the dead than for the living. The first consideration of the owner is his ancestral shrine. This must be placed at the center of the house, and all the other parts must be complement and secondary to it. The house is planned not for comfort but for ceremonies, that is, for "the red and white affairs," as they are called in China. The "red affair" is the marriage or other felicitous celebrations of any member of the family, and the "white affair" is the funeral ceremonies. Besides the ancestral shrine there are the shrines of the various household gods. All these are of more importance than man and must be considered before him. There is not a home in old China that is planned for the comfort and convenience of man alone. So now when we plan the housing industry in China in our International Development Scheme, we must take the houses of the entire population of China into consideration. "To build houses for four hundred millions, it is impossible!" some may exclaim. This is the largest job ever conceived by man. But if China is going to give up her foolish traditions and useless habits and customs of the last three thousand years and begin to adopt modern civilization, as our industrial development scheme is going to introduce, the remodelling of all the houses according to modern comforts and conveniences is bound to come, either unconsciously by social evolution or consciously by artificial construction. The modern civilization so far attained by western nations is entirely an unconscious progress, for social and economic sciences are but recent discoveries.
