building, building, building, sacrificing, binding itself forever and
ever to what?--a shell? No, to the institution which its observation
and experience tell it, is the one out of which men and women have
gotten the most hope, dignity, and joy,--the place through which,
whatever its failures and illusions, they get the fullest development
and the opportunity to render the most useful social service.

It is this grounded conviction that the home takes first rank among
social institutions which gives its tremendous seriousness to the
Business of Being a Woman. She is the one who must sit always at its
center, the one who holds a strategic position for dealing directly
with its problems. Far from these problems being purely of a menial
nature, as some would have us believe, they are of the most delicate
social and spiritual import. A woman in reality is at the head of a
social laboratory where all the problems are of primary, not
secondary, importance, since they all deal directly with human life.

One of the most illuminating experiences of travel is visiting the
great chateaux of France. One goes to see "historical monuments," the
scenes of strange and tragic human experiences; he finds he is in
somebody's private house, which by order of the government is opened
to the public one day of the week! He probably will not realize this
fully unless he suddenly opens a door, not intended to be opened,
behind which he finds a mass of children's toys--go-carts and dolls,
balls and tennis rackets--or stumbles into a room supposed to be
locked where framed photographs, sofa cushions, and sewing tables
abound!

To the average American it comes almost as a shock that these open
homes are the _logic of democracy_. It is almost sure to set him
thinking that after all the home, anybody's home, even one in such big
contrast to this chateau as a two-story frame house, on Avenue A, in
B-ville, has a relation to the public. He has touched a great social
truth.

To socialize her home, that is the high undertaking a woman has on her
hands if she is to get at the heart of her Business. And what do we
mean by socialization? Is it other than to put the stamp of
affectionate, intelligent human interest upon all the operations and
the intercourse of the center she directs? To make a place in which
the various members can live freely and draw to themselves those with
whom they are sympathetic--a place in which there is spiritual and
intellec