sake of their own pride,
for the sake of their families, even for the sake of being "looked up
to" by their wife and observant offspring. But without real hope,
because without real ability (they soon, unless fools, outlive the
illusions of youth when the conquest of fortune was a matter of
course) always in debt, and doomed to defeat.

How many women have said to me--women in their thirties or early
forties, and with two or three children of increasing demands: "Oh, if
I could help! How unjust of parents not to train girls to do something
they can fall back on. I want to go to work myself and insure my
children a good education and a start in the world, but what can I do?
If I had been specialized in any one thing I'd use it now whether my
husband liked it or not. But although I have plenty of energy and
courage and feel that I could succeed in almost anything I haven't the
least idea how to go about it."

If a woman's husband collapses into death or desuetude while her
children are young, it certainly is the bounden duty of some member of
her family to support her until her children are old enough to go to
school, for no one can take her place in the home before that period.
Moreover, her mind should be as free of anxiety as her body of strain.
But what a ghastly reflection upon civilization it is when she is
obliged to stand on her feet all day in a shop or factory, or make
tempting edibles for some Woman's Exchange, because she cannot afford
to spend time upon a belated training that might admit her lucratively
to one of the professions or business industries.

The childless woman solves the problem with comparative ease. She
invariably shows more energy and decision, provided, of course, these
qualities have been latent within her.

Nevertheless, it is often extraordinary just what she does do. For
instance I knew a family of girls upon whose college education an
immense sum had been expended, and whose intellectual arrogance I
never have seen equalled. When their father failed and died, leaving
not so much as a small life insurance, what did they do? Teach? Write?
Edit? Become some rich and ignorant man's secretary? Not a bit of it.
They cooked. Always noted in their palmy days for their "table," and
addicted to relieving the travail of intellect with the sedative of
the homeliest of the minor arts, they began on preserves for the
Woman's Exchange; and half the rich women in town were up at their
house day a