and mothers to prepare themselves on these
subjects so as to have the answer ready when the child first inquires.
There is no excuse for not doing so, for educators all over the country
stand ready to help any parents who call upon them. It is possible for
every community to obtain the services of a lecturer or teacher who will
instruct the parents. The individual can obtain books which explain all
these things simply and plainly. There is no excuse for ignorance.

CHAPTER XXIII

WOMEN IN BUSINESS

If all homes were ideal and all men likewise, there would be no question
of woman suffrage or woman in business. But this is not an ideal world;
all women who have kept their places and stayed at home, kept house and
taken care of their children have not led ideal lives. In too many
instances the home woman, the little wren, has been deserted for the gay
song-bird. The necessities of life have forced other women into the
business world--women whose preference would be for the ideal, quiet
home life. One must not think that because a woman is leading a public
life that she prefers it, that she has no desire for a home and little
ones. Often her choice has been the lesser of two evils,--more to be
desired than a life, married, but loveless; one in which she must slave
from morn till eve and then receive as recompense curses and
fault-finding.

The woman who refuses to so demean the married life as to enter into
such a marriage, preferring instead the busy life of a bachelor maid, is
to be admired rather than condemned. That she makes a success of her
business life tends to show what some man has missed by not proving
himself worthy to be her husband.

We hear so much about woman entering into business--just as though she
had not always been in business. Stop and think about our ancestors on
the farms. The woman shared the work equally with the man. He attended
to the heavier work, while she attended to that which required less
physical strength but more attention to details. The products of her
industry often brought as much ready cash as that derived from the sale
of the larger products of the farm. Many families depended for the
yearly supply of clothes and luxuries on the money thus obtained from
the sale of butter, eggs and chickens. In olden days, too, many a woman
derived an income from the sale of home-made rugs and counterpanes.

Just how men have conceived the idea that it is only the modern woman
who i