it cluster the memories of childhood, the
aspirations of youth, the sorrows of middle life.

The most potent spell the nineteenth century cast on its youth was the
yearning for a home of their own, not a piece of their father's. The
spirit of the age working in the minds of men led them ever westward to
conquer for themselves a homestead, forced them to go, leaving the aged
behind, and the graves of the weak on the way.

There must be a strong race principle behind a movement of such
magnitude, with such momentous consequences. Elbow room, space, and
isolation to give free play to individual preference, characterized
pioneer days. The cord that bound the whole was love of home,--one's own
home,--even if tinged with impatience of the restraints it imposed, for
home and house do imply a certain restraint in individual wishes. And
here, perhaps, is the greatest significance of the family house. It cannot
perfectly suit _all_ members in its details, but in its great office, that
of shelter and privacy--ownership--the house of the nineteenth century
stands supreme. No other age ever provided so many houses for single
families. It stands between the community houses of primitive times and
the hives of the modern city tenements.

As sociologically defined, the family means a common house--common, that
is, to the family, but excluding all else. This exclusiveness is
foreshadowed in the habits of the majority of animals, each pair
preempting a particular log or burrow or tree in which to rear its young,
to which it retreats for safety from enemies. Primitive man first borrowed
the skins of animals and their burrowing habits. The space under fallen
trees covered with moss and twigs grew into the hut covered with bark or
sod. The skins permitted the portable tent.

It is indeed a far cry from these rude defences against wind and weather
to the dwelling-houses of the well-to-do family in any country to-day, but
the need of the race is just the same: protection, safety from danger, a
shield for the young child, a place where it can grow normally in peaceful
quiet. It behooves the community to inquire whether the houses of to-day
are fulfilling the primary purposes of the race in the midst of the
various other uses to which modern man is putting them.

As already shown, shelter in its first derivation, as well as in its
common use, signifies protection from the weather. Bodily warmth saves
food, therefore is an economy in living.