and, as I see it, shall have for
the use of its inhabitants not merely a town lyceum hall and a town
library, but a town laundry, fitted up with conveniences such as no
private house can afford, and paying a price to the operators which
will enable them to command an excellence of work such as private
families seldom realize. It will also have a town bakery, where the
best of family bread, white, brown, and of all grains, shall be
compounded; and lastly a town cook-shop, where soup and meats may be
bought, ready for the table. Those of us who have kept house abroad
remember the ease with which our foreign establishments were carried
on. A suite of elegant apartments, a courier, and one female servant
were the foundation of domestic life. Our courier boarded us at a
moderate expense, and the servant took care of our rooms. Punctually
at the dinner hour every day, our dinner came in on the head of a
porter from a neighboring cook-shop. A large chest lined with tin, and
kept warm by a tiny charcoal stove in the centre, being deposited in
an anteroom, from it came forth first soup, then fish, then roasts of
various names, and lastly pastry and confections,--far more courses
than any reasonable Christian needs to keep him in healthy condition;
and dinner being over, our box with its debris went out of the house,
leaving a clear field.

"Now I put it to the distressed 'Young Family Man' whether these three
institutions of a bakery, a cook-shop, and a laundry, in the village
where he lives, would not virtually annihilate his household cares,
and restore peace and comfort to his now distracted family.

"There really is no more reason why every family should make its own
bread than its own butter,--why every family should do its own washing
and ironing than its own tailoring or mantua-making. In France, where
certainly the arts of economy are well studied, there is some
specialty for many domestic needs for which we keep servants. The
beautiful inlaid floors are kept waxed and glossy by a professional
gentleman who wears a brush on his foot-sole, skates gracefully over
the surface, and, leaving all right, departeth. Many families, each
paying a small sum, keep this servant in common.

"Now, if ever there was a community which needed to study the art of
living, it is our American one; for, at present, domestic life is so
wearing and so oppressive as seriously to affect health and happiness.
Whatever has been done abroad in the