It is because the concomitant expenses of an establishment may be curtailed without attracting public notice that a moral danger exists.  The outside shell is not the whole nor even the chief outlay.  The operating expenses run away with more money than the house itself, and it is in these that the family, conscious of impending ruin, curtail, and thus become dishonest in their own souls.

The moral of it all is to live just a little below the probable limit, whatever that may be, rather than to assume a greater income than is quite certain.  Granted that in the quickly changing conditions of to-day this is difficult, it is not often impossible.

It is only needed to set some other standard of social position than shelter and to use the house for its legitimate purposes only, that of an abode of the family in health and joyful cooperation.  The class for which this series is written should seek a shelter sufficient for these normal uses, and make it so home-like that friends will gladly share it when permitted.

Let good manners, keen intelligence, bright and entertaining conversation take the place of the showy but frequently uncomfortable houses and wholesale entertainments of to-day.

It is time that a beginning was made of that form of social pleasure and mental recreation which the century must develop, or fail of its promise.

What is the value, of present-day knowledge if not to stimulate the conscious group, through the individual perhaps, but the group finally, to better use of its powers and opportunities toward a higher form of social life?

We have been told that the house should be as much an expression of individuality as clothes.  Since clothes are constantly and easily changed, and a family home built to order is comparatively permanent, such expression in wood or stone should be carefully thought out; but how rarely do we gain a pleasant impression from the houses built for the purpose of setting forth social standards!  The owner and the architect have neither of them the highest ideals, and a sort of ready-made, composite, often irritating, always displeasing result follows.  The pretence shows through more often than the occupant realizes.

Society has the power to regulate its own conventions.  Once convinced that it is dangerous to put the strain of living on to mere superficial pretence, mere location, ornament, new standards will be set up; as, indeed, they are under other conditions.  In frontier life, for instance, where shortness of tenure is recognized, dress and the table take the place of the house as indications.  In a mining town, one is astonished at the costumes seen on persons issuing from insignificant houses, and at the excellent bill of fare in a restaurant with the barest necessities of furnishing.  Cursory observation often reads the signs of civilization wrongly.  The eastern traveller, accustomed to the outward glitter and the finish of settled communities, fails to interpret the real efficiency of a more flexible society.  West of the Mississippi, that new empire we are just beginning to appreciate, good food is recognized as of prime importance, dress gives an opportunity for showing conspicuous waste, and buildings are made for show only when permanence of residence is assured.