to college, or for giving them High School education, or even for letting them learn the alphabet (which is quite a new thing in social economy), and gives us amusing as well as aggravating "remarks" by distinguished gentlemen at educational functions. The common phrase respecting the introduction of courses in "household science and art," in "domestic economy,' etc., is: "We do this to make women better wives and mothers and more efficient home-makers." The inference is that these two aims are identical. Incidentally this may be true, fundamentally it cannot. Wifehood and motherhood, like husbandhood and fatherhood, are spiritual experiences and the expressions of personal character. They test and discipline and develop human nature; but only a fine individual can be a really good husband or wife, father or mother. That a woman is the "best housekeeper in the neighborhood" does not, therefore, guarantee that she is a comfortable and charming wife, or that her children "rise up to call her blessed." That a man is a "good provider" and a success in his chosen field of work is no proof at all that he is a desirable husband or a good example for his sons to follow. Moreover, the character of the home life does not inhere in the variety of domestic occupations carried on in the home nor even in the skill shown in those occupations. Were this the case we should have poorer homes now than we used to have when every woman had to make her own "tallow dips." In a large area of life the contrary of this is true; we have better homes for not having them so largely shops and factories. How much of the shop and fac

tory now left in the home is yet to be taken out of it in the process of industrial organization, no one can now tell. But this we know, the world is getting impatient of all slipshod, inefficient work in any field, and all the work that is done in the household, whether much or little, must become standardized.

Meanwhile the confusion of thought that lumps together all forms of domestic science courses of study, from the elementary school to the university, as "fitting for wifehood and motherhood," must be resolved into some clearness. Girls do not need to spend the time of a four years' college course in order to learn what an average housemaid "picks up" without the least attempt to understand the science of her art. "General housework" for a family of two to five does not require such a lengthy preparation as elaborate college courses imply. When the college takes hold of the matters involved, they become specialities of vocational training for highly paid positions in professional life; they do not remain mere helps toward a more efficient care of the private household. 2 What happens to farming when the university takes hold of it? It separates into departments of study; study of soils, of varied theories and processes that make of this ancient and general art a variety of sciences and business careers. What happens to "general housework" when the college takes hold of it? It becomes cooking that fits for a dietitian's specialty or a teacher's chair; it becomes applied art, landscape gardening, interior

'See catalogues of household science courses in colleges and universities.

decoration, inspectorships of trade conditions for the benefit of the consumer, trained nursing and hospital management; all manner of specialized vocations by which competent women earn a living and obtain a good position in the professional world. Your "splendid housekeeper" becomes a sanitary expert, and expends upon a community that energy which so often in the past has made husband and children so unhappy! Your woman of exceptional taste and desire for lovely things, whom fate has so often married to a man more appreciative than wealthy, has now a chance to spend much money of other people for beautiful objects which they could not select for themselves; and is thereby made happy even if personally restricted in purse. Your "natural-born nurse" who loves to fuss about invalids, and has so often in the past either annoyed or spoiled her own family according to their temperament, has now her chance to care for the wards of society in a large institution. Your big-hearted, sympathetic helper who formerly engaged in philanthropy at any cost of character to her beneficiaries has now an opportunity to become a "social worker" under leadership that fits her work, however personal and ameliorative, into the general needs of social progress. All this is very fine and helpful to women and to society alike; but extended courses along the lines leading to these specialties of vocation are not essential to, and do not specifically lead toward, that simple allround training and practice in the fundamentals of housekeeping which are required by, or can be used to the full by, the average housemother.

Unaware of the significance of this fact, however, the educational authorities for the most part go on blindly mixing all manner of vocational training for girls in one indiscriminate mass, and applying any part of that new educational advantage where it is possible to tack it on regardless of any logical plan. For the little children up to the end of the elementary school we rest back upon a little "sewing and cooking" for girls, a little "woodwork" and "use of tools" for boys; in the high school we match the boys' "forge" against the girls' "millinery and art"; and we are beginning to start trade-schools for girls as well as for boys when we fully realize that girls as well as boys must earn their living in the modern shop or factory. The general course, however, in all meetings devoted to vocational training, industrial education and the like is for learned people to talk several days about trade-teaching and work-efficiency for boys and men, and then lamely add at the end of their addresses, "and girls," without any clear idea of what should be done with and for girls. The basic fact of the present vocational divide in the life of the average woman is neither perceived nor stated and therefore, of course, the solution of it cannot be given.

There are three divisions in the problem of the education of girls and women, and its solution waits for clearer apprehension of the significance of those divisions. There is first the preparation of all girls along the general lines that will fit them for all-round efficiency in relation either to their personal needs or to their special social function as women. There is, sec

ond, the definite preparation for some trade or specialty of work which will enable them to earn their living in a suitable and morally safe manner, of all girls who must begin to earn money as soon as society considers them physically, mentally and morally fit to do so. This period is now set generally at the ages between fourteen and sixteen. There is, third, the preparation for social leadership which the girl requires who is either to marry and maintain a home which may be a centre of light and direction in the community, or who, if remaining single, or if married continuing individual work, will occupy a position in some one of the learned professions. In all three of these divisions the double motive of the modern feminine ideal, namely, to grow persons of self-directing power, and to develop social serviceableness, must be held firmly in mind.

The first division of girls, by far the largest and hence the division that social well-being demands should have first attention, is that division who must get their chief preparation for the exigencies of life in the elementary school; sometimes supplemented by the first year or two in the high school. Whatever the average woman needs most, therefore, must be put into the home and school training that the average girl can get before the ages of fourteen to sixteen years. The pathology of women's wage-earning at the present stage of industrial organization convinces us that we must have the specialized training for self-support needed alike by the girl who must "get her working papers" as soon as the law allows, and by the girl