6o 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



she thinks now as well as feels, and the inevitable result is that 

 her attitude is more judicial than of old." 



" Do you know," here interpolates a newly graduated col- 

 legian, " that in our colleges it has become a proverb that, if a 

 girl isn't engaged before she is a sophomore, the chances are all 

 against her marriage ? " 



The assent to this is very general, and one of the older women 

 states the evident reasons for it : " We become more interested in 

 our studies, more certain of our ability to take care of ourselves, 

 and therefore less interested in men as possible lovers, and more 

 independent of them as a means of support." 



" And also," dryly remarks a very marriageable maiden, " it 

 becomes evident to us that, as a matter of fact, the men whom 

 our friends marry do not always come to time in their role of 

 ' providers/ and are not infrequently ready to accept assistance at 

 the hands of the women whom they have undertaken to support." 



Apropos of this, it is here suggested that possibly the prospect 

 of domestic drudgery is not congenial to women who have found 

 themselves capable of different and better work ; and this is 

 assented to by several of those present who are supporting their 

 own establishments, and paying servants to perform the house- 

 hold labor which would fall upon their shoulders were they in the 

 position of the married woman of average means. 



This, again, suggests a comparison as to the relative value of 

 the normal home wherein father, mother, and children complete 

 the group, and of those more artificial homes which lack the nat- 

 ural elements of union. Generous recognition is at once given of 

 the beauty of the possible home, and of the power and importance 

 of the woman who creates it ; but that this is woman's only field 

 is emphatically denied. There are now open to her many channels 

 through which she can influence the race, and the question is 

 raised as to whether the advantage in this respect is altogether on 

 the side of the married woman. Two or three of the older women 

 in the group, who have had long and varied experience as teachers, 

 ask if it is not probable that among the many children who have 

 come into their hands there are not some, at least, who owe more 

 to their school environment than to the home life. They claim 

 that they, as teachers, should be credited with the influence 

 which, in the nature of things, is inseparable from the respon- 

 sibility which is put upon them. " To us," they say, " and not to 

 the already overburdened wife and mother, is given the power to 

 lead and direct the youth of the race. Would you have us, with 

 that in view, aim for anything less than the best ? The education 

 of English and American children is, in the main, in the hands of 

 women, and this not because of an anomalous social condition, but 

 because of their peculiar fitness for the work. On Mr. Allen's 



