We crossed the roof’s tarred gravel once more, and once more leaned over the tiled parapet and looked abroad at the city.
“I told you,” she said, “that women cannot give their leisure to useful activity without verging toward citizenship. That is the rule. There 207 are exceptions, caused by individual temperament. But that is the rule. Make one group of the women who use their leisure to good purpose. Make another of the women who use their leisure to no purpose. You’ll find a growing desire for citizenship in the former. You’ll find little such desire in the latter. The conflict that is going on among women who have any leisure at all is between the spirit which drives them toward a union with the life of the world and the spirit which drives them toward complete detachment and irresponsibility.
“So let’s say no more about the suffrage agitation. It’s simply a sequel to women’s interest in the world’s housekeeping. The broader question is, ‘Will that interest grow?’
“One would think it could hardly help growing. The hosts of women who are earning their living—they are immersed in the world even as men. But the women who are at home, with little children about them! They’re abstracted from the world, aren’t they? Yes, physically, just as much as ever. But mentally they come closer and closer to the world all the time.
“Have you read the Home Economics books? The day is coming, you know, when every girl will have the training those books suggest. It will make her a home woman, you say. Yes, it will help do that. But it will help even more to make her something else, too.
“Do you know that the Home Economics literature has more in it about civic service than any other one general kind of educational literature you can lay your hands on?
“Does that seem odd to you? I’ll tell you the reason for it.
“Home Economics is the study of Right Living, the study of the importance, the utility, and the possible beauty of the common things of daily existence. Now one cannot study sanitation, fresh air, pure food, adequate housing, the care of children, the protection of the family from disease, the maintenance of a proper environment and regimen for health and efficiency, without instantly perceiving the closeness of the relationship between the life of the individual and the life of the community.