There are two directions in which great change in household conditions has occurred quite outside the volition of the housekeeper.  They are the disappearance of industries, and lack of permanence in the homestead.  Those who are busily occupied in productive work of their own are contented and usually happy.  The results of their efforts, stored for future use—­barns filled with hay or grain, shelves of linen and preserves—­yield satisfaction.

Destructive consumption may be pleasurable for the moment, but does not satisfy.  The child pulls the stuffing from the doll with pleasure, but asks for another in half an hour.  The delicious meal daintily served is a joy for an hour.  A room put in perfect order, clean, tastefully decorated, is a delight to the eye for three hours and then it must be again cleaned and rearranged.  Is this productive work?  Is there any reason why we should be satisfied with it or happy in it?

In an earlier time, that from which we derive so many of our cherished ideals, the house built by or for the young people was used as a homestead by their children and their children’s children.  Customs grew up slowly, and for some reason.  Furniture, collected as wanted, found its place; all the routine went as by clockwork.  Saturday’s baking of bread and pies went each on to its own shelf, as the cows went each to her own stall.  If the duties were physically hard, the routine saved worrying.

To-day how few of us live in the house we began life with!  How few in that we occupied even ten years ago!  And this number is growing smaller and smaller.  The housewife has not time to form habits of her own; she engages a maid and expects her to fall at once into the family ways, when the family has no ways.

In the sociological sense, shelter may mean protection from noise, from too close contact with other human beings, enemies only in the sense of depriving us of valuable nerve-force.  It should mean sheltering the children from contact with degrading influences.

Charles P. Neill, United States Commissioner of Labor, in his address at the New York School of Philanthropy, July 16, 1905, said:  “In my own estimation home, above all things, means privacy.  It means the possibility of keeping your family off from other families.  There must be a separate house, and as far as possible separate rooms, so that at an early period of life the idea of rights to property, the right to things, to privacy, may be instilled.”

There may be such a thing as too much shelter.  To cover too closely breeds decay.  Are we in danger of covering ourselves and our children too closely from sun and wind and rain, making them weak and less resistant than they should be?  The prevalence of tuberculosis and its cure by fresh air seems to indicate this.  The attempt to gain privacy under prevailing conditions tends this way.