and glazed walls, so to
speak, will be arranged by the architect so as not to offend the eye and
yet to accomplish the results. He will cease from trying to put the new
ideas of the twentieth century into the old houses of the eighteenth or
fifteenth even, and that beauty, which is fitness, will come forth from
the tangle of ugliness everywhere. If, as the economist tells us, "cost
measures lack of adjustment," then the perfectly adjusted house will not
be costly in reality, it will be adapted to the production and protection
of effective human beings.

The cellar has for some years been changing to a storage for trunks
instead of vegetables. The old-fashioned housewife exclaims at the lack of
storage in the house of to-day, and we are eliminating it still more. A
twentieth-century axiom is, "Throw or give away everything you have not
immediate or prospective use for." It is as true of household furniture as
of books; only the very best is of any value second-hand. Our young people
may have heirlooms, but they will buy very little in the way of sideboards
or first editions. The moral of modern tendencies is, buy only what you
are sure you will need or what you care for so intensely that you will
keep it come what may. Housing of possible treasures is far too
costly.

At the foundation of the ethical side of ownership is the primitive
impulse of possession, that ownership which led to wife-capture, to feudal
castles, to accumulation of things, and to-day is expressed by the man who
prefers to have his steak cooked in his own kitchen even if it is burned.

It is notorious that most of us put up with discomfort if it is caused by
_our own_. A family of eight will use one bath-room without murmur if the
house is theirs, but will complain loudly if the landlord will not add two
without increasing the rent.

At the foundation of what seem exorbitant rents is this demand for modern
improvements in old houses, and the atrocious carelessness of tenants of
property. It is not their own, and they do not obey the golden rule in the
use of it.

Every five years or so plumbing laws are changed, and if an old house is
touched the fixtures and pipes must be all renewed. Tenants have learned
to fear the sanitation of old houses, and yet abuse the appliances they
should care for.

Public ownership or corporate ownership or an increased lawlessness are
accountable for a disregard of others' rights and of property which is
unnecess