which the
light may shine into the eyes. The colors that will help the eyes are to
be selected for the room, those that are pleasant, that will induce a
happy mood and will therefore decrease irritation and help the spirit of
energy. He must take up the nearest tools first; the pockets and
containers to hold tools must be placed so that the least and shortest
motions may be made in handling them. And so on.

There are several reasons why the work of the kitchen has not been more
promptly attacked by the believer in scientific management. In the first
place, the business of the home laboratory is of so complex a nature
that no factory can compare with it in difficulty of analysis. Efficient
housekeeping is a combination of many factories. The scientific expert
can far more easily separate the making of a single pair of shoes into
its forty-three acts than he can analyze any one of the processes of the
home laboratory: say, for instance, the making of a frosted layer-cake,
the assembling and concocting of a mince-pie, or the infinitely complex
business of washing dishes.

In the second place, men have been fairly busy putting this matter
through in their factories. They have naturally studied out the
processes nearest to their own hands. They are not to be specially
blamed for inattention to the woman's realm. That will come next. Now
that their attention is being called to the need for expert management
in the other department of life, they are recommending in many books and
lectures what should and must be done to put housekeeping on a basis for
efficiency. So if women do not standardize their work, men will do it
for them, and that will not be so well for them as if they did it
themselves.

The woman who is administrator in the farm home must be equal to several
women. She must be master in the difficult art of cookery, adapting her
menu to the welfare of a group of people of all ages and with all kinds
of needs. She must be washwoman and laundry woman, cleaning and scrub
woman. She must know all the proper chemicals to be applied to the
cleansing of different kinds of metal, cloth, wood, and every sort of
surface painted and unpainted. She must be food expert, and textile
expert, medicine and poison expert. Besides all this, she must be
teacher, instructor, and entertainer, the encyclopedia and gazetteer, a
theological and philosophical professor. And all these separate
functions must do their work together within