They are obliged to put up with the better grade of workmen's dwellings, or to pay beyond their means for a poor quality of the house designed for the leisure class.

In either case, the weight bears hardest on the woman's shoulders, and it is to her awakening that we must look for an impetus toward an understanding of the problems confronting us.
The college-educated women of the country believe so fully that the twentieth century will develop a civilization in which brain-power and good taste will outrank mere lavish display, that they have sent out a call to their associations to devise methods of sane and wholesome living which shall leave time and energy free for intellectual pleasure--some, at least, of that time now absorbed by the house and its demands as insignia of social rank.
Trained and thoughtful women are convinced that the first step in social redemption is adequate and adaptable shelter for the family.

Just so long as tradition and thoughtlessness bind the wife and mother to that form of housekeeping which taxes all the forces of man to supply money and of women to spend it, so long will the most intelligent women decline to sacrifice themselves for so little return.
The constructive arts dealing with wood, stone, and metal have been conceded to be man's province.

He has used new materials and labor-saving devices in railway stations and place of amusements, not selfishly, but because of the appreciation of the travelling public.

It is the fashion to decry labor-saving devices in the house, because they do away with that sign of pecuniary ability, the capped and aproned maid.