CHAPTER II.
Preliminaries of Co-operative Housekeeping.
LET us suppose that in some town there are from twelve to fifty women who desire to associate themselves in housekeeping, for the double purpose of lessening their current expenses and of employing their time profitably in a given direction, their husbands being willing that they should try the experiment. How shall they go to work?
The first step will be to hold a meeting of those interested, and, after some one has called the meeting to order and stated the general object that has brought them together—namely, the hope of devising a better system of housewifery than the expensive and unsatisfactory one now prevailing—one of the housekeepers present should be elected to the chair, and another chosen as secretary; and the remainder of this meeting, as well as every subsequent one, should be conducted according to strict parliamentary rules.
It should next be moved and seconded, that an organizing committee of not less than twelve housekeepers be chosen for the purpose of drawing up a constitution and bye-laws for the proposed Co-operative Housekeeping Association, and of preparing the working-plans for its different departments. If this motion be approved, and the committee chosen, all the business possible to the preliminary meeting will be over, and it may be adjourned.
The burden of the whole undertaking now falls upon the organizing committee. Its first work, after electing its chairman and secretary, will be to draw up a constitution
