New-York tribune., 1903-06-27
90 49,
4 HOL0EHOZD tA 1AJ
] HzxJ IEiNYy

An interesting symposium is being conducted by
The Home Science Magazine on the relative
merits of fiat and home life. The impression is
general in many quarters that the substitution
Of the fiat for the individual home implies and
results in q gradual weakening OF the institution
of the family. and that II begcts sclfshness and
Indifference to civic claims. However that may be-
Il IS unouestionaby true the apartment is dis
placing the single house in most large American
cities. During the past year IN Manhattan. while
business blocks. hotels and apartment houses have
been going up by the hundred. only forty or fifty
new separate houses built and these belonged
mostly to men of great wealth. If families with
small incomes live in houses by themselves.
they have to go north of the Harlem River. TO
Brooklyn or the Staten Island. Jersey and Long
Island suburbs In view OF these facts the editors
of The Home Science Magazine are asking their
readers such questions as: Do you prefer to live
IN an apartnent or in a house? Why? If you be-
gan your housekeeping in apartment were you
able TO make earlier beginning on that account!
Have YOU ever known of a landlord who was un-
willing to let his apartments TO families with chill
dren? How does life in fat affect the problems
of child training2 Have you found that life In
apartments made you or your friends less sensitive
70 civic cIams-i. e. is householder who has only
indirect connection with the collector of ashes and
garbage and who is freed from care Of the side
walks Indifferent TO municipal housekeeping on
that account?
A great many answers to these queries have been
received some of them entertaining all of them
(
wegia and who says she has kept house IN cot
tages, houses. single and semi-detached mats ana
rooms In seven different towns. prefers nat 10
a house of than one story. Yes, she mas
known of landlords who unwilling to let their
apartments TO families with children. but usually
they have been landadies. Children certainly need
more room play, otherwise fat dweliers are no
! more selfish and less selfish than other people,
and the Christian virtues may be developed quite
as easily in fat as anywhere else" Robert Treat
Paine gives IT as his judgment that fiat living
affects the problems of child training 10 grave
| extent leading often to very unsatisfactory re
suits. Mrs. Mary w. Cults favors the apartment
house especially for families with limited means.
for whom it often supplies the only alternative to
the boarding house. IF boarding house ls the
alternative question Of this home or none
/ what true woman hestates TO kindle the fires OF
| the home altar-gas log though IL be-on the hearth
of an apartment fat An Albany woman votes
for house. IF the right kind. but comedies that
| a well lighted roomy fiat is far more convenient
and requires one less servant for the same sized
family than a city house in block. Personally.
| the fiat enabled her 10 go TO housekeeping before
their would have permitted or taxing a
whole Rouse. Mrs Lucia True Ames. OF Boston.
saws she would prefer well lighted fat to a city
house. She does not think ones civic interests
should suffer from living in apartment house
And The discussion ventates an lnpoI-
tant subject IS of vital interest TO thousands
of families.