expressing their talents by sacrificing the cultivation and exercise of his peculiar gifts.

Success in either form of activity is dependent upon activity of the other kind. The man who teaches successfully finds that he at the same time systematizes his own knowledge, makes it available for his own purposes, and prepares himself for further learning. The woman who would have strong children seeks to increase her own physical vigor, and thus by work for others she secures the joys of health for herself.

On the other hand, activity of one kind, at the expense of the other, tends not only to unbalance, but to narrow life. The mother who blindly performs unnecessary services for her child, and thus curtails her time for reading and study, runs the risk of becoming incapable of directing wisely the education of the child in later life. She not only unbalances her life by too much serving, but also narrows it by reducing her chances for continued usefulness.

Breadth of life is dependent upon an equilibrium between the activities prompted by the self-regarding and those prompted by the other-regarding desires.

The wish to find expression for peculiar talents is self-regarding. Occupations suited to talent, however, lead not only to pleasure in work, but to development and to increased power for usefulness; and while the interests of the well-balanced life may at any time demand the sacrifice of talents for the sake of work for others, those same interests demand just as imperiously that talents must not be unnecessarily sacrificed for the sake of purposeless serving.

Upon woman’s opportunities for intensive cultivation of special talents, Nature has set a limitation by specializing her for childbearing. This limitation is probably not nearly so great as education and unhealthful living make it appear, but it does exist. Considered alone, it seems an unqualified disadvantage. Considered in connection with the fact that it brings the joys of motherhood and of usefulness to society, it appears to be a means for rounding out and broadening her life.

To this limitation set by Nature to woman’s chances for individualizing herself, society has added another check by specializing her for housekeeping. Does this tend to unbalance and narrow her life, or to balance and broaden it? The answer to this question depends, first, upon whether she has talents which do not find expression in housekeeping; second, upon whether her specialization for housekeeping interferes with their use; and third, if it does interfere, upon whether the interference brings with it a compensating advantage.

First, have women talents which do not find expression in housekeeping? That is easily answered. Women are successfully practicing medicine, nursing, teaching, and working at the various crafts. Society is showing its appreciation of their work by offering them employment in these various occupations.

Second, does housekeeping impose a limitation upon the use of these special talents, independent of the limitation imposed by childbearing? In answering this it is convenient to suppose a woman’s life to be divided into three equal periods. If she be granted threescore and ten years of life, each period would be about twenty-three years long. The first period in all women is, or should be, given chiefly to education and preparation for life. The second, in the case of women who marry and have children, is given chiefly to maternal cares. The third is comparatively free.

During the first period there is no bent which can be given to education for the sake of preparing a woman for motherhood that does not prepare her for life itself. Study of food, hygiene, psychology, all are useful in any form of life. Not so, however, with the bent that is given to woman’s education because of her specialization for housekeeping. In manual training, for example, except in the most progressive of schools, her work is confined to cooking and sewing. This prevents her from finding out whether she has talents for work in wood and metal or for engineering, thus defeating one of the first purposes of education, the exploration and discovery of talents. This means a waste of time in early life and frequently a failure to find a life work suited to her natural endowment. If she does not marry, it offers an unnecessary handicap to her in business or professional life. If she does marry, it brings her to the period when childbearing imposes its necessary limitation, not so well prepared as she might be for carrying on her special work in hours of leisure. The same thing could be said of the bent given to the more theoretical parts of woman’s education, for the purpose of preparing her for housekeeping.

During the second period, housekeeping adds its check to that imposed by the care of children. Ask a woman why she does not work at her specialty and she is quite as likely to say, “Because I cannot get good help in my kitchen,” as “Because the care of my children interferes.” If it were not for housekeeping, she might give the time now spent in this employment to reading the literature of her chosen subject, and oftentimes to active work in her trade or profession—to office practice, if a doctor; to private classes, if a teacher. If she had chosen a craft, her work would be practically uninterrupted, for it could be carried on at home.

During the third period, housekeeping imposes two limitations, one directly and the other in the form of an inefficiency projected from the second period because of disuse of her talents. It is during this time that the sacrifice of woman’s talents for the sake of housekeeping is most apparent. She is free from the care of young children, and if she were not handicapped by inexperience could enrich her own life and add to her usefulness by systematic work in her own line.

Housekeeping, then, does provide a check upon the development of woman’s individuality through the use of special powers, a check which extends over all her life and is independent of that imposed by childbearing.

Finally, is this check necessary to the well-balanced life? This must be determined for individual cases. In trying to answer the question, we must keep in mind that whenever an activity is necessary to the realization of the ideal of home, it is necessary to the complete life, whether it involves the sacrifice of talents or not; when it is not so necessary and does not provide an outlet for special talents, it is an unjustifiable waste of woman’s life and of society’s resources.

That which is necessary for good home-making can be determined only by holding fast to the highest ideal of home and by having a clear understanding of changing social conditions. The ideal never changes; the best home-making must always be an intelligent, affectionate effort to help others to attain as nearly as possible to completeness of life by securing for them those essentials of good living which they cannot obtain in other ways as well or better; but while the ideal remains always the same, the means by which it must be realized undergo constant change. Once it was necessary for a woman to make candles or to leave her husband and children in darkness. That time passed, for husband and children found a better light than that of homemade candles. And yet the woman continued her candle-making for a long period. She has done this with most of the varied activities of housekeeping, continuing them long after they had become only an obstacle in the way of her own independent development.

The reason for this useless clinging to outgrown activities is to be found in our conception of the purposes of housekeeping. We have thought of its multiple activities as the ends toward which the talents of all women should be bent, no matter how difficult or how wasteful the bending process. A frank recognition of the varied character of women’s talents and of society’s need for the full and free exercise of these talents, and an appreciation also of the value of good home-making, not only to the