Modern Appi.iaxces in the Home ISO'S 



needed, until they themselves tried to work withont them. It is 

 said that the reason why women are slow in adopting- modern 

 appliances is that they are too conservative. I think a trner 

 reason is that throngh our lack of mechanical training we have 

 bought this or that piece of nuichinery withont realizing that 

 its care wonld make more work than the machine conld save, and 

 like the " bnrned child," we have *' shnnned the fire" ever since. 

 It is so easy for a person whose business it is to sell articles of 

 this kind to tell ns nothing bnt the truth and yet to withhold a 

 part of the whole truth. Until very recently the dish-washing 

 machine was a case in point. It could truthfully be said of this 

 or that make, that it was easy to clean, practical, simple, and that 

 a child could run it, and to suppress the fact that while it might 

 pay for a family of one hundred, it would not be a good invest- 

 ment for the average household. 



The mechanical turn of mind, then, is the first requisite toward 

 solving the problem. In every community there are women who 

 have it and who conld supplement the work of the Good House- 

 keeping Institute and like organizations in trying out new house- 

 hold devices as they are manufactured, not once or twice, but the 

 half-dozen or even score of times which might be necessary to 

 save the rest of us from buying in haste and repenting at leisure, 

 on the one hand ; or from denying ourselves an indispensable 

 help, on the other hand. 



The objection of expense arises too often like a dragon when 

 we think of this or that labor-saving device which might entirely 

 change our lives. We are hindered by the thought that unless we 

 individually can own a thing we must therefore deny ourselves the 

 use of it. Compare our attitude in this regard with the man's. 

 How^ many men would think that just because they cannot aft'ord 

 personally to own and give house-room to a threshing machine, 

 that they must therefore go back to the days of hand-threshing? 

 And yet how many communities are there where the women 

 jointly own or contract for the services of a great big vacuum 

 cleaner, which shall drive up to the house at stated intervals, poke 

 its competent nozzle within, and free our houses so completely of 

 dust that we need not fear the eyes of critical neighbors for 

 months to come i Ho much of the dust in our households in com- 



