Co., Cedar Rapids, Iowa).]

This crowding is causing the refinements of life to be disregarded, is
depriving the children of their rights, and doing them almost more harm
than comes to the tenement dwellers, for they have the parks to play in
and are not kept within doors.

Mr. Michael Lane in his "Level of Social Motion" claims that present
tendencies are leading to a level of $2000 a year and a family of two
children as an average. Mr. Wells claims as a tendency in living
conditions the practically automatic and servantless household. In
connection with the Mary Lowell Stone Home Economics Exhibit a design of
an approach to this kind of a dwelling was asked for in sketch. The
accompanying plans were made by a firm who have had not only experience in
this kind of domestic building, but who have sympathy with and personal
knowledge of similar conditions in widely separated parts of the country.

These sketches are not of an _ideal_ house and not for a given plot of
land, but only a hint of what Mrs. Michael Lane "must expect if she
attempts to build in the country or suburbs."

Since these were drawn many changes have come about in costs and in
materials available. The architects expressly disclaim the word "model" in
relation to them. Mrs. Lane and her two children will do their own work,
and therefore steps and stairs must be few, and yet they wish light and
air and cleanliness.

The author hopes that her readers will make a study of house-plans, not
the cheap ones, but those that will bear the test of time and living in.