FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   >>  
l spirit and yet maintain its great virtues, its extraordinary attraction for the human heart? It's an old story that criticism, the pointing out of defect, is easy, while good suggestions are few and difficult to convert into programs for action. In medicine diagnosis is far ahead of treatment,--so in society at large. Any plans that have for their end a sort of social barracks, with men and women and their children living in apartments, but eating and drinking in large groups, will meet the fiercest resistance from the sentiment of our times and cannot succeed, unless it is forced on us by some breakdown of the social structure. Nevertheless a larger cooperation, at least in the cities, will come. Buildings must be built so that a deal of individual labor disappears. Just as cooperative stores are springing up, so cooperative kitchens, community kitchens organized for service would be a great benefit. Especially for the poor, without servants, where the woman is frequently forced to neglect her own rest and the children's welfare because she must cook, would such a development be of great value. Unfortunately the few community kitchens now operating have in mind only the middle-class housewife and not the housewife in most need,--the poor housewife. Here is a plan for real social service; cooking for the poor of the cities, scientific, nutritious, tasty, at cost. Much of the work of medicine would be eliminated with one stroke; much of racial degeneracy and misery would disappear in a generation. That the home needs labor-saving devices in order that much of the disagreeable work may be eliminated is unquestioned. Inventive genius has only given a fragmentary attention to the problems of the housewife. Most of the devices in use are far beyond the means of the poor and even the lower middle class. Furthermore, though they save labor many of them do not save time. The tests by which the good household device ought to be judged are these: First--Is it efficient? Second--Is it labor saving? Third--Is it time saving? We need to break away from traditional cooking apparatus and traditional diet. The installation and use of fireless cookers, self-regulating ovens, is a first step. The discarding of most of the puddings, roasts, fancy dishes that take much time in the preparation and that keep the housewife in the kitchen would not only save the housewife but would also be of great benefit to her husband. The c
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   >>  



Top keywords:
housewife
 

social

 

kitchens

 

saving

 

community

 
forced
 
cities
 

cooperative

 
children
 

devices


service

 

eliminated

 
cooking
 

medicine

 
middle
 

benefit

 
traditional
 
disagreeable
 

Inventive

 

unquestioned


genius

 

generation

 

racial

 

disappear

 

degeneracy

 

stroke

 

nutritious

 

misery

 

scientific

 

regulating


cookers

 
fireless
 

apparatus

 

installation

 

discarding

 
puddings
 

kitchen

 
husband
 

preparation

 
roasts

dishes
 

Furthermore

 
attention
 
problems
 

efficient

 

Second

 
judged
 

household

 
device
 

fragmentary