he one question every person asks when these suggested improvements are
discussed is, but how much will it cost? Thus confessing that cost, not
effectiveness, is the measure; that old ideals as to money value still
rule the world. It costs too much to have a furnace large enough to warm a
sufficient volume of air, it costs too much to put in safe plumbing, it
costs too much to keep the house clean, and so on through the list. We
have been too busy getting and spending money to study the cost of neglect
of cardinal principles of right living. The farmer knows the cost of his
young animals, but the father cares little and knows less of what it ought
to cost to bring up his children--of the economy of spending wisely on a
safe shelter for them.

A new estimate of what necessary things must cost has to be made before
the present generation will live comfortably in presence of the
account-book.

Here again a readjustment is coming; some expenses in house construction
common now will be lessened or done away with; for example, fancy shapes,
grooved and carved wood, projecting windows and door-frames.

It is usual, when the various new methods are brought up, to estimate the
cost as additional to all that has gone before, rather than to see in it a
substitute for much that may go.

Our family with $1500 income may safely pay $300 for rent, if that covers
enough comfort and does not mean too much car-fare.

The house may cost $3000 if built on the old lines, and if the land it is
placed on is not too expensive.

A fire-proof house such as is described in the July number of the
_Brickbuilder and Architect_, 85 Water St., Boston, and probably also a
house of reinforced concrete, will cost at present some $10,000 besides
the land. Because of freedom from repairs it should be possible to rent
such houses for $500, which will bring them within the reach of our $3000
a year family, but not within the means of the $2000. What is to be done?

It will be remarked by some that little attention has been given in these
pages to the various so-called cooperative plans, like Mrs. Stuckert's
oval of fifty houses connected by a tramway at each level, with a central
kitchen from which all meals come and to which all used dishes return,
with a central office from which service is sent, etc.

Frankly, to my mind this is not enough better than the apartment hotel, as
we now know it, to pay for the effort to establish it. As now evolved by