stance.

The three-room tenement does, however, shelter as many persons as the
six-room flat, hence there is more real overcrowding. In all these grades
of shelter it is fresh air that is wanting. What wonder the white plague
is always with us? What remedy so long as millions sleep in closets with
no air-currents passing through?

Accepting the French rule, the artisan who rents the model tenement at
$3.50 per week should earn $3 a day wage for six days. If he earn only $2,
then more than one quarter must go for housing. There are hundreds of
Italian families in New York who pay only $2 _per month_ for such shelter
as they have, but it is only providing for the primitive idea of mere
shelter, not for the comforts of a true home life. After the fashion of
early man, these people spend their lives in the open air, eat wherever
they may be, and use this makeshift shelter as protection from the weather
and as a place of deposit for such articles as they do not carry about
with them and for such weaklings as cannot travel.

As man rises in the scale of wants he pays more, in attention and in
money, for housing, because he leaves wife and children to its comforts
while he goes forth to his daily tasks. As ideals rise, the proportion
rises until even one third of his earnings goes for mere shelter. But this
limits his desires in other directions, so that it becomes a pertinent
question, when is it right to give as much as one third of the moderate
income for housing? As every heart knows its own bitterness, so every man
knows his own business and what proportion of his income he is _willing_
to spend for a house, for the comforts of life pertain largely to bed and
board. It must be acknowledged, however, that comfort and discomfort are
so largely matters of habit and personal point of view that education as
to ideals is an important duty of society in its own defence.

If two people without children prefer to spend more on shelter than on any
other one thing, then with $3000 a year, $1000 may be given for rent if
that covers heat, light, and general outside care. But the _family_ with
children to consider must not think of allowing one third for rent under
our very highest limit of $5000 a year, and it is unwise even then. In
fact the ratio must be governed by circumstances. It is true, however,
that the conditions must be interpreted by a fixed principle in living and
not by any mere fashion or prejudice of the moment.

T