You little know what help there is in books for the average housewife. Take Domestic Problems, for instance, beginning with this hard question : " How may a woman enjoy the de- lights of culture and at the same time fulfil her duties to family and household ? " The second chapter quotes from somebody else : " It can't be done. I've tried it ; but, as things now are, it can't be done." Mrs. Diaz looks below the surface. Want o^ prepara- tion and culture, she says, is at the bottom of a woman's failure, just as it is of a man's. The proper training of children, for instance, can't be done without some comprehension of children themselves, of what they ought to grow to, their stages, the means of their guidance, the laws of their health, and manners. But mothers get no hint of most of these things until they have to blunder through them. Why not ? Isn't the training of children woman's mission ? Yes, in print, but not in practice. What is her mission in practice ? Cook- ing and sewing ! Woman's worst failure then is due to the stupid blunder of putting comparatively trivial things before the most im- portant of all. The result is bad children and waste of a generation or two — all for putting cooking and sewing before the training of children. Now will any one venture to say that any particular mother, you for instance, has got to put cooking and sew- ing before the training of children ? Any mother who really makes up her mind to put J >r children first can find out how to grow tolerab 1 * childiwi at least.
