increase her knowledge of the value of money and to make her a better
financial manager. Probably this same independence makes a girl
slightly less anxious to marry, especially since in most cases she has
hitherto been expected to give up her personal income in exchange for
an extremely uncertain system of sharing what the husband earns.
Independence of any sort is reluctantly laid aside by those who have
possessed it. This very reluctance on the part of girls ought to be a
force in the direction of economic independence of wives, a most
desirable and necessary condition for society to bring about. Gainful
occupation has then much to recommend it and little to be said against
it as part of the training for matrimony.

Certain occupations, however, are so essentially favorable to the
girl's homemaking ability and to her probable inclination to make a
home of her own that we do not hesitate to recommend them as the best
directions for girls' vocational work to take, _other things being
equal._ We have already said that the girl distinctly not home-minded
is more safely left to her own inclinations. She would not be a
success as a homemaker under any circumstances. Other girls may be
made or marred by the years which intervene between their school and
home life.

[Illustration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood
The value of domestic work of any sort as a preparation for
homemaking is generally admitted without argument.]

The value of domestic work of any sort as a preparation for homemaking
is generally admitted without argument. Closely in touch with a home
throughout her maturing years, the girl may undertake her own
housekeeping problems with ease and efficiency. Conditions as they
often exist, however, especially for the younger and untrained
domestic worker, do not allow the girl to obtain other experience
quite as necessary if she is to become not merely a housekeeper but a
true homemaker. The untrained girl who enters upon domestic work at
fourteen or fifteen should have opportunity--indeed the opportunity
should be thrust upon her--of attending a continuation school, where
the special aim should be to counteract the narrowing tendency of work
which revolves about so small an orbit. Ideals of home life are either
lacking or distorted in the minds of many working girls, and when such
girls become wives and mothers they strive for the wrong things or
they fall back without striving at all, taking merely what com