eping is an acquired art, home-making is a moral quality, an
instinct. Housekeeping conducted as an art is superfluous. Home-making
is a triumph under any circumstances. There are many good housekeepers;
there are few competent home-makers. Housekeeping may easily be
overdone; home-making can never be overdone. A beautiful house is not
necessarily a beautiful home. Housekeeping should be conducted with a
view to home-making and never for any other reason. Sometimes we see
housekeeping brought to its highest perfection by the same woman who
never did understand the simplest rudiments of home-making. The woman
who becomes the victim of the housekeeping mania never realizes it; it
is an insidious art.

There can be no doubt that a well-kept house is a thing of beauty. So
also is a marble statue, but it is cold and bloodless.

The young wife must strive to combine the two faculties. She should be
an efficient housekeeper in a happy, comfortable home.

WHAT CONSTITUTES AN EFFICIENT HOUSEKEEPER?--An efficient housekeeper is
one who has acquired the knowledge necessary to perform all the duties
of housekeeping, and who executes these duties efficiently, with the
least possible expenditure of time and labor.

It is an absolute fact that most young wives begin housekeeping with the
crudest ideas as to what housekeeping means. It has been pointed out
many times, that many mothers bring their daughters up without
instructing them in the elementary principles of keeping house. It is
nevertheless necessary to repeat this statement over and over again, and
to point out the enormity of the injustice done. Even if a daughter is
fortunate enough to marry a man who is capable of supplying all the help
necessary, a wife should know enough to intelligently discern if the
work is properly done. If she does not understand the rudiments of
housekeeping, and has no help, her inefficiency may be directly
responsible for breaking up the home.

PREPARATION AND SELECTION OF MEALS.--Thoroughness and simplicity are the
two essentials to a satisfactory meal. If the articles are thoroughly
cooked and the selection simple, there is no chance for trouble. A
breakfast of fruit, a thoroughly cooked cereal with cream, a boiled egg
and toasted bread and butter, is simple and is adequate. Freshly
prepared hot biscuits sound good, but, unless you know your oven and
have had a lot of experience, they are apt to result disastrously. Even
if you are an expe