their coming, but the good, old-fashioned way of 'going to see a friend' without fuss or formality. "Young people should be made welcome in the home at any time. "Mothers and daughters should work together at home entertaining. When boys and girls are given a chance to feel that their presence is necessary, they will respond to the home idea. Boys especially love home influence, and nine boys out of ten would rather spend an evening in somebody's home than go outside. "Boys love to sing around the piano. They love to see a girl in her own home." Mrs. Frederick H. Colburn, author and lecturer: "The time has come when a return to home ideals is not only advisable but imperative. We have been drifting away from the principles which go to build up the home. We have been following a foolish phantom in pursuing false ideals. "Home, first of all, is the foundation of our American manhood and womanhood. It is the real university of life, where we learn and where we should practice the highest principles which go toward the making of character. "We need to impress upon our women the need of more home life, quite as much as we need to impress the value of home standards upon our young. "Give a boy or girl a good home, and the result will be a better citizen. Give a man a good home and he will be a better man and a better citizen." Mrs. David Hirschler, San Francisco musician and club woman: "It is sad commentary on our modern way of living that the refining influences of a charming home are forsaken for public places where young folks congregate. "It is too bad that young girls no longer entertain their young men friends at their homes. Yet the idea of staying home does not seem to enter the heads of young people nowadays. "Many a young man does not 'pay attention' to a girl because it means a succession of theater tickets, suppers and dances that he cannot afford. Courtship is too expensive. "We need pretty home parties, happy fireside gatherings, the revival of the 'calling' custom. We need more music in the home, and if the club women will consecrate their thoughts to restoring those customs it will be a great contribution." Mrs. Edward Place, president of the Papyrus Club: "Many of our women realize that unless there is a direct re-establishment of home entertainments and home events to combat the magnet which draws our young people into the evils of the day-that our club life will have no real functioning value. "We have been so concerned with a multiplicity of things, that for a time we lost track apparently of the fundamental principles which build up our great national home life. "What does it matter what honors may come to us if we fail to look to the structure of our own homes. "As club leaders we women of San Francisco are determined that it shall be said of us that as soon as the realization of a moral laxity became evident, we immediately turned back with full appreciation to our home life." Mrs. Edward Wales, first vice-president of the San Francisco District Federation of Women's Clubs: "Home life is the only thing that really brings full recompense. else seems tawdry in comparison. All "Give the boys and girls plenty of home life and they will not accept any other kind of allurement. "Give the college boy a taste of real home comforts, let him have a dinner in some private home, invite him to be 'one of the family,' and a new trend of thought, a high ambition for work will be instituted in his consciousness. "Club women have long been cognizant of community necessities. They have introduced many departments for the study of economics, social welfare and kindred topics. Now they need to put into definite action the 'open door of the home' campaign.” Then again, a writer signing himself, Charles Grant Miller, says: "Home. The door may be unlatched to anxiety, want and pain; sullen sorrow may sit brooding at the hearth-but home is home!" "Maybe, after all, one lot in life is not much better or worse than another, so far as real happiness goes; but there are some things that seem very necessary to us, and that little corner in God's creation we call home is one of them. "Home, whatever its hardships, is the best place this side of heaven. "Plenty, comfort, luxuries, culture are good to have. "But there is not enough of all of these in all the world to recompense the loss of the simplest joys of the humblest home that is lit and warmed by love. "Prosperity is a precious blessing to those worthy of it and able to stand it. "But all the wealth of mines and farms and factories cannot give such genuine and enduring satisfaction to the soul as does the wealth of love and faith and sacrifice that makes the home the cornerstone of civilization. "The stately mansion, with its rich carpets, its rare pictures and all the luxuries and baubles that money buys, cannot make a true home unless love is its hearthglow, fidelity the stout door that shuts out the world's coldness and wrongs, and faith the staunch roof that defies its storms. "Love, fidelity and faith are the only treasures indispensable to the real home of any heart. These in the humblest cottage; these, houseless beneath the bleak sky; these, shelterless, starving, naked; these make a happy home anywhere. "The real life is not outside ourselves, but within. "The real possessions are not what the hands may grasp, but what the heart may hold." A special writer for the Hearst papers, Dr. Charles Fleischer, under the heading: "Be It Ever So Humble," says: "One of the sweetest and commonest traits in our human nature-one which we share with most of animate nature-is the desire for nesting and for home-building. "Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home! Whatever little or much you may do toward building a home is the expression of your creative instinct. "Pride and joy in your home is your equivalent of God's satisfaction with His creation when He saw that it was good. "Father and mother, of course, are the chief creators of the home. But the children and all the other members of the household are also potential fellows of the benevolent conspiracy of home-builders. "The democratic home is made up of mutually respecting equals. Its slogan is the typical slogan of democracy: Each for all and all for each! "Indeed, with us the home has become more precious than ever. Sentimentally it is the most sacred spot in the world, and a charm from the skies seems to hallow us there. "The highest tribute we pay to places and persons is to say that we feel 'at home' with them. "To have a part in the building of such a serviceable social institution, a really heavenly haven, is a rare privilege, fortunately, as common as it is rare. "Let your home radiate warmth and welcome, not only to all visitants, but to its members as perpetual dividends of their common wealth. "Your house is your castle, your kingdom. Create there your foretaste of heaven-in every finest sense, Home, Sweet Home!" And now comes B. C. Forbes, writing under the heading, "Business and Finance." When you read this you will wonder if he had not been given a "tip" by some, enthusiastic building and loan official. Mr. Forbes writes: "How can one go about acquiring a home of his own? "Like most things in this world, it can't be done unless some money has been saved, or unless the person is prepared to start saving systematically. "The easiest way for the average individual to go about things is to join a building and loan savings association. In some communities there are savings banks that have departments which co-operate with depositors in building and buying homes. "The member of a building loan association who has saved even 20 per cent of the total cost of a lot and home can usually make arrangements to start building, agreeing, of course, to continue to make modest weekly or monthly payments to reduce the indebtedness. Sometimes a member has been in an association a very little while when he proves a lucky winner in the drawing of lots to decide which members shall have the first privilege of building and being financed by the association. Of course the funds of building loan associations are limited. Senator Calder, of New York, is sponsoring an excellent movement to enable these associations to put up as collateral the mortgages held by them and thus borrow, say 50 per cent on them. This would greatly broaden the usefulness of building loan associations. "That there is urgent need for doing everything possible to make home building feasible on a much broader scale than heretofore is clearly brought out by the lamentable dearth of home building during recent years. The Department of Labor reports that figures obtained from 1916 of the larger cities show that homes were provided so far this year for only 81,103 families. There were actually more garages than homes built, the garages totaling 93,121. In Greater New York only 17,000 have been taken care of by new homes this year, while the total for the whole of last year was only 9,000. "Full information of how to go about financing and building a home can be obtained at the cost of a postage stamp, from the Own Your Home Organization, 512 Fifth avenue, New York. You can get from it facts and figures as to where suitable home sites can be procured in different parts of the country. It will post as to how and where to get materials, where to get the services of architects or a comprehensive collection of ready made plans, how to furnish and decorate your home at the least cost, how to lay out garden and grounds, and so forth. "For everything there is a reason. One reason home building has been so light has been the excessive cost heretofore, due partly to what the unemployment committee calls "malignant combinations" in various cities among the building trade interests. "These iniquitous combinations for the most part have been broken up by recent disclosures. Moreover, the prices of building materials have lately been reduced. Wages, too, have been cut in certain parts of the country, so that there is far more inducement to start building a home now than there has been at any time in the recent past. "Owning a home, you are sometimes told, has disadvantages. It is pointed out that when anything needs repairing, it's awkward not to have a landlord to run to. Complaints are numerous about the burdensomeness of taxes. And so on. "Yet, the benefits, the satisfaction, the moral effect, the greater sense of responsibility, the mental influence arising from owning one's own home far outweigh the disadvantages. A home roots one more firmly. The hearth of your own home glows more warmly than the hearth of any rented house can possibly glow. "Children brought up in a rented building cannot imbibe the 'home, sweet home' spirit which attaches to one's own home, their own home. It is infinitely preferable to rear children in a humble home of their own than in any tenement or apartment building in the city. Ownership of even a modest plot of ground and an equally modest home makes you feel that you are, as one home owner expressed it, 'a part owner of the United States.' "By starting now to build a home of your own, you can justly feel that you are doing something to lighten the hardships of unemployment. Were a great build-your-own-home movement to sweep across the country this fall and winter, the unemployment problem would dissolve into thin air. There is money enough in the land to do it. There is labor enough. There are materials enough. "And there ought to be desire enough. "Can you not contrive to get busy?" "Jane Doe," writing for the McClure Syndicate, cleverly covers the saving end of the building and loan association business in the following clever article, which she heads with, "Money in the Bank": "To begin with, this title's all wrong. ''Money in the Bank,' I've called it. "But really it should be: 'All the money you can spare-put it in the bank.' "Only no self-respecting sub-editor would allow me to put all that into one title. "But you see the idea, don't you? "This is going to be a sermon. "On saving. "A homily on the advantages-nay, the necessity-nay, the duty-of having as much as you possibily can put by in a safe place where you can get at it without time to think twice about it. "Which reminds me while I'm on the subject-always think twice before you encroach on your savings. "And never, never go to them unless you are in very bad need. "But the best thing of all is to forget you've got any money saved at all. That is to say, put by what you can, but don't keep count of it. "There's no pleasanter feeling than to look up your savings bookthe credit side-and to find you've got lots more than you expected. "However, I must get back to my proper beginning. "This is going to preach the joys of independence. "Which is something you can't have unless you've got a nest egg, safe and sound somewhere. "No man or woman can be independent who is living from pay envelope to pay envelope, so to speak. "Which is a much more polite way of saying 'from hand to mouth.' "Do you know that every young couple should prefix their partnership by having a little quiet talk on the subject of finance? "And come to the all-important conclusion "That they will never spend all they earn. "And that they will save the balance. "Believe me, you won't know what security is until you do. “And if you'll each say aloud those words I've had underlined, each week, when the pay envelope or the salary check puts in an appearance, and, what's more, live up to it, you'll be wise and lucky folks. "Wise, because it will be one of the best things you ever did. "Lucky, because so few couples do it. "Mind you, it's not easy. "Nobody knows more than I do how hard it is to save a little each week, prices being what they are. "There are so many things to covet. There are so many things we feel we can't possibly live without. "And if we have loved ones, there is the 'more than we can afford' box of chocolates, the toy motor car, the expensive 18-button gloves, the hundred and one little treats which in the end run away with so much money. "A husband may have a passion for good cigars; a wife may have an equal passion for a fancy line in scent with an equally fanciful price attached to it. "These are only instances at random. "All you've got to do is to think of your own worst extravagance. "Cut it out and save the money. "There are hundreds of ways of making the money fly. "In fact, there's nothing so easy. "But don't forget that there is nothing so difficult as getting it when you want it. “And in every married life there come times when you will want to lay your hands on ready money at once, without any trouble and without any obligation. "If you've lived up to the dictates of common sense, and saved, you'll breathe a sigh of relief which will be worth all the little luxuries you might have had put together. "A little money in the bank!' Annette Adams, a clever local woman attorney, in an address before the Development Association of San Francisco, argues that the little old steam radiator in contradistinction to the oldfashioned fire place, is back of the present tendency on the part |