A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an OptimistRussell, T. Baron
Philosophy
A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an Optimist
Russell, T. Baron
Forecasting; Twentieth century -- Forecasts
Here we have most of the distasteful elements of domestic service got
rid of. Naturally lifts of various kinds, driven by the same force
(whatever it is) which lights and warms the house, will be everywhere
in evidence. The plan of attaining the upper part of a small house by
climbing, on every occasion, a sort of wooden hill, covered with carpet
of questionable cleanliness, will of course have been abandoned: it
is doubtful whether staircases will be built at all after the next two
or three decades. And it is likely that the more refined sentiment of
the new age will recoil before the spectacle of menial service at the
table. Not because they will despise, but because they will respect,
their domestic assistants, hostesses will dislike to have their guests
waited upon in a servile manner during meals by plush-breeched flunkeys
of the male, or neat-handed Phyllises of the female, sex. Well-arranged
houses will have the kitchen on a level with the dining-room, and
the dividing wall will be so contrived that a table, ready laid at
each course, can be made to slide through it into the presence of the
seated guests. An immense amount of running to and fro between kitchen
and dining-room, and of lifting food and table-ware into and out of
elevators, will thus be obviated, to the vast gastronomic improvement
of the meal and the salvation of servants' time.
Naturally the bedrooms of the new age will have many amenities lacking
to our own. It is not too much to anticipate that we shall have learned
enough of plumbing to be able to connect baths, wash-basins and other
necessary fittings with the drains without poisoning ourselves, and
the inconvenient modern "wash-stand" with its unreticent adjuncts will
decently disappear. It cannot be very long--probably it will only be
a few years--before some kind of reasonable control is exercised over
the technical education of plumbers. [1]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an Optimist — John Shaqi
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