supply. The boarding house sought by many aged
persons who prefer independence of life to living in the family of
their children, and sought also by many well-to-do elderly widows and
widowers who find that the personal home is too lonely or too
expensive to keep up for one alone--the average boarding house is a
sorry substitute for a home. For the young, who hope to escape it
soon, it is tolerable. For the aged, who need to feel settled, it is
often a most unhappy dwelling-place. Beside, any one who tries to find
a place for the elderly boarder will find that prices are often
prohibitive for all but the rich, and few boarding mistresses want old
people.

A state pension has often, as has been said, been proposed for all
aged people. Let us suppose that instead of this some scheme of State
Insurance for Old-age Homes be devised; a scheme in which after the
payment of a certain specified sum a share in a Boarding Home might be
secured. If the state or if any private Agency or Foundation could
provide the "plant," a suitable building and its repairs and
fundamental expenses of upkeep, with one salaried superintendent whose
character and ability could be guaranteed, the running expenses of a
Boarding Home could be met easily by the limited means of many who now
lack the security of an institutional provision and in consequence
lack also many essentials of old-age comfort.

A skilled budget-maker could determine the numbers required in each
household to make the board low and a sympathetic social worker could
suggest the cooeperative features of management most likely to give
successful results in the composite home. The entrance age in such a
Boarding Home could be lower than that required in the usual type of
privately endowed Home for the Aged and thus a felt need be met for a
suitable home for those between the ages of fifty-five and sixty-five.
In these privately endowed Homes for the Aged the entrance fees range
from $100 to $1,000, and beneficiaries are required to give up all the
property of any kind of which they may be possessed when they enter
this permanent residence. This is not unjust, but it is often an added
trial to the independent nature. There is need of far larger provision
for the old in Homes for Aged Men, Aged Women, and Aged Couples. No
one can give anything but gratitude for the opportunities they now
offer or fail to hope for their increase. There is, however, a special
need for some social engin