Until recently artificial light was costly and the householder in common with other users of light did not concern himself with the question of adequate and artistic lighting.  His chief aim was to utilize as little as possible, for cost was always foremost in his mind.  The development of the science of light-production has been so rapid during the past generation that adequate, efficient, and cheap artificial light finds mankind unconsciously viewing lighting with the same attitude as he displays toward his food and fuel bills.  Another consequence of this rapid development is that mankind does not know how to extract the joy from modern artificial light.  This is readily demonstrated by analyzing the lighting of middle-class homes.

The cost of light has been discussed in another chapter and it has been shown that it has decreased enormously in a century.  It is now the most potential agency in the home when viewed from the standpoint of cost.  The average householder pays less than twenty dollars per year for ever-ready light throughout his home.  For about five cents per day the average family enjoys all the blessings of modern lighting, which is sufficient proof that cost is an insignificant item.

In order to simplify the discussion of lighting the home the terminology of electric-lighting will be used.  The principles expounded apply as well to gas as to electricity, and owing to the ingenuity of the gas-lighting experts, the possibilities of gas-lighting are extensive despite its handicaps.  There are some places in the home, such as the kitchen and basement, where lighting is purely utilitarian in the narrow sense, but in most of the rooms the esthetic or, more broadly, the psychological aspects of lighting should dominate.  Pure utility is always a by-product of artistic lighting and furthermore, the lighting effects will be without glare when they satisfy all the demands of esthetics.

In dealing with lighting in the home the householder should concentrate his attention upon lighting effects.  Unfortunately, he is not taught to do so, for everywhere he turns for help he finds the discussion directed toward fixtures and lamps instead of toward lighting effects.  However, these are merely links in the chain from the meter to the eye.  Lamps are of interest from the standpoint of quantity and quality of light, and fixtures are of importance chiefly as distributers of light.  These details are merely means to an end and the end is the lighting effect.  Of course, the fixtures are more important as objects than the wires because they are visible and should harmonize with the general decorative and architectural scheme.

The home is the theater of life full of various moods and occasions; hence the lighting of a home should be flexible.  A degree of variety should be possible.  Controls, wiring, outlets, and fixtures should conspire to provide this variety.  At the present time the average householder does not give much attention to lighting until he purchases fixtures.  It is probable that he thought of it when he laid out or approved the wiring, but usually he does not consider it seriously until he visits the fixture-dealer to purchase fixtures.  And then unfortunately the fixture-dealer does not light his home; he does not sell the householder lighting-effects designed to meet the requirements of the particular home; he sells merely fixtures.