Euthenics, the art of better living, is being recognized as of money value in the case of the wage-earning class, but the wave of social betterment has not yet lifted the salaried class to the point of cooperation for their own elevation. They are obliged to put up with the better grade of workmen's dwellings, or to pay beyond their means for a poor quality of the house designed for the leisure class. In either case, the weight bears hardest on the woman's shoulders, and it is to her awakening that we must look for an impetus toward an understanding of the problems confronting us. The college-educated women of the country believe so fully that the twentieth century will develop a civilization in which brain-power and good taste will outrank mere lavish display, that they have sent out a call to their associations to devise methods of sane and wholesome living which shall leave time and energy free for intellectual pleasure--some, at least, of that time now absorbed by the house and its demands as insignia of social rank. Trained and thoughtful women are convinced that the first step in social redemption is adequate and adaptable shelter for the family. Just so long as tradition and thoughtlessness bind the wife and mother to that form of housekeeping which taxes all the forces of man to supply money and of women to spend it, so long will the most intelligent women decline to sacrifice themselves for so little return. The constructive arts dealing with wood, stone, and metal have been conceded to be man's province. He has used new materials and labor-saving devices in railway stations and place of amusements, not selfishly, but because of the appreciation of the travelling public. It is the fashion to decry labor-saving devices in the house, because they do away with that sign of pecuniary ability, the capped and aproned maid. The obvious saving of steps by the speaking-tube and telephone-call is frowned upon for the same reason. It is this attitude of society which stands in the way of the adoption of those mechanical helps which might do away with nearly all the drudgery and dirty heavy work of the house. The new epoch[1] "is more and more replacing muscle-power fed on wheat at eighty cents a bushel, by machine-power fed on coal at five cents a bushel," thus liberating man from hard and deadening toil. As his mental activity increases his needs in the way of the comforts and decencies of refined living increase. More sanitary appliances are demanded, more expense for fundamental cleanliness is incurred, and for that tidiness and trimness of aspect inside and outside the house which adds both to the labor and to the cost of living, especially in old-style houses. [Footnote 1: The New Epoch. Geo. S. Morison.]