America? Pitiful tales of such stifling of effort have come to my ears,
and have in large part led me to make a plea for a scientific study of the
living conditions of this class, and for a readjustment of ideals to the
absolute facts of the situation.

We may give sympathy to those Italians who pay only $2 a month for the
shelter of the whole family, but we must give help to the harder case of a
family with refined tastes and high ideals who can pay only $200 a year.

In the real country, at a distance from the railroad, air, water, and soil
are cheap. Here a house may be put up with its own windmill or gas-engine
to pump water, with its own drainage system, giving all the sanitary
comforts of the city house, for about $5000. The same inside comforts in
one quarter the space, minus the isolation and garden, may be had in a
suburban block for one half that sum. This is probably the least expensive
shelter to-day for the family whose duties require one or more members of
it to be in the city daily, for, as the centre of the city is approached,
land rent increases, so that dwelling space must be again curtailed one
half or rent doubled. The majority take half a house or go into the city
and put up with one quarter the space.

The curtailment of space in which families live is going on at an alarming
rate, although not yet seriously taken into account by the sociologist
for the group we are studying.

[Illustration: Figs. 8 and 9.--House for "Mrs. L.," Anywhere in temperate
America, to cost $5000, if it must not more (*remainder cut off).]

[Illustration: Figs. 10 and 11.--House for "Mrs. L.," Anywhere in
temperate America, to cost only $3000, if possible. (Josselyn & Taylor