The house as a home is merely outer clothing, which should fit as
an overcoat should, without wrinkles and creases that show their
ready-made character. The woman, born housekeeper as she considers
herself, is rigid in her ideas of what she thinks she wants, but when the
builder has followed her plans she is far from satisfied with the result.
She is used to material which puckers and stretches in her clothing; she
cannot understand the inflexibility of wood and stone. The remedy is for
high-school girls, probably even grammar-school pupils as well, to have
along with their drawing some problems in house-planning and some lessons
in carpentry.
It will be seen from the foregoing glance at the rapid change and steady
deterioration of houses that the care of such living-places must involve
special discomforts in most cases.
The time required to keep clean old splintered floors, to carry pails of
water up and down stairs, to dry out the cloths--the base boards with
their grimy streaks tell the story of carelessness--is not counted in the
wage schedule.
Why is there so much dirt brought into the house? Because shoes and
streets are muddy.
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