The spread of democracy has brought into our schools a new class of savants. They possess all the qualifications of the older savants save their financial independence. Their poverty is not a great calamity to those who remain celibates, but to the head of a family it means a struggle to maintain a standard of living too high for his income. The home is the last to free itself from the influence of leisure class ideals which permeate higher learning; and the struggle to reconcile the newer ideals with the older ones is almost tragic. The heaviest strain falls upon the wife who struggles to maintain her social status upon which depends the status of the family. A display of clothes is not as essential to the maintenance of this status as an appearance of leisure, and the conveyance of the impression to the outsider that a high standard of comfort and luxury is realized. That the comfort actually exist is not necessary so long as the outsiders are deceived. Often a great deal of ingenuity is displayed by the housewife in conveying on a very moderate income the impression that the family is living on a high plane. Economy is practiced “in the obscurer elements of consumption that go to physical comfort and maintenance.” This class of society illustrates most pathetically the ideals of propriety of a non-industrial group. Its reluctance in giving up its exclusiveness, and its persistence in clinging to leisure-class standards is most apparent in the home. Here the life of the housewife is often one of drudgery “especially where the competition for reputability is close and strenuous.” The duties of the wife of the college professor are manifold. The work of ministering to the fundamental needs of the family is left to a servant, or if it is impossible to keep hired help, it is done with as much secrecy as possible, in order to avoid the stigma of commonness. Where she assumes all the household tasks, the strain upon her is a severe one. The mechanical conveniences are not applied to her work with the same degree of speed with which newer patterns in rugs and other furniture make their appearance in the household. The list of articles essential to the maintenance of an appropriate standard of living is a long one, and many of them have no other charm than the expensiveness which proclaims pecuniary strength.