I could add other inventions to the list, but will not, for these already given, though all practical existing devices, will be so wonderful in application that I will not extend the list to any less thoroughly proven inventions, lest the reader who can but judge from the viewpoint of the present imperfect city civilization, confuse the Roadtown which is the plan grouping of proven inventions with the dreams of novelists who revel in inventions yet to be. CHAPTER VI ROADTOWN HOUSEKEEPING Though it is true that some work, which in the past rested heavily upon the shoulders of women, has been taken into the factory, notably the spinning, weaving and clothes making trades, and on the farm the making of butter, still the bulk of labor of the women of the average household comes in that group of washing, ironing, dusting, sweeping, scrubbing, making beds, cooking and dish-washing. This is woman’s work in the most of our homes, and a servant’s work in the homes of the rich. _Woman’s Work not Specialized._ Industrial progress has not yet applied to this work of women the specialization and labor saving machinery that has sent forward the general work of the world at such a rapid pace. Another way of expressing the same idea is to say that in at least nine-tenths of the households, the woman is the household servant. If the work be assigned to outsiders, then the privacy of the family circle is broken up and the dearest ties of earth are disturbed by intruders. At present there are two ways out of the difficulty. The way of the rich is the employment of household servants. To counteract the disturbance of family life an elaborate system of servant etiquette has been established by means of which the servant is made to resemble, as much as possible, the cookstove or the family horse. This satisfies the family, but is disagreeable to the servant, and incidently keeps a worker out of productive effort, raises the cost of living to everybody, and deprives her of the most normal expression of womanhood--that of marrying and coddling her own children. The second solution is for those too poor to employ servants. It consists in eulogizing the “homely virtues” and writing poems about the duties of women in the home and artfully associating the scouring of a brass kettle with the instinct of motherhood. This effort to satisfy the women in the home in playing the personal servant to the rest of the family by enshrining the dish-rag and broom is nothing new in the history of the world. Those who have benefited from the work of others have always been quick to quote scripture to keep the worker on the job, and as long as there is no other way to get the work done, this plastering over of dirty work with beautiful thoughts is indeed a makeshift virtue, but one of which we shall some day be thoroughly ashamed.