and even to-day, has been, not in any difficulty in providing the facilities but in prevailing people to adopt them. Thus in England, even under the stress of the Great War, there was among the working population a considerable disinclination—founded on stupid conservatism and a meaningless pride—to take advantage of National Kitchens and National Restaurants, notwithstanding the superiority of the meals in quality, cheapness, and convenience, to the workers’ home meals, so that many of these establishments, even while still fostered by the Government, had speedily to close their doors. Ancient traditions, that have now become not only empty but mischievous, in these matters still fetter the wife even more than the husband. We cannot regulate even the material side of life without cultivating that intelligence in the development of which civilisation so largely consists.
Intelligence, and even something more than intelligence, is needed along the third line of progress towards the modernised home. Simplification and organisation can effect nothing in the desired transformation if they merely end in themselves. They are only helpful in so far as they economise energy, offer a more ample leisure, and extend the opportunities for that play of the intellect, that liberation of the emotions with accompanying discipline of the primitive instincts, which are needed not only for the
