women of the same general type of family, but the
most important reason is that most women have skill in domestic
matters; and domestic service is needed everywhere, no matter how many
unemployed walk the streets. Needed most in the poorest home, the help
of the grandmother is often appreciated in inverse ratio to the
income.

In the circles above the poverty line there is much variety in the
estimation and in the treatment of grandfathers and grandmothers. The
ideal picture of a family always has in its background, if not in the
very front, an old man and an old woman, benevolent and sweet-natured,
who can be depended upon to be more indulgent to the children than
even the father or mother and who appear always in family emergencies
to renew their youth of service in behalf of the younger generation.

What is thus ideally pictured is a fact in thousands of families. No
one can say that it is always best to have three generations under one
roof, but all who have had a happy family experience believe that the
grandparents should be "handy by," to use the Scotch phrase. The
grandparents' house in the country is best of all, where all family
and national holidays can be celebrated with due form and in
accordance with ancient tradition. The grandparents' house for the
city children is next best, if in a suburb near by where more space
and independence of movement are possible than in the city residence.
The grandparents' house or apartment in the same or a near-by city is,
however, not at all to be despised as a refuge when "Mother does not
understand," or "Father is so particular."

=Is Any House Large Enough for Two Families?=--Although the proverb
says, "No house was yet made large enough for two families," the
residence of one grandparent (oftener the mother than the father)
within the family circle has often proved highly successful if only a
few rules have been observed. One of these rules is that each adult
person shall have one place strictly his of her own. Another is a
rule, so difficult for some aged persons of both sexes to obey,
namely, that each person married is doubly entitled to individual
choices in action without interference even from parents, since each
such married person has to adjust his or her ideas to another person.
To work out full agreement between themselves is all that any married
couple should be expected to accomplish. Hence, in the nature of
things, the grandparents who are so near the