Now, behold, what has become of the old-time
home life! The family that spent nearly twenty-
four hours together now spends a scarce seven or
eight, and these are occupied in sleeping! Little
wonder that the next step is taken — the abandon-
ment of this remainder, the sleep period, under a
domestic roof, as the family moves into a hotel!

Along with the tendency toward commimal
working and eating we see the tendency to com-



Pi^ESENT Status of Family Lite 17

munal Kving by the development of the apartment
building. Since roof-trees are so expensive, and
since in a practical age, few of us can afford to
pay for sentiment, why not put a dozen families
under one roof-tree? True we sacrifice lawns,
gardens, natural places for children to play; we
lose birds and flowers and the charm of evening
hours on porches, or galleries, but think of what
we gain in bricks and mortar, in labor saved from
splitting wood and shoveling coal, in janitor
service! The transition is now complete; the
home is simply that item in the economic machinery
which will best furnish us storage for our sleeping
bodies and our clothes!

We are undoubtedly in a period of great changes
in family life, and no family can coimt on escaping
the influence of the change. The one single out-
standing and most potent change, so far as the
character of family life is concerned, is, in the
United States, the rapid polarization of population
in the cities. The United States Census Bureau
coimts all residents in cities of over 8,000 popula-
tion as "urban." In 1800 the "urban" popula-
tion was 4 per cent of the total population; in
1850 it was 12.5 per cent; in 1870, 20. 9 per cent;
in 1890, 29.2 per cent; in 1900, 33.1 per cent;
in 1910 it was estimated at 40 per cent.' Here

* Figures taken from C. W. Votaw, Progress of Moral and
Religious Education in the American Home, 191 1.
