anization possible in cities
and in closely settled towns and villages are working to lessen
house-keeping burdens to an unprecedented degree. It is noticeable
that all schemes for so specializing woman's work and so easing the
domestic burden as to make, as one writer puts it, "the home a rest
place for women as for men," have their imaginary seat in great cities
or closely built suburbs. The farm-women we know can combine and
cooeperate to a greater extent than they now do and the town and city
women may take far better advantage of the agencies of household
assistance now at their doors. How far this movement to relieve the
home of household work may go we do not know.

=Modern Demand for Standardization.=--Is there any plan yet proposed,
however, which can relieve the mother of her primary and ancient
obligation to see that her family is well nourished, suitably clothed
and healthfully sheltered? Some one must attend to the needs of each
family in these vital particulars which underlie all problems of
public and private health. Shall the state do it? So far the
experience of state institutions and even of private "homes" do not
encourage hope along that line. So far the physical and affectional
needs of children and youth, and of husbands and wives, and of fathers
and mothers have not been met by any substitute for the private home.
And in the private home, under any plan, there must go on certain
processes which have to cost some one member of the family a great
deal of thought, much personal effort and constant attention. For most
families in average condition that person is naturally the
housemother. If the husband and father is the chief or only
wage-earner in "gainful occupations," then his health and strength are
of primary concern to all the family and must be secured by adequate
and healthful provision of food and clothing, and the home must give
him what he vitally needs for maintaining power of economic service to
his family. If the mother, also, is a wage-or salary-earner we have
the dictum of economists that her inherited and usual place in the
family machinery must be filled, if at all successfully, by trained
and congenial helpers at a cost in present conditions prohibitive for
the average family income. The estimate of Mr. Taber, in his excellent
book, _The Business of the Household_, is that unless for causes of
illness or special emergency "no family having an income of less than
three thousand dol