HOME PLANNING.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 March 1920, Page 9

HOME PLANNING.

Ernestine Mills, the clever lecturer employed by the London County Council, has very clear-cut ideas upon wnat constitutes the ideal home. To begin with, she is entirely in favor of communal kitchens, one very strong argument in favor of which is economy. She reasons that as every decade leaves a scantier fuel supply,* and as every coal range yet invented wastes 00 per cent, of the heat produced by the coal consumed, and makes 99 per cent, of the dirt in the home, and must have one person at least to attend to it, the waste in all respects is very great. And in this everyone must agree with her. For instance, recently a cooking apparatus was installed in one of the large English public schools, by which elaborate cooking for 600 persons is done by two cooks and three assistants at a weekly fuel expenditure of 7cwt. of coke Compare that with, say, 100 women each ,cooking on a separate stove for a family of six, and one must admit that the waste, both of material and energy, is enormous" Then, of course, the establishment of communal kitchens would do away with amateur cooks. The preparation of food would be in the handß of hiji-qualified specialists, and, probably, less would be heard of gastric disorders and indigestion-' Electrical contrivances for keeping food hot (or reheating it) are rapidly being perfected, so that the question of transit would be settled. Tiro ideal home would have in it only what William Morris advised. He said: "Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." If this advice wore followed n good deal of work—of daily work, indeed —would be done away with. To quote Miss Mills: "No overworked woman, whose mind is constantly employed in ministering to the primitive needs of the family, to cleaning, cooking, washing, dusting, and mending, makes such a good mother as one who so arranges the home that Hhe has leisure to be a real companion to her husband and children, to continue her own mental development, and who has a reserve of nervous and physical energy instead of being worn out with domestic drudgery. It is largely in the hands of women themselves to make ideal homes; but wo must make up our minds what we want." "What very many women want is help in the home, but as that seems increasingly difficult to obtain, it does seem entirely reasonable that they should sink all conservatism over the matter and give their serious attention to all suggested modern improvements. It is often said that we are "too far from the centre of things," which is entirely nonsense in this connection, because the eanle and commerce make us (if we bo J desire) one with the rest of the world 1 in the march of aivilUation. ,