The Home. By Charlotte Perkins Gilman. (W. Heinemann. 5s. net.)—"
The purpose of this book," says Mrs. Gilman in her introductory chapter, "is to maintain and improve the home." But she certainly has a very different conception of the thing from that with which most people are content. Her ideal home suggests, in some respects at least, a Platonic community. She does not put her ideas into absolutely plain speech, but we gather that we are to have common meals and common nur- series. There are manufactories of cooked food which produce the article far better and more cheaply than it can be done at home ; there are expert nurses who are much better than mothers. So, at least, we read this book, to take a small part of its teaching. We wish that Mrs. Gilman had been a little more constructive. Page after page is given to criticism, often very severe, and some- time just, of modern arrangements ; what we want, and do not find, is a detailed statement of how the society to which Mrs. Gilman aspires is to order its life. She is severe, for instance, on the arrangement, which we have hitherto accepted, of having a nursery—let us say a double nursery—set apart for the children. We are now arraigned for the selfishness of the plan. The home is set up for the child, and you limit his use to one part. How would the "grown-ups" like to be so limited? What, then, is to be done? Are the children to be everywhere? Would they be happier if they were ? There are other things about which we are much in the dark. Will Mrs. Gilman condescend to explain ?
BOYS' SECOND BOOK OF INVENTIONS.
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