from whom nevertheless she received an excellent reference as cook. Of
course in cities it is easy to buy food already cooked or canned and to
send all the washing to the laundry, but it helps to raise the "high
cost of living" to alarming proportions, and it also encourages
ignorance in the most important branches of domestic economy.

In spite of the "rush of modern life," a woman who has a home ought to
be willing to give some part of her time to its daily supervision.
Eternal vigilance is the price of everything worth having. If she gave
this she would not have so many tales of woe to relate about the
laziness, neglectfulness, and stupidity of her cook and housemaids.
There is not a single housewife to-day who has not had many bitter
experiences. One who desires information upon this subject has only to
call on the nearest friend.

To the uninterested person, to the onlooker, the helplessness of the
woman who is at the head of the home, her inability to cope with her
domestic difficulties, is often comic, sometimes pathetic, sometimes
almost tragic. The publications of the day have caricatured the
situation until it has become an outworn jest. The present system of
housekeeping can no longer stand. One of two things must occur. Either
the housewife must adopt business principles in ruling her household,
or she will find before many more years elapse there will be no longer
any woman willing to place her neck under the domestic yoke.

If the principles set forth in the following pages can be popularized in
a comprehensive plan of which all the parts can be thoroughly understood
both by the housewife and her employee, ignorance and inefficiency in
the home will be presently abolished.