use in less than perhaps an
hour and a half. She has probably also to accomplish, if she happens to
belong to the middle or upper classes, an idle round of so-called
"social duties." She tries to escape, when she can afford it, by
adopting the apparently simple expedient of paying other people to
perform these necessary and unnecessary household duties, but this
expedient fails; the "social duties" increase in the same ratio as the
servants increase and the task of overseeing these latter itself proves
formidable. It is quite impossible for any person under these conditions
to lead a reasonable and wholesome human life. A healthy life is more
difficult to attain for the woman of the ordinary household than for the
worker in a mine, for he at least, when the work of his set is over, has
two-thirds of the twenty-four hours to himself. The woman is bound by a
thousand Lilliputian threads from which there seems no escape. She often
makes frantic efforts to escape, but the combined strength of the
threads generally proves too strong. There can be no doubt that the
present household system is doomed; the higher standard of intelligence
demanded from women, the growth of interest in the problems of domestic
economy, the movement for association of labour, the revolt against the
survivals of barbaric complication in living--all these, which are
symptoms of a great economic revolution, indicate, the approach of a new
period.

The education of women is an essential part of the great movement we are
considering. Women will shortly be voters, and women, at all events in
England, are in a majority. We have to educate our mistresses as we once
had to educate our masters. And the word "education" is here used by no
means in the narrow sense. A woman may be acquainted with Greek and the
higher mathematics, and be as uneducated in the wider relationships of
life as a man in the like case. How much women suffer from this lack of
education may be seen to-day even among those who are counted as
leaders.

There are extravagances in every period of transition. Undoubtedly a
potent factor in bringing about a saner attitude will be the education
of boys and girls together. The lack of early fellowship fosters an
unnatural divergence of aims and ideals, and a consequent lack of
sympathy. It makes possible those abundant foolish generalizations by
men concerning "women," by women concerning "men." St. Augustine, at an
early period of his arden