family treasures.
She will use pictures sparingly and choose them to inspire. Perhaps,
most of all, the woman with the trained mind will know how to avoid a
superfluity of furniture in her rooms. She will be educated to the
beauty of well-planned spaces and will not feel obliged to fill every
nook and corner with chairs or tables or sofas or other pieces of
furniture which merely "fill the space."

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros.
An artistic living room. The principles of beauty and utility,
restfulness, comfort, and suitability, must all be considered in the
furnishing of a home]

Before furnishing is considered complete, the housekeeper must take
into account the matter of operating apparatus. Perhaps a large part
of this important department of house equipment has been built into
the house. The water system, the sewer connection or its substitute,
and the lighting apparatus are already installed, so that the turn of
a switch or a faucet, the pull of a chain, sets one or all to work for
us. We are now to consider whether we shall buy a vacuum cleaner or a
broom and dustpan; a washing machine and electric flatiron or the
services of a washerwoman, or shall telephone the laundry to call for
the wash. Shall we invest in a "home steam-canning outfit" at ten
dollars, or make up a list for the retailer of the products of the
canning factory? Shall we have a sewing machine, or plan to buy our
clothing from "the store"?

Once upon a time practically the only labor-saving device possible to
the housekeeping woman was another woman. To-day many devices are
offered to take her place. Our homemaker must know about them, and
must compare their value with the older piece of operating machinery,
the domestic servant. She must know what it costs to keep a servant,
in money, in responsibility, and in all the various ways which cannot
be reduced to figures.

Already the pros and cons of the "servant question" have caused much
and long-continued agitation. The woman of the future should be taught
to approach the matter with a scientific summing up of the facts and
with a readiness to lift domestic service to a standardized vocation
or to abandon it altogether in favor of the "labor-saving devices" and
the "public utilities." Certain of our home-efficiency experts assure
us that all "industries in the home are doomed." If this is true, the
domestic servant must of necessity cease to exist. Most persons,
however, cannot ye