SOCIAL SIDE OF COUNTRY LIFE 291 



to whom can be wisely referred this matter of com- 

 munity art. 



The suggestion of a cooperative kitchen is not en- 

 tirely novel, and it has been worked out in more 

 ways than one. Not long since I came upon a casual 

 note in a California paper, describing a kitchen of this 

 sort which had become quite the center of a consid- 

 erable group of homes. It was not only giving satis- 

 faction to the mothers and wives, but was developing 

 domestic art and establishing refinement that could 

 scarcely be considered in individual homes. The 

 State can aid along these lines not only by its free 

 mail delivery and its school system and its postal 

 savings bank, but doubtless may do a good deal, as 

 Missouri proposes, to carry the settlers over the in- 

 itial crisis. Such a movement, however, must slip 

 naturally into the hands of the people involved. 



Cooperation in drainage would seem to be so rea- 

 sonable as to find no opposition, but a sewer rarely 

 gets through a line of neighbors into a proper outlet 

 without opposition. The same difficulty occurs with 

 pumping water for community purposes from springs 

 that lie among the hills. It is of the utmost impor- 

 tance that there shall be an abundance of pure water 

 and the most sanitary disposal of waste. Unless 

 you can have an artesian well, dropped down deep 

 into rock and planted above possible infection, there 

 must be cooperative water supplies. Your city col- 

 ony will come with an instinct for this sort of united 

 action. 



