ies and functions
of "middlemen" must be understood and controlled as never before.
Above all, the pressure of uniformity must be resisted if the offered
supply of the essentials of life prove inadequate to the deepest
needs, or the scale of living be too ambitiously set by the housing
facilities adjusted to the ideas and claims of landlords rather than
to the needs of family life.

Hence we may say that the old forms of effort by which mothers fed and
clothed and sheltered their children led directly to absorption of
interest, energy and conscientious labor within the house. The new
forms of effort by which these essentials of healthful and comfortable
living are secured lead directly to all manner of cooeperative social
adjustments of supply to demand. The standard of demand, however, let
it never be forgotten, is made and maintained within the intimate
family circle itself, and the personal intelligence and ethical
maturity of the housemothers, who form the major purchasing class of
every civilized community, determine that standard. For that great
enterprise of high standardization the same personal devotion to the
central demands of life is required in the average modern woman which
made the ancient mother so great a leader in primitive culture. The
new aids to the housemother's task may give her a better chance than
any women ever had before to see the real social significance of the
personal offices of home life. The poets have seen it all through the
centuries and have pictured the myth goddesses bringing the cup and
the bread and the fruit and weaving the web of ceremonial or of simple
garment in household poetry. All human need for sustenance and the
nurture of our physical being has made the wife the loaf-giver and the
mother a nourisher of the young, and as such artists have portrayed
her.

We may say "our father-land," but we always say "our mother-earth." To
those who see clearly the value of the ancient family rite of the
meal alone together, to which it may well be every member of the
family has made a distinct contribution; to those to whom the private
table still appeals and who still appreciate the taste and quality of
every purchase made for each individual member of the intimate group
(things taking time and thought most often of the mother), the
individual home has meanings that are not lost but rather are growing
in spiritual importance as the drudgery of the household is lessened.

=New Uses