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Show Hi THE ART OF LIVING. n H There is a serious side, other than the por- Hm Bonal one, to the case of the woman who has just HX1 been ttirned away from sixteen fiats or apartment H flf houses in succession on account of her having II four children. As she suggests, her experience is HI a common one. Desirable apartments on every Hfl hand are open to none but adults; not all, of jjH course, but a considerable proportion of them. Hill Families containing small children not wishing to HH go into mere tenements and not able to take Hlf private houses are often put to it to find apart- H B mentB to which they will be admitted. The re- H fl suit grotesque as it may appear to some is a 1 distinct tendency toward what has been termed HI - race suicide. The propagation of children Ib dis-H dis-H 8 couraged. it is literally true, as any inquirer may B9 ascertain, that many married couples refrain from BIB becoming parents on this very ground. So long as BjB they are childless they can have their pick of the BgjjB most desirable apartments. If they have children HB they must put up with such accommodations as SB they can get. fl Angther potent influence to the same disas-H disas-H m trous end is found in the difficulty of getting and H fl keeping decent domestic help. The "servant girl H problem" is a trying one to most people. It is by II far the worst to those to have given hostages to H fl fortune and to Bridget. The childless couple can mm IIve In an apartment without housekeeping anfr MM eat at restaurants or in a hotel. But those who nfB have children must keep house, and that means Kfl that after they have found a housekeeping apart-fl apart-fl ment they must give their days to intelligence mm offices and their nights to advertisements; they mm must suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous If Bridget, or Dinah or Gretchen; and they must B jflj learn to recnon themselves as dust upon the kitch-fl kitch-fl en. floor, and as small dust beneath the feet of the flfl cook, the maid and the janitor. What wonder that, warned (if these tnings in advance, young B people delay to marry, or resolve that their mar-B mar-B n riages shall be unfruitful. fl It is a strange thing that with all our learning we have so little learned the art of living. Inventive In-ventive genius 'has been busy and has been won-dorously won-dorously triumphant in devising improved methods meth-ods of communication, of travel and of manufacture. manufac-ture. It has also given us many material Improvements Im-provements in the construction and equipment of dwelling places. But the elemental and fundamental funda-mental problems of domestic economy remain unsolved, un-solved, if, indeed, we are not actual further than our fathers were Trom the solution of them. Race suicide would be an abominable thing. To many to Increase and multiply and replenish the earth are divinely appqinted duties. But to a large part of the community these questions arise: Where can we live if we have children? And how can we get our housework done? A satisfactory satis-factory answer to these questions would ' ease many a troubled mind and would be of incalculable incalcula-ble beneiit to society. isew York Tribune. |