in Sanitary Chemistry 
 in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED. 
 FIRST THOUSAND. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 JOHN WILEY & SONS. 
 
 London I CHAPMAN & HALL, Limited. 
 
 19OI. 
 
Copyright, 1899, 
 
 BY 
 
 ELLEN H. RICHARDS 
 
 ROBERT DKUMMOND^ PRINTER, NEW YORK, 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 While appreciating the many kind words vouch- 
 safed by the reviews in regard to this Httle book, the 
 author began to feel somewhat disheartened as to the 
 chief purpose of the work. The broad view of sanitary 
 science, that it means a knowledge of all that physical 
 and mental environment which leads to the highest 
 utilization of man's powers for the progress of civiliza' 
 tion, and not a mere study of germ diseases, seems to 
 be lacking even in the educational world. 
 
 It was especially gratifying, therefore, to find that 
 the meaning was not so blindly expressed but that it 
 could be read, and the author desires to thank the 
 unknown critic who so clearly expressed the purpose 
 of the discussion that the quotation is here given in 
 full. 
 
 "The 'Cost of Living' represents a departure from 
 former methods of teaching hygiene. The teaching of 
 hygiene as a natural science has not accomplished 
 what was prophesied for it two decades since. The 
 sanitarian is beginning now to treat hygiene as one 
 phase of a social science. To. that end the author of 
 the book under discussion presents nine lectures on 
 domestic economy. Starting with the assumption 
 that half our income is wasted, or, in other words. 
 
IV PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 that present incomes go only half as far as they 
 might, the author concludes that reform may be 
 effected through improvement in consumption as vi^ell 
 as through an increased share in the results of pro- 
 duction. In fact, permanent improvements in the 
 standard of life depend rather upon wise spending 
 than upon large earnings. 
 
 " Sanitary Science furnishes the criterion of wise ex- 
 penditure in the selection of a diet, of a building site, 
 and household furnishings. The lectures go further 
 and suggest model budgets for the households depen- 
 dent upon modest incomes. Many economies are 
 discussed whereby the small incomes may be made to 
 raise materially the standard of life, without sub- 
 tracting any real or supposed essentials in the exist- 
 ing standard." (Annals of the Am. Acad., May 1900, 
 p. 448.) 
 
 In regard to the Division of the Income necessary 
 or best adapted to produce the desired result, not until 
 more actual budgets from different parts of the country 
 and from families living under a variety of conditions 
 are received can general laws be deduced. From the 
 young people who have numbered this little book 
 among their wedding presents, and from those who 
 have started housekeeping with its suggestions in mind, 
 will come the most valuable criticisms. 
 
 The author will be grateful for these and for any 
 suggestions which will help those who are finding 
 more and more difficult the struggle for a civilized 
 life. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Standards of Living i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Service of Sanitary Science in Increasing Pro- 
 ductive Life i6 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Household Expenditure. Division between Depart- 
 ments according to Ideals 28 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The House. Rent or Value and Furnishing 40 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Operating Expenses : Fuel, Light, Wages 50 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Food 65 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Clothing in Relation to Health 82 
 
 CHAPTER Vin. 
 The Emoiional and Intellectual Life 89 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Organization of the Houshold 100 
 
THE COST OF LIVING 
 
 AS MODIFIED BY SANITARY SCIENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 STANDARDS OF LIVING. 
 
 "Apart from religion, the end of man is to secure a plenty 
 of the good things of this world, with life, health, and peace to 
 enjoy them." — John Locke, 1690. 
 
 "Education is that organizing of resources in the htinian 
 being, of powers and conduct, which shall fit him to his social 
 and physical world." — William James, 1899. 
 
 In these days of consolidation for the purpose of 
 cutting down expenses, days of close calculation of 
 cost, when everything is reduced to a money basis in 
 production, it is not surprising that discussion should 
 have arisen over the great waste involved in the 
 keeping up of fifty kitchen-fires to do the work that 
 five would do; in the time given to the marketing 
 for one family which might serve for fifty. Many 
 students of social questions have predicted the 
 speedy appearance of a housekeeping trust, by which 
 
2 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 living is to be made more economical and less bur- 
 densome. 
 
 It must be acknowledged that for economy the 
 home of the well-to-do cannot at present compete 
 with the best-managed hotels and boarding-houses. 
 It is worth while to examine the causes for this state 
 of things and to be prepared to accept such modifica- 
 tions as are inevitable. 
 
 In the first place, a family in boarding occupies 
 one half or one third the space it would require in a 
 house of its own. That means less rent. 
 
 In the second place, most persons will put up with 
 less service in such quarters than they would expect 
 at home. 
 
 In the third place, the cost of the food, its prep- 
 aration and serving, is far less per person than in a 
 small family. 
 
 In the fourth place, the economy of time in having 
 most of the details of the daily routine cared for 
 without personal oversight and direction reconciles 
 many persons to the hotel and boarding-house life. 
 
 While we acknowledge the attractive side of the 
 care-free condition of the members of. the "Home 
 trust," I think we also look forward with a secret 
 dread to the time when we may realize a Bellamy 
 dining-room or a Wells nursery. 
 
 It is with the intention of starting a discussion of 
 certain questions by the intelligent young people 
 
STANDARDS OF LIVING. 3 
 
 just about to begin life on fifteen hundred to three 
 thousand dollars a year that these pages have been 
 written. 
 
 Much investigation has been made of cost of exist- 
 ence of those who earn four hundred to five hundred 
 dollars a year, and many accounts have been given 
 of those who spend ten thousand to fifty thousand 
 dollars a year on the family living, but the majority 
 of the most intelligent American families, students, 
 professors, business men, and professional men, are 
 obliged to do the best they can on from two thou- 
 sand to five thousand dollars a year. It is from this 
 class that we may most confidently expect a great 
 advance in the next generation in a knowledge of 
 how to make the best use of life and how to get the 
 greatest pleasure from the money expended. 
 
 The discussions which have called public attention 
 to the status of housekeeping have assumed the 
 problem to be one of economics, brought about by 
 the industrial situation, and have looked for the solu- 
 tion along purely material lines. This is to consider 
 the human being as a machine, as a passive object of 
 revolutionary action, without power to direct his own 
 destiny. 
 
 It has been said: "Natural progress and physical 
 and intellectual advancement are not the whole of 
 human progress. The real advancement of the race 
 is to be promoted by the cultivation of our emotional 
 
4 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 and aesthetic nature, and altruism must replace 
 egoism." 
 
 While granting the presence of the economic and 
 industrial factors, the author holds that the ethical 
 discussion must precede any attempt to adjust these 
 factors to the ideals of the twentieth century. 
 
 Man as an uplifting, compelling force in the world 
 does not live by bread alone, but in all ages has won 
 his place by the ideals he has placed far ahead and 
 above him and for which he has valiantly striven. 
 The man without a conscious aim slowly but surely 
 degenerates. 
 
 The Englishman's house is not only his castle, it is 
 a small world in itself; in its management he has 
 learned to rule larger things: and it is conceded by so 
 able an observer as Edmond Demolin that this is the 
 secret of Anglo-Saxon superiority. The Englishman 
 easily leads because he has organizing ability. The 
 young boy who by his father's death becomes the 
 head of the household, develops those qualities which 
 afterward show in statesmanship or in generalship or 
 in engineering professions. 
 
 When these daily affairs are conducted on prin- 
 ciple, the experience gained in this small world of 
 human interests is the best preparation for the larger 
 World of charit)' and of public work. 
 
 If we accept the conclusion of the thoughtful 
 stur'ents of human evolution and assume that what is 
 
STANDARDS OF LIVING. S 
 
 represented by the term "home" is the germ of 
 Anglo-Saxon civilization, the unit of social progress; 
 that no community rises above the average of its 
 individual homes in intelligence, courage, honesty, 
 industry, thrift, patriotism, or any other individual 
 or civic virtue; that the home is the nursery of the 
 citizen; that nothing which church, school, or state 
 can do will quite make up for the lack in the home, 
 then we must acknowledge that no subject can be of 
 greater importance than a discussion of the standards 
 involved in home life. 
 
 A clever writer has shown how often the family is 
 a mere unorganized herd, with as little regard for 
 individual rights, for privacy, for likes and dislikes, 
 as is shown by any crowd. Whenever this is the 
 case it is because of wrong standards. A home 
 means a place that one can call one's own, into which 
 no one else can intrude. Each child, each member i 
 of the family should have a room, .or at least a/ 
 screened corner where safety from interference may' 
 be counted upon. Even a chalk-line on the floor) 
 contented the two who were obliged to live in one 
 room in the old ladies' home.* Quiet hours have a 
 great influence in the development' of character. A 
 love of the crowd betrays a poverty of individual 
 resources. The constant presence of the nurse is, 
 
 * "Castles in Spain," by Alice Brown. 
 
6 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 after a certaia age, bad for the child; the constant 
 direction to do this or that stultifies it. 
 
 Independence of character, personal resourceful- 
 ness, is what is at present needed in the social world ; 
 it is what the evolution of the past three or four 
 centuries has been cultivating in the development of 
 the individual, in freeing him from despotism and 
 tyranny, but it has been done within the home. Is 
 the office of this nursery of character gone ? Do we 
 not see signs of decadence in strength of purpose, in 
 that which goes to make for the best citizenship as 
 the power of the home wanes ? 
 
 Is it not time to ask ourselves " What is life for ? " 
 " What is the office of the home ? " Is not the pur- 
 pose of the family education in all that makes for 
 character, for citizenship; are not all the qualities 
 that serve the highest purposes in the world developed 
 in the family life when it is taken seriously ? 
 
 We admit that the very existence of the individual 
 home cannot be justified on ordinary economic 
 grounds. Trusts and combinations have wonderfully 
 cheapened the common articles in daily use. A 
 n.ursery trust would as wonderfully lessen the cost of 
 raising children. Mr. H. G. Wells* has given us a 
 vivid picture of such a nursery where one maid may 
 replace ten. 
 
 * ' ' When the Sleeper Wakes." 
 
STANDARDS OF LIVING. 7 
 
 The same economic tendency is going on in the 
 public schools. They are doing by the wholesale 
 much of what the home did individually fifty years 
 ago, and it must be acknowledged that on the surface 
 they are doing it more cheaply because large classes 
 are taught at once, but there is less opportunity for 
 individual development, and if this tendency is to 
 increase and finally all men are to be placed on 
 one level with no special individuality, where are the 
 leaders of the next century to come from ? 
 
 The school has its place as a corrective of the 
 deficiencies of the home. At any given time the 
 leaders of education should be able to foresee the 
 needs of the future citizen, and by the school training 
 to influence quickly a whole generation. It is this 
 ready adaptability to changing conditions which 
 makes the school such a potent factor whenever it is 
 allowed to use its preventive power in " doing away 
 with the inconvenience of ignorance," as John Eliot 
 expressed it. Conservatism has always opposed, and 
 is to-day opposing, the economic tendencies of the 
 school. The early struggle came in 1 8 17, when it 
 was proposed to teach reading in the school instead 
 of requiring it for admission. Each new departure 
 has been fought on the same ground — that training of 
 all but the purely intellectual faculties was the busi- 
 ness of the home, and that the school was usurping 
 its duties. The same battle is now going on over the 
 
8 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 still more evident home occupations, cooking and 
 sewing, but, as in 1817, when reading was not taught 
 in the home, so now when cooking and sewing are 
 not taught by the mother, the school must prepare 
 the next generation to bring these arts back or to 
 teach it the means of doing without them, 
 • The union of several persons in a group having a 
 common end, the welfare of the family, leads to a 
 consideration of others, to suppression of gross selfish- 
 ness, and offers a stimulus to that industry which will 
 advance the common interest. Human life is so 
 short and human endeavor so weak that the incentive 
 to provide for his own personal future would not be 
 sufHcient to urge to the full capacity any man's 
 power. For his child, his grandchild, he will strive 
 and thus gain the reward that comes with striving; 
 for it is not the possession of a given thing which 
 yields the most satisfaction; it is the contest which 
 precedes possession. 
 
 Our premises are, then, that the individual family 
 group must be maintained, but in a manner consistent 
 with modern progress. It is the ideal which is to be 
 preserved, not the mere shell. , 
 
 At first sight what could be more unlike the 
 dainty, gauze-winged butterfly, dancing at will in the 
 sunlight, than the slow-creeping, clumsy and often 
 repulsive caterpillar or the hard-shelled chrysalis 
 buried in the ground or idly swinging from a twig 'f 
 
STANDARDS OF LIVING. 9 
 
 And yet each form is only a stage in the life-history 
 of the same organism. 
 
 The form of home life familiar in the early part of 
 the nineteenth century, in which all industries were 
 carried on under the collection of roofs called the 
 homestead, and in which each member of the family 
 contributed, by the daily work of his or her hands, 
 to the stock of linen, wool, implements, etc., which 
 have been handed down even until now, may be 
 likened to the caterpillar stage with its many feet, all 
 contributing to the forward movement. The present 
 condition may be considered the chrysalis stage, in 
 which the useless feet are being absorbed and the 
 internal organs, even, are being transformed to suit 
 new uses not yet recognized. 
 
 Home life at the close of the nineteenth century 
 has lost nearly all the industries it once possessed; it 
 is no longer the progressive element in society; it no 
 longer devours voraciously whatever offers in the way 
 of stimulus and development ; it is stationary or even 
 retrograding in many ways. The family " resides " 
 now here, now there; they hire a " place," and the 
 children, instead of adding each day some improve- 
 ment, hack the trees, if there are any, bang the 
 furniture, tear the paper, and dig up the walk. No 
 care or responsibility for property or for the future 
 seems to rest upon parents or children. So far has 
 this gone that owners of property recognize it and 
 
lO THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 either refuse to rent to families where there are 
 children or charge a correspondingly higher rent. 
 
 What a commentary on the decadence of the ideal 
 of home life, and what a pitiful picture of the moral 
 degradation which has gone with it ! It is destruction 
 in the shortest possible time, not construction, bit 
 by bit, of that which is to last. 
 
 The century-long struggle for personal freedom has 
 invaded the home. The father feels no care for the 
 child beyond paying the bills. The mother's respon- 
 sibility ends with food and clothes. Education is 
 left to the school, and manners to the street. In the 
 rented house there is little sense of possession; fre- 
 quent movings render clothes more important than 
 furniture, and cause books and pictures to be looked 
 upon as troublesome. It is easier to move than to 
 clean house. The result is social ferment and discon- 
 tent and family discord. 
 
 Housekeeping has become a burden and not a 
 delight; every dollar spent on the home is grudged; 
 the responsibilities of keeping up a separate family 
 abode are more and more irksome and are readily 
 thrown off ; the time and money so saved are frequently 
 spent in communal pleasure rather than in individual 
 development. This is a serious phase in American 
 social life and deserves the attention of all thoughtful 
 persons, especially since it is doubtful if " health and 
 peace" are increased by the so-called improvements. 
 
STANDARDS OF LIVING. II 
 
 " Man advances when his comforts keep pace with 
 his intelligence." 
 
 It is customary to lay the blame on economic con- 
 ditions and on them alone, but the whole trouble lies 
 in the lack of ideals and standards which should con- 
 trol even social tendencies. Habits of life have been 
 allowed to lapse into those of savagery where the 
 present only guides action. 
 
 There are many elements entering into the forma- 
 tion of the required standards. At present the dis- 
 cussion will be limited to the influence of sanitary 
 knowledge and ideals upon the economic considera- 
 tions which are too apt to be unduly emphasized. 
 This is only applying to home life the principles 
 governing public health. 
 
 It is more economical, from a money point of view, 
 to discharge all wastes into the stream running 
 through a town and to take the water-supply from 
 the same stream; but it is recognized that there is an 
 economy of health as well as of wealth, and that it 
 actually pays in the end to spend thousands of dollars 
 on sewers and reservoirs. Let the public oncq' 
 become convinced that the economy of life in thei 
 home is to be measured, not by the cost in dollars and 
 cents, but by the product of this life, — healthy, 
 happy men and women, — and we shall hear less 
 grumbling over the cost of living. 
 
 Man is a gregarious animal, but in proportion as he 
 
12 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 becomes a " living soul " is he capable of the highest 
 joys and the best individual development when he is 
 not crowded and jostled and drawn along without his 
 own volition. 
 
 The more communal pleasures increase and demand 
 a greater share of the income, the more cheerless the 
 home becomes and the more indifference is mani- 
 fested toward the joys of family life. The house 
 becomes only a place of shelter and storage, to be 
 left behind when real enjoyment is desired. With it 
 is associated only the drudgery of the daily routine, 
 not the delight of living. 
 
 This tendency is shown not only by the nightly 
 crowds at all popular pleasure-resorts, but by the 
 equally large crowds of women seen daily on the 
 shopping streets. The estimation in which the home 
 is held by those who make the purchase of a twenty- 
 five-cent collar an excuse for three trips to the city 
 cannot be very high. 
 
 If there is to be an aristocracy in America, let it be 
 an expression of the real American character which, 
 as Hugo Miinsterberg has pointed out, is beginning 
 to be very evident to the student of history. Let it 
 be shown in the higher ideals of living, in the stand- 
 ards of health, of manners, and of aesthetic surround- 
 ings. The material is at hand. Who will shape it ? 
 Who better fitted to mould it aright than the young 
 men and young women trained, in the higher institu- 
 
STANDARDS OF LIVING. 1 3 
 
 tions of learning, to separate the true from the false, 
 to appreciate the real and to disregard the sham ? If 
 they cannot begin this work, then the colleges have 
 missed the mark in the education they have given. 
 
 The educated woman longs for a career, for an 
 opportunity to influence the world. Just now the 
 greatest field offered to her is the elevation of the 
 home into its place in American life. The home and 
 the school are the two pillars upon which American 
 institutions stand. The proper correlation of these 
 is the work of the coming years if there is not to be 
 a collapse of democratic institutions. The school 
 can do much, but it cannot undo all the mischief done 
 in the home. 
 
 If, as all recent writers on the subject of social 
 economics seem to be agreed must be the aim of the 
 twentieth century, the Anglo-Saxon ideal of home 
 life is to be maintained, the housekeeper, man or 
 woman, whichever it may be, must take the conscious 
 direction of the home life and so order it as to secure 
 not only the most economical but the most efificient 
 results, not in lavish display, not in a large bank- 
 account, but in the best-developed men and women, y 
 the product of that home. 
 
 No words are more misunderstood or misused than 
 thrift and frugality. In popular estimation a thrifty 
 person is stingy, a frugal man is a miser, whereas 
 history shows that these traits are those which are 
 
14 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 essential to the preservation of the race. They are 
 the reasonable restraints which make for health of 
 body and mind. 
 
 Wise expenditure of money, time, and energy in 
 daily living, how shall it be determined ? Tlie fol- 
 lowing pages offer no panacea for existing evils, only 
 a few suggestions as a basis for future study. 
 
 The need in household organization is for a com- 
 plete readjustment in accordance with modern condi- 
 tions, an adjustment which may be made without 
 losing that which is essential if a serious study is 
 undertaken of the various elements which go to make 
 up the daily routine. Without this basis of knowl- 
 edge any effort will be likely to cause confusion. 
 
 I am well aware that it is useless to attempt to 
 change a race tendency, but are we so sure that this 
 ignoring of home duties, this attempt to bring the 
 home into line with certain economic trend, is a true 
 progress, or is it one of the retrogressions which 
 accompany all progress, and only a phase, a result of 
 unthinking imitation or of ignorant carelessness ? 
 
 Charles Kendall Adams in the Atlantic of August, 
 1899, writes: " Education by the press, education 
 by the family, education by the church, education by 
 the schools; it is by these institutions alone that the 
 people are to be safely guided, for it is these alone 
 that are the ' ever-burning lamps of accumulated wis- 
 dom ' that are able to light the pathway of progress." 
 
STANDARDS OF LIVING. 1$ 
 
 If, as Patten says, " There is no tyrant like a 
 home; nothing else demands such implicit obedi- 
 ence," shall we throw off the yoke and so lapse into 
 anarchy, or can we modify the government of the 
 home to suit the freedom within limits which the 
 social trend of the time recognizes as essential ? 
 
 The home has survived the shock of losing most of 
 the intellectual and religious education of the chil- 
 dren. Will it bear the amputation of the material 
 industries represented by the kitchen ? We answer, 
 Yes, if the home is that place of moral education 
 where the mother is, the mother to world-children, if 
 not to those of her own flesh and blood. The home 
 still means the perfection of the child-life for which 
 it exists. It is this ideal which will preserve the 
 Anglo-Saxon superiority if anything is able to do it. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SERVICE OF SANITARY SCIENCE IN 
 INCREASING PRODUCTIVE LIFE. 
 
 " A tendency to underestimate the future remains as a relic 
 of savagery." — Bullock. 
 
 " Tliose nations that have attained the highest civilization 
 and wielded the greatest influence over their contemporaries 
 are those that have exercised the most careful guard over 
 health."— Quoted by B. W. Richardson. 
 
 "Man, whatever else he may be, is essentially and primor- 
 dially a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in 
 adapting himself to his environment." — William James, 1899. 
 
 The great complexity of modern life causes such a 
 diversity of types that the old proverb " What is one 
 man's meat is another's poison," is more than ever 
 applicable. Therefore, no rules for the expenditure . 
 of the income can be given which will suit all condi- 
 tions; only certain principles may be stated along 
 the lines of which each must work out his own rules 
 of conduct. The one fact standing out clearly is 
 that if man is to be an efficient, productive being, an 
 " economic man " and not a " social debtor," then 
 
 he must be in that condition of body and mind which 
 
 16 
 
SANITARY SCIENCE AND PRODUCTIVE LIFE. 1 7 
 
 will enable him to do his work in the world, whatever 
 that may be. 
 
 Instead of a purely economic basis, let us consider 
 the standards of living from the point of view of 
 health, both physical and moral; of efificiency, not 
 only as a mechanical machine, but as a creature with 
 intellectual and aesthetic possibilities, as the highest 
 product of civilization. 
 
 It is most difficult to draw the hne between those 
 comforts in daily life which increase the uplifting 
 tendencies of civilization and those luxuries, those 
 forms of indulgence which degrade the soul and 
 debilitate mind and body. 
 
 Increased facilities for personal cleanliness, more 
 comfortable beds, larger rooms, greater variety of 
 food, better pictures on the walls, all help to raise the 
 level of daily life above mere animal wants and mere 
 existence; but when an individual becomes so refined 
 and delicate that existence becomes impossible with- 
 out the luxurious surroundings common in modern 
 days, he is in a fair way to become eliminated from 
 the factors of race progress. Unless such persons go 
 into camp life or yacht life for a few months each 
 year, debility is sure to follow. 
 
 Again, the introduction of running water, of sew- 
 ing-machines, of servants, into the homes of hard- 
 worked women would seem to be an unmixed blessing, 
 but typhoid fever and diphtheria, backaches and 
 
1 8 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 injured spines, soured dispositions and endless bicker- 
 ings have resulted in a lower stage of civilization 
 instead of a higher. What is the matter with the 
 so-called advance in life ? Why is it that better 
 wages, shorter hours, more physical comforts do not 
 lead to happiness or refinement ? Why is it that 
 social questions seem more hopeless than ever before, 
 so that the student of philanthropy dreads to awaken 
 a happy, dirty, lazy family to the possibilities before 
 it, lest the last state shall be far worse than the first ? 
 Because by thrusting the implements of the highest 
 culture into the hands of those not strong enough to 
 hold them safely, we have given sharp-edged tools to 
 children. " When civilized man has more privileges 
 than he deserves or requires, he lapses into practical 
 barbarism." 
 
 The so-called improvements are seized upon not 
 because of their value, but in imitation of others. 
 The houses, furniture, food, ornaments of the great 
 mass of the people are chosen because some one else 
 has them, not because of any need in one's own con- 
 sciousness which they satisfy. 
 
 Is not this trait of mere imitation without the use 
 of thought or reason a most serious menace to real 
 progress ? Go through a great department store, 
 note-book in hand, and check off the articles which 
 afe valueless either for use or ornament and those 
 which, with a semblance of either, will lose the little 
 
SANITARY SCIENCE AND PRODUCTIVE LIFE. I9 
 
 value they have with the first day of use; then go 
 into the home for which the articles are destined and 
 note the amount of money spent for these things in 
 comparison with that spent for the essentials of good 
 living and for the things which make for moral and 
 mental advancement. 
 
 The only practicable remedy yet proposed is edu- 
 cation in true standards of living, in what constitutes 
 better homes, more comfortable conditions, and in a 
 clearer perception of those tendencies toward mere 
 imitation and luxury which lead to degeneration of 
 mind and body. 
 
 What better method of determining these standards 
 than by measuring them with the measure of health 
 gained, — physical, mental, spiritual health ? Any 
 comfort, any expenditure of money which will increase 
 health is legitimate, for health is not only the work- 
 man's capital, it is the essential factor in the success 
 of the author, the business man, and the pleasure- 
 seeker. But it is equally true that all above what is 
 needed for healthful development is luxury and tends 
 to debasement. 
 
 An increased food-supply would be conducive to 
 the health of the laborer, while the very abundance 
 on the tables of those who take no thought in the 
 matter may lead to over-indulgence and undermined 
 health. 
 
 Relief from daily drudgery will render the life of 
 
20 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 many a woman more tolerable, but when it only 
 results in idleness, dissatisfaction, and a mania for 
 shopping and the bargain-counter, such relief is not 
 in the line of higher standards of living, but is in the 
 nature of luxury, which undermines the health of the 
 body politic and leads to sure decay. 
 
 But it must be borne in mind that standards are 
 not the same for all; that which is luxury for one 
 family may be a necessity for another, so powerful is 
 habit and education, but each should have only that 
 standard which proves conducive to the best health, 
 and in this the development of sanitary science is of 
 the greatest service. Standards of living should be 
 regulated, not by money spent, not by servile imita- 
 tion of others, but by that which will produce the 
 best results in health of body and health of mind. 
 
 At first sight this might seem to be pure material- 
 ism, but nothing is better recognized to-day than that 
 health includes contentment of mind and serenity of 
 soul; that an environment of pictures, books, and 
 pleasant society will bring relish to the plainest food 
 and serve to maintain the highest ideals. 
 
 It is, then, not in the material portion of the daily 
 living that we are to look for improvement so much 
 as in the ideals, standards, aspirations, by which the 
 uses of the materials are governed. And it is just in 
 this particular that most of the recent discussion of 
 household economics and woman's work, and the 
 
SANITARY SCIENCE AND PRODUCTIVE LIFE. 21 
 
 conditions of living, seem to fail. It is taken for 
 granted that if tlie material conditions of the home 
 are ameliorated, if the kitchen is taken out of the 
 house, if the charwoman lives outside, if the artistic 
 decorator has been allowed free scope in the drawing- 
 room, if the school teaches cooking and sewing, if 
 the college teaches business law and economics, or if 
 women receive the same wages as men and have the 
 right to say how taxes shall be spent, — that when any 
 one or all of these things are obtained, then life will 
 be all sweetness and light. 
 
 But these material conditions, while having their 
 value, do not in themselves go to the root of the 
 matter. Their chief function is in the influence they 
 have on race ideals, on individuals or group standards. 
 It is in the perfection of control of matter by mind 
 that higher civilization consists. The savage is 
 dominated by nature; the man is civilized in propor- 
 tion as he dominates nature and bends hitherto un- 
 conquerable natural forces to minister to his needs. 
 
 The housewife who is worried by her servants, 
 cheated by her tradesnien, and is helpless before her 
 furnace and her cook, is still a savage, has not grasped 
 the meaning of the ennvironment which we call home. 
 
 A certain degree of exertion, bodily and mental, 
 self-control and conscious direction of powers of 
 mind, are essential alike to bodily health and indi- 
 vidual development. When release from the necessity 
 
22 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 of toil brings such bodily indolence and such mental 
 indulgence as to result in lack of stimulus to useful 
 activity; when the throwing off of religious trammels 
 renders moral questions difficult of decision, then this 
 freedom tends to disease of body and mind. In 
 other words, the moment ease of living lowers vitality 
 and lessens resistance to disease, that moment the 
 boundary between comfort and luxury has been 
 passed. 
 
 To have pleasure in living implies an ideal to live 
 for, a goal to reach by striving. Where no incentive 
 naturally exists, as is sometimes the case with those 
 who have the traditional golden spoon, artificial prizes 
 are offered, tournaments, yacht-races, millions to be 
 made, and for the women some hobby of collecting, 
 of travel, of self-culture. 
 
 In humbler life, to gain a home for wife and chil- 
 dren, to secure an education for a loved son or 
 daughter, is incentive sufficient to sweeten toil and 
 shorten long hours of labor. 
 
 To " rise in life," as indicated by size of house, 
 number of servants, or price, of bric-k-bric, has been 
 the unworthy motive of many a household, and in 
 that way lies death to all the better ideals. 
 4 It has been clearly brought out by several recent 
 writers that the prevailing economic, political, and 
 social ideals have been profoundly influenced by the 
 acceptance of that law of evolution in the organic 
 
SANITARY SCIENCE AND PRODUCTIVE LIFE. 23 
 
 world which counts the individual as nothing except 
 as a factor in race progress; which demonstrates that 
 only the fittest survives; that through the strongest 
 are race characteristics passed on. 
 
 The ideals governing the thought of intelligent 
 persons a century ago were development of the in- 
 dividual and protection of the weak. This indi- 
 viduality is now threatened by trusts and great 
 corporations, crushing to the wall all weak competi- 
 tors. The methods of education, even, bring a whole 
 class or school up to the same standard without refer- 
 ence to individual preference, and both tend to reduce 
 to a communistic level all but the very few. 
 
 Moreover in family life, as in political, irresponsi- 
 bility has come in with the going out of the religious 
 ideal. Self-sacrifice and menial toil are despised in 
 the light of the economic ideal of the present. The 
 home has ceased to be the glowing centre of produc- 
 tion from which radiate all desirable goods, and has 
 become but a pool toward which products made in 
 other places flow — a place of consicmption, not of 
 production. 
 
 Instead of a nursery of good citizens, teaching 
 obedience, thrift, self-denial, self-helpfulness, the 
 home has become for many a place of selfish ease, of 
 freedom amounting to license, a receiving all and 
 giving nothing. 
 
 The family as a unit stands between the socialist 
 
24 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 ideal of the individual as a unit and the economic 
 ideal of the community as a unit. 
 
 So long as the anticipated joys of a future world 
 could sweeten daily toil and flavor daily bread; so 
 long as the pleasure of giving to the missionary cause 
 made an extra hour's labor pleasant; so long as saving 
 for the children was a high ambition, little was heard 
 of housekeeping troubles or of overdrawn incomes. 
 When, however, the ethical and altruistic point of 
 view became changed and from childhood each one 
 considered his own wishes as of more consequence 
 than those of the family, and when temptation was 
 offered in the form of unheard-of luxuries on the in- 
 stalment plan, and when food became abundant, 
 representing high-class living, then a general reckless- 
 ness possessed the household as well as the coal-miner 
 or the lumberman. The housewife has but followed 
 their example and paralleled the waste of small-coal 
 in the mining region and the wholesale destruction of 
 forests, by her garbage-pail and overfurnished rooms. 
 She is not primarily to blame for the fact that average 
 American housekeeping costs twice as much as is 
 necessary; it is due to the general reckless extrava- 
 gance in the air. 
 
 It becomes important to ask, " What are the stand- 
 ards, not, of bare existence, but of good living — of 
 physical comfort, mental health, and spiritual satis- 
 faction ? " 
 
SANITARY SCIENCE AND PRODUCTIVE LIFE. 25 
 
 If your ideal, gentle reader, is that of the sleek 
 tabby cat, plenty of food and sleep, the softest 
 corner and no duties, then we have no message for 
 you. To live is to appreciate the joy of being a part 
 of the world of action, to share in the joy of work, 
 and work for mankind; this joy includes an appre- 
 hension of the possible meaning of it all. 
 
 Most human actions are prompted by the desire to 
 escape pain or to procure pleasure. These efforts 
 will be successful in proportion as knowledge controls 
 these actions. 
 
 Human welfare includes health of mind as well as 
 health of body, and sanitary science, in its broadest 
 sense, includes all that relates to either. It is a 
 knowledge of the practical standard of sound health 
 for the community and of the means of securing it. 
 Sanitary science not only teaches the means of in- 
 creasing the productive power of the wage-earner by 
 lessening his days of sickness, by so nourishing his 
 body that it may serve him longer and with more 
 efiSciency, but it also furnishes the rules of conduct 
 which make any man capable of the highest enjoy- 
 ment of life by teaching him self-control in the use 
 of all that goes to make up the sum of human happi- 
 ness. 
 
 " Children are workers in preparation, are future 
 citizens. The state cannot afford to allow them to 
 grow up inefificient." Therefore public welfare 
 
26 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 demands that the home life shall be governed by the 
 best knowledge which science has been able to gather 
 with reference to health and efficiency. 
 
 It is man only who has the power to see beyond 
 the present and by resistance to its alluring tempta- 
 tions to secure future gain. 
 
 Each human being has a money value to the state in 
 proportion as he is a productive individual with either 
 hands or brain. Not only death but sickness lessens 
 the usefulness of an individual, since the care of one 
 sick person means loss of work to others, expense for 
 drugs and physicians, and it means even more loss by 
 the weakening effect of sorrow and anxiety. 
 
 The higher the standard of living, the more costly 
 do the accessories of sickness become and the greater 
 the blighting effect upon the higher intellectual facul- 
 ties. 
 
 It has been estimated that on an average each 
 death in a community means 720 days of sickness with 
 its attendant cost in money and anxiety. 
 
 For the standard of income we are now chiefly con- 
 sidering this may bring an actual expense amounting 
 to even five thousand dollars. It may- mean the 
 crippling of the family as to the children's education, 
 perhaps loss of position of the father, perhaps years 
 of wearing invalidism for the mother, and a loss to 
 society of the benefit which an efficient family always 
 confers. 
 
SANITARY SCIENCE AND PRODUCTIVE LIFE. 2J 
 
 When it is considered that the death-rate in 
 America is nearly double that which is estimated as 
 necessary, and that ten in every thousand needlessly 
 die, half of them perhaps in the prime of life, that 
 for a city of one hundred thousand this means five 
 hundred deaths annually of persons who are most 
 valuable to the community, it will be seen why the 
 study of sanitary science is so strongly urged and 
 why the cost of the various departments of household 
 expenditure should be considered not only in the 
 light of economics and aesthetics, but of hygiene. 
 
 If the requirements for healthful living can be once 
 understood and an ideal held up to the young student 
 while his habits are yet plastic, a great advance is 
 possible in the pleasures of life and especially in the 
 beauty of living in conscious obedience to the laws of 
 life. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURE. DIVISION BETWEEN 
 DEPARTMENTS ACCORDING TO IDEALS. 
 
 " National prosperity depends less upon the amount of wealth 
 than upon the utilization of the national possessions in deriv- 
 ing the annual income." — BULLOCK. 
 
 " Economy of time, effort, and materials, and therefore of 
 expense, is in essence scientific." 
 
 "With a progressive people, the satisfaction of existence 
 wants serves merely to arouse new desires and to stimulate 
 men to satisfy them.'' 
 
 The sum of ten billions of dollars, more or less, is 
 spent in the United States for household expenses, 
 and yet very little attention has been paid to the 
 rational division of the annual income between the 
 different departments. The business man has found 
 it easier to make money than to save it; the econo- 
 mist has been fully occupied in finding out how 
 money was made. 
 
 That the results of this outlay are not satisfactory 
 there is abundant evidence. That the money is not 
 economically used is seen in the rapid changes in 
 habits of living due to economic pressure. 
 
 2S 
 
HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURE. 29 
 
 Hence, before it is too late, a careful study of the 
 conditions of life affecting the household expenditure 
 should be made. 
 
 The cost of living in any given case depends upon 
 the ideas and standards of the person spending the 
 money ; that is, it is a mental rather than a material 
 limitation; a result of education rather than of loca- 
 tion. 
 
 In America the typical family of the economist, of 
 father, mother, and three children under the earning 
 age, can live very comfortably on ten dollars a week 
 or five hundred dollars a year for the necessities of 
 material existence. Moreover, if its members will 
 avail themselves of the education of the libraries, of 
 the art museums, of the lectures and classes, of the 
 baths and parks, pleasure-grounds, the non-material 
 pleasures, and of the opportunities provided for the 
 children at the public expense in most cities, their 
 actual income is equivalent to double that sum. 
 
 The real struggle in living comes in the case of 
 those whose character and principles demand that 
 they shall pay for the pleasures as well as the neces- 
 sities of life, and in whom the desire for ownership 
 demands the personal possession of books, and 
 pictures, for which they are willing to deny them- 
 selves even comforts. An income of sixteen dollars 
 a week or eight hundred dollars a year admits of 
 this gratification in a fair degree provided that the 
 
30 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 fines exacted for the disobedience of nature's laws are 
 not too heavy. 
 
 Therefore, for the sake of argument, we may say 
 that our present discussion begins with that sum, or 
 the lower limit of choice, and from that to an upper 
 limit of four or five thousand dollars — since above 
 that sum, as a rule, quite different elements enter; 
 i.e., either much is given in charity or in the sus- 
 taining of public institutions, clubs, societies, or in 
 collecting books, pictures, etc., or in promoting sport 
 or industries. While the same general and high- 
 minded ideals should govern the expenditure of the 
 larger income, there is not that need of close calcula- 
 tion on some points; also, in general, there is a far 
 better business management of the larger in- 
 come. 
 
 In the present condition of American society prob- 
 ably the greatest difficulty is felt by those who have 
 from fifteen hundred to twenty-five hundred dollars 
 a year for all expenses, because their tastes are edu- 
 cated and their habits acquired in such a way that 
 twice that amount would be needed to make any 
 approach to satisfaction, for each step only opens the 
 door to another want, and also because they are 
 rarely skilled in the use of money. 
 
 A writer in the Fortnightly Review* has cleverly 
 
 * Joseph Jacobs, Fortnightly Review, iSgg. 
 
HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURE. 3 1 
 
 sketched the "mean" Englishman as distinguished 
 from the "average" of the economist. This man 
 earns about six dollars a week. The " mean " 
 American will earn at least ten dollars a week, and 
 with the rapid rise made possible by better industrial 
 conditions and the greater opportunities for earning 
 money the "mean" American family should have 
 fifteen dollars a week, with twenty in sight as a stim- 
 ulus to exertion. From this class of intelligent, self- 
 respecting, self-supporting, industrious persons rises, 
 in the very next generation, thanks to free schools 
 and democratic plasticity, a group which are typical 
 Americans whatever their grandfathers were. These 
 are the educated persons in the community, young 
 college graduates in business, professors and teachers 
 in schools and colleges, clerks, small tradesmen, and 
 skilled workmen. And the income of this typical 
 family is from fifteen hundred to three thousand 
 dollars a year. Such are the possibilities in the in- 
 •dustrial conditions of America that it is not uncommon 
 for it to rise to thirty thousand dollars before the 
 children are grown. 
 
 Under the pressure of nineteenth-century condi- 
 tions, it has been found that the home as at present 
 conducted is not managed on an economical basis so 
 far as money value or outward semblance of luxury 
 is concerned. That it fails in the more important 
 essentials of comfort is proved by the great increase 
 
32 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 of dubs and of hotel life. On what grounds, there- 
 fore, can the justification of individual homes be 
 based? Only on the conceded- fact before stated 
 that the home is the germ of Anglo-Saxon civiliza- 
 tion. If the income is to be used so as to give the 
 fullest satisfaction of human wants, there must be 
 classification of those wants in order of importance 
 and some restraint of unreasoning impulse, " Style 
 in living" has no "standards," no basis in morals, 
 religion, or economics. The fashion of the day or 
 the whim of the moment is indulged without a 
 thought of the consequences to the next generation. 
 This absence of safeguards, this letting down of 
 ethical barriers brings countless temptations to ex- 
 travagance. 
 
 To reconcile the uplifting tendency of the struggle 
 to " better one's condition " with the degrading 
 result of striving to seem richer than one really is and 
 to avoid the debilitating effect of luxuries is America's 
 problem for the twentieth century. As has already 
 been said, it is for those educated persons with one 
 thousand to three thousand dollars annual income to 
 lead the way in the studies necessary to be under- 
 taken before any authoritative statements can be 
 made, and to show what the public ought to have; not 
 always to cater to what the public likes. 
 
 The cost of living should be so balanced as to 
 secure the greatest comfort and convenience possible 
 
HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURE. 33 
 
 without sacrificing anything necessary for health, 
 physical, mental, or moral. 
 
 A few examples of actual budgets will be instruc- 
 tive as illustrative of methods of attacking the 
 problem. That very little variation is allowable until 
 the lower limit of choice is reached is seen in a com- 
 parison of the expenditure of the " mean " English- 
 man and of a New York family in about the same 
 walk in life. 
 
 Nos. I to S illustrate the variety of choice. One 
 family economizes on rent, another on clothes, 
 another on other expenses. No 4 is, it is to be 
 feared, a very common American budget. No. 5 in 
 the table shows what may be done by a thrifty family 
 who will do their own work, and live in the suburbs 
 where the garden reduces the food expense. No. 6 
 shows how many families of women economize. A 
 widow, with a mother and two children, is a dress- 
 maker and has her noon meal and most of the cloth- 
 ing for the family from her customers. 
 
 Nos. 7 and 8 are most instructive as showing types 
 in different localities, but illustrating what must be 
 paid for the necessities of life. It is doubtful if 
 either family could safely cut down on food. 
 
 Dr. Engel has formulated four laws confirmed daily 
 more and more. As Dr. Nitti says: " Laws of which, 
 in all the family budgets I have examined, I have 
 myself been able to prove the absolute exactness." 
 
34 
 
 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 TYPICAL BUDGETS. 
 
 Family Income. 
 
 three adults, two chil- 
 dren 
 
 $2500 (Mass.), three adults, no 
 children 
 
 $2500 (Mass.), two adults, one 
 child, much company 
 
 $1980 (St. Louis), four adults, 
 two children 
 
 IgSo (Mass.), two adults, three 
 children 
 
 600 (Boston), two adults, two 
 children 
 
 $535 (N. Y.), two adults, three 
 children 
 
 $312, " mean " Englishman 
 two adults, three children .. 
 
 $300, Dr. Engel's estimates. . . 
 
 
 Percentage 
 
 for 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1: 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 ^1 
 
 
 
 3a 
 
 T3 
 
 *S re 
 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 
 S2 
 
 >- 
 
 
 
 fc. 
 
 b! 
 
 
 
 u 
 
 w 
 
 27 5 
 
 21. 1 
 
 16.8 
 
 10 
 
 24.6 
 
 25 
 
 25 
 
 13 
 
 12 
 
 25 
 
 32 
 
 18 
 
 18 
 
 10 
 
 22 
 
 36-3 
 
 24.2 
 
 20.9 
 
 18 
 
 .60 
 
 20 
 
 19 
 
 16 
 
 15 
 
 30 
 26.1 
 
 23 
 
 26 
 
 4 
 
 5- 
 
 uc -a 
 15-9 
 
 55-2 
 
 22.4 
 
 5-3 
 
 9.4 
 
 7-7 
 
 55.2 
 
 15-5 
 
 8.9 
 
 I3-I 
 
 7-3 
 
 62 
 
 12 
 
 5 
 
 16 
 
 5-0 
 
 " Tlie _firsi law is that the proportion between ex- 
 penditure and nutriment grows in geometric progres- 
 sion in an inverse ratio to well-being; in other words, 
 the higher the income the smaller is the percentage 
 of cost of subsistence. The second is that clothing 
 assumes and keeps a distinctly constant proportion in 
 the whole. The third xi, that lodging, warming, and 
 
HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURE. 35 
 
 lighting have an invariable proportion whatever the 
 income. The fourth is that the more the income 
 increases the greater is the proportion of the dif- 
 ferent expenses which express the degree of well- 
 being. 
 
 " The less a worker gains the more he invests in 
 food, renouncing out of necessity all other desires." 
 {Bull, de r Institut International de Statist., 1887, pp. 
 
 50. 5 5, 57-) 
 
 From the examination of various budgets and from 
 observation of many families, as well as from twenty- 
 five years' experience in housekeeping, I am con- 
 vinced that the tendency to extravagance in the 
 American household comes in the two columns Food 
 and Operating Expenses — if the latter include the 
 incidentals or sundries and unexpected outgoes, which 
 count up very fast. Individual extravagance may 
 frequently occur in clothes. 
 
 In food I believe the trouble is largely one of 
 waste. Twice as much is ordered as is really neces- 
 sary, and in small families where there is no separate 
 servants' table, unless very great care is taken, large 
 portions of the most expensive food are left to be 
 served in the kitchen, so that the total cost of food is 
 very high. If the ordering is left to the cook, this is 
 sure to be so. It is for the interest of the grocer and 
 butcher to have the bills large, and the tips they give 
 to secure this would astonish many a man who now 
 
36 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 wonders at the size of his bills. Only an accurate 
 knowledge of how much is really needed, and a close 
 watch over the amounts ordered, can keep the food 
 cost down. It is policy to allow the common, in- 
 expensive articles such as flour and sugar and potatoes 
 to be used freely, but the quantities of meats, high- 
 priced vegetables, and confections should be carefully 
 calculated. One remedy for the extravagance and 
 consequent debt resulting from this excess of expen- 
 diture in one or more directions may be found in a 
 system of strict account-keeping as a check to the 
 impulse to purchase which is often repented of when 
 too late. 
 
 In order to render the accounts of value there must 
 be certain recognized standards of possible attainment 
 to serve as a guide to the young people in establish- 
 ing the traditions of the new home. 
 
 The following table showing a theoretical division 
 of the several incomes may be helpful in some cases 
 and may stimulate the family provider to keep 
 accounts so systematically as to be able to give the 
 several percentages along these division lines. 
 
 I hear the protest arising from three fourths of my 
 readers that life would not be worth living under 
 these circumstances; it would be bondage. I reply, 
 not after the habit is once formed. Bagehot said, 
 " There is no pain like the pain of a new idea " ; but 
 on the other hand Mark Twain wrote, " You cannot 
 
HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURE, 
 SUGGESTED BUDGETS. 
 
 37 
 
 
 
 Percentage 
 
 for 
 
 
 
 
 
 (fl j3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4-n'k 
 
 Family Income. 
 
 
 
 K <U 
 
 
 e, Bo 
 Chur 
 Savi 
 ce. 
 
 
 ■a 
 
 
 
 c 
 
 
 8 
 .a 
 
 
 iger Lif 
 Travel, 
 Charity 
 Insuran 
 
 
 fc, 
 
 04 
 
 
 
 (J 
 
 HH 
 
 Two adults and two or three 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 children (equal to four 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 adults) : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ideal division 
 
 25 
 
 20 ± 
 
 15 ± 
 
 15 ± 
 
 25 
 
 
 25 
 30 
 45 
 60 
 
 
 15 ± 
 
 10 
 
 20 ± 
 
 15 
 
 
 $800 to $1000 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
 $500 to $800 
 
 15 
 15 
 
 
 Under $500 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 throw habit out of the window; it must be coaxed 
 down-stairs one step at a time." New habits may 
 be difficult to establish, but once fixed they maintain 
 themselves. The moral of which is that it will pay 
 in the end to establish a custom of looking after the 
 small details which will cease to be a burden after a 
 few months. This is especially necessary if the help 
 is constantly changing. Let the rules of the house 
 be known when engaging any servant, then there-will 
 be no difficulty. Much of the confusion so prevalent 
 arises because there are no rules — no accounts. 
 
 Again, the temptation to spend for things pleasant 
 but not needful, or even beautiful, either for the 
 household or for personal gratification are many, and 
 
38 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 it requires some moral support, such as an account- 
 book or some great ideal to strive for, to keep the 
 pocketbook closed. What the liquor saloon is to the 
 drinking man the bargain-counter is to the aimless 
 woman. 
 
 The reason a young man fears to marry is not 
 because of the present cost of a house, but because 
 he cannot estimate the future cost of running it. He 
 has no rule to go by. 
 
 In most newly established homes there is no gov- 
 erning principle at the foundation to which both man 
 and wife are committed and for which both are will- 
 ing to make sacrifices. 
 
 How far shall be carried the habit of saving, of life- 
 insurance, etc., is an open question. Certainly each 
 family should be able to take care of itself under all 
 circumstances, — such as sickness, lack of work for a 
 reasonable time, etc. 
 
 The best investment is in the education of the 
 children to be self-supporting, and all should try to 
 " better themselves " as the phrase goes, because the 
 whole community will rise with the elevation of indi- 
 vidual homes. That a certain amount should be put 
 by each year for an emergency fund goes without 
 saying; how much depends upon circumstances. If 
 life-insurance is the best, then in that; if saving- 
 banks or bonds, or if in small amounts of cash, then 
 in them This question will bear study; but in all 
 
HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURE. 39 
 
 cases each child of rich or poor should be so devel- 
 oped mentally and physically as to be capable of tak- 
 ing care of himself if he is ever called upon so to do. 
 
 If a family has learned to lead a dignified, comfort- 
 able life on fifteen hundred dollars, it will not be 
 difficult to spend more. It is only when the life has 
 been badly adjusted that increase of income brings 
 with it no answering response. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the socialist limit of eight 
 hundred dollars a year is to prevail, then the family 
 that has had fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars 
 has a better chance of being happy than the one that 
 has felt pinched on ten thousand dollars. 
 
 It must be said for tho'se who advocate the eight- 
 hundred-dollar limit that they assume that much of 
 pleasure, that all of the education, and many of the 
 expenses now borne by private means will then be 
 provided for by the state. 
 
 At present we may, I think, take eight hundred 
 dollars as the limit below which a family can only 
 take care of its physical needs, — rent, food, clothes, 
 life-insurance, etc. For amusement, recreation, edu- 
 cation, instruction, it turns to the means provided at 
 public expense. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE HOUSE. RENT OR VALUE AND FURNISHING. 
 
 " Science has little power to alter national thought by direct 
 means, but it has great power in creating new economic con- 
 ditions, and these modify national thought." — S. N. Patten. 
 
 "Public opinion is changed by economic conditions — not 
 by creeds." — S. N. Patten. 
 
 " The most judicious use of money is to form for one's self 
 first of all as pleasant and comfortable a home as is consistent 
 with one's means. Money thus spent is money safely in- 
 vested." — Edmond Demolin. 
 
 The factors governing the per cent of the income 
 paid for housing are: 
 
 1. Sanitary requiren:ients. 
 
 2. Social requirement; location; architectural ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 3. Standards of living. 
 
 The house is one of the most serious difficulties in 
 the way of ideal living, for we have inherited the sins 
 of our ancestors in tangible form and, in addition, 
 those of conscienceless contractors and greedy cap- 
 italists. 
 
 The family whose needs we are considering' — one 
 
 40 
 
THE HOUSE. RENT OR VALUE AND FURNISHING. 4I 
 
 with an annual income of fifteen hundred to three 
 thousand dollars — finds the greatest difficulty in secur- 
 ing the conditions given above either for purchase or 
 rent. Neglect of sanitary precautions by the owners 
 of houses has been so flagrant that the expense of 
 putting a place in condition to live in is often nearly 
 equal to that required to build anew. The rapid, 
 irresponsible growth of many of our towns, whole 
 streets being built up before any system of grading 
 or of sewerage has been established, has done much 
 to keep the death-rate high. The frequent changes 
 in streets or section due to the putting in of railroads 
 or factories or to the intrusion of business neces- 
 sitates as frequent removal, and to this is largely due 
 the habit our typical family has acquired of renting 
 instead of owning a house. 
 
 The rent is a definite and certain expense, and a 
 place of one's own is, in the shifting condition of the 
 modern town, a most uncertain asset and not the safe 
 investment it has formerly been, and besides it is a 
 continual source of unexpected expense. For in- 
 stance, a change in the city regulations as to plumb- 
 ing may entail an expense equal to a year's rent. 
 
 At present this feature of the cost of living cannot 
 be ignored, but must be reckoned with in any discus- 
 sion of family expenses. It must be acknowledged 
 that although some families do suffer exceeding dis- 
 comfort in order that, judged by the house they live 
 
42 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 in, they may be supposed to have reached a higher 
 rank, yet an increasing proportion of intelligent 
 young people are looking for better sanitary condi- 
 tions as well as for social standing. 
 
 Nevertheless the instability of the material home, 
 the fact of renting instead of owning an abode, has 
 made possible much of the retrograde movement in 
 home manners and customs. While there should be 
 an ideal which is independent of the mere material 
 surroundings, as a fact results seem to show that it is 
 lacking to a deplorable degree. 
 
 It is for this ideal, this sense of the sanitary and 
 educational value of the home cosmos, that education 
 is demanded, that public sentiment needs to be 
 created. An insistent demand would soon produce a 
 variety of house better suited to the wholesome living 
 which sanitary science demands. 
 
 A home means four walls and, in this climate, a 
 roof, into however many compartments the space so 
 enclosed may be divided. Sanitary rules say that 
 the space for each person should be not less than 
 300 cubic feet; that light and air shall have access 
 freely; that water shall be freely supplied and quickly 
 removed when used ; that the soil on which the 
 structure stands shall be clean, dry, and porous. 
 These requirements must be met at whatever cost of 
 money is necessary to procure them, and yet how 
 many of the thousands of house-hunters in the cities 
 
THE HOUSE. RENT OR VALUE AND FURNISHING. 43 
 
 and towns ever think of these things, or, if they do, 
 weigh them in the balance with the style of the porch, 
 the number of bay windows, or with fashion as to 
 street ? It is not only in the slums that there is in- 
 sufificient air-space. So long as ignorant men and 
 women will rent these closets under the name of 
 rooms, so long builders will put them up. So long 
 as the dining-room is of less consequence than the 
 front hall, so long will the showy part of the house be 
 emphasized. 
 
 Economy of labor has not been thought of in the 
 construction of houses. In what other business would 
 the coal-supply be dumped on the sidewalk to be 
 shovelled and wheeled into the cellar, only to be 
 brought up again; the ashes carried down, only to be 
 again brought up and carted away? How few of the 
 really valuable mechanical appliances are found in a 
 house! How little attention is paid to the saving of 
 labor! The heaviest kettles are always on the lowest 
 shelf, and articles of daily use are so placed as to 
 require miles of travel. House-architecture is fifty 
 years behind shop-building and factory-construction. 
 It goes without saying that the ignorance of the 
 housewife as to what is possible, and her traditional 
 conservatism, are the causes for this state of things. 
 
 The attention of students of social science should 
 not be wholly absorbed in the so-called tenement- 
 house problem ; the needs of the higher-class wage- 
 
44 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 earner should be considered, and by this means the 
 other object will be soonest accomplished. Example 
 is more powerful than precept. 
 
 I can think of no greater missionary work possible 
 than that some philanthropic individual should offer 
 a competition in house-architecture which should 
 illustrate the possibilities of modern science, unless it 
 might be the offering of a prize for the best essay on 
 the living in such a house to be written by a college 
 woman of five years' experience in housekeeping. 
 
 A house should be comfortable inside, capable of 
 pleasing arrangements, and so planned as not to re- 
 quire excess of work to care for it. Here is true 
 economy. The ideals and standards of life are what 
 should rule. 
 
 A home must mean more than four walls and food : 
 it must stand for one's self; it must be an outer 
 garment as it were, showing the taste and cultivation 
 of its occupants. 
 
 Exclusive of land, the cost of housing with the 
 demands of modern life, water-supply, drainage, hard 
 finish, etc., is about one thousand dollars per person, 
 or four thousand dollars for the typical family of five. 
 It may be halved or it may be doubled in many 
 instances without serious difficulty, except in respect 
 to location. It may be quartered or it may be 
 quadrupled, but these are the two extremes of re- 
 quirem.ent. One thousand dollars will build only 
 
THE HOUSE. RENT OR VALUE AND FURNISHING. 45 
 
 two rooms (renting for ten dollars a month, one 
 hundred and twenty dollars a year) of a tenement, or 
 five rooms of a suburban cottage, giving a minimum 
 of light and air. Sixteen thousand dollars should 
 build all that any family could use for themselves 
 alone, so far as essentials go. Of course sentiment 
 enters into rent, desirable locality, and the reverse, 
 but too often cheapness means lack of water and air 
 and cleanness, and dearness means bad taste in orna- 
 ment or lavish expenditure for mere show. Our 
 houses in America are mere extension of clothes; 
 they are not built for the next generation. Our 
 needs change so rapidljr that it is not desirable. It 
 is far better to spend less for the mere house and 
 more for what goes on in it — the real life. 
 
 Certain questions should be considered by each 
 family. First, what is the object of the house ? 
 What are its essential features ? There is great need 
 of economic and domestic education among architects. 
 It would be possible to add beauty to most family 
 residences without detracting from their utility. 
 
 Second, what proportion of the income should be 
 paid for rent ? Sufficient to secure the requirements 
 of health, even to half the income. This is not 
 necessary if the family will avoid fictitious values due 
 to supposed superiority of neighborhood or to mere 
 pretension in building. Without heat and light, 
 twenty per cent of any income between five hundred 
 
46 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 and five thousand dollars a year should secure safe 
 shelter for a family. If it does not, there is work for 
 a social-reform club in that community as well as for 
 the board of health. The fact that many families 
 pay twenty-five per cent is the first evidence of 
 unsound economic policy, but it may often be inter- 
 preted as a tribute to higher ideals provided the 
 increase here is met by a decrease elsewhere so that 
 the sum total shall keep its proportion. 
 
 The needs of the family should be carefully set 
 down and the plan of life in the house made out 
 before it is rented or built. Some measure of privacy 
 should be secured to each one, and yet there should 
 be one common meeting-place. The pretentious 
 custom of a large drawing-room furnished for show, 
 occupied only when receiving callers and consequently 
 in which hostess and visitors alike feel the chill of 
 dead things, not the warmth of daily emotions, is 
 responsible for much of the housekeeping misery of 
 the time. Unless the family is large enough and 
 with a combined income amply sufificient to entertain 
 frequently, this habit of keeping a large room for a 
 possible wedding or a funeral is a vicious one. The 
 space may be utilized for the comfort of the family 
 in many other ways, either in separate sleeping-rooms 
 or i.i a large living-room. 
 
 All the mechanical arrangements of this shelter 
 must be under control, that is, they must be under- 
 
THE HOUSE. RENT OR VALUE AND FURNISHING. 47 
 
 stood by the one in charge of the house in order that 
 the cost of Hving in the house may not be in great 
 excess of the comfort and health resulting. This is 
 just as essential as a knowledge of the machinery he 
 is to run is for the engineer who is obliged by law to 
 have a license. If each householder were obliged to 
 pass an examination on the mechanical arrangements 
 of his or her house and show a knowledge of furnace, 
 battery, and flue before being allowed to occupy it, a 
 cry of state interference with private rights would be 
 at once raised; but in that day when it is clear that 
 the carelessness of men threatens to extinguish the 
 race it will doubtless be done. 
 
 The office of the house is not only as shelter from 
 the elements, not only as shelter from the curiosity 
 and interference of the outside world, but as an ex- 
 pression of the persons in it — of their ideals, tastes, 
 education, and needs of soul as well as of body. 
 
 Besides the number, size, and arrangement of the 
 rooms, there is to be considered the color of the 
 walls, the harmony of decoration, the arrangement of 
 the furniture and pictures. This is not a matter of 
 little consequence or of outside taste. A home is an 
 expression of family ideals, else the place is a board- 
 ing-house. That women who are nominally at the 
 head of households take the ready-made plans of 
 landlords and decorators and only stipulate that all 
 shall be as stylish as Mrs. So-and-So's is proof of 
 
48 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 their low ideals of what a home means and of their 
 unfitness to preside therein. Ignorance and in- 
 efficiency in the home are not good recommendations 
 for the opposite characteristics in the business life for 
 which they long. 
 
 In no one item of expenditure is there so much 
 room for the exercise of ideals, for the development 
 of character, as in this one of providing the best sur- 
 roundings for the family life. In no department are 
 knowledge and taste of so much money value — for it 
 is not the most expensive but the most appropriate 
 and harmonious article which is the best. The 
 beauty of cleanliness is not sufficiently appreciated 
 by the ordinary purchaser. Here again it is what 
 others buy and not what appeals to one's own need 
 that leads to the spending of money for a multitude 
 of articles which catch dust and become grimy or else 
 require an undue proportion of time in a vain at- 
 tempt to keep clean. 
 
 It is certainly wiser to pay higher rent for a modern 
 house than to spend much on furnishing an old one; 
 and if the house is so finished as to need little care, 
 there is an additional gain: less paint to clean, fewer 
 stairs to go over, gas instead of coal, — all these things 
 are to be considered in the total of this part of the 
 living expenses. 
 
 If the rent of a given house is low compared with 
 others, one of three things is the probable cause — 
 
THE HOUSE. RENT OR VALUE AND FURNISHING. 49 
 
 undesirable neighborhood, an old house out of repair, 
 or simply cheap construction. 
 
 The householder must balance well the different 
 elements of the problem. 
 
 Fashion should not be allowed to rule — only sani- 
 tary conditions and moral health of the children. 
 
 The following are some of the questions which 
 should be propounded by every householder: 
 
 Is the soil dry ? 
 
 Is the cellar dry and light ? 
 
 Are the drain-pipes in sight ? 
 
 Are the drain-pipes sound ? 
 
 Does the furnace or the steam-boiler warm the 
 house ? 
 
 Has the bath-room an outside window for sunlight 
 and a double door ? 
 
 Has every room some means of cross-ventilation ? 
 
 Will it be possible to keep the rooms clean without 
 inordinate work ? Is there much cut, painted, or 
 ornamented woodwork, etc. ? Are there many stairs, 
 and inconvenient ones ? 
 
 How many servants, if any, will be needed for the 
 care of the house ? 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 OPERATING EXPENSES: FUEL, LIGHT, WAGES, 
 AND INCIDENTALS. 
 
 " Few women when they assume the care of a household 
 know the exact value of the household plant; the amount to 
 be deducted each year for wear and tear; the relative propor- 
 tions expended annually for rent, fuel, food, clothing, and 
 service; the number of meals served and the approximate cost 
 of each ; the amount of pr6fit, waste, or unproductiveness that 
 results from all expenditures made." — LuCY M. Salmon. 
 "Enjoyment depends on state of mind, comfort on habits.'' 
 " The complaint of one's assistants is a boomerang. It writes 
 the complainant down in large letters as himself poorly fitted 
 for his responsibilities." 
 
 Having secured a comfortable, healthful house in 
 a satisfactory locality, the daily life is to be estab- 
 lished in it. It is to be warmed, lighted, and kept 
 clean and in repair. In short, it is to be operated for 
 the benefit of the family as a railroad is for the bene- 
 fit of the public; and the same far-sighted business 
 sense should govern these expenses if the family is 
 to find profit in the life such as the stockholders of a 
 wfell-managed railroad secure as a result of their 
 
 knowledge. 
 
 50 
 
OPERATING EXPENSES. 5 I 
 
 The ideal of health and comfort, mental as well as 
 bodily, should be held constantly before the eye of the 
 household manager, and no ignorance or parsimony 
 ought to peril either. A maximum of efficiency 
 must be maintained at a minimum of cost. 
 
 The compartment of the family purse from which 
 these expenses are paid is usually like a sieve, retain- 
 ing nothing for emergencies. No portion of the 
 income can bring so much comfort, and none is so 
 difficult to expend. Waste of money elsewhere is 
 compensated by crowding down the wages or by 
 cutting ofl items small in themselves but affecting the 
 family happiness. 
 
 This department also suffers from the lack of care 
 in details which is required to keep any business at 
 its maximum efficiency. 
 
 The present only is considered; nothing is used as 
 if it were to be needed again. The common habit 
 of handing down to the next generation valuable 
 heirlooms having been lost, with it has gone that 
 forethought in small daily duties which preserves for 
 one's own use one's belongings, personal or house- 
 hold. 
 
 It is this carelessness extending to children and 
 servants which causes so large an outlay for the 
 running expenses of the house. 
 
 Before a purchase is made, the labor involved in 
 caring for it, or in cooking it, should be considered. 
 
52 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 When a standard of living is once set, the cost of 
 maintaining that standard should be considered. At 
 this point our modern housekeeping is weakest. 
 How much does it cost to keep a house of eight or 
 of fourteen rooms ? 
 
 How many hours of efficient service are needed for 
 a family of five ? 
 
 How much fuel should suffice for a suburban house 
 of twelve rooms or a city house of the same cubic 
 contents with fourteen rooms ? 
 
 The reader will at once raise the question, is this 
 not just that individual freedom, that variety of 
 choice for which the earlier pages plead ? Are we to 
 bring all our methods to one measure, and is each to 
 pattern after the same standards ? By no means; 
 only each must have his own standard and ideal to 
 aim for, and must not live from hand to mouth as do 
 savages, or servilely copy one's neighbor all unknow- 
 ing of the exact conditions. 
 
 Because we acknowledge that there is more than 
 business in the idea of home, let us not make the 
 mistake of assuming that there is no business side to 
 household affairs. 
 
 No man in his senses will set up any other manu- 
 facturing establishment with as little regard to the 
 purpose of it all and to the future success of its 
 operation as he will allow in the inauguration of his 
 household. 
 
OPERATING EXPENSES. 53 
 
 Light should be regulated on hygienic principles 
 as far as possible, and should not, as is often the case, 
 be allowed to vitiate the air beyond reason. 
 
 The way in which ignorance on the part of house- 
 keepers blocks social progress is seen in the difference 
 between the development of electric transportation 
 and domestic gas consumption. The use of gas for 
 fuel was proposed before the trolley line was devel- 
 oped, but at each step in the introduction of gas 
 obstacles due to ignorance of the relations of heat 
 and of the management of mechanical apparatus have 
 so far prevented the extension of this convenient and 
 economical fuel. The manufacturers of domestic 
 utensils have not shown that grasp of scientific prin- 
 ciples which is expected of other trades, and small 
 wonder that it is words, not deeds, upon which they 
 rely to catch their ignorant customers. 
 
 The opportunity for the application of business 
 principles to household management lies in the strict 
 account-keeping which will check unrestricted expen- 
 diture on unessentials to the detriment of the funda- 
 mental needs. The engineer may design and put up 
 an entirely satisfactory pumping-engine, but if an 
 incompetent man is put ia charge of it, or a com- 
 petent man is allowed too little lime to look after it, 
 the machine rapidly deteriorates and finally breaks 
 down. 
 
 It is a common experience that after an occupation 
 
54 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 of a year or two a house becomes unsanitary, battered, 
 saturated with odors of cooking, or that on trial it 
 proves to be inconvenient for the family life. 
 
 If all the complex collocation which we call living 
 gave real and lasting happiness, we might say that it 
 was in the line of evolutionary progress. Since it 
 frequently does not, but, on the contrary, is produc- 
 tive of discomfort and early death, why should we not 
 consider the possibility of greater happiness through 
 simplicity and consequent perfection; of greater sat- 
 isfaction through the assurance that we have used 
 our resources to the best of our ability ? 
 
 I am told that the people of culture in New 
 England fifty years ago paid one third their income 
 for rent, but the annual expenses of the establishment 
 were not in proportion what they are now. Life was 
 much simpler, and the actual amount of work done 
 was far less. The sanitary requirements of to-day 
 were unknown. The handsome, simple furniture was 
 more easily cleaned; the dust-catching bric-i-bric was 
 absent; the laundry work was far less; and while the 
 service of the table was dignified, it was not so 
 elaborate as now. 
 
 There were no telephones, no gas, no lamps (most 
 time-consuming in care), fewer callers, more true 
 hospitality, few brass pipes to clean, on the whole less 
 sickness. We have gained in conveniences, but have 
 lost in real ease and comfort of life. It is true cer- 
 
OPERATING EXPENSES. 55 
 
 tain comforts have greatly increased: soft rugs have 
 replaced the sanded floors; easy chairs, the straight- 
 backed settle. But the knocker which announced the 
 entrance of the visitor directly into the living-room is 
 replaced by the electric bell, which calls a maid up 
 one flight of stairs to the door, only to send her up 
 another flight to announce the caller. 
 
 Has any one ever calculated the foot-pounds of 
 energy and the time consumed in answering the door- 
 bell and the telephone in a modern house ? Has 
 any housekeeper taken into account her increased 
 demands as, year by year, these calls increase ? 
 
 There is a constantly growing temptation to un- 
 necessary expenditure for things small in themselves 
 and pleasant enough, but not worth while, as would 
 be seen if any effort were needed to obtain them. 
 
 One of the gravest objections to the telephone in a 
 house is the atrophy of all forethought which it per- 
 mits. Why should careful account of the larder or 
 work-basket be taken each morning if a yeast-cake or 
 a spool of thread may be ordered by telephone ? 
 
 Refinement of living has benefited by the intro- 
 duction of courses at meals instead of serving all the 
 food at once, but the cost in time has been increased 
 by more than the number of courses. Yet the 
 average housewife will maintain that the expense is 
 no more. 
 
 Let us try a readjustment of the different house- 
 
S6 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 hold expenses before we give up the maintenance of 
 the individual home. 
 
 To-day it would be suicidal for a young couple of 
 the professional class or of any class to pay one third 
 of any income between fifteen hundred and three 
 thousand dollars for rent, because the accompanying 
 expenses of those things that make modern life are 
 so much greater than they were fifty years ago. 
 
 There is so much more moving about than formerly. 
 Car-fares count up. The woman goes shopping 
 daily; the family go to the park to see the fireworks. 
 The ice; the tax on hose and faucets; the cleaning 
 of the furnace; the cleaning of sidewalks, — all swell 
 the monthly bills. 
 
 There is no mystery about the increasing popu- 
 larity of the apartment house. The trouble of 
 estimating these expenses and of making repairs is 
 shifted to the business man's shoulders, and the 
 woman has so much the less money to be responsible 
 for. For those who are busy with other duties, who 
 travel or who are getting on in years and who can 
 afford to pay for relief from care, a well-built apart- 
 ment house may be a blessing, but as a family home 
 for children it is a most extravagant luxury, and like 
 other luxuries causes deterioration in the race. 
 
 Perhaps we shall be obliged to give up the family 
 home for a time in order to find out how much it is 
 worth, but it would be better for a few intelligent 
 
OPERATING EXPENSES. 57 
 
 women to first experiment scientifically, in order to 
 put the subject on a practical basis, and then to 
 publish their results for others to study. A social 
 settlement for the study of the domestic questions 
 pertaining to the life of those wliose incomes are 
 three thousand dollars a year would, I believe, be 
 more valuable than one for the study of the annual 
 expenditure of three hundred dollars. 
 
 The reader will say it all depends on standards. 
 True; but sanitary standards cannot be so far different 
 for different towns. 
 
 One railroad does not differ so widely from another 
 in cost of running its cars that no estimates can be 
 made from known facts. 
 
 How long should it take to clean a chamber or to 
 do the chamber-work of the family of three or five ? 
 It would not be difficult to settle this if women were 
 amenable to reason or if they had any training in 
 mechanics, so that they could tell whether the person 
 were wasting time and strength in passing to and fro 
 ten times where once would serve. 
 
 The following estimates are given for the purpose 
 of a definite point of departure for the study, which 
 the writer hopes and believes will come. 
 
 For instance, with an annual expenditure of $3000, 
 $500 for rent, $500 for wages, $500 for operation, 
 $700 for food, $300 for clothes, $500 for the higher 
 life may be allotted. If this does not prove to be 
 
58 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 enough, then either wages or food or clothes must be 
 cut down or a cheaper house taken. In deciding 
 these problems, there is ample variety to keep up 
 interest in life and to prevent all persons from falling 
 to a dead level. 
 
 If two teachers, clerks, artists, desire an independ- 
 ent home life, a place of their own to come to after 
 the day's work, it is quite possible to secure it in the 
 following manner: 
 
 Assume the income of each to be $750 a year. 
 $1500 will be the sum to be expended. Set aside for 
 rent $300, for food $375, for service $150 (since there 
 are no children and each will take care not to make 
 unnecessary work), for clothes $250, for savings or 
 emergency fund $200; leaving for travel, books, 
 church, charity, lectures, and amusement $225. The 
 last three items, amounting to $337.5 dollars each or 
 45 per cent of the total income, may be varied 
 according to the individual choice without affecting 
 the other items. 
 
 The insistence on each family living within its 
 income and saving enough to prevent it from becom- 
 ing a state burden is an ideal or a standard which 
 must be cultivated. The happy-go-lucky way brings 
 debt, disgrace, and that dependence which is debas- 
 ing. 
 
 The ratio between rent and wages must be made a 
 study in economics interpreted in the-light of sanitary 
 
OPERATING EXPENSES. 59 
 
 science before a rational settlement of the service 
 question can be secured. And no great advance in 
 housekeeping can take place until this is done. 
 
 Agricultural labor suffers because when a boy is 
 man-grown he receives man's wages whatever the 
 quality of his work. There is no opportunity for dis- 
 crimination in values and for rise of wages. 
 
 So in house service good work is not appreciated 
 or rewarded, and the same wages are paid to a slow 
 or slovenly maid as are offered to a quick, neat worker. 
 No reward in the way of release from duty is offered 
 for the quicker work, but only more and often un- 
 necessary work is added in order to fill the time, in 
 the same spirit in which the hotel guest tries to get 
 his money's worth by eating through the bill of fare. 
 
 When the stage-coach carried its passengers and 
 the mails over dangerous roads the driver was per- 
 force a man of energy and resolution, of shrewd 
 observation. 
 
 The horse-car with its guiding rails required less of 
 its driver, and the position fell to those who could do 
 little else. 
 
 Now the electric motor has changed the require- 
 ments, and in the suburban motorman we find many 
 an old stage-driver and the same type of quick-to-act, 
 capable man. 
 
 The moral is plain: change the requirements of 
 household service by inventions and arrangements 
 
6o THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 which demand skilled labor, and the labor will come 
 to it. 
 
 The unexpected forms a large part of life, the 
 larger, the more complicated it becomes. No good 
 manager is without a fund to draw upon for emergen- 
 cies. In the household, debt usually comes because 
 the fund has not been reserved. This one principle 
 if insisted upon would lessen the nervous wear of 
 housekeeping by an incalculable amount. 
 
 In many respects the average housewife is yet a 
 savage, instead of the up-to-date woman she thinks 
 herself, but in none more than in this failure to 
 estimate correctly the future possibilities in the small 
 household expenses. 
 
 Dr. Munsterberg maintains that the one thing an 
 American does not economize is time, and as regards 
 the household I think he is right. 
 
 There is rarely any system by which the maids are 
 taught to carry out one thing when they go for 
 another, to do the thing first upon which all the rest 
 depends, to accomplish the most for a given number 
 of steps. 
 
 It will be at once said, " But they do not wish to be 
 told, they like to spend time in trifling." Possibly; 
 but it is human nature to enjoy results, to see some- 
 thing done and not forever doing. 
 
 My point is that the cost of living is greatly in- 
 creased by the neglect of the householder to estimate 
 
OPERATING EXPENSES. 6l 
 
 carefully the amount of time it should require to 
 accomplish the end arrived at and the waste at every 
 step of the day's work. Until better habits, business 
 habits, are brought into the household we must allow 
 about twenty per cent excess over a rational estimate 
 in actual labor, and at least as much more for in- 
 efificient labor. 
 
 For the ordinary city household where cosmopoli- 
 tan standards are adhered to, and where there are 
 children and social duties, it is estimated that the sum 
 paid for wages should be one half that paid for rent 
 or what would be paid if the house were not owned. 
 In many cases, in fact in a majority of houses renting 
 for three hundred to eight hundred dollars per year, 
 two thirds the rent is usual; and if the mistress does 
 nothing herself and is not a systematic business 
 woman, the rule should be that the wages paid for all 
 the work about the place, temporary as well as per- 
 manent, should be equal to the rent. This may be 
 lessened in two ways — by greater simplicity, or by 
 the members of the family sharing in the duties. 
 
 It is hoped that statistics may be gathered on this 
 point as a basis of confirmation or refutation of the 
 charge that too much of the income is spent on furni- 
 ture and bric-^-bric and too little on the care of 
 them. 
 
 Sanitary science demands freedom from dust, quick 
 removal of all refuse, and absolute cleanliness. This 
 
62 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 means time and strength as well as constant watchful- 
 ness. 
 
 The other operating expenses, — fuel, lights, ex- 
 press business, fares, stationery, water-tax, and news- 
 papers, — those things that are not permanent, but go 
 to make the comforts of life, — should be kept in 
 amount equal to wages, for the more servants there are 
 the more some of these expenses will increase without 
 corresponding increase in satisfaction. A large part 
 of the present cost of this class of household expendi- 
 ture is due to an increased speed in running. In the 
 test of the new British cruiser" Highflyer" it was 
 found that with a speed of 12^ knots per hour 2135 
 horse-power was required, but when she was run at 
 20.1 knots the horse-power was 10,344, or nearly 
 five times for an increase of less than two times. 
 The greater the speed the more rapid the increase. 
 For instance, it required more coal to drive the 
 cruiser 20. i from 19. 4 knots, an increase of only .7, 
 than to drive her the steady rate of 12^ knots. In 
 our household life we are living at the rate of 20 
 knots an hour, with the consequent wear and tear on 
 the machinery and without realizing the necessity of 
 increased outlay if the machine is to be kept effi- 
 cient. 
 
 Much of the expense complained of in modern 
 plumbing is caused by the neglect of the most 
 obvious precautions. 
 
OPERATING EXPENSES. 63 
 
 In no other department of household life than in 
 the care of details is the contrast greater between the 
 old-fashioned housewife and the mistress of the 
 modern apartment, and in no other line is there so 
 great need of applied science, — that science which 
 cannot be learned from books, but which women must 
 acquire or resign their position. 
 
 In engineering science a careful study is given to 
 reducing friction in order that a given amount of 
 power may yield the calculated force. In the house- 
 hold the " running " of the house is the place where 
 the friction is greatest and where it will pay most to 
 give thought to the reduction of the wear and tear. 
 
 In regard to fuel the sanitary view must be the 
 first to be taken. The house must be so evenly and 
 thoroughly heated as to preserve the health of its 
 inmates; and since their circumstances vary as to age, 
 habits, occupations, clothing, etc., each must be 
 governed by these requirements, only there must be 
 a recognition of these needs and not an ignoring of 
 them. The heating-plant is the heart of the house 
 for eight or nine months of the year, and must be 
 looked after by the most intelligent and responsible 
 person in the house, — one who understands the chem- 
 istry of combustion and the mechanics of draft. The 
 coal-bill might be reduced by one half in most house- 
 holds and the health doubly secured under these cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
64 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 One hundred dollars should be ample for heating 
 a house which rents for a thousand dollars, and two 
 thirds that sum for one which rents for five hundred 
 dollars. The tenement at twenty dollars a month 
 should be made comfortable with twenty-five dollars 
 a year. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 FOOD. 
 
 " Half the cost of life is the price of food." — Atkinson. 
 
 " Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, 
 and your labor for that which satisfieth not ? " — Isaiah Iv. 2. 
 
 " Courage, cheerfulness, and a desire to work depends mostly 
 on good nutrition." — Moleschott. 
 
 "The removal of the predisposition to disease is the most 
 thorough-going way of making all infectious disease impos- 
 sible."— Hueppe. 
 
 Not all other influences put together can equal 
 in profound effect upon the welfare of the household 
 that exercised by food and the attitude of mind 
 regarding it. The well-nourished child is a happy, 
 strong little animal, making brain and muscle and 
 nerve for future use. The well-nourished adult is a 
 hearty, efficient member of society, contributing his 
 share to the common stock of public good as well as 
 enjoying his own work and pleasure. There is little 
 fear of disease for either child or man, since the best 
 prophylactic is a generous store of blood-corpuscles 
 both red and white. The human body in normal 
 condition has a well-drilled army of " phagocytes" 
 
 (white blood-corpuscles or leucocytes) to which the 
 
 65 
 
66 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 man needs to give no directions. But if he neglects 
 to take suitable food or to keep himself warm, if he 
 becomes frightened or takes drugs, his faithful army- 
 is paralyzed and the enemy finds easy entrance. The 
 condition of this army, like that of any other, depends 
 on its commissariat. If the -food-supply is just right, 
 the soldiers are vigorous; if it is wrong in any partic- 
 ular, they are weakened. Nothing can take the place 
 of food in the human economy. Therefore the poor 
 man is justified in spending two thirds of his income, 
 if need be, for food. But over-nutrition is as danger- 
 ous as under-nutrition. The protecting army may 
 be incapaciJtated by indulgence in food, may be 
 poisoned by ptomaines or narcotized by alcohol or 
 tobacco. The body tissues may become weakened 
 under the strain of excess, and irritability, disease, and 
 death may follow. Food habits should be formed by- 
 young children under careful guidance. Until there 
 is a generation which is well trained in this matter 
 very little progress in the use of food as a means of 
 securing human efficiency can be made. So long as 
 food is looked upon either as a disagreeable necessity 
 or as a means of merely sensuous pleasure the child 
 will grow up with whims and fancies which will pre- 
 vent the best physical development. 
 
 For the human race as a whole it has been shown 
 that at least half the cost of life is the cost of food. 
 Food is the essential condition of life, and the race 
 
FOOD. 67 
 
 instincts in regard to it are so fundamental that as a 
 rule only stress of circumstances affects any sudden 
 change. The growth of new food habits is a gradual, 
 almost an imperceptible one in all nationalities, be- 
 cause of that instinct of self-preservation by avoidance 
 of the unknown which was essential in the early stages 
 of race development. Only since knowledge has 
 replaced instinct, and readiness of adaptation to 
 environment has produced cosmopolitan man, can 
 there be said to exist a science of nutrition which has 
 been founded on a study of the food habits of a great 
 variety of peoples under a great variety of circum- 
 stances and on the results of experimental feeding of 
 animals. 
 
 As a result of these studies it may be briefly stated 
 that a condition of complete nutrition should be 
 aimed at but not overstepped. It is the belief of 
 most students of economics and sociology that it 
 is the overfed among the nine tenths not sub- 
 merged who are being eliminated by the various dis- 
 eases of modern life, — apoplexy, heart-disease, 
 Bright's disease, etc., — and that the sterility of the 
 better-placed portion of the community is largely due 
 to the plethora of food and drink which induces 
 the eating of more than the system can stand and 
 vitality is consequently reduced. " Our appetites 
 are stronger than they need to be under existing con- 
 ditions." 
 
68 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 Unless some form of restraint is imposed in place 
 of that asceticism and frugality with which religious 
 ideals safeguarded the more intelligent classes in the 
 past, the present type is likely to die out and " a 
 more primitive man will come forward to try anew 
 to solve the problem of the highest civilization." 
 
 Self-evident propositions may be stated as follows: 
 
 Food is that which supplies the body with such 
 substances as are necessary to preserve it in health 
 and to supply it with energy for daily work or play. 
 
 Food materials as a whole should contain those 
 substances in sufficient quantities and in suitable 
 proportions. 
 
 Food materials should not contain anything in- 
 jurious, nor be so prepared as to develop any injurious 
 qualities. 
 
 Food materials should not be so stored or packed 
 as to produce by their decomposition any secondary 
 substances which. are in the least degree detrimental.* 
 
 Good health is essential to efficient production of 
 energy and to the enjoyment of the good things of 
 this world. 
 
 Standards of living must include the idea of efifi- 
 ciency if man is to live up to his opportunities. 
 
 Food is not only the workingman's capital, it is 
 the cultivated man's bank-account. 
 
 *In addition, the mode of preparation, combination, and serv- 
 ing should be such as to increase the enjoyment of the food with- 
 out rendering it less suitable for its purpose. 
 
FOOD, 6g 
 
 It is because I believe in the possibility of control 
 of even economic conditions by ideals firmly held by 
 a sufficient number of fathers and mothers (who alone, 
 according to Patten, count for much in race progress) 
 that I urge so strongly the dissemination of what 
 scientific knowledge we have, and the importance of 
 gaining yet more facts about food and its part in 
 human welfare 
 
 The moment when a family is released from the 
 bondage of race instincts and habits as to food, in 
 that moment danger begins for them. Unrestrained 
 appetite in this as in other directions leads to loss of 
 efficiency; therefore education must come to the 
 rescue. 
 
 If the proper study of mankind is man, then the 
 study of that which makes him a capable, efficient 
 member of society and not a wretched dyspeptic or a 
 shell of walking contagion is worthy a place in any 
 curriculum. 
 
 In no other department of household expenditure 
 is there so great an opportunity for the exercise of 
 knowledge and skill with so good results for pocket 
 and health. No item of expense is so fully under 
 individual control. The house stands out for every 
 one to see. Clothes are scrutinized and commented 
 upon; if attempt is made to economize in fuel, light, 
 and wages, it is sure to leak out and be put down to 
 a niggardly soul. But in most families there is ample 
 
70 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 margin in food from which to take a respectable slice 
 without harming any one. If the family is a close 
 corporation, no one will be the wiser for the time and 
 thought which the mistress puts into an aesthetic as 
 well as nutritious table. If the typical servant is 
 required to follow the same plan, she will probably 
 rebel and give warning rather than live with a mistress 
 who measures the sugar and counts the potatoes, so 
 hopelessly wasteful have our habits become. 
 
 It is not the food actually eaten that costs so ex- 
 cessively, it is that wasted by poor cooking, by exces- 
 sive quantity, and by purchase out of season when 
 the price is out of all proportion to its value. Good 
 judgment as to the amounts to be prepared, as to the 
 harmony of the meal, the blend of flavor; as to the 
 right appetizers; and good humor and cheerful con- 
 versation, with the most attractive setting and perfect 
 serving, will cut down the cost of almost any table one 
 half. Many seem to hold the idea that hospitality 
 requires the setting of a double portion before the 
 guests, and this alone doubles the cost of food in some 
 families. It may be rightly said that the knowledge 
 of this perfect table involves expensive training on 
 the part of the mother or mistress, and that it will be 
 cheaper for the family to go to a hotel where the 
 chef is paid to do this for a thousand people , True, 
 this is what a large number of American citizens 
 think, and if it were not for the increased death-rate 
 
FOOD. 71 
 
 and the alarming prevalence of nervous breakdowns 
 and insanity we might allow the mere economic con- 
 ditions to rule. But there is another side: fancies 
 and flavors and combinations may be better provided 
 for by one who has had long experience of the tastes 
 of the family than by the chef who suits the average 
 of a thousand. Also the health and manners of 
 children ihay be more carefully watched at home. 
 And if bright faces and merry hearts gather about 
 the home table in fresh cool air, sweet with the 
 favorite flowers, will not the quiet, the restful atmos- 
 phere soothe the tired nerves more than the strange 
 faces, the glare of lights, the rattle of dishes of the 
 restaurant or well-ordered hote' — even though the 
 noise is drowned in music ? 
 
 In sociological work is it not considered a great 
 step when a family is persuaded to gather as a unit 
 about the table instead of each taking from the 
 bakeshop or the cupboard that which will serve to 
 keep soul and body together ? No other symbol of 
 comfort and well-being has been so universal as the 
 family table, and yet many intelligent women are 
 advocating a reversion to primitive ways, thus doing 
 away with a civilizing agency. 
 
 The home cannot be looked upon as an eating- 
 house, as a laundry, as a sleeping-place; it is the 
 school of life, and anything which renders it more 
 efficient is worth paying for. The cost in money or 
 
72 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 time is not to be for a moment grudgingly cut down. 
 What if the parents spend all they can earn, is it not 
 well invested in the next generation ? The cost of 
 living must be measured by the results in flesh and 
 blood and brain, not in houses and lands. Hence we 
 say: the ideals toward which the family is striving 
 come first into discussion before the expenditure can 
 be rightly judged. The home is for the children, not 
 merely for their nutrition, but for development of 
 character; and that must be the only criterion of its 
 true economic value, not in dollars and cents, but in 
 the character of the men and women which are the 
 product of the homes just as truly as the cloth is of 
 the loom. And it is this point of view which must 
 justify the maintenance of the small group, which we 
 call the family, as the unit of the social state. 
 
 Everything about the home must be judged by its 
 bearing on character. An experienced charity-worker 
 objected to the New England Kitchen on the ground 
 that she could not replace the educational and dis- 
 ciplinary value of cooking for her poor women. 
 
 It is in the deeper meaning that excuse must be 
 found for keeping up the custom of eating at home, 
 for it cannot be justified on economic grounds. The 
 family table is an educational factor of greatest im- 
 portance to the children ^ There, as nowhere else, 
 are inculcated the virtues of self-control, self-denial, 
 regard for others, good temper, good manners, pleas- 
 
FOOD. 73 
 
 ant speech. The children's table presided over by 
 the ignorant maid and the hurried service of the 
 adult has much to answer for in modern life. 
 
 Whatever it may cost, however uneconomic it may 
 seem, — in the wider view of the aim of all living, let 
 us keep the family table even if much that is set upon 
 it comes from outside; enough should remain to 
 permit of its educational, aesthetic, and ethical value. 
 
 When housekeeping is reorganized on a business 
 basis the present waste and drudgery and dirt in the 
 house-kitchen will be abolished, and along with the 
 soap-making will go the soup- and bread-making — 
 the heavy kettles and greasy dishes. The cleaning 
 of fowls, the trimming of vegetables will be done out 
 of the house, and that bete noir the garbage-pail will 
 be reduced to manageable dimensions. More refined 
 ways of doing the necessary tasks will make the work 
 a pleasure and yet, as I believe, will keep the family 
 circle intact. 
 
 I do not wish to be understood as relegating food 
 to the realm of mere necessities, but I do maintain 
 that the relation of the food-supply to health must 
 not be overlooked or thrust out of sight. 
 
 The difference between food as an animal need and 
 as a source of pleasure as well may be likened to that 
 other process of combustion and source of heat, the 
 fire on the hearth. The black air-tight stove gave 
 the necessary heat and was more economical of fuel 
 
74 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 than the wood-fire against the chimney-back, but with 
 the latter comes a sense of cheer, of companionship, 
 of worship, that is worth all it costs. 
 
 It is this same, sense of pleasurable comfort, of an 
 actual accession of strength, which is given by a suit- 
 able meal in a harmonious setting. 
 
 As the useful heat of the fire is not wanting, how- 
 ever great its beauty, so the useful fuel-value of the 
 food must be considered under all the accessories. 
 There is here the additional variable, the power of the 
 body to utilize the bountiful gift. The very charm 
 of the surroundings helps to this provided there is 
 not positive harm in the ingredients or their com- 
 bination. 
 
 Much of the present cost of food is in the exceed- 
 ing cleanliness necessary in dealing with the animal 
 foods which are so liable to harmful changes. 
 
 The right attitude of mind toward food will make 
 its choice, preparation, and serving that which in 
 earlier times it was — a worship, — and the office that 
 of a priestess. It was not by chance that so many 
 religious rites were connected with eating. 
 
 It served to impress the importance of the right 
 view of food upon primitive peoples. 
 
 It is just as wrong to ignore food or to hold it of 
 little value as to consider it too much. The health 
 of the human body means sufficient food if the indi- 
 vidual is to do his or her work in the world. 
 
FOOD. 75 
 
 Mrs. Bosanquet writes: " Women are supposed to 
 be able to live on a much less wage than men of the 
 same social standing, and this is largely because they 
 accept a much lower standard of living. That is, 
 they are content with less food, less comfort, narrower 
 interests, and less recreation; and this reacts through 
 their impaired vitality by making them less efificient. 
 ' The woman needs less ' it is always argued as a 
 reason for woman's lower wages, but she needs less 
 only in the sense that it costs less to maintain a low 
 physical standard than a high one." 
 
 Bullock* says there are five ways in which fully 
 one fifth the money expended for food is absolutely 
 wasted, while the expenditure often fails to provide 
 adequate nutriment. In this manner ten per cent of 
 the income is squandered in — 
 
 1. Needlessly expensive material, providing littl; 
 nutrition. 
 
 2. A great deal thrown away. 
 
 3. Bad preparation. 
 
 4. Failure to select rightly according to season. 
 
 5. Badly constructed ovens. 
 
 This waste if checked would give an increase of 
 income which would appreciably lift the family to a 
 higher plane of efificient life. 
 
 I am so often asked for definite menus and for a 
 list of articles of food which can serve a family for a 
 * Economics. 
 
76 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 given sum that I am forced to the conclusion that 
 there is very little knowledge as to what good food is 
 or what it costs; that the decision as to what to 
 furnish to the table rests upon what other persons are 
 known to buy rather than on any individual judg- 
 ment. This is either childish imitation or foolish 
 following of fashion. 
 
 Even the writers of cook-books and teachers of cook- 
 ing have too often followed instead of led the public. 
 
 Scientific investigation is needed in this respect as 
 much as in any other. Before we can make definite 
 statements we must have definite knowledge. Most 
 of the work done by the United States Government 
 has been among those supposed to waste most in food 
 materials, those with an income less than five hundred 
 dollars. What is more needed is information as to 
 what it costs to live well for a family with fifteen 
 hundred to three thousand dollars a year; for health- 
 ful, appetizing food at a sum not exceeding twenty- 
 five per cent of the income. 
 
 When we get budgets from a large number of these 
 families we shall be able to formulate much better 
 than now the rules for the expenditure of this part of 
 the income. 
 
 Extensive studies of the composition of food ma- 
 terials and of the amounts consumed by man under 
 widely differing conditions show that sufficient raw 
 food material for health and production of energy 
 
FOOD. 77 
 
 may be secured anywhere in America within reach of 
 a raih'oad for nine to ten cents per day per person, 
 provided the appetite is strong and natural and not 
 influenced by whimsical fancies. Thirteen to fifteen 
 cents furnishes good fare for intelligent workmen 
 whose wives understand both buying and cooking, and 
 also serves for large establishments kept at public 
 expense, such as prisons and almshouses. 
 
 Eighteen to twenty-five cents per day per person 
 is the most which, according to our estimates in 
 Chapter III, should be spent by those whose incomes 
 are one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars per year. 
 And the knowledge now available for the housewife 
 will allow her to do this satisfactorily, provided 
 that the aims of the family rise above the pleasures 
 of the palate. 
 
 This sum is sufficient for collections of three 
 hundred to five hundred persons under one roof, — 
 schools, hospitals, and institutions supported by 
 charity, — again provided that the right spirit of 
 cooperation exists and that a scientific attitude of 
 mind can be maintained. 
 
 Twenty-eight to thirty cents is the maximum limit 
 for such institutions and for families who are eager 
 for the higher pleasures of living and have not money 
 enough for both. 
 
 Thirty-five to forty cents spent with discretion is 
 ample for colleges, paying hospitals, private schools, 
 
78 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 and private families if tiie purveyor, cook, and serv- 
 ing maid, each and all, do their duty after they are 
 furnished with the proper appliances. 
 
 Only when the income of a family of five indi- 
 viduals, including servants, rises above four thousand 
 dollars a year should an expenditure of fifty cents 
 per day per person for raw food materials be looked 
 upon with complacency, unless the momentary pleas- 
 ures of the palate are preferred to the lasting pleasure 
 of health and the satisfaction of the higher nature. 
 
 From what has been said it will be seen that the 
 aesthetic value of the table cannot be realized unless 
 the highest intelligence in the house makes it his or 
 her care. I must say that some of the most perfect 
 examples I know are those in which the man of the 
 house " puts his mind on it." I believe it would be 
 greatly to the advantage of the health and happiness 
 of the world if this part of the housekeeping were for 
 a time done by men, for then they would systematize 
 it as they have systematized the various industrial 
 pursuits which were once household occupations. 
 
 The diiificulty would be that they would not be 
 satisfied with the economic waste of using as much 
 effort and time to prepare food for four as is needed 
 for fourteen or forty, and the common dining-room 
 would prevail. 
 
 The American woman has been much slower than 
 the American man to grasp the meaning of the 
 
FOOD. 79 
 
 proper setting by which to increase the enjoyment of 
 food. The club table is often a model feast, while, 
 since she no longer cooks the meal herself, the house- 
 wife has washed her hands of all care for the essentials 
 and wasted her energy on the foolish abundance of 
 entries, sweets, and bon-bons; she has not learned 
 to keep the air of her dining-room cool and fresh and 
 has not taken pains to make the meal an intelligent 
 feast; above all, she has not trained the children to 
 eat for life and health, but allowed them to sacrifice 
 both to mere habit and whim. As a result her ex- 
 penses are large, her health poor, her children peevish, 
 her husband makes any excuse to dine at his club, 
 and she longs to give up housekeeping and board. 
 
 Most of the women who have written upon house- 
 hold economics have shown how smoothly life would 
 run if there were no kitchens, and have advocated 
 caravansaries where a common dining-room should 
 serve as an amusement-hall. 
 
 If it were only the drudgery of preparing the three 
 meals a day, this would be a safe solution, but the 
 efficiency of the individual depends almost entirely 
 on his food. It matters little whether his house has 
 a Gothic window or a Mansard roof, whether the 
 lining of his coat is of silk or of cotton, as to the 
 number of miles he can walk or ride, or the business 
 he can transact, but it does matter whether he is able to 
 extract the full number of calories from his breakfast. 
 
8o THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 Let food and its accessories be once established on 
 a standard of health which means latent power, and 
 not upon fashion, and the college president will be 
 no longer able to include cooking with millinery in 
 the same ignoble category. 
 
 The dressmaker and the milliner are chosen with 
 great care, and many visits are made to the shops to 
 select fabrics and trimmings; but the cook who is 
 responsible for the upbuilding and preservation of the 
 body is chosen haphazard and the food ordered by 
 telephone. 
 
 Not until it is generally known how much the food 
 has to do with human welfare will it receive the 
 attention it merits. 
 
 Let the housewife once grasp this idea and she will 
 fit herself to carry it out. 
 
 Let the young woman who has longed for a career 
 in medicine turn her attention to keeping sickness 
 away, and so devote herself to bringing up the sum 
 total of human happiness. 
 
 Patten says: " We now have a fair chance to test 
 the theory of the dominant influence of scientific 
 habits of thought on public opinion. Dyspepsia is 
 becoming prevalent. A dyspeptic is in the same un- 
 certainty with regard to the effect of what he eats 
 that the primitive man was in regard to his ability to 
 get something to eat. The result is the same — a 
 victim of superstitious fancies and a user of nostrums. 
 
FOOD. 
 
 8 1 
 
 If all men became dyspeptics, superstition would be 
 as rife as it was in the middle ages." The race is to 
 be helped, not by argument, but by a relief from dis- 
 ease, and this sanitary science is trying to accomplish 
 even against the will of the victims. 
 
 The following table taken from No. i6 of the 
 Rumford Kitchen Leaflets may be helpful to those 
 desiring to study the cost of food. 
 
 Nitrogen. 
 
 Cheese 
 
 Beans 
 
 Peas 
 
 Eggs 
 
 Meats 
 
 Milk 
 
 Starch. 
 
 Rice 
 
 Wlieat 
 
 Corn 
 
 Oats 
 
 Barley 
 
 Rye 
 
 Beans 
 
 Peas 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 TABLE 
 
 I. 
 
 
 
 JOOD SUBSTANCES 
 
 RICH IN 
 
 
 
 
 
 Salts, 
 
 Fat. 
 
 
 Sugars'. 
 
 Acids., Flavors. 
 
 Cheese 
 
 
 Molasses 
 
 Vegetables 
 
 Meats 
 
 
 Syrups 
 
 Fruits 
 
 Eggs 
 
 
 Preserves 
 
 Green Relishes 
 
 Milk 
 
 
 Fruits 
 
 Condiments 
 
 Corn 
 
 Oats 
 
 Wheat 
 
 Rye 
 
 Barley 
 
 TABLE II. 
 
 FOOD MATERIALS IN RELATION TO COST. 
 
 For 5 to 13 cents per 
 person^ daily, the food 
 ■may be chosen /rom 
 Potatoes 
 Rye Meal 
 Corn Meal 
 Wheat Flour 
 Barley 
 Oats 
 Peas 
 Beans 
 
 Salt Codfish 
 Halibut Nape 
 Any meat with little bone, 
 
 at 5 cents per pound 
 Oleomargarine 
 Skimmed Milk 
 
 For 1$ to so cents per For 30 to joo cents per 
 person, daily, the /ood person, daily, the food 
 
 may be chosen /rant 
 
 Beef and Mutton or any 
 meat not over 25 cents 
 per pound 
 
 Wheat Bread (purchased 
 at the baker's) 
 
 Suet 
 
 Butter 
 
 Whole Milk 
 
 Cheese 
 
 Dried Fruits 
 
 Cabbage and other vege- 
 tables in their season 
 
 Sugar 
 
 Fish 
 
 Bacon 
 
 Some Fruits in their season 
 
 inay be chosen from 
 
 Choice cuts of Beef, Mut- 
 ton, or other meats 
 
 Chickens 
 
 Green Vegetables, Garden 
 StufE, and Vegetables out 
 of season 
 
 Preserves 
 
 Confections 
 
 Cakes 
 
 Tea 
 
 Coffee 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 CLOTHING IN RELATION TO HEALTH. 
 
 "The pursuit of things fashionable for the sole reason that 
 they are fashionable is not an exalted occupation and is, indeed, 
 I think a somewhat sheeplike attribute.— Frederick Treves. 
 
 " One of the strongest human wants is the society of one's 
 fellows." — Bullock. 
 
 The cost of the clothing, like that of the house, 
 depends more often upon what impression it is 
 desired to make upon the outside world than upon 
 the true office of clothing, namely, to preserve the 
 health by protecting the body frorh sudden changes 
 of temperature. Whatever may be the cut and color 
 of the outside layer, the real garments should fulfil 
 this requirement, and the money necessary to secure 
 this should not be used for other purposes. 
 
 In our present views as to the nature and causes of 
 disease, temperature plays an important role. 
 
 We believe that a well-nourished body kept at its 
 normal temperature is exceedingly resistent to if not 
 proof against ordinary forms of disease. Bodily 
 
 temperature is chiefly maintained by food and cloth- 
 
 82 
 
CLOTHING IN RELATION TO HEALTH. 83 
 
 ing, and the one supplements the other. The one 
 furnishes fuel, and the other saves it. 
 
 Insufficient food or insufficient clothing may permit 
 of a lowering of the temperature of a part or all of 
 the body so that disease may gain a foothold. 
 
 The first office of clothing, hygienically speaking, 
 is to furnish an outer layer over the body skin which 
 shall protect that organ, made delicate by generations 
 of protection, from sudden changes of temperature, 
 so sudden as not to give the stored food-supply time 
 to respond to the stimulus. It is evident that this 
 layer should be spread evenly over the skin, and so 
 lightly as not to interfere with free bodily movement, 
 and that it should be quite pervious to air, since the 
 skin is more than covering and has offices to perform 
 in the body economy akin to those of lungs and 
 kidneys. It is not the insufficiently dressed person 
 who catches cold, but the superabundantly dressed. 
 
 And yet direct access of cold air should be pre- 
 vented upon such exposed blood-vessels as occur at 
 wrists and knees. 
 
 Recent experiments indicate that several layers of 
 different substances and a loosely woven texture are 
 most advantageous. 
 
 Love of display, of that color which will attract 
 attention, is an instinct inherited from our savage 
 ancestors. An attribute of the early man, it has in 
 the course of evolution reached the woman. As was 
 
84 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 natural when women were left without the home 
 industries which served as absorbing occupations for 
 them, they began to turn their attention to themselves 
 and to allow free play to an untrained fancy in the 
 clothing of themselves and their families. With the 
 factory cheapening fabrics and becoming unscrupulous 
 in the use of evanescent dyes, nearly all articles of 
 clothing used for outside display have degenerated, 
 and waste of money in this direction by those who 
 need it for other things has become shocking. No 
 other form of sense gratification seems such a mania 
 with women; their freedom from household occupa- 
 tion has certainly not been well used for the most 
 part. It is not uncommon to find a, woman who has 
 sacrificed the well-being of herself and her family to 
 a love of display. 
 
 Here again the school must come to the rescue and 
 prevent the next generation from making the same 
 mistake. 
 
 The argument is used that it makes business to 
 
 cater to this mania; but it were better that business 
 
 should not be made for the aggrandizement of the 
 
 •few than that the many should have their ideals 
 
 debased. 
 
 Whatever may be said of the morality of a factory 
 for the making of idols for sale in the East, or of 
 printing cloths of barbarous designs and color for 
 savage islanders under the pleas that they want them 
 
CLOTHING IN RELATION TO HEALTH. 85 
 
 and will have no other, in a civilized country those 
 who cater to the wants of its own citizens should be 
 forced by public opinion to use their capital and their 
 skill in ways which will elevate and not degrade the 
 ideals of the people for whom they work. 
 
 No great or sudden revolution can be expected, but 
 a strong pressure can be exerted if intelligent persons 
 will give time and thought to the study of these 
 things. 
 
 Protection by clothing from the rigors of climate is 
 a distinct advance, as it enables more energy to be 
 used for other purposes; but excess of clothing leads 
 to tenderness of skin and delicacy of appetite, which 
 ill prepare the individual to surmount the obstacles 
 nature has interposed. 
 
 Clothing in excess of physical needs must meet 
 aesthetical needs which are as real; when a garment 
 does neither, but is a source of discomfort to the 
 wearer and displeasure to the observer, it may be said 
 to have little value. 
 
 The habit of balancing the various utilities of 
 clothing would save many a weary hour of stitching 
 and shopping. 
 
 This is not a treatise on hygiene, but a discussion 
 of certain points in sanitary science which bear on 
 cost of living; and in the cost of clothing we must 
 include the aesthetic side, just as was done in the case 
 of house-furnishing and of food. In this there is an 
 
86 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 unlimited range of possibility, and only certain ideals 
 
 I 
 
 rigidly held will save the exchequer from being 
 unduly depleted on this account. 
 
 Each family has ample room for choice which 
 aesthetic sense shall be gratified after the hygienic 
 essentials are satisfied. 
 
 It may be clothes, it may be food, it may be 
 pictures, it may be furniture, it may be travel, but in 
 our families it cannot be all of them. When this 
 choice is guided by principle and not by fashion the 
 family will rest secure in their reasons for a given 
 action, and not be troubled by outside opinion. 
 
 With increase of knowledge it will be possible to 
 combine the requisite of health and beauty in such a 
 way as to lead to economy of time and money. 
 
 The proportion of the income which is due to this 
 part of life may be estimated at from five to fifteen 
 per cent for the wage-earner whose income is ten to 
 twelve dollars per week (six hundred dollars). Thirty 
 dollars will go a long way in providing raw material 
 for the family if it is made up at home and if a wise 
 selection is made of durable materials of true bargain 
 or mark-down sales. For the clerk or teacher on a 
 salary of twelve hundred dollars ten per cent will keep 
 the family in tidy condition for school and church 
 and holidays. 
 
 The most difficult case is that of the family who 
 are striving to keep in society and who must spend 
 
CLOTHING IN RELATION TO HEALTH. 8/ 
 
 for gloves, carriages, and the costly trifles which 
 make solely for appearance and the absence of which 
 is not forgiven. Unless the income rises above 
 twenty-five hundred dollars, fifteen per cent will go 
 with the greatest rapidity, and home-made clothing 
 will not pass muster. Nothing is more humiliating 
 than to be obliged to stay away from a pleasant 
 oc<;asion because no suitable clothes are on hand. 
 
 Here again knowledge pays; for if there is an 
 aesthetic touch, a personal atmosphere, an ideal, not a 
 slavish following of fashion, a person may be well 
 dressed with very small expense. Fashion herself 
 will approve, and society not shrug her shoulders. It 
 is the thoughtless dowdy she disapproves, or the 
 purchased, ready-made air. It is not money but 
 knowledge and care which tells. One color is not 
 much more expensive than another, and one style 
 does not require much more cloth than another. It 
 is the perfection of detail, the fit, the perfect work, 
 the care far more than the money-cost which shows 
 taste. The decadence of the use of the needle, the 
 lack of comprehension of what makes dress an 
 ornament, result in the hideous combinations seen on 
 our streets, and in a waste of money which might be 
 spent on better things. 
 
 Clothing from the standpoint of health is shelter, 
 protection from heat and cold, and is a corollary to 
 food. In cold climates the warmer the clothing the 
 
88 THE COST OF LIVING. • 
 
 less food is required. A layer light in' weight spread 
 evenly over the body so as to protect, not impede, so 
 loose in texture as not to prevent free circulation of 
 air, soft enough not to irritate the skin several layers 
 of different rather than of the same materials, will 
 accomplish the purpose. 
 
 These are the essentials which the devotee of 
 hygiene will secure first. Outside is the layer which 
 we show to the world with an idea of enhancing our 
 attraction to others. We can add pleasure to use by 
 appearing in harmonious colors and graceful forms, 
 and we can by the right selection add to our appear- 
 ance. This is right and proper if, as is the case in 
 the architecture of the house, it does not cripple the 
 more important life of the soul. 
 
 But worse than all else in its effect on the morals 
 is the same lack of care in preservation of material 
 and garments which is seen in furniture and food. 
 The tendency is to use everything as if this were the 
 only time it would be needed. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE INTELLECTUAL AND EMOTIONAL LIFE; SAT- 
 ISFACTION OF OTHER THAN MATERIAL WANTS. 
 
 " The education of the near future will focus upon the feel- 
 ings, sentiments, emotions, and try to do something for the 
 heart, out of which are the issues of life. It is this side of our 
 nature which represents the human race." — G. Stanley Hall. 
 
 " It is not what we lack that makes us discontented, but 
 what others have." — Horace Annesley Vachel. 
 
 The intellectual and emotional life includes the 
 exercise of those faculties which distinguish man, and 
 the cultivation of which is held to advance what is 
 known as civilization. 
 
 The barbarian sees mountain and stream, the ten- 
 der green of spring, the rich red of autumn, but he is 
 not moved to action by the emotions they excite. 
 The holiday crowd in a picture-gallery sees the colors 
 and forms on the canvas, but the meaning so clear to 
 the art-lover is not for them. 
 
 Great thoughts of great men have power to move 
 only those in whom there is an answering vibration. 
 
 If the tendency to wider separation of the extremes 
 
 89 
 
90 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 of society is to be checked, and a more general diffu- 
 sion of comfort and aesthetic ideals is to be seen, the 
 advance must come from that portion of society which 
 we are considering, those to whom the treasures of 
 past ages are more valuable than present luxury; to 
 whom the possible ideals of the human race are 
 dearer than probable wealth for their children. 
 
 When money ceases to be the most valuable pos- 
 session, its baleful power will be gone and it will 
 become only a means of satisfying the needs of the 
 emotional and intellectual nature, instead of minister- 
 ing to base passions and ignoble desires. 
 
 The fixed determination to set aside pne quarter 
 of the income for the satisfaction of the needs of 
 man's higher nature, either in the present or in the 
 immediate future, would go far toward cutting off the 
 arms of the octopus which threatens to squeeze the 
 life out of the American republic. 
 
 If only the college, the university, the school, will 
 give the right direction to this movement and not 
 remain so hypnotized by the past as to neglect the 
 present opportunity! 
 
 The intellectual and more refined expressions of 
 the emotional nature are those most in need of culti- 
 vation in America to-day; a more truly American art 
 and literature, more refined living, with more thought 
 given to the meaning of life, to the object for which 
 all exertion should tend, more thought for the manner 
 
THE INTELLECTUAL AND EMOTIONAL LIFE. 9I 
 
 of accomplishing a given result, less for the money 
 value of it. 
 
 For an ideal, any sacrifice is pleasure. For an 
 ideal, men will strive and win success, when otherwise 
 they will sink into inaction. Ideals, then, men must 
 have, and in the division of the income a place must 
 be given to them and a portion set apart to minister 
 to that side of human nature. 
 
 One great advantage of this recognition is that the 
 young couple, whose interests we are considering 
 will pause, before buying an ornament, or a picture, 
 or a piece of furniture; and will have a chance for 
 decision as to the permanent value of the object and 
 its meaning to them. Anything purchased with 
 thought and care and placed to meet a need of the 
 person has a value, even if better taste and wider 
 knowledge would have discarded it. 
 
 It is the caterer to these blind instincts who should 
 be the object of our wrath, the man who, to make 
 money, deliberately manufactures frail articles, flimsy 
 imitations, not worth the carrying home. If some 
 wave of reform could cover this class of goods and 
 remove temptation, an immediate improvement in the 
 condition of the masses would be seen. 
 
 To those who should know better, whose college 
 education should have (alas, how seldom it has!) 
 taught them to know the best, we must appeal to 
 spend this part of their income on principle, no 
 
92 THE COST OF LIVING. " 
 
 matter what the object may be: books, pictures, 
 ornaments, church or charity, let it be a conscious 
 effort toward a higher and a fuller life, toward what 
 we believe may be the highest civilization. 
 
 Entire freedom of choice should rule in this as in 
 other departments, only let it be choice and not drift. 
 Let it be what we desire with conscious longing and 
 not what we happen to see in the possession of others 
 that animates our endeavor. 
 
 It is the attitude of mind toward the objects with 
 which we surround ourselves, rather than the objects 
 themselves, which makes or mars our welfare. For 
 this reason, the teaching in the public schools should 
 include right ideals of life from the material point of 
 view and right notions as to values. A whole genera- 
 tion could be elevated with one concerted effort 
 through this powerful agency. 
 
 If we read the history of the rocks and seas aright, 
 each animal race has risen to a culmination when the 
 food-supply and general environment became such as 
 to permit of it and then has declined and passed 
 away. 
 
 The conditions under which the human race are at 
 present living lead us to ask most seriously if such is 
 to be its fate. There is, however, one difference 
 between animals and men. Men have a power of 
 choice, of looking into the future, to which reference 
 has so many times been made. There is a possibility 
 
THE INTELLECTUAL AND EMOTIONAL LIFE. 93 
 
 that by this power of conscious choice, of present 
 restraint for future good, man may rise to a greater 
 height and persist for a longer time. 
 
 " Evolution,* therefore, seems to be under better 
 control in regard to the human race. No longer is 
 environment everything, it is now dominated largely 
 by intelligence and choice, and this appears the only 
 hope that man may escape the fate that has so far 
 befallen each dominant species which has left foot- 
 prints on the sands of time. . . . This faculty of 
 choice may enable us to resist the appetites and in- 
 clinations which, although raising us in the animal 
 scale, tend to bring us to the brink from which we 
 shall fall." 
 
 The feeling of oneness, the altruistic movement so 
 evident all over the English-speaking world, is evi- 
 dence of the check upon the selfishness of individual 
 freedom and that the time has come for a larger race 
 development. Therefore this portion of the income 
 must have a larger share in the twentieth century 
 than in the nineteenth. 
 
 It is true that the same element of conscious choice 
 lies in all the other directions of expenditure; never- 
 theless this division is made for the purpose of em- 
 phasizing and calling attention to the importance of 
 recognizing it. Certain it is that selfish gratification 
 brings its own punishment even if it is not immediate. 
 
 * " Evolution and Effort," by Edmond Kelly, pp. 270-280. 
 
94 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 One of the moral advantages of the family life is that 
 of suppressing this one-sided development. The 
 freedom of the individual has its bounds set by the 
 good of the race. 
 
 Altruistic instincts, the possibility of giving of 
 one's own to others, can only be satisfied when the 
 income yields more than enough for bare existence. 
 
 As in nutrition and all other factors of living, there 
 is the golden mean if we can only find it. Saving for 
 no purpose is niggardly; saving for a possible future 
 and pinching in a real present is unwise and unpro- 
 gressive; but saving to be independent of charity is 
 essential to true manliness of character, and furnishes 
 the incentive which keeps two thirds of mankind 
 alive. This saving may not be in the form of stocks 
 and bonds and a bank-account. It may be in the 
 form of valuable works of art, of which the enjoyment 
 may be taken as the days fly by; of investment in 
 house and furniture, if only that which is truly valu- 
 able is chosen, and not that which is sham and flimsy 
 in construction or of passing fashion. 
 
 The best investment any family can make is in the 
 health and education of the children; in surrounding 
 them at the impressionable age with those forms and 
 colors and objects which shall lead them to choose 
 the best things life has to offer, in making possible 
 for them a better life than the parents have had. 
 
 At the same time there is danger that the incen- 
 
THE INTELLECTUAL AND EMOTIONAL LIFE. 9S 
 
 tive to effort will be withdrawn; and one clear fact 
 stands out through all ages of organic evolution — 
 that through effort alone has progress been made. 
 
 The massing of the population in cities has made 
 possible the provision for communistic amusement 
 and recreation to an extent somewhat startling to the 
 moralist. Each suburban trolley-line has its park or 
 lake with vaudeville attractions. The things which 
 make for the satisfaction of the aesthetic, the sensu- 
 ous, the ethical education or enjoyment of the 
 masses, are now provided in nearly all cities by muni- 
 cipal appropriation or private benefaction. Parks, 
 libraries, picture-galleries, museums, music, baths, 
 have all been added to schools, free classes, and 
 public lectures. 
 
 The difficulty is to arouse an appreciation of the 
 advantages given, to educate the taste of the people 
 so that they will use aright the things provided. 
 
 Judged by the amount of money spent, the mass 
 of people have far more of what stands to them for 
 comfort and the good things of this world than ever 
 before, but it is questionable if " health and peace to 
 enjoy them " have correspondingly increased. But 
 they take both their ordinary life and their pleasure 
 in large groups, after the fashion of the primitive 
 communities; they follow the crowd; even when the 
 income permits wider choice, the attraction of num- 
 bers is not lost. 
 
96 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 " For a large number of men and women who are 
 not devoid of taste and who are capable of serious 
 thought, the first necessity of life is not to think, but 
 to live. The pleasure of leaking at a play is one of 
 the secondary pleasures ; the pleasure of going to it 
 one of the primary. . . . The pleasures on v/hich 
 they spend the most money are not those which they 
 think the highest, but they are certainly the pleasures 
 which they practically feel to be the most neces- 
 sary. * 
 
 The question confronting us is, shall the same con- 
 ditions of receiving the pleasures of life from the 
 hands of the state be carried on into the more pros- 
 perous families, or is there a good and sufificient 
 reason why each family should retain in its own con- 
 trol the needs of the intellectual life as well as of the 
 animal ? Why is it, indeed, that it is held so essen- 
 tial that the unintelligent masses should have certain 
 pleasures, even though they may not be able to 
 provide them ? Is it not that through them they 
 may be roused to greater exertion, to a desire for 
 more than it is in the power of the state to give, 
 or than it is for the wfelfare of the citizen that it 
 should give ? 
 
 What then is the " something " behind it all ? Is 
 it not possession, individual ownership, which in all 
 
 * " The Incongruities of Expenditure," from Saturday Review, 
 in LitteU's, June 24, 1899. 
 
THE INTELLECTUAL AND EMOTIONAL LIFE. 97 
 
 races marks an advance — mine to do with as I will ? 
 Mine if I will work hard enough to get it — mine own 
 home, mine to control, to experiment with, mine for 
 success or failure ? This individual ownership seems 
 to have been the incentive which has led to the 
 building up of our civilization; are we to throw it 
 away and go back to the communal life of primitive 
 peoples ? 
 
 That it is a fundamental race instinct is shown by 
 its appearance in the second year of every child's life. 
 It is the dawn of the higher intelligence to be followed 
 by imagination as to what may be done with the 
 things possessed. As soon, therefore, as the family 
 income reaches eight hundred dollars a year, if not 
 before, the principle of paying for pleasure and edu 
 cation and comforts should be made a rule if for no 
 other reason than because of the value of necessary 
 cultivation of choice, of self-denial in one direction, 
 of gratification in another. 
 
 So wide is the range that there is ample oppor- 
 tunity for the cultivation of all the faculties possessed 
 by man. 
 
 Health of mind depends upon conscious efTort just 
 as truly as health of body. Children should be 
 trained early in this direction, and in their purchases 
 be made to feel that objects contribute to the fund 
 of mental enjoyment. 
 
 Life-insurance and savings may well come in this 
 
98 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 portion of the income, since they are the means of 
 that sense of independence which the race has been 
 striving for; only let not the mania for saving go so 
 far as to cripple the present life; let that fund grow 
 from the unexpected surplus. A nest-egg should be 
 always retained if a sense of security and that peace 
 of mind which John Locke was thinking of is to be 
 continued. 
 
 The spirit of helpfulness toward a less fortunate 
 neighbor belongs in this class and has existed in 
 various forms, religious, charitable, and just simple 
 help which one poor family gives to another. This 
 spirit of true altruism exists far more than one who 
 has not been brought into contact with it would 
 believe. 
 
 A family with troubles enough of its own will help 
 a friend to the extent of its last dollar. I am more 
 often called upon to advance money to my employes 
 to help some other person in distress than for their 
 own needs. Nor do I grudge the bicycle to the boy 
 who had much better walk, according to my notion ; 
 nor even the piano to the girl who should be doing 
 housework. It is all a part of the evolution of a love 
 of the beautiful and the pleasing, which can be rightly 
 cultivated under wise direction. 
 
 I do feel, however, that those who have learned to 
 be wise owe it to their less fortunate neighbors to 
 give them the means of education, which can best be 
 
THE INTELLECTUAL AND EMOTIONAL LIFE. 99 
 
 done in the public schools. These buildings should 
 be models in form, in color of walls, in decoration, in 
 pictures and casts, and copies of these should be 
 made available for the homes to which the children 
 
 go- 
 Above all, the beauty of cleanliness, the most 
 costly of all beauty, should be exemplified in school- 
 houses, and the means for attaining it fully shown. 
 
 Each householder has a duty in this respect also 
 to the employ^ under his roof. Space and oppor- 
 tunity should be given and requirements made which 
 can be carried out in the humbler households which 
 they will eventually form. Only no special method 
 of personal gratification must be forced ; allow them 
 to choose, but guide the choice. The school is, 
 however, the agent of the first consequence in exert- 
 ing a profound influence upon the homes of the next 
 generation. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD. 
 
 " It is the present duty of the economist to magnify the office 
 of the wealth-expender, to accompany her to the very threshold 
 of the home, that he may point out with untiring vigilance its 
 woful defects, its emptiness caused not so much by laclc of in- 
 come as by lack of knowledge of how to spend it wisely." — 
 Edward Devine. 
 
 " A woman has courage in great things and fails in small 
 crises." — Katherine De Forest. 
 
 " The greatest of all obstacles to social progress is lack of 
 directive intelligence, of skill in management. " — LuCY M. 
 Salmon. 
 
 "Education is no doubt a process both long and toilsome- 
 but it is withal a hopeful process and forms the basis of mod- 
 ern democracy." — A. F. Weber. 
 
 The great industrial and economic questions of the 
 twentieth century centre about household manage- 
 ment, and the expenditure of half the income is a 
 vast sum to be in the hands of any one class of per- 
 sons. Just as soon as the home is raised to its proper 
 position and is recognized as a business, its director 
 will be required to have knowledge and skill in some 
 measure commensurate with the interests at stake. 
 
 100 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD. lOI 
 
 The higher purposes of home life must come into 
 sight and be the dominating factors unless the present 
 civilization is to pass away and to give place to a very 
 different order of things. 
 
 Certain it is that if the full effect of the present 
 lines of human development is to be seen the wave 
 of progress must lift the household out of the slough 
 of despond into which it has sunk, and put it upon a 
 level with the other elements of progressive civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 Before the ethical development can take place a 
 material advance must come. None of the higher 
 virtues can thrive in an atmosphere of so much 
 wrangle, worry, and disorder as the house-roofs cover 
 but do not hide, any more than fine physical bodies 
 can be produced by such carelessly prepared food and 
 such selfish indulgence of momentary impulses as are 
 seen at most tables. 
 
 The maintenance of the household demands money 
 for rent, food, and clothes, time and intelligence for 
 the decision of how that money shall be spent and in 
 what form the goods shall be presented and a spirit 
 of unity and helpfulness in all directions to make the 
 whole successful. 
 
 If there is a common afm in the life of the group, 
 one sufficiently strong to bind them together, the 
 small self-denials necessary will not be irksome. 
 Each will do his part toward the attainment of this 
 
102 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 common end and not try to make as much work as 
 possible for the other members or to frustrate their 
 endeavors. 
 
 It is this loss of unity of purpose which has per- 
 mitted the family to fall apart and has caused the 
 collection of individuals under one roof to assume the 
 character of a boarding-house in which each member 
 feels at liberty to complain of every other and to 
 exact service of every other without giving in return. 
 
 If there is not to be found some ideal which will 
 again serve for the binding cord, then we may as well 
 take up life in single cells or in huge caravans. 
 
 If women are un\^illing to acquire that knowledge 
 of scientific and business principles needful for the 
 organization of the twentieth-century household, then 
 the extension of the apartment house where the men 
 do most of the real housekeeping (the janitor, the 
 choreman, the elevator-boy) is inevitable, and possi- 
 bl)'', when the woman becomes quite passive, engineers 
 will turn their attention from bridges to stairways, 
 from tunnels to cellars; the chemists from patent 
 medicines to food; the architects will think less of 
 mere outside ornament and more of inside arrange- 
 ments for useful purposes. 
 
 , Then the work of the household will be a knowable 
 quantity and can be planned for. The housewife 
 now says it cannot be known, that it is the emergen- 
 cies, the unexpected, which cannot be counted upon. 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD. 103 
 
 but I maintain that the unexpected happens in all 
 mundane affairs, and that the most substantial struc- 
 ture, the most intricate factory, takes it into account. 
 
 There is no way out except the frank acknowledg- 
 ment that the present household is for the most part 
 run on an antiquated plan where there is any plan. 
 
 The burning question is, where is the Moses who 
 will lead us from this wilderness into the promised 
 land where no one shall slave all day that others may 
 eat and drink, where those who plan and those who 
 execute shall at least understand each other, and 
 where the efforts of all shall bring health and joy 
 instead of misery and death ? 
 
 Housekeeping no longer means washing dishes, 
 scrubbing floors, making soap and candles; it means 
 spending a given amount of money for a great variety 
 of ready-prepared articles and so using the commodi- 
 ties as to produce the greatest satisfaction and the 
 best possible mental, moral, and physical results. 
 The very variety of choice is a danger unless knowl- 
 edge comes with liberty. The ease with which 
 money can be spent, and the habits of living for 
 to-day which that fact fosters, have taken away the 
 incentive to thoughtful foresight and have blinded 
 the purse-holders to the inevitable consequences of 
 savage-like recklessness. 
 
 The economic changes which took ail interesting 
 occupations out of the home came too rapidly for a 
 
104 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 readjustment of habits; women were freed too sud- 
 denly and have not yet recovered a proper balance. 
 
 It has been said, until it seems not worth saying 
 again, that the reason why the routine of daily living 
 has become so distasteful is because it consists of 
 clearing away debris with no constructive work; that 
 there is nothing to show at the end of the day for all 
 the labor expended. Consider for a moment the 
 work in an ordinary house. Some one rises at half- 
 past five or at six, builds a fire if there is no gas-stove, 
 and proceeds to "get the breakfast." Other mem- 
 bers rise at various times; perhaps the parlor and 
 dining-room are dusted and put to rights before 
 breakfast, which drags on until nine o'clock; then 
 dishes are washed, beds made, sweeping and dusting, 
 washing and cleaning and cooking until afternoon ; at 
 best it is eight or ten hours before the house is 
 presentable, and then comes dinner or supper, as the 
 case may be, and more work for dining-room and 
 kitchen, and what is there to show for it ? Only 
 healthy, happy lives! Fortunate indeed if that is 
 the net result; but how often, alas, does disease or 
 restless fretfulness reward the workers ! 
 
 In the golden age of household occupation the 
 serving maids as well as the mistress had the pleasure 
 of seeing piles of snowy linen and wool or stores of 
 yarn and candles attest their industry, besides the 
 mere food and cleanliness. The pleasure of seeing 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD. I05 
 
 the work of their hands was added to the pleasure 
 of action. As the farmer has his barn of hay, the 
 manufacturer his goods, his money in the till, so they 
 had tangible material. 
 
 Not enough account has been taken of this differ- 
 ence in result in the discussion of the reasons why 
 housework is distasteful in the end of the nineteenth 
 century; only those who can appreciate the value of 
 cleanliness and who can look upon a swept floor or a 
 washed dish as a result worth while, who can feel 
 that a meal well digested is of more value than a reel 
 of yarn, can come to feel the interest and delight of 
 the daily routine. 
 
 It is like the case of the child at school who will 
 work harder on that which he is to carry home to 
 show than on something which goes into the waste- 
 basket. It is only when childish things are put away 
 and men can look toward the goal and think abstractly, 
 not considering to-day's result, that this element is 
 overcome. 
 
 If we could examine into the lives of the house- 
 holders we know, I believe we should find that those 
 which have contented workers are those in which some 
 results remain of the day's work — fruit put up, aprons 
 made, new curtains, etc., — and in which the spirit of 
 the mistress has made the cleaning of the brasses, the 
 washing of the windows a fine action, a sort of 
 religion, a step in the conquering of evil, for dirt is 
 
I06 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 sin. The households where constant change and dis- 
 content rule are those in which this spirit of fighting 
 an enemy and laying up stores for the future does 
 not exist. Can we spare the educational, nay, the 
 ethical value of work done in the house ? 
 
 Not unless we can place our women in the advanced 
 class where they may be able to put aside the merely 
 childish way of looking at things and see the end to 
 be attained as a sufificient incentive. That is why we 
 plead for the right education of the housewife; not 
 that she shall dust her house, but that she shall know 
 how to infuse into the work that interest and en- 
 thusiasm which it has lost owing to circumstances 
 over which she has no control. What must be her 
 aim is the health and happiness of those in her care, 
 for happiness means health. 
 
 Dirt means disease, therefore the warfare with dirt 
 is incessant. Our wise housekeeper will make this 
 fight as surely successful as possible. Instead of 
 frankly accepting the situation and furnisjiing with 
 washable material and easily cleansed furniture the 
 housewife in a dusty smoky city is in the habit of 
 using heavy draperies and deeply carved wood as 
 freely as she would if she lived in a clean city. She 
 looks upon plush and velvet as fabrics and not as 
 catch-alls for dust. It is not business economy to put 
 obstacles in the way for the sake of overcoming them. 
 
 No thought of the end, of clean wholesome living 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD. 10/ 
 
 to dignify the work, no care for the things one has 
 used!' A chair mended by one's own hands has far 
 more value than one from the shop. The old furni- 
 ture of which we are justly so fond bears the essence 
 of many loving hours in its grain. 
 
 Human labor, human thought leaves an impress on 
 inanimate things. Unless one can put this loving 
 touch upon the house, and can breathe into the 
 otherwise dry bones this breath of life, one should not 
 cross the threshold, but betake one's self to a caravan- 
 sary boarding-house where one can grumble to one's 
 self or to the boarding mistress who is paid to hear 
 it, and not make five or six people suffer for one's 
 own ignorance and criminal negligence. 
 
 It is not what we do but what we find pleasure in 
 doing that makes or mars our days; hence if some one 
 can devise a means of giving to the housewife an 
 interest in the daily ordering of her household, that 
 one will confer a benefit upon humanity. That was 
 Tirhat Count Rumford essayed one hundred years ago. 
 
 Women must take their places as organizers and 
 superintendents of the economic consumption of 
 wealth, for when the household ceased to be a manu- 
 facturing centre it became a focus of consumption. 
 The factory acquired an economic organization and 
 employed not only day-laborers but highly paid 
 superintendents. The house in losing its industrial 
 importance has degenerated into an unorganized 
 
I08 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 dependency, and its detailed care has fallen into 
 menial drudgery. 
 
 The later writers on economics are beginning to 
 call attention to the misconception exemplified by 
 this state of things, and to define the use of money in 
 the household as productive consumption, and to 
 show that supervision and organization are as valuable 
 adjuncts of labor and as worthy of high esteem in this 
 as in factory manufacturing. 
 
 Since the object of all endeavor to get wealth is to 
 use it, and the use of the most of it is in connection 
 with the home life, it is evident that the household 
 and its management is the most important factor in 
 national prosperity. 
 
 It is due to the blind conservatism of the average 
 man that he has left so long the consideration of 
 what became of the money he worked so hard to 
 gain. Most of the economic theories and statistics 
 have dealt with the incomes of the poor man where 
 there was little choice, but the real test is with the 
 class which corresponds to the plastic middle layer, 
 the fermentable mass of humanity, out of which rises 
 the cream of society or from which sink the dregs. 
 A recent French writer is quoted by Bullock as stat- 
 ing that " The human race could increase its welfare 
 almost as much by a better ordering of its consump- 
 tion as by an increased production of wealth, and this 
 without any real retrenchment in consumption." 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD. IO9 
 
 And this " better ordering " means the wise manage- 
 ment of the household, so that the satisfaction of the 
 human wants as well as the animal needs shall be as 
 complete as possible. 
 
 To obtain this result requires that the superintend- 
 ent, the manager, shall be a person with a knowledge 
 of the utilities of the various substances used, with a 
 standard by which to measure the relative values of 
 the commodities to the given family, and the strength 
 of character to resist specious temptations to spend 
 for that which is only temporarily gratifying and not 
 permanently useful. 
 
 In no department of human activity would an 
 application of the laws of economic utility be more 
 productive of immediate gain than in the conduct of 
 the household. 
 
 That the shrewd business man so long neglected 
 this most important factor in social progress seems at 
 first sight unaccountable, but it has been easier to 
 earn than to give time and thought to wise spending 
 of money. That he understands in a measure what 
 is needed is seen in the economical management of 
 large hotels and of ocean steamers, which give a better 
 return for the money expended than does the average 
 household of the same class of persons as those who 
 patronize them. The single house seems to the 
 expert in organization too small an affair upon which 
 to expend his energies; for the same effort he can 
 
no THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 supervise the comfort of one thousand persons. 
 Hence the tendency to herd together lessens the value 
 of the individual home, just as the cheaper production 
 of the factory tended to kill the home manufacture. 
 Individual establishments are going the same way, 
 and only one thing will stop the march of events, and 
 that is a belief in the greater value of the single 
 family home in the production of men and women, 
 and with this belief must come a recognition of the 
 importance of the organization and management of 
 the affairs of the single household. 
 
 In any manufacturing establishment the cost of pro- 
 duction and distribution far outweighs the cost of the 
 raw material ; the economy of the great industrial com- 
 binations is in the administrative departments, just as 
 in the economy of the large hotel over the small one. 
 
 If the expenditure in any given family is, for 
 example, five thousand dollars a year, fully half this 
 sum is due in salary to those who administer the other 
 half, who keep the accounts, who study the markets, 
 who spend time and strength in keeping informed as 
 to the values and aesthetics of the articles purchased, 
 and who give time to the carrying out of the plans 
 thus formed. 
 
 If the man and woman share alike in the work, 
 then twelve hundred dollars apiece should be consid- 
 ered a personal share to use upon personal needs and 
 upon the higher social and ethical claims. 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD. Ill 
 
 In the average family where the income is twenty- 
 five hundred dollars, and the man gives no thought 
 whatever to the expenditure of the household, then 
 twelve hundred dollars should go to the woman to 
 spend for these same needs as she chooses, provided 
 she can satisfy the family with the rest, and prove an 
 efficient manager. 
 
 If this principle of a responsible position were 
 recognized as a fundamental one in twentieth-cen- 
 tury housekeeping, we should hear no more of the 
 interference of women in economic industries; we 
 should see instruction in household management 
 demanded in order that success might follow, as in 
 any other position; and even if a competition arose 
 with men who might prefer to keep the management 
 in their own hands, it would soon settle itself, for 
 most men prefer to earn a thousand dollars by hard 
 work to attending to the careful details required to 
 save a hundred dollars, while women take kindly 
 to the regular systematic oversight which this home 
 economics demands, if once they see the value of it. 
 
 Let once the dictum go forth that for every dollar 
 spent in the material wants of the household there 
 shall be a dollar put into the hands of the manager for 
 higher purposes, and a revolution in living would 
 result. 
 
 If my readers have had the patience to follow me 
 thus far, I am sure they are asking who is to have the 
 
112 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 knowledge and wisdom and time to carry out the 
 ideals and keep the family up to these standards. 
 
 Who, indeed, but the woman, the mistress of the 
 home, the one who chooses the household as her 
 profession, not because she can have no other, not 
 because she can in no other way support herself, but 
 because she believes in the home as the means of 
 educating and perfecting the ideal human being, the 
 flower of the race for which we are all existing; 
 because she believes that it is worth while to give her 
 energy and skill to the service of her country and 
 age. 
 
 The greatest disqualification for this position to-day 
 is woman's lack of knowledge of and respect for 
 science and the laws of nature. 
 
 Let her once acquire these and she will come into 
 her kingdom. Let her once gain perfect control of 
 her machinery, feel it yield under her hand, know 
 her power, and we shall hear no more of domestic 
 difficulties so great as to cause hundreds of house- 
 wives to turn their backs on home life and retreat into 
 hotels and apartment houses. 
 
 The organizing ability which has won such signal 
 success in the engineering world cannot all be con- 
 fined to one sex; it has been developed by education, 
 by contact with the world. Give women a chance 
 to spend as wisely and economically as men have 
 learned to manufacture and produce. 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD. II 3 
 
 Give her an education in the laws which govern the 
 processes of daily life, in chemistry, in physics, in 
 biology, in mechanics, and then develop her taste in 
 art and music as well as in literature. Teach the 
 girls in school the principles of form and color and 
 certain elementary economics of expenditure. 
 
 The present education of woman is not tending to 
 fit her for this higher office of spending wisely the 
 money earned by herself or any one else; dense 
 ignorance of the fundamental principles of sanitary 
 science prevails even among so-called educated 
 women, those who should set an example. 
 
 That women have minds capable of grasping busi- 
 ness principles is proved by the success of many in 
 professional callings; but the majority have yet to 
 learn what it means to subordinate the present to 
 the future ; they have yet to submit to the action of 
 law. 
 
 As Mary Tillinghast expresses it: "I find that the 
 stumbling-block to women is their unwillingness to 
 go to the bottom of things. They shrink from pay- 
 ing the price of hard study." 
 
 The gradual displacement of women in various 
 salaried positions in government and corporation 
 offices is a sure proof of this failure on the part of the 
 majority to accept strict business principles. This 
 lack in character will not be remedied until education 
 is brought to bear and science is made an essential 
 
114 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 part of every woman's training, so that she may 
 acquire a respect for science and for economic law. 
 
 Meanwhile let her serve in the home an apprentice- 
 ship which will make the further study easier and 
 which will more sensibly advance the welfare of the 
 community than any outside work can do. 
 
 Let her not grasp for the reins of business until she 
 can master the running of one home. 
 
 That the household is held by popular opinion to 
 be a place of menial service and petty, degrading 
 duties and not the centre of all social impetus, of high 
 and lofty ideals of health and happiness, is proved by 
 the scant courtesy which home economics as a branch 
 of woman's education receives. That the household 
 is not run on economic principles is acknowledged 
 by the neglect of it in the study of economics. 
 
 The woman's province is degraded by her own 
 connivance, since knowledge is at her disposal and she 
 does not avail herself of it. She persists, ostrich- 
 like, in ignoring the movements in other departments 
 of social life. She should make the home an expres- 
 sion of her individuality, but she has none to express. 
 Neither will traditional education help her to adapt 
 herself to others. Social training in ethical ideals and 
 the inculcation of a belief that home-making must be 
 the woman's profession for which she requires a power- 
 giving knowledge, must become accepted factors in 
 the education of every woman, rich or poor. 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD. II S 
 
 The term " managing woman " has been a re- 
 proach rather than an epithet to be sought for, but it 
 was because the manner of the person rather than 
 the management was offensive. 
 
 If the house-mother can so manage the finances of 
 the family as to secure the safe rearing of a group of 
 children with such refined but strong characters as 
 will enable them to become capable, forceful men 
 and women, why should she not have all praise ? 
 
 What can pay better for the effort than this manu- 
 factory of brain and muscle power, the home ? 
 
 The time has come for a radical change in methods. 
 I have no hesitation in saying that no man is justified 
 in giving over the housekeeping to a woman because 
 she is a woman ; that unless he is satisfied that she 
 knows how to use money, or that she can learn, he 
 should keep the accounts and pay the bills himself. 
 
 As I see the situation, the most pressing needs of 
 to-day are: 
 
 1st. A knowledge of what it is essential to keep 
 in the home. Must bread be made in the house ? 
 must the laundry work be retained ? 
 
 2d. A knowledge of how much time is required to 
 perform the various services demanded, with, of 
 course, a certain allowance for the unexpected. How 
 many rooms can a chambermaid put in order in an 
 hour ? This depends upon a comprehension of eco- 
 nomic use of human i:)ower. 
 
Il6 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 3d. A knowledge of the relative values of the 
 goods consumed in the house and of the services 
 demanded in causing this consumption. 
 
 If service must be economized, then the trifles on 
 the bureau, the carved ornaments on the mantel-shelf 
 must be put away in order to save the time of dust- 
 ing. One course at meals must be sacrificed rather 
 than the temper of the whole family be tried past 
 endurance in the vain endeavor to make one pair of 
 hands do the work of two. 
 
 4th. A comprehension of the inexorable laws of 
 power and energy when the maid is required to 
 answer the bell or the telephone once in five minutes, 
 and go over two flights of stairs to do it; it often 
 involves the same expenditure of energy as if she were 
 required to climb rapidly a monument 2400 feet high. 
 
 There is still too much of the element of slavery in 
 the work of the house, a disregard for the mechanical 
 efficiency of the human machine. 
 
 I do not in the least blai^e young women for going 
 into the factories, where their work is measured by 
 law and not caprice. 
 
 5th. An acceptance of the fact that woman cannot 
 emancipate herself from nature's laws, that she must 
 inform herself in regard to them and accept their 
 bondage, making for herself within limits a world of 
 freedom, lies at the bottom of all household reform. 
 
 I am aware that some one will say, " But all the 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD. I17 
 
 poetry of life is destroyed by the insistence upon a 
 cut-and-dried plan, and life will not be worth living 
 if each day and hour must be accounted for." True, 
 if the plan is allowed to show through its covering. 
 A skeleton, unclothed, is not a thing of beauty, but 
 does not detract from the grace and charm of the 
 perfect body to which it is essential. 
 
 In the same way the skeleton of purpose and prin- 
 ciple must underlie and deiine the well-ordered and 
 truly dehghtful household life. Saving for its own 
 sake is niggardly and hardening to the soul. Saving 
 for a high and noble purpose raises the art to the 
 level of heroic endeavor. 
 
 So much depends upon the point of view. The 
 casual observer delights in the hectic bloom of the 
 young consumptive, but the physician sees beyond 
 the fair cheek to the deadly cause beneath and has 
 no joy in the sight. The apparent freedom from 
 care and tyranny of custom shown to a chance 
 visitor by many a household conceals the canker of 
 debt and disgrace which is sure, sooner or later, to be 
 revealed. 
 
 The present disorganized condition of the house- 
 hold is only a phase which may pass as quickly as it 
 has arisen. One generation has seen it develop, 
 another may see it a matter of history. Men have 
 been too busy subduing the obvious obstacles of 
 nature to look under the surface of their daily life, 
 
Il8 THE COST OF LIVING. 
 
 but the very fact that the problem of living is begin- 
 ning to press home will stimulate them to the applica- 
 tion of those scientific principles which have spanned 
 continents, controlled rivers, and tunnelled mountains 
 to the building of houses that may be lived in safely 
 and economically. The art which has given fine 
 churches and museums will decorate and beautify the 
 homes. The outlook is full of hope and not of 
 despair. The only need is knowledge (science) of 
 what the demands are and a determination to meet 
 them. The love of conquering obstacles has not 
 died out of the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 
 The twentieth-century household demands of its 
 managers, first of all, a scientific understanding of the 
 sanitary requirements of a human habitation; second, 
 a knowledge of the values, absolute and relative, of 
 the various articles which are used in the house, in- 
 cluding food; third, a system of account-keeping that 
 shall make possible a close watch upon expenses; 
 fourth, an ability to secure from others the best they 
 have to give, and to maintain a high standard of 
 honest work. 
 
 If the housewife cannot and will not apply herself 
 to the problem, let her not stand longer in the way 
 of progress as she is surely doing to-day. 
 
APPENDIX„ 
 
120 
 
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APPENDIX. 
 
 123 
 
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 i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
124 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 ADDITIONAL BUDGETS. 
 
 Average $3000 Income. 
 
 Professor (Mass.), 2 children. The birth 
 
 of a third and an accident to the 
 
 father increased incidentals and 
 
 lessened clothing 
 
 Young instructor (Mass.), i child 
 
 Average of 5 families living in apart- 
 ments in New York 
 
 $2000 AND LESS Income, 
 
 3 adults (Central N. Y.) 
 
 2 adults (Mass.) 
 
 Not given (Albany) 
 
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 (Albany) 
 
 
 
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 5.88 
 
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 18.50 
 
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 12.50 
 
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 House 
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 22.00 
 
 10.00 
 
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 14.80 
 
 21.30 
 
 18.00 
 
 2.1 
 
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 12.00 
 
 
 17.06 
 
 II. 10 
 27.00 
 
 21.75 
 31.40 
 28.00 
 
 25.80 
 
 30.00 
 
 As bearing on some of the teachings of the book it will be noticed that the 
 proportion devoted to the higher life has a tendency to decrease as the income 
 rises; that is, the demands of social custom require an undue expenditure on 
 externals. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Accounts, keeping of 36, 37, 53 
 
 Apartment house 55_ 102 
 
 Attitude of mind g2 
 
 toward food 74 
 
 Budgets, actual 33^ 34 
 
 , suggested 37 
 
 Choice, power of ga, 93, 97, gg 
 
 Clothing 82-88 
 
 Cost of existence 3 
 
 living 2g, 32, 41, 60, 65, 66, 72, 85 
 
 Death-rate '. 27, 70 
 
 Disease 106 
 
 , resistance to 22, 82 
 
 Diseases of modern life 67 
 
 Economic conditions 11, 14, 69, 71 
 
 consumption 108 
 
 Economics 3, 108, 114 
 
 , household 20, 7g, iii 
 
 of expenditure 113 
 
 Economy of combination no 
 
 labor 43, 115 
 
 the home 3 
 
 time 2, 28 
 
 125 
 
126 INDEX. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Education 6, 13, 14, 15, 19, 23, 38, 42, 69, 89, 91, 94, 98, 99 
 
 100, 106, 112, 113, 114 
 
 Emotional life 89, 99 
 
 Engel's laws 33, 34, 35 
 
 Expenses „ 28, 30 
 
 , household 50-64, 69, 100, loi, 103 
 
 , readjustment of 14, 55, 56 
 
 Family, cost of 10 
 
 , purpose of 6, 8 
 
 , table 71, 72, 73 
 
 Food 35, 65-81 
 
 , attitude of mind to ward 74 
 
 cost per day 77 
 
 tables 81 
 
 , waste of 75 
 
 Fuel 50, 52, 63, 64 
 
 Health 20, 25, 68, 97 
 
 Home 6 
 
 , definition of 5, 13, 15, 44, 71, 115 
 
 , economical management of 31 
 
 , estimation of 12, 23, 71 
 
 life 9, 10, 114 
 
 House, cost of 44 
 
 furnishing 47 
 
 , office of 6, 47 
 
 rent 39, 45, 48, 54, 61 
 
 , sanitary requirements of 49-54 
 
 Household expenditure 28, 34, 36, 50, 57, 6g 
 
 management 53, 108. 109, in, 118 
 
 organization 14, 100 
 
 reform 116 
 
 service 59, 60 
 
 twentieth-century ilS 
 
 Ideals 4, 8, 13, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 44, 48,69, 91, 102, II2 
 
INDEX. 127 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Ideals, sanitary 11, 27 
 
 Income, amount of 29, 30, 31, 39 
 
 , division of 45, 57, 58, 61, 86, 90, 100 
 
 Intellectual life 89-99 
 
 Operating expenses .' 49-64 
 
 Organization of the household 100-118 
 
 Ownership 96, 97 
 
 Sanitary conditions 42, 54, 64 
 
 science 16, 25, 27, 58, 81, 85, 113 
 
 Schools 5. 7> 8, 13, 84, 90, 92, 97, 99 
 
 Science for women H2-113 
 
 Standards 5, n, 21, 32, 36 
 
 of living 17, ig, 20, 24 26, 39, 52, 57, 68 
 
 of health 80 
 
 Wages 58, 59. 61. 75 
 
 Waste 35, 7°, 75 
 
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 Thurston's Boiler Explosions 12mo, 1 50 
 
 " Engine and Boiler Trials 8vo, 5 00 
 
 Manual of the Steam Engine. Part I., Structure 
 
 and Theory 8vo, 6 00 
 
 Manual of the Steam Engine. Part IL, Design, 
 
 Construction, and Operation 8vo, 
 
 2 parts, 
 
 " Philosophy of the Steam Engine 12mo, 
 
 " Reflection on the Motive Power of Heat. (Caruot.) 
 
 12mo, 
 
 " Stationary Steam Engines 8vo, 
 
 " Steam-boiler Construction atid Operation 8vo, 
 
 Spangler's "Valve Gears 8vo, 
 
 " Notes on Thermodynamics 12mo, 
 
 Welsbach's Steam Engine. (Du Bois.) 8vo, 
 
 Whitham's Steam-engine Design.., 8vo, 
 
 Wilson's Steam Boilers. (Flather.) 12mo, 
 
 Wood's Thermodynamics, Heat Motors, etc 8vo, 
 
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 Adriance's Laboratory Calculations 12mo, 1 25 
 
 Allen's Tables for Iron Anal3'sis 8vo, 3 00 
 
 Bixbj''s Graphical Computing Tables Sheet, 25 
 
 Compton's Logarithms 12mo, 1 50 
 
 Crandall's Railway and Earthwork Tables 8vo, 1 50 
 
 Davis's Elevation and Stadia Tables Small 8vo, 1 00 
 
 Fisher's Table of Cubic Yards Cardboard, 35 
 
 Hudson's Excavation Tables. Vol. II 8vo, 1 00 
 
 Johnson's Stadia and Earthwork Tables , 8vo, 1 25 
 
 Ludlow's Logarithmic and Other Tables. (Bass.) 12mo, 2 00 
 
 Totten's Metrology 8vo, 2 50 
 
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 Baldwin's Steam Heating 12mo, 2 50 
 
 Beard's Ventilation of Mines 12mo, 2 50 
 
 Carpenter's Heating and Ventilating of Buildings 8vo, 3 00 
 
 Gerhard's Sanitary House Inspection 12mo, 1 00 
 
 Wilson's Mine Ventilation , . , . , ,13mo, 1 35 
 
 13 
 
$5 00 
 
 1 50 
 
 4 00 
 
 2 50 
 
 1 00 
 
 1 00 
 
 3 00 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Aloott's Gems, Sentiment, Language Gilt ed 
 
 Bmmon's Geological Guide-book of the Rocky Mountains. .8vo, 
 
 Ferrel's Treatise on the Winds 8vo, 
 
 Haines's Addresses Delivered before the Am. Ry. Assn. ..12mo, 
 Mott's The Fallacy of the Present Theory of Sound. .Sq. 16mo, 
 
 Richards's Cost of Living 12mo, 
 
 Ricketls's History of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 8vo, 
 
 Kotherham's The New Testament Critically Emphasized. 
 
 13mo, 1 50 
 " The Emphasized New Test. A new translation. 
 
 Large 8vo, 3 00 
 Totten's An Important Question in Metrology 8vo, 3 50 
 
 HEBREW AND CHALDEE TEXT=.BOOKS. 
 
 For Schools and Theological Seminaries. 
 
 Gesenius's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to Old Testament. 
 
 (Tregelles. ) Small 4to, half morocco, 5 00 
 
 Green's Elementary Hebrew Grammar ISmo, 1 35 
 
 " Grammar of the Hebrew Language (New Edition). 8vo, 3 00 
 
 " Hebrew Chrestomathy 8vo, 3 00 
 
 Letteris's Hebrew Bible (Massoretic Notes in English). 
 
 8to, arabesque, 3 35 
 
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 Hammarsten's Physiological Chemistry. (Mandel.) 8vo, 4 00 
 
 Mott's Composition, Digestibility, and Nutritive Value of Food. 
 
 Large mounted chart, 1 35 
 
 Ruddiman's Incompatibilities in Prescriptions 8vo, 3 00 
 
 Steel's Treatise on the Diseases of the Dog 8vo, 3 50 
 
 WoodhuH's Military Hygiene , 16mo, 1 50 
 
 Worcester's Small Hospitals — Establishment and Maintenance, 
 including Atkinson's Suggestions for Hospital Archi- 
 tecture 12mo, 1 25 
 
 16