ual apartment house provisions for aids to
the housemother are added, what is now offered in some places, namely,
the "Auto-Service for Meals," whereby the principal meal, at least,
the dinner, is brought to the door ready to place on the table and all
cooking dishes hard to wash are returned to the centre of supply to be
prepared for another service, then, indeed, can all the members take
turns in rendering the small offices for family comfort still required
and each go about his or her special vocation at will. This seems to
be the goal of many progressive minds, although personal taste is
seldom satisfied by "cooeperative" cooking.

It must be remembered by all, that the sort of family pictured above
has in it no children of ages requiring freedom of motion and constant
attention (unless, indeed, "the boarding-school in the country" for
all over four or five years is contemplated). It has in it no aged
whose needs in diet and in physical comfort vary from the usual. It
has in it no chronic invalids and no convalescents, no blind or lame
or specially weak requiring special help. It is for the particular
benefit, at least, of families of a particular type, of which the
cities, with their more varied facilities, contain an unusual
proportion. For the family of the ordinary type, with its many
differing needs and its variety of claim upon some one person for its
central direction and service, the various aids from without which
have been indicated serve rather to relieve from excessive burdens
than to remove altogether the special obligations of the woman-head of
the family.

Moreover, the time left to the average housemother from the old
housework by the new helps in that work is, in part at least,
mortgaged in advance to social effort to make the new commercial aids
to family service actual helps and not hindrances to family health and
comfort. The food supply drawn upon must be sharply investigated lest
it contain deleterious substances or be denuded of nourishing quality.
The ready-made clothing must be bought with knowledge and constant
vigilance against cheating in material or in construction or in sins
of fashion against health and beauty. The labor-saving devices of
every sort must be put to intelligent test and require specific
training for most efficient use. The family budget must be more
carefully planned and more heroically maintained at prudent levels.
The public service of markets, transportation facilit