Women will bear and rear the children of the future, just as they have borne and reared the children of the past. But under what conditions—the best or those less worthy? And what women—again, the best or those less worthy? Has woman been freed from subjection, from an inferior place in the scheme of life, only to become so intoxicated with a personal freedom, with her own personal ambition, that she fails to see what emancipation really means? Will she be contented merely to imitate man rather than to work out a destiny of her own? We think not. When the first flush of freedom has passed, the pendulum will turn again and woman will find a truer place than she knows now or has known.
Two obstacles to the successful pursuit of her ultimate vocation stand prominently before the young woman of to-day: first, the instruction of the times has imbued her with too little respect for her calling; second, her education teaches her how to do almost everything except how to follow this calling in the scientific spirit of the day. She may scorn housework as drudgery, but no voice is raised to show her that it may be made something else. With the advent of vocational guidance, vocational training of necessity follows close behind. And with vocational training must come a proper appreciation, among the other businesses of life, of this "business of being a woman."
Must we then educate the girl to be a homemaker, and keep her out of the industrial life which has claimed her so swiftly and in which she has found so much of her emancipation? No, we could not, if we would, keep her from the outside life. We must rather recognize her double vocation and, difficult though it seem, must educate her for both phases of her "business." She will be not only the better woman, but the better worker, because of the very breadth of her vocational horizon.
Training for homemaking, then, must go hand in hand with training for some phase of industrial life. Vocational guides must consider not only inclination and temperament, but physical condition and the supply and demand of the industrial world. They will consider the girl not merely as an industrial worker, but as a potential homemaker. They will, therefore, also study the effect of various vocations upon homemaking capabilities.
How then shall the teaching of this double vocation be approached? How shall we, as teachers of girls, make them capable of becoming homemakers? How shall we make them see that homemaking and the world's work may go hand in hand, so that they will desire in time to turn from their industrial service to the later and better destiny of making a home? This book offers its contribution toward answering these questions.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Ida M. Tarbell, The Business of Being a Woman.
[2] Lester F. Ward, Pure Sociology.