The one question every person asks when these suggested improvements are
discussed is, but how much will it cost? Thus confessing that cost, not
effectiveness, is the measure; that old ideals as to money value still
rule the world. It costs too much to have a furnace large enough to warm a
sufficient volume of air, it costs too much to put in safe plumbing, it
costs too much to keep the house clean, and so on through the list. We
have been too busy getting and spending money to study the cost of neglect
of cardinal principles of right living. The farmer knows the cost of his
young animals, but the father cares little and knows less of what it ought
to cost to bring up his children--of the economy of spending wisely on a
safe shelter for them.
A new estimate of what necessary things must cost has to be made before
the present generation will live comfortably in presence of the
account-book.
Here again a readjustment is coming; some expenses in house construction
common now will be lessened or done away with; for example, fancy shapes,
grooved and carved wood, projecting windows and door-frames.
It is usual, when the various new methods are brought up, to estimate the
cost as additional to all that has gone before, rather than to see in it a
substitute for much that may go.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111