Where to Economize

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 4, 1903

Where to Economize

A MOTHER who was particularly successful in keeping her children at home evenings—so much so that it was with difficulty they could be induced to accept an invitation to spend an evening away from home—was asked if she had any particular secret for making home attractive. She replied that she could think of none except that she always kept her sitting-room and parlors very light. “In the evenings,” she said, “we always have all the light we want; we put on the gas till both back and front parlors are brilliantly lighted, and then we keep the house comfortably warm all over. This is the only secret, if it is a secret.” When the objection was made that this must be expensive, she replied, “O, well, we will economize in something else, if necessary; but a cheerful light in the evening we will have.”

Her remark was very suggestive, not only of the great difference between the cheerfulness of a well-lighted house and the gloom of one where the light is poor and stinted, but also of the choice there is in matters of economy. In these times nearly every one has to study economy in some directions, but in family life it ought to be directed and exercised in anything rather than the curtailing of family comforts. This is especially true of food, warmth, and comfortable clothing. Better to wear the plainest outside garments, better to have no extra suit, better to put up with old and patched furniture, than to deprive any of real comforts,—especially the children. Warmth and light are among the most essential of these. They are the attractions used by saloons and other places of temptation to draw our sons from our homes. We must counteract these by providing better attractions of the same kind. We can not afford to economize too much in these comforts.

This principle holds especially true in regard to children's food and clothing. . . . We have learned a great deal of late years of the possibilities of economy of

food, even while having better and more palatable food on our tables than ever before. . . . Plenty of good, warm underclothing, good stockings, and stout, well-fitting shoes will make comfortable the plainest dress. If economy must be studied in children's clothing, let it be in the direction of reducing ruffles and trimmings and articles of outside show, and not in those things which give warmth and comfort.—The Interior.