The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-04-16
COOPERATIVE HOUSEKEEPING.


The POtwin cooperative house
keeping experiment is not yet month
old but all the housekeepers in town
are talking about it and in several
other neighborhoods similar clubs are
being considered. A number of To-
peka avenue families may organize a
cooperative dining club, there is a
movement of the same kind on West
Sixth avenue and another on Western
avenue. However, it is probable that
all these proposed clubs will await fur
Their developments in Potwin before
committing themselves to the expert
nent- The Potwin club people are
the pioneers in this movement.
The great charm OF cooperative
housekeeping as 1t works out on pa
per is its economy. Otherwise as
tried in Potwin it has no advantages
over boarding. There is bound to be
a certain monotony in the menu and
the cooking, there is the disagreeable
feature of having to go out for ones
meals and of course the semi-publici-
ty of the neighbors' presence de-
prives the members of the club of thr
blessed privilege of nagging and com
planning. There is no denying that
much of the sacred privacy of the
home where the wife may be untidy,
the children quarrelsome and the hus-
band cross if they please would be
destroyed. by the cooperative house
keeping plan.
Moreover, the scheme makes no
provision for the bores, to be found in
every boarding house and similar
community and whom. there is no rea-
son to believe, the cooperative dining
club would be able to bar. We all
know them: the amiable person who
makes cheerful remarks about your
affairs when you are cross and tired
and in no mood for social intercourse;
the Village Cut-up" with his low
comedy business" the officious per-
son who doesn't see how you can eat
olive oil, wants you to try sugar on
your tomatoes and calls your spinach
grass" the gossips (meaning of
course the people who talk gossip
that doesn't interest you); the loqua-
cious woma3 with the uninterrupted
flow of hatulent garrulity; the men
who argue politics and religions the
Lovely Character who wearies you
on general principles; the woman
who apologies for her husbands
table etiquette and English; the man
who eats with his knife, tips his soup
bowl, smacks his lips and opens his
mouth to its widest extent with every
movement of mastication. If the CO.
operative dining clubs succeed in ex-
polling or reforming the personally
Objectionable, at the same time solv-
ing the servant girl problem, at least
as far as the individual members are
concerned, and diminishing the ex-
pense of the individual kitchen and
dining room they will undoubtedly
supersede the old fashioned methods.
Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
and other reformers who are enthus-
lasts on the subject of cooperation
say the day is not far distant when
the individual kitchen will be Danish
ed from every home and the prepare
ton and serving of food will be put in
the hands of experts much after the
present manner of its production with
economy of time. expense and worry
and to the great physical advantage
of the human animal. The Potwin
experiment is far from attempting
anything so ambitious as Mrs. Gilman
and others have dared to dream of,
but no doubt it is a step in the right
direction and will lead to the final and
satisfactory solution of the problem
what we shall eat on the morrow. of
which in spite of an authoritative
contrary injunction most of US con-
tinue to take great deal Of thought.
THE BURTON LESSON.
LF'rom the New York Press