Caroline Louisa Hunt

“ If a man insists upon taking his wife to see the woods when the violets are in blossom, instead of letting her stay at home to make shortcake for his supper, he loses his shortcake, but plain strawberries and cream and bread and butter often taste better after a brisk walk than shortcake does without the walk, and in this case the man gets not only the taste of the food, but also the smell of the woods, the sight of the flowers, and the sound of the birds. Nor is it the man in whose house there is most cleaning done who gets most pleasure from the sense of sight. ”

“ If she uses the different foodstuffs with reference to their nutritive value and is skillful in preparing foods in appetizing ways and in serving them in attractive combinations, the daily fare may be both adequate and pleasing, whether she selects cheese or meat or fish or eggs or other foods to supply nitrogenous material and fat. Here, as in all that pertains to housekeeping, true economy is dependent upon a knowledge of materials and skill in using them. ”

“ When we consider the amount of pleasure which it is possible to derive from one’s own useful, well-directed labor, compared with that which comes from buying and using the results of other people’s work, we know that the permanent substitution of the consumer’s advantage for the producer’s joy in labor cannot be a part of progress. If the world is to move forward, the consumer’s leisure, which is the chief advantage of the present system of production, must be made the means of restoring the maker’s pleasure in his work. ”

“ MORE BEAUTY FOR ALL WE all seek beauty. We want the beauty of form and of color which appeals to the eye, but we want also the greater beauties which, because they belong, not to material, but to immaterial things, make their appeal to the conscience and to the intellect, rather than to the senses. We want the beauties of lives in harmony with their physical and their social environment. ”

“ For what is society but other people, and what is it to socialize consumption but to spend one’s income for the greatest good of the greatest number? The choice between various forms of expenditure comes when we spend more than is absolutely necessary. Then we have a chance to choose between that, which we, by consuming, will destroy (ice cream, let us say) and that which we can consume and yet pass on to others (a book or periodical, which we can read and lend to the neighbors) . And what we demand and use will determine the form which wealth will take in the future. ”

“ We see why it was necessary for the handicrafts to fall into disuse while we were working out the system of division of labor, which now, upon their revival, makes it possible for women to become more than mere amateurs in them. These and many other interesting movements we see in society, if we have our eyes open, both to the value of woman as a home-maker and to her value as an individual.
More life for woman—not through sacrifice of the joys of motherhood and home-making, but by the addition of the pleasures in satisfactory cultivation of special talents to the privileges of service. ”

“ As for the joys of social intercourse with those we love, we lose them partly by letting them get mixed up with the machinery of education. Study clubs are all very well in their way and in their place, but there is such a thing as having too many of them. It is possible to get more profit as well as more pleasure from reading a masterpiece of literature for half an hour, and then talking with a friend for an hour and a half, than from listening to a rehash of the masterpiece for an hour and then talking with a lot of people we only half like for another hour. ”

“ And so simplification has become the motto of the unthinking as well as of the thinking, and is at present the butt of the ridicule of the funny man, and threatens to become as much of a stumbling-block to the mind, if not to the feet, as the passion for decoration was a few years ago. For this reason it seems fitting, in a series of articles which deal with the home problem in relation to the problem of more life for all, to inquire whether simplification can be the means of expanding life by increasing beauty. ”

“ Then half, at least, of the machinery which makes the worker an undesirable neighbor is unnecessary, whether we consider his needs or the consumer’s. From the point of view of the latter, this unnecessary machinery is being used in manufacturing abominable trash, or in making articles to take the place of others which were badly made and faded or fell to pieces, or wore out before their time. From the point of view of the worker, much of our modern machinery saves labor which it would be life and health and happiness for him to perform by hand. ”

“ Although there is no reason for a classification of activities based upon the recipient of the benefit, there is a reason for a division based upon the way in which the advantage comes to the doer or to others. The self-regarding instincts inspire one to acts which lead directly to the enrichment of his own life and only indirectly, and by way of his increased power through activity and consequent increased capacity for service, to the welfare of others. By such acts he preserves his life, promotes his health, acquires knowledge, and cultivates talents in whose expression he finds pleasure. ”

“ If real fellow-feeling is to be restored, producer and consumer must get acquainted through actual contact. They must share the same life. This immediately suggests, of course, life for the consumer under the pall of factory smoke. But the conditions under which commodities are made ought not to be so hideous as they are. There is no place too beautiful to be the workshop of a human being. Our ideal for the future must be for every man to have a little plot of ground, and to live and to work where he can say ”

“ In this struggle the greater possibilities in the way of development and increase of life lie with man. To woman it is given to accept a self-sacrifice which nature has mapped out for her by specializing her for childbearing and which society has mapped out for her by specializing her for housekeeping. To man it is given to map out for himself a new path into unselfishness and to secure the expansion of powers that comes from pioneering. ”

“ I may select one kind of pottery in preference to another infinitely more beautiful in form and finish and decoration, because I know that by buying the first I give some one a chance to express himself and to gain happiness and development through work, while by buying the second I am simply putting money into the pocket of some one who is exploiting for gain the talents of others. ”

“ But there is another occupation which may be an end in life without at the same time being a means. That is meditation on life and its meaning. To stand off from life and to view its follies, its foibles, and its inconsistencies, its pathos, its humor, to see all sides of it—this is one of the joys of mere living. ”

“ The wish to find expression for peculiar talents is self-regarding. Occupations suited to talent, however, lead not only to pleasure in work, but to development and to increased power for usefulness; and while the interests of the well-balanced life may at any time demand the sacrifice of talents for the sake of work for others, those same interests demand just as imperiously that talents must not be unnecessarily sacrificed for the sake of purposeless serving. ”

“ But House Decoration is not the only common ground between Home Economics and Esthetics. Considered broadly, the two subjects present an overlapping territory coextensive almost with life itself. On this field, which no one has ever named, there present themselves for investigation not only the finer articles of household utility—the furniture, the curtains, and the draperies—but also the meaner and commoner articles—the pots, even, and the pans. ”

“ Since home is an expression of affection, and not a means of making one’s self comfortable and happy, it follows that it approaches the ideal in proportion as love is strong and is successfully expressed. When one loves another very much, he desires that that other person may attain to completeness of life, and seeks to assist him to make full use of all the means at hand and to overcome, as far as possible, all those obstacles which are due to his natural endowment, or to his environment, and which lie between him and success. ”

“ In trying to answer the question, we must keep in mind that whenever an activity is necessary to the realization of the ideal of home, it is necessary to the complete life, whether it involves the sacrifice of talents or not; when it is not so necessary and does not provide an outlet for special talents, it is an unjustifiable waste of woman’s life and of society’s resources.
That which is necessary for good home-making can be determined only by holding fast to the highest ideal of home and by having a clear understanding of changing social conditions. The ideal never changes ”

“ The acceptance of the responsibility after it is recognized is the result of an unselfishness of the highest form, to which society does not direct him as it does to activities for the purpose of supporting the family, nor instinct prompt him as it does woman to her self-sacrifices in caring for the family. His recognition of the unequal distribution of life and his efforts at equalization are triumphs of wisdom and love over nature, tradition, and custom. ”

“ To fit a body to be the tool for the satisfaction of a few desires, and those mainly the desires for food and drink and shelter, is not a difficult task. It is only when we try to make it satisfy the many desires, including that for intellectual activity, that trouble begins. Then the poor body, put upon the stretch, is likely to develop a weak spot. To provide a suitable shelter for a body of few desires would puzzle no one. To build a fit habitation for a body of many desires is a problem that calls for all our experience and ingenuity. ”

“ We perfunctorily “change the air” in our homes so many times each day, but it is possible to get so enamored of living out of doors as to find even the stillness of the air in the house unbearable. When one has reached that point an open window is no longer a means to health, but a part of the joy of living, because it brings the sensation of moving air. ”

“ When it leads her to sacrifice home and motherhood and the opportunity to do work in which her soul delights rather than to be economically dependent, it enslaves her and her talents, for economic independence is worthless unless it brings expressional freedom; when it brings her the opportunity to do the work she loves and can do best, it frees her and her powers. ”

“ But we lose joys in life not only by failing to find them and by complicating the machinery of life, but also by making machinery of those things which are really ends in themselves. There is bathing, for example. We take baths so many times a day or week in order to keep clean and healthy. We might, if we arranged things properly, forget about the necessity for health and cleanliness, and jump into the bath just for the sake of “the cool, silver shock of the plunge.” ”

“ The physical separation took place when the producer went to live in a factory town or in a city district devoted to manufacturing interests, and when the consumer sought refuge in a suburb or in a city district boasting of its freedom from factories. Ignorance on the part of each of the daily life and needs of the other was the inevitable consequence of this form of separation. The separation in spirit took place when the world divided itself sharply into two groups—brain workers, on the one hand, who joined themselves with the leisure classes to form a consuming public ”

“ Home Economics, like Esthetics, finds a large part of its interest in material things. The objects of its concern, the common articles of every-day use, such as chairs, tables, beds, and bureaus, present the beauty problem in many, if not all, of its phases. Being material, they are capable of beauty of outline and color. Being tools for the expression of the tastes of their owner or user, and for the satisfaction of his desires, they are capable of giving to his life the beauty of harmony with its material surroundings. ”

“ He applied this, to be sure, to the fierce struggles for food and other necessaries of life in which, during early stages of development, human beings engaged for the purpose of self-preservation. It is just as applicable, however, to our present struggle for life, for the care and the foresight that we must exercise in order to secure the food and the shelter and the fresh air and the sunlight which are necessary simply as preparation for what we consider our life work really involve just the thought and the exercise of reason that make life for us as distinguished from mere existence. ”

“ So long as affection lasts it will seek satisfactory expression in home life, and so long as intelligence endures it will stand in the way of the extension of the borders of the home beyond the possibilities of the mutual helpfulness to its members.
If home is to be a perfect expression of affection, it must not only provide the opportunity for close association, but it must also from time to time adjust itself and its activities to the opportunities which society offers to men and to women in fields unconnected with the household. ”

“ Last of all comes food, and here is where the man who fears the physical effect of self-consciousness sees most danger. “Eat what you wish and don’t think about it, and you will be all right.” Alas, that is what the world has been doing, and instead of being all right, it has fallen a prey to numberless diseases that can be traced either directly or indirectly to dietetic errors. In food, as in other matters, we have a standard to guide us. That is the amount and kind of food that a person eats who lives under conditions that favor physical vigor. ”

“ A person is prompted to activity by certain instincts or desires. It is common to divide these desires into two classes—the self-regarding and the other-regarding. Among those of the first class are the desires for nutrition, for parenthood, for intellectual activity, and for creating objects of utility and beauty. Among those of the second class are love and sympathy. It is common, also, to divide the activities prompted by the desires into selfish and unselfish on the ground that some are of value to him alone who engages in them, and some are of value to others only. ”