stified by present-day conditions in owning a
house on an income of $2000 a year _unless_

(1) They have money to put into it which it will not cripple them for life
to lose;

(2) They care so much for the idea of ownership that they are willing to
take the risk of losing one half the investment should they be compelled
to move;

(3) They possess the fortitude to give it up at the call of duty after all
they have lavished on it;

(4) They care enough for the real education and the real fun they will get
out of it to save in other ways what the running and repairs will cost
_over and above the amount estimated_. This saving will be largely by
doing many things with their own hands.

To be bound hand and foot either by unsalable real estate or by sentiment
is an uncomfortable condition for the young family who may find itself in
uncongenial surroundings, in an unhealthful situation, or who may need to
retrench temporarily.

Another serious objection to building and owning a house in the first
years of married life is the chance that the house will be too large or
too small, or the railroad station will be moved, or the trolley line will
be run under the garden window, or a smoking chimney will fill the library
with soot (although the latter will not be permitted in the real
twentieth-century town).

A new element has come into the question of ownership by the family of
limited means which did not meet the elder generation of house-owners. In
the past the repairs were confined to a coat of paint now and then, new
shingles, an added hen-house, or a bay window. The well might have to be
deepened, but little expense was put into or onto the house for fifty
years. The married son or daughter might add a wing, but the main house
once built was never disturbed. In the modern plastic condition of both
ideals and materials this is all changed. In any city well known to my
readers how many streets bear the same aspect as five years ago? In any
suburban village made familiar by the trolley how many houses are the same
as five years ago? Even if their outward aspect is not changed, that worst
of all havocs, new plumbing, has been put in. The installation of neither
furnace nor plumbing is accomplished once for all; at the end of ten years
at most repairs or replacement must be made on penalty of loss of health.
As the community grows in wisdom and in knowledge it makes sanitary
regulations more stringent notwithstanding the f