the association, then, will be the hardest task of the committee; but, if the hardest, also the most credible, since it will be all their own.
The race being considered as one great family, and woman, the mistress of its home, what more beneficent enterprise can be imagined than one which seeks to organize that home so perfectly, that not alone the few in its drawing-rooms, but also the many in its garrets and cellars, will be clothed, fed, and sheltered in the manner most conducive to their moral and intellectual progress? For, while observation of the rich shows that superfluity and satiety make men unprincipled and women worthless, the study of the criminal classes proves that physical comfort and well-being have, of themselves, a vast influence in predisposing both sexes to virtue. The body must be satisfied before the mind and soul can rise above it into free and vigorous action; and when we think of the intellectual and artistic and moral wealth of which mere bodily need and suffering have probably deprived the world, it ought to be enough for women, even if no higher good were to be attained by co-operative housekeeping, that it would enable them to give to so much larger proportion of their fellow-beings at least physical comfort, cleanliness, and health. And, formidable though the undertaking looks, it really simplifies very rapidly when one begins to examine into it. I believe I could choose from my acquaintance an organizing committee of able and experienced housekeepers, who, in a few weeks or months, could produce almost perfect working plans for co-operative housekeeping. But, as in the case of the constitution, lest no organizing committee should ever exist, I will, without attempting details that could only be decided upon in consultation, give a rough sketch of the manner in which I suppose the organizing committee would proceed, and of the working plans which they would probably suggest.
