The house is not yet adapted to the new demands of the workers, and they
shun it. The mistress herself finds it beyond her strength, even if the
traces of rough work were not quite so distasteful to her.
Miss Pettengill in her story of domestic service brings out the great part
played by sooty dust, sifting in even through closed windows, in the
burden of the waitress who is expected to keep the dining-room immaculate.
This is only one instance where the blame really belongs on the actual
material house rather than on the mistress, except that she does not
discover a remedy, does not even know where to look for the cause. I have
great faith in the business woman, who does see much that is better done
and who will bring it back into the home.
Fashions in philanthropy do not yet tend in the direction of house
betterment.
"A busy man cannot stop his life-work to teach architects what they ought
to know," says Wells; but on the other hand "we cannot be expected to
teach men and their wives, as well as draw plans for them," says the
architect who has tried it.
The centrifugal forces that our social prophets are so fond of invoking,
holding that the words "town" and "city" may become as obsolete as
"mail-coach," will have to reckon with these features of country life.
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