lo8 AGRICLXTURE OF MAINE. 



budgets and the planning of our work, and we need to use the 

 best machinery in our homes that we can get. You know it 

 seems to be one of the characteristics of a woman that she will 

 get along with any old thing in the house. The man does not 

 do it. He buys the best farm machinery; that is, the most of 

 them do. He buys the thing that is efficient, that he needs to 

 do his work. Women work along with the same old things that 

 are not efficient, that will not do the work and meet the demands 

 made upon them, and say nothing about it. They should know 

 the proper things that they need in their homes to carry on their 

 work efficiently, and then they should have the initiative to get 

 them. Women lack initiative in a great many respects, — it is so 

 much easier to let things go on than it is to hurry around and 

 get the things that down deep in their hearts they know they 

 need. They just put it off until tomorrow. This is the case, 

 I think, very, very often. The household is a profit concern in 

 the same sense that a business is a profit concern ; but the effici- 

 ency of the home is measured by the amount of comfort and 

 satisfaction which it will bring to the members of that family, 

 and by its social efficiency as to whether it turns out good 

 members of society or not, and as to whether those people are 

 capable of earning a living and doing their share in the industries 

 of the world. A competent manager should understand all the 

 principles of the business which she is running and a woman 

 should know some sociology and economics. She should know 

 the fundamental things which make for the most efficient per- 

 son, mentally and morally. 



Of course the physical, material things are fundamental, they 

 are of primary interest in every household. But they are 

 merely the basis for the expression of human nature, and I think 

 it is time that the women get their work so planned that they 

 have the information which will broaden their views of life 

 and their outlook and whenever they do that, work and house- 

 keeping are going to become less a drudgery. It is always true 

 that when we know the whys and the wherefores of things, 

 when we have the knowledge of the work we are doing, it 

 becomes less a drudgery. It does not mean there is less work 

 but it is less a drudgery. And the women, and especially the 

 foreign women of the country, need to have the drudgery of 

 their work lessened, so that they will have, as Miss Caroline 



