320 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HUMAN PROBLEMS 



their children. A more intelligent interest on the 

 part of women in the business or professional affairs 

 of their husbands cannot fail to strengthen family 

 ties and the solidarity of the family. Women should 

 have a better knowledge of the methods of gaining 

 money and could exert a powerful influence to pre- 

 vent men from resorting to questionable practices. 

 Too often forgot is the advice of the not over ideal- 

 istic Bacon, "It is better to curtail small expenditures 

 than to stoop to petty gettings." The wife here 

 may play a fateful part. This influence for good is 

 but too often lost, owing to ignorance or disregard 

 for the husband's financial methods and resources. 

 But this influence of the wife over the husband's 

 career may be far more subtle, for it may extend to 

 a deep interest in the occupation for its own sake. 

 There is certainly no profession and perhaps no busi- 

 ness which has not its ideals, and attainment of these 

 must often depend on the encouragement that a man 

 gets at his own hearth, where too often there is no 

 inspiration but only sordid or idle thoughts, arising 

 quite as frequently from poor training and inferior 

 understanding as from unworthy intentions. In just 

 such relations as these is most to be expected, from 

 those men and women whose emotional life has had 

 the benefit of intelligent guidance and control. And 

 equally great and fateful is the effect on the rising 

 generation. The mother who unites a firm will to 

 the cultured intelligence that comes of education 

 will fashion worthy citizens, capable of doing good 



