ore curtailed until she
feels her helplessness in the hands of her landlord. She sighs and
turns to other interests. To her must be brought the knowledge of her
power as a social factor if she will but use the knowledge she can
easily gain.

The city woman has amused herself because she has seen nothing better
to do with her time. The utilization of her ability is all that is
needed to regenerate city life. Without it all efforts will prove
fruitless. Education of all women in the principles of sanitary
science is the key to race progress in the twentieth century.

As an economic factor, the influence of the housewife is of the
greatest moment. Production on the farm is only one phase. The city
and suburban dweller is a buyer, not a producer. In suburban and city
life the housekeeper has more temptations to buy needless articles,
food out of season, to go often to the shops, especially on bargain
days. She thinks her taste is educated, when it is only aroused to
notice what others like. She is led to strive after effects without
knowing how to attain them. It has been estimated by advertising
experts that ninety per cent of the purchases of the community are
determined by women, not always according to their judgment, but by a
suppression of it. Woman is made to think that she must buy certain
lines of goods. The power of suggestion has been referred to in a
preceding chapter.

When civilization, as it is called, persuaded woman to give up
manufacture and to become a buyer, the first step in the
disintegration of the home as a center of information, as well as of
industry, was taken. The housewife and mother were made to look to the
dealer, and thus to feel their helplessness. This sense of ignorance,
this subconscious loss of power over things, only increased the effect
of that fatalism which the control of machinery was leading man out
from under.

It is barely fifty years since woman began to ask questions and insist
upon knowing, to claim freedom of movement, a chance to breathe. The
time between has been a time of plowed fields, often muddy, usually
stony, but the furrows are turning green and the harvest will prove
the wisdom of the plowing.

Woman had to struggle for right to private judgment and public action.
Some pioneers had to enter the field of research, of investigation, in
order that they might call to those below that the way was open. This
vast company, which has been nearly untouched by the scie