The first principle is that a kitchen should be absolutely sanitary
in all its appointments. This means not only filtered cistern
water, a still for distilling water, a porcelain-lined sink, and
an abundance of hot water, but it means an absence of cubby-holes
and cupboards where articles may be tucked away and accumulate
dirt. Everything is in the open, every part of the kitchen is kept
spotlessly clean, and we have never seen a rat or a water-bug about
the house.
A second belief recorded by our kitchen is that of unity of plan.
If the artist places before all else in importance the composition
of his picture, if the author believes that his book should be the
elaboration of a single idea, if the engineer knows that every part
of his engine fits by design into every other part, it would seem
clear that the application of the same principle is essential in the
household. If the kitchen is to sustain an organic relationship to
the other parts of the house it must represent in the arrangement
of all its details the same idea of unity of composition that is
expressed in a painting, of unity of development that gives life to a
book, of unity of design that makes the perfect engine.
A third idea represented in our kitchen is that it must be equipped
with every labor-saving device and with every convenience for work,
if satisfactory results are to be secured. The first thought of the
manufacturer is for the equipment of his manufacturing plant with
every modern appliance. Can a perfect product come from imperfect,
inadequate means of work in the household? The application of this
principle has of necessity involved many experiments,--inventions
will not work, or good ones are superseded by better ones, or a
new need arises and must be met. Every week sees some article
discarded because an improvement on it has been found. In the city
of twenty-two thousand inhabitants in which we live automobiles
have been used six years and approximately three hundred are now
owned there and in the vicinity, but not one can be found of a
pattern prior to that of three years ago. If an automobile must be
disposed of because it is not of the most recent model, does it seem
unreasonable to cast aside a twenty-five cent eggbeater that chafes
the hands, a pineapple-snipper that wastes the fruit, an unsightly
broken sauce-pan, and a patent water-cooler that will not cool the
water?
But man does not live by bread alone, and a kitchen may be sanitary
in all its arrangements, it may represent unity of plan, it may
have every modern convenience, and yet it may lack the essential of
attractiveness. The arts and crafts movement has not yet reached the
kitchen, and it is thus almost impossible to secure cooking-utensils
of good artistic design and color. But the second-hand store will
often furnish a piece of good pottery, brass, or copper that may be
utilized in the kitchen and serve the added purpose of increasing its
attractiveness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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