296 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



easy things, drift from not knowing how to assume responsibility in 

 the home to avoiding it altogether by means of the divorce court. 



There are no statistics to prove the statement, yet careful observa- 

 tion in a good many cases has shown that a cheerful common sense and 

 ability to turn defeat into victory through perseverance would have 

 kept many homes intact to-day. 



And so, our educational system seems wrong when it permits our 

 boys and girls to grow up looking only for easy places. Too many 

 girls look forward to matrimony as a life of surcease from the dis- 

 agreeable surroundings before marriage. 



In consequence when the water pipes burst and the furnace grate 

 falls out and the refrigerator springs a leak and the baby is teething 

 and fretful and the meals must be prepared and the husband, owing 

 to a belated breakfast, has not had time to be as affectionate as usual 

 in his farewells as he ran for his car — when such a combination as this 

 happens, as we housekeepers all know it can do — unless we are trained 

 to listen for the eternal harmonies behind some of the discords of life, 

 we are apt to grow discontented in home life because of our own ina- 

 bility to make a success of it and to bring to ourselves "cumulative 

 happiness." 



However, if we do have a sufficiently high ideal of our mission as 

 homemakers and the spirit and necessary training to inform our task, 

 we can set to work on our domestic problem with a cheerful courage, 

 for we know that ice can be thawed and leaks mended, furnace grates 

 repaired, cross, fretful babies can become the joy and light of a whole 

 household, and belated husbands if only given a chance can more than 

 atone for their seeming indifference. 



The explanations just given are presented in order to make the 

 point that an intelligent appreciation on the part of our girls of the 

 responsibilities of home life and skilled knowledge on their part of how 

 to perform their tasks will do much to prevent discontent in the home 

 and desertion from it when unpleasant combinations really arise. 



The natural conclusion from this fact is that our educational sys- 

 tem should provide some way of showing every girl that she must ex- 

 pect serious conditions in dealing with the serious problems of life and 

 that she must have some training for her fundamental task of develop- 

 ing vital personality with its resultant mental, moral and social re- 

 sponsibilities. Otherwise our whole industrial system must change so 

 that domestic industries can become socialized and women do their share, 

 specializing for home work according to inclination. But in either 

 case for human evolution we must have trained guardians of the per- 

 sonality, whether they be natural mothers or selected ones. 



This is not an easy program which is outlined for womankind, but 

 it can be made a very efficient one in race development. The quickest 



