Laying aside all preconceived notions, and remembering that changes are coming fast in these days, let us look for the ideals which may be common to all homes, in city or country, among rich or poor.

[Illustration:  Photograph by Brown Bros.  A well-arranged kitchen forms an important part of the smoothly running mechanism of the ideal home]

First of all, the home must be comfortable, and its whole atmosphere must be that of peace.  In no other way can the tension of modern life be overcome.  This implies order and cleanliness, beauty, warmth, light, and air; but it implies far more.  It means a home planned for the people who will occupy it, and so planned that father’s needs, and mother’s, and the children’s, will all be met.  What does each member of the family require of the house?  A place to live in.  And that means far more than eating and sleeping and having a place for one’s clothes.  There must be not only a place for everything, but a place for everybody in the ideal house.  The boys who wish to dabble in electricity, the girls who wish to entertain their friends in their own way, the tired father who wishes to read his newspaper “in peace,” the younger children who want to pop corn or blow bubbles or play games, all must be planned for.  There will be no room too good for use, and no furnishings so delicate that mother worries over family contact with them.  There will be a minimum of “keeping up appearances” and a maximum of comfort and cheer.  There will be little formal entertaining, but many spontaneous good times.  In addition to being comfortable, the ideal home must be convenient.  There will be places for things, and every appliance for making work easy.

[Illustration:  Photograph by Brown Bros.  Contrast this old-fashioned kitchen with the modern one shown on the opposite page]

The ideal mother, who is the mainspring of the smoothly running mechanism of the ideal home, will be scientifically trained for her position.  Her “domestic science” will no longer be open to the criticism that it is not science at all, nor will she feel that her business is unworthy of scientific treatment.  Always she will keep before her the object of her work—­to make of her family, including herself, good, happy, efficient people.  She will not be overburdened with housework, for overworked mothers have neither time nor strength for the higher aspects of their work.  She will know how to feed bodies, but also how to develop souls.  She will clothe her children hygienically, but she will teach them to value more the more important vestments of modesty and gentleness and courtesy.  She will require obedience, but, as their years increase, the requirement will be less and less obedience to authority and more and more obedience to a right spirit within.

[Illustration:  Photograph by Brown Bros.  The wise mother will teach her children the true value of work by making them wish to work with her]