sting, and by girls in
choosing, the independent career. Usually it is the girl who has shown
promise in independent work at school or at home that will make a
success of such work later in life. The girl who relaxes when the
pressure of compulsion is removed will not be a success as "her own
boss." It goes without saying that the girl who does well as her own
superior officer will be happier to do work upon her own initiative
than merely to carry out the plans made by others. Agricultural work
will sometimes offer her exactly the conditions she desires. Many
successful farm-owners are women, and their work compares favorably
with that of men.

_Food production_. It is common, in these days, to meet the assertion
that the preparation of food, once woman's undisputed work, has been
almost if not quite removed from her hands; and that, even where she
may still contribute to this work, she must do so in the factory, the
bakery, the packing house, or the delicatessen shop. There are,
nevertheless, still many women who are fitted for cooking and kindred
pursuits who will not find an outlet for their abilities in any of the
places mentioned. In the main, factory production of food is like
factory production of other things--a highly differentiated process,
in which the individual worker finds little satisfaction for her
desire to "make things" and little, if any, opportunity to contribute
from her ability to the final result.

In the canning factory she may sit all day before an ever-moving
procession of beans or peas, from which she removes any unsuitable for
cooking. Or it may be an endless procession of cans, upon which she
rapidly lays covers as they pass. In the pickle factory she may pack
tiny cucumbers into bottles. In the packing house she may perform the
task of painting cans. None of these occupations is more than mere
unskilled labor. None is suitable for the girl who likes to cook, and
who can cook. The number of such girls is already fairly large and
will undoubtedly increase as the domestic science classes of our
schools do more and better work.

[Illustration: An up-to-date factory. In the factory the work is
necessarily routine, and the individual worker finds very little
satisfaction for her desire to make things]

Opposed to the theoretical statement that food is or at least
to-morrow will be prepared entirely in the public-utility plants
outside the home is the practical fact that home-cooked food,
ho