e, of "doing something," that is another matter. To my
mind it is abominable that society is so constituted that women are
forced to work (in times of peace) for their bread at tasks that are
far too hard for them, that extract the sweetness from youth, and
unfit them physically for what the vast majority of women want more
than anything else in life--children. If they deliberately prefer
independence to marriage, well and good, but surely we are growing
civilized enough (and this war, in itself a plunge into the dark ages,
has in quite unintentional ways advanced civilization, for never in
the history of the world have so many brains been thinking) so to
arrange the social machinery that if girls and young women are forced
to work for their daily bread, and often the bread of others, at least
it shall be under conditions, including double shifts, that will
enable them, if the opportunity comes, as completely to enjoy all that
home means as falls to the lot of their more fortunate sisters. Even
those who launch out in life with no heavier need than their driving
independence of spirit should be protected, for often they too, when
worn in body and mind, realize that the independent life per se is a
delusion, and that their completion as well as their ultimate
happiness and economic security lies in a brood and a husband to
support it.

There used to be volumes of indignation expended upon the American
mother toiling in the home, at the wash-tub for hire, or trudging
daily to some remunerative task, while her daughters, after a fair
education, idly flirted, and danced, and read, and finally married.
Now, although that modus operandi sounds vulgar and ungrateful it is,
biologically speaking, quite as it should be. Girls of that age should
be tended as carefully as young plants; and, for that matter, it would
be well if women until they have passed the high-water mark of
reproductivity should be protected as much as possible from severe
physical and mental strain. If women ever are to compete with men on
anything like an equal basis, it is when they are in their middle
years, when Nature's handicaps are fairly outgrown, child-bearing and
its intervening years of lassitude are over, as well as the recurrent
carboniferous wastes and relaxations.

Why do farmers' wives look so much older than city women of the same
age in comfortable circumstances? Not, we may be sure, because of
exposure to the elements, or even the tragic