4. What are the advantages of a vacuum cleaner over a broom? 5. What are the best methods of removing dust? Of cleaning paint and woodwork and glass? 6. How are metals cleaned? 7. What are the most important points in caring for a bedroom? 8. What is the order of work in a thorough cleaning of a room, and why? 9. How should plumbing be cleaned? 10. Is the old-fashioned order of work the best now——Monday, washing; Tuesday, ironing; Wednesday, mending; Thursday and Friday, cleaning; and Saturday, baking? 11. How may all the family help to some extent in household work? 12. Can you plan the best order of work for a day for the home worker who has no help but some one to wash and iron? 13. What are the dangers from different household insects? 14. If a kerosene lamp suddenly blazes up, what should you do? 15. What is the principle involved in putting out a fire? 16. What are some of the simple methods of fire prevention? 17. What simple repairing can be done by members of the family? CHAPTER XXIII LAUNDERING AND DRY CLEANSING “Washing is a necessity, ironing a luxury.” This terse sentence expresses very clearly the relative value of the two large divisions of the laundering process. The thorough washing of clothing is a most important branch of household sanitation, upon which the health of the family and of the whole community depends, for disease is communicable by means of soiled garments and those that are imperfectly cleansed in unsanitary houses and possibly in commercial laundries. The ideal city will have many large and spotlessly clean laundries, where skilled labor intelligently directed will insure clothing as clean as it can possibly be made. There is an æsthetic element in laundering as well, for good washing methods give a tinted white to fabrics that it is a pleasure to see, and ironing makes a smoothness that is pleasant to the touch, and brings out beauty of design, as in damasks and embroideries. There is an economic feature, too, in that poor and rough methods of work in both washing and ironing injure fabrics and shorten their term of usableness. “Washing Day” has an ill repute that it does not deserve, for laundering is a science and an art that it is a pleasure to practice, if one has skill. Make it one of the household arts which you must carefully study, and you will find it pleasurable as well as necessary. =Soil in garments.=——The dust and dirt of the street and house that soil our garments contain inorganic particles of earth, lint from textiles, organic matter from animals and human beings, and also bacteria. The material from our bodies consists of particles of skin, skin secretions, and bacteria, which are collected in underwear and bed linen and towels. Spots of grease and stains may fall upon our outer clothing, and fruit stains affect table linen in particular.