Accepting the French rule, the artisan who rents the model tenement at $3.50 per week should earn $3 a day wage for six days.  If he earn only $2, then more than one quarter must go for housing.  There are hundreds of Italian families in New York who pay only $2 per month for such shelter as they have, but it is only providing for the primitive idea of mere shelter, not for the comforts of a true home life.  After the fashion of early man, these people spend their lives in the open air, eat wherever they may be, and use this makeshift shelter as protection from the weather and as a place of deposit for such articles as they do not carry about with them and for such weaklings as cannot travel.

As man rises in the scale of wants he pays more, in attention and in money, for housing, because he leaves wife and children to its comforts while he goes forth to his daily tasks.  As ideals rise, the proportion rises until even one third of his earnings goes for mere shelter.  But this limits his desires in other directions, so that it becomes a pertinent question, when is it right to give as much as one third of the moderate income for housing?  As every heart knows its own bitterness, so every man knows his own business and what proportion of his income he is willing to spend for a house, for the comforts of life pertain largely to bed and board.  It must be acknowledged, however, that comfort and discomfort are so largely matters of habit and personal point of view that education as to ideals is an important duty of society in its own defence.

If two people without children prefer to spend more on shelter than on any other one thing, then with $3000 a year, $1000 may be given for rent if that covers heat, light, and general outside care.  But the family with children to consider must not think of allowing one third for rent under our very highest limit of $5000 a year, and it is unwise even then.  In fact the ratio must be governed by circumstances.  It is true, however, that the conditions must be interpreted by a fixed principle in living and not by any mere fashion or prejudice of the moment.

The one question every person asks when these suggested improvements are discussed is, but how much will it cost?  Thus confessing that cost, not effectiveness, is the measure; that old ideals as to money value still rule the world.  It costs too much to have a furnace large enough to warm a sufficient volume of air, it costs too much to put in safe plumbing, it costs too much to keep the house clean, and so on through the list.  We have been too busy getting and spending money to study the cost of neglect of cardinal principles of right living.  The farmer knows the cost of his young animals, but the father cares little and knows less of what it ought to cost to bring up his children—­of the economy of spending wisely on a safe shelter for them.

A new estimate of what necessary things must cost has to be made before the present generation will live comfortably in presence of the account-book.