AGAINST THE WALL'

BY THERESA VIRGINIA BEARD

With our backs to the wall "-Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, April 13, 1918
God spare thee not, America.
This penitential day!
Against the wall, in Flanders,
The nations stand at bay;

G

And thou, the strong, the mighty,
A laggard at the fray!

God drive thee hard, America,

So hesitant, so slow;

God smite thee in his anger,
And fling thee at the foe;

The last black dregs of sacrifice
May it be thine to know!

God save thee, O America!
The glory and the fame,

Once thy fathers', be thy children's,-
Not thine the deathless shame
That freedom fell in Flanders
Calling upon thy name!

"A LAGGARD AT THE FRAY"

ERMANY has all the summer before her. Spring has barely begun, and she has poured her armies into French territory that has not seen a German since 1914. She first rolled back the French. She has now rolled back the British. And we, a Nation of a hundred million free people, look on helplessly. It is true we have a few score thousands of soldiers at the front; but, spirited and brave as they are, they cannot count greatly when millions are engaged. We have been in this war for a year and longer, and the American forces at the front are to be ranked in numbers with the Belgians and the Portuguese. We read each day in the newspapers of what these brave and fine young soldiers of America are doing. We are proud of them. We believe in them. We know we can count on them. But they are few, pitifully few. And we have not given them even the arms that they need. They have no artillery except such as that of which hard-pressed France deprives hard-pressed Italy to give them. A while ago Mr. Baker, our Secretary of War, stood in a front trench in France and called it the “frontier of freedom.' Since then that frontier has been pushed back. Behind the armies that are defending that frontier are the liberties of the world. Behind those armies is the freedom of America. Our British friends and our French friends have been very generous in what they have said of America's preparations, and we thank them for their generosity; but we owe heartiest thanks to such a friend as Lloyd George, who did us a service in expressing disappointment at our slowness.

No one except our enemies will profit if we fool ourselves. We Americans will never count in this war unless we face the facts. It will help us to face the facts to listen to such a voice as that of Theresa Virginia Beard, whose poem, "Against the Wall," we print on this page. This country is, as Mrs. Beard says, a laggard at the fray. Our people have been led to imagine that there was no need for hurry.

Our Government has been deliberate when it ought to have been in haste. It has gone about its preparations as if there were plenty of time. Our Army has needed machine guns with which to meet the oncoming Germans, and our Government, instead of using machine guns already available, has waited to perfect a machine gun that may prove to be better than those in existence; but in the meantime the Germans have come on. Our Army has needed airplanes, and our Government, instead of using airplane motors already in existence and tested in war, has waited to perfect its Liberty motor, which may prove better At this time, when our allies are enduring the terrific blows of the German offensive, this poem comes to us from Mr. Roosevelt with this note : I have just read Against the Wall,' a stern and noble poem by Theresa Virginia Beard, which has recently been published in the Minneapolis Journal.' Mrs. Beard is the wife of a professor in the University of Minnesota. She is fit to be a fellowcountry woman of Julia Ward Howe." Some of the prosaic facts which this poem illumines are mentioned in the editorial which follows the poem.-THE EDITORS.

than any existing motor; ut in the meantime our soldiers at the front are dependent upon the airplanes of the French, and our soldiers even at home have not had the planes which they need for training. It is right to aim at improvement, and even perfection, but we ought not to let action wait upon discovery of the best when need calls for the use of every resource available.

Our Government has acted as if there had been a chance that peace might be secured by negotiation before ever we got into the fight. We have thought that words, that persuasion, that argument, would weigh with a people who celebrated the Lusitania massacre, who glory in the bombing of women and children, who have been taught that they could brandish the sword and no one would dare resist. Our Government has so exalted the use of argument and negotiation that even when the President, openly acknowledging that reliance on persuasion has led only to “ disillusionment," declares that America must now use "force without stint or limit," the most consistent supporters of the Government's policies cannot believe that the Presi dent means what he says. We quote from the "New Republic:" He [President Wilson] is appealing to force without stint or limit because unless he can command it he may not be able to win the indispensable political victory. He says nothing about using it to deal Germany a "knock-out blow." It is needed because German generals have been allowed to dictate terms of peace with Russia and Rumania, and because they will not abandon their military conquests and advantages until they have been defeated. But the unlimited force is asked expressly for the purpose of obtaining a revision of the proposed settlement in the east, and the German Government can always remove the threat by agreeing to abandon the treaties.

Does this sound incredible? Is it possible that there are sane people in this country who can see what has happened across the water and yet believe that our millions of soldiers, the billions of dollars we are paying by taxes, the billions that we are raising by loans, and all the preparations we are making through the Red Cross and through our Army Medical Corps for the care of the wounded and disabled constitute only the gun behind the door? No wonder America is a laggard if there are many who believe this.

And America is a laggard. The imputation that such a statement as this originates in partisan opposition to the Administration and in a desire to supplant that Administration with another of a different party ought to be resented by all Americans as an attempt to divert public attention from facts to a futile discussion of motives. The facts are plain. They have been elicited by a Senatorial committee of which a majority were of the Administration party; and a majority member of that committee declared in the Senate: "I deem it proper to say that, without regard to the action taken by the Democrats of the committee, the action of the Republican members was particularly patriotic and loyal. They waived any possible political benefit which their party might have derived from denouncing those in power, and willingly joined their Democratic associates in pointing out what they felt would remedy the evils in the future." The Senator who said this was Mr. Hitchcock, of Nebraska, a Democrat, and we quote from his account of what the members of that committee found:

We found most of the machine-gun companies unable to drill two months after they were formed because they had no machine guns. Even in December we found 1,200 machine guns still kept in storage for some foolish and inexplicable reasons while each camp had only been supplied with about 80 machine guns.

We found men sent to France without opportunity for rifle or machine-gun practice.

...

We found that we must depend on overworked and overstrained France for machine guns for ground use until nearly the end of this year, and that not over one-tenth of the new Browning machine guns on which we are to rely can be delivered before August.

We found that we are only now, nine months after entering the war, just beginning work on two great powder plants, costing $90,000,000, the powder from which will not be available until next August. We found that we need a million pounds of powder a day more than America is producing. We found that the need of this powder was known last spring, and that now for the first time we are beginning to build the factories in which the powder is to be made.

The present condition of our ship-building is nothing less than

shocking. The present supply of shipping is worse than alarming. I am afraid to go too deeply into the figures, for one might be charged with giving information of value to the enemy were one to tell the truth about the present supply of shipping.

To our Government belongs the responsibility for such a state of affairs. The Government cannot plead lack of power, for it has been made powerful by Congress beyond the dreams of any Government this country has ever known. It cannot plead lack of funds. It has been endowed with billions by a Congress that has levied unprecedented taxes, and by a people who have wholeheartedly supported such taxation by their cheerful acquiescence, and have added their emphatic support by the loaning of billions more to the Government. It cannot plead lack of warning, for this country watched the progress of the war for two years and three-quarters before it entered the war itself. And now, a year after entering the war, with all funds at its disposal that it has asked for, with ample power, and after full warning, the Government finds itself unable to place any considerable army beside the armies of our allies, and is even unable to persuade some of its own supporters that it really intends to use force without stint or limit."

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For every achievement of this country since war was declared in April, 1917, the Government deserves credit. For the adoption of conscription, for the building of the cantonments, for the creation of a really democratic army that is really disciplined, for the creation of a morale that is beyond anything any American army ever before had and is probably unmatched in the army of any other country, for the rapid expansion of the Navy and its effective use in the submarine zone, and for other like achievements, it is to the Government that credit belongs. But where credit goes also should go blame for mistakes, negligence, failure. And, after all, what counts now is not the incidental achievements, but only victory. Without victory nothing else is of any use. And the failures, the negligence, the mistakes, are to-day imperiling victory. We cannot help those that are past, but the people of America can insist that they shall not be repeated, and can also insist that the men who have made the mistakes, who have been guilty of negligence, who have been responsible for the failures, shall be replaced by competent men.

This is what the American people owe to our allies of Britain and France who are standing with their back to the wall. This is what the American people owe to the weaker free peoples who have been struggling for their rights during these years against the Hun. This is what the American people owe to their soldiers who have already gone to the front, and to the men, the volunteers and the selected alike, who are to-day in training. This is what the American people owe to those thousands who have sacrificed their money, their home ties, their future, and have offered themselves for public service, and have labored and are laboring at their patriotic tasks. This is what the American people owe to themselves as a free people who love their liberty and who disdain to leave to others the task of defending it.

The world is learning that Germany has deliberately pursued a policy of Schrecklichkeit frightfulness-in order so to terrify neutral nations that they will not oppose her. The policy has failed in affecting belligerents already engaged in the war, but, unfortunately, it has had marked effect on some of the smaller neutrals.

Since the election of Mayor Hylan last November the opponents of the Fusion principle in municipal government have been pursuing a policy of political Schrecklichkeit in order to make private citizens afraid ever again to oppose the political machine. The District Attorney of New York County has been carrying on a so-called investigation of finances of the Fusion Committee which directed the campaign in behalf of ex-Mayor John Purroy Mitchel. As a result of that investigation a special grand jury has found an indictment against William Hamlin Childs, who was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Fusion Committee, and was thus the recognized head of the Fusion movement. Mr. Childs has not been accused of or indicted for corruption or making money out of the campaign for himself or any of his associates. He is accused of failing to

mention names in two of the financial items of the report of his Committee. The facts are that the Committee employed exGovernor Sulzer as a speaker during the campaign, and paid him $5,000 for his services; that they also paid Mr. Mischa Appelbaum, the head of an organization known as the Humanitarian Cult, $6,500 for the services of his organization in arranging meetings and speeches in behalf of the Fusion movement. In the Committee's report these two sums of money were named, but they were grouped under the general head of "expenses for speakers, etc.," and ex-Governor Sulzer's name and that of the manager of the Humanitarian Cult were not made public. It may be added that Mr. Childs did not sign the report and did not even see it, that duty belonging to the department of the treasurer, but Mr. Childs had instructed that department that the report should be legal in every respect and that counsel should be cor.sulted in the manner of its preparation, and this was done. Further, there was no conceivable object which could have been accomplished by Mr. Childs in concealing the payments to Sulzer and Appelbaum, as it was several weeks after the election that the reports were filed and every one knew that both Sulzer and Appelbaum had been working hard for the election of Mr. Mitchel under the direction of the Fusion Committee. It has always been the policy of The Outlook to urge its readers never to try a case or to determine a verdict in advance of the orderly court proceedings which, under both law and equity. must be the final determination of an indictment like that now found against Mr. Childs and his associates. But it is a principle of equity as well as of common law that an indictment is merely a legal complaint, and that even an indicted man must be considered innocent until he is proved guilty. In this particular case there are circumstances which we think every citizen who is sincerely interested in good and honest government ought to know.

Mr. Childs is a prominent business man of New York City. engaged in large affairs and recognized everywhere as an exceedingly able executive. During the last four years he has spent his time and money freely and unselfishly in the cause of good government. In 1916 he organized the Roosevelt NonPartisan League, in support of Mr. Roosevelt for the Presidential nomination. When Mr. Hughes was nominated, he, with equal vigor and in accordance with the best traditions of Americanism, supported Mr. Hughes for election. He believed, as The Outlook believes, that Mayor John Purroy Mitchel furnished New York City the best administration it has ever had, and while Mr. Childs is a Republican of New England birth and tradition, he gave his aid to the Fusion movement and endeavored to elect Mr. Mitchel as a civic duty. He has not only never made a dollar out of his political work, but he has spent many thousands for the benefit of his fellowcitizens. He has never sought office or political emoluments of any kind, and has declined many suggestions leading in this direction. To single him out, as has been done, in a technical indictment is believed by his friends to be a form of punishment visited upon him by certain sinister political influences in New York City.

Among these sinister influences are the newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst. They have devoted much attention to the indictment, and have endeavored to make it appear that it is a result of corruption on the part of the Fusion Committee. Some one, certainly not disagreeably to Mr. Hearst, has sent portraits of Mr. Childs and the two associates who were indicted with him, broadcast throughout the State with flamboyant headlines describing, but very unfairly interpreting, the indictment. With these facts it should be observed that Mr. Hearst is believed by the best political judges to be laying his plans for the Democratic nomination for Governor of the State of New York next autumn. If by political Schrecklichkeit he can terrify those men who believe he is a menace not only to his State but to his country so that they will not oppose his nomination or election, he will be pursuing a policy which he has often pursued in the past. The Outlook believes that Mr. Hearst is such a menace, that even his nomination as a candidate for Governor of the State of New York would be a very profound danger.

Mr. James M. Beck is recognized throughout the Englishspeaking world as in a very special sense a representative of

We are to-night concerned with the efforts of pro-German sympathizers to weaken the purpose and sap the morale of the American people by a bastard pacifism.

This serpent must not only be "scotched," but stamped out altogether, if America is to be worthy of its great destiny.

The source and inspiration of this spirit is not far to seek. We need not concern ourselves with its minor rivulets and eddies. We must go to the fountain-head itself and dam up its pernicious influences.

Its chief source is to be found in the journalistic enterprises of one man, and his name is William Randolph Hearst. His power for evil is immeasurable. He is said to own seventeen newspapers and magazines, and, as he controls the policy of papers in Boston, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, the daily influence that he exerts is Nation-wide. No single influence is comparable with the Hearst influence in its potency for evil. His leading organ in this city claims a circulation of 450,000 copies, and, if so, it is altogether probable that it is daily read by a million people in the section to which it is tributary. His adherents do not greatly exaggerate when they claim for Mr. Hearst a daily audience of five millions of people. It is thus within Mr. Hearst's power to convey to these millions the subtle poison of insidiously disloyal utterances, and it may be said without exaggeration that the greatest menace to the part which America is destined to play in the struggle comes from the Hearst press.

Mr. Hearst's papers have justified the sinking of the Lusitania, have justified the German submarine policy, and have opposed lending money or sending munitions to the Allies. In view of these facts, we think Mr. Hearst's opposition to Mr. Childs as the representative of the Fusion movement for good government in this city last autumn is an honor to Mr. Childs, an honor which we are glad to share by saying that Mr. Childs is a Director of The Outlook Company. In our association with him we have always found him actively interested in every reasonable movement for good government, and constantly supporting The Outlook in taking its stand, without fear of personal consequences or without seeking the favor of any political personages, in behalf of honesty, sincerity, truth, and human rights in all forms of government, local, National, or international.

"A little gray thing that lives in a cave."

Exactly!" The Literally-Minded Lady shot out the word as though there were saltpeter behind it. "I had it all pictured out," she went on, with something that was almost a wail. "I didn't think you were a little gray thing and I didn't think you lived in a real cave. But I thought at least that you must live in some cabin in the mountains, like a man I once knew in New Hampshire; a young man, too, with a great curly red beard-" "I could raise the beard if you insist," interposed the Happy Eremite. "Only you wouldn't like it. There are two spots right under the corners of my mouth that refuse to grow whiskers, and the effect when I try is as where the moth doth corrupt.' "I don't insist on a beard," cried the Lady, a little petulantly. "And I never said that I did, though the idea of a hermit shaving every day is, you must admit, grotesque. But that isn't my grievance. You call yourself an eremite. In other words, you deceive me and a few hundred thousand other people who read The Outlook into believing that you are a shy, unworldly person who lives withdrawn from the busy affairs of men; and here you have a stucco house on a hill outside one of our busiest and most worldly cities in the United States, a

"I don't see what the cook's name has to do with it," interposed the Happy Eremite, mildly.

66

It hasn't anything to do with it, but-"

"Besides," he added, with a wistful look, "she's gone." "Serves you right!" cried the Lady. "But that isn't the whole of your deception. You gave me to understand that you were shy—and here you are speechifying in movie theaters and orating at banquets, organizing farmers, running committees. Withdrawn from the affairs of men! Twice a week at least you're in the city for twelve hours or more gravely settling the affairs of the Nation with bankers and brokers and lawyers and editors and publishers. You an eremite? You're a fraud!"

The Happy Eremite received this lecture with befitting humility. "You do seem to have a case against me," he said, slowly. "That is the trouble with the Jekyll-and-Hyde business. Sooner or later one is always found out, and then the idealistic people are shocked because one is so much Hyde, and the plain, practical people are peeved because one is so much Jekyll. I thought I could get away with it-I suppose every criminal does --and let my Jekyll friends think I was all Jekyll, and my Hyde friends think I was all Hyde. I realized the necessity of getting away with it. No one really imagines that a man can sincerely be both." He paused. "You see, you don't."

"What I object to," cried the Literally-Minded Lady, "is your calling yourself an eremite when you are just common or garden variety of "hustler,' always rushing from place to place, always busy, always undertaking more than you can really do well. You're not an eremite," she added, indignantly; "you're a pinwheel."

The Lady's face was red. If the Happy Eremite had laughed, that might have eased the situation. But he did not laugh. He folded his hands between his knees and looked thoughtfully across his study to the spot where the leather-backed volumes of his Century Dictionary stood. He rose and drew forth Volume II-" D to Hoon."

"Here we are!" he exclaimed. "Eremite- one who lives in a wilderness or in retirement.'

"That is an accurate description of you, now isn't it?" cried the Lady, with fine sarcasm. "Modern plumbing, furnace, electric light, automobile, and six committee meetings a week."

"Wait," said the Happy Eremite. "We're not done yet. 'Specifically, in church history, in the earlier period, a Christian who, to escape persecution, fled to a solitary place, and there led a life of contemplation and asceticism.' He closed the book slowly and shoved it back in its place.

"Well?" remarked the Lady, patiently. There was a pause. "You may be a Christian, though I have my doubts," she went on, not without asperity. "But as for persecution, I don't know what you are talking about."

He leaned forward, quite in earnest now, not joking at all. "Don't you see?" he said, softly. "I'm not really a fraud. It's just that, inside this body that you see and that shaves every morning, somewhat to your distress, are two persons-the one loving action, the other loving dreams. The one loves to mix among men, to be a part of great movements, to work, to fight, to accomplish tangible things. The other likes to sit in a corner of the hills away somewhere, away from people, away from noise, forgetting the terrible present, losing himself in what seems to him the only real world, the world of the imagination, dipping in baths of beauty to cleanse himself from the smoke and dust of the common day.' The fellow who loves action is constantly trying to choke the fellow who loves dreams, to burn him at the stake in the hot fire of practical busy-ness. And so the dream fellow, 'to escape persecution,' just as the dictionary says, flees to a solitary place,' and there leads a life of contemplation and asceticism.' I lead a double life, you see. One half of me is a hustler, gunning for 'results' The other half of me is an eremite, sitting in the sun, just wondering about things.

"I see, I see," murmured the Literally-Minded Lady, and did not see at all. "Perhaps you are not a fraud. But the dictionary says something about asceticism."

"You don't know the servant problem in Mohican County," said the Happy Eremite.

ND now, girls, I want to say that I do not believe any healthy

and ugly; he may become dull and poky. Are you going to

unresting curiosity about matters of sex, and I believe that when you are fourteen or fifteen years old (perhaps in some cases when you are even younger) your curiosity should be satisfied. . . . If you are prudish, please remember that the same God who made our souls and minds designed and created the functions of our bodies. To think that we can invent some story about our bodily functions that would be more refined and pure than what he has designed seems to me the height of blasphemy.

There are more decent men than bad ones. But you can be on your guard with every one, particularly if there is any question of love-making. Keep tight hold of your heart (if that organ in your case happens to be of the affectionate variety), no matter how lonely you may be and how much you may long for affection.

A girl's boy friends are often, quite unconsciously of course. the cause of many an injury to a girl's health. ... Mothers should really explain to their sons that once a month girls have to keep quiet. This knowledge only brings out the chivalry and sympathy that are deeply implanted in the nature of all nice boys.

Mothers should always give up their own pleasure for their child's welfare and their own welfare for their child's welfare, and sometimes, but not too often, their own pleasure for their child's pleasure, but never their own welfare for their child's pleasure.

Every generation has its own ideas about what is right and proper to do under all circumstances. Each generation adapts itself to the times in which it lives-to truth as it appears to it. Perhaps one of the most striking differences between the point of view of good people of this generation and the last is in regard to this matter of sacrifice. The modern generation does not seek sacrifice out; they do not feel that there is a virtue in the sacrifice itself unless the end to be obtained is worth the sacrifice. But if the end is worth the sacrifice, modern people will meet this demand upon them just as proudly, as heroically, and as cheerfully as any of the old-time martyrs. The great war has proved this thousands of times.

Your husband should be your best friend. I say "friend" advisedly, although I believe that for the man you are going to marry you should feel a strong physical attraction, and that when you are with him you should feel no end of glamour, thrills, and other unfriendlike emotions. But unless in your mind's eye you can picture your future husband as your kindest, truest friend as well as the most fascinating companion, do not marry him.

A woman can nearly always visualize the future, and she has intuitions about character. Picture yourself ill in bed, your face drawn and haggard, all beauty gone. Then imagine the man you are thinking of as a husband as he comes into the room. Does his face light up with joy at the thought of your coming recovery, and with pity and tenderness for your suffering and weakness, or does he look repelled at the inevitable ugliness of your condition? . . . Children, the best gift life has to offer us, still prevent us from doing many of the things we long to do. The time and the money that you used to be able to devote to the making of clothes for yourself alone now must provide them for several people. The not very stimulating babble of the children now takes the place of the interesting talks and experiences of old days. With your mind's eye on the future, can you see your husband coming home filled with the desire to make life brighter for you, or does he look bored and rush to his lodge or club as soon as he can get away?

And can you see yourself as his best friend? He may be ill

by

him in his hour of trouble or illness; will you be cheerful, brave. and intelligent if he loses all his money; will you help him to develop his best characteristics, not nag him about his bad ones? And will you care enough for him to make the effort not to get dull or dowdy even if you are overworked in the home? I do not mean to say that I advise you to make a slave of your self for any husband, nor do I want him to be a slave to you. For instance, let us suppose that he is the one who has become "poky," while you still love society and fun outside the home. There will be four courses open to you. You can give up all your own wishes and spend every evening at your own fireside with him; you can make a row, sacrifice his tastes and drag him out with you every night; you can let him go his way while you go yours; or, best of all, you can compromise by staying at home with him half the time, and gently, tactfully persuading him to go out with you occasionally.

The relation between husband and wife, if it is a happy one at all, is the most happy one in the world. It is well worth & great deal of effort to make it as perfect as it is possible to be

made.

We, the women of America, cannot deny the fact that some how we have made domestic service the most disliked of all the business professions for women. The average young American girl of not exceptional natural ability and not much education would rather work in a factory at six dollars a week and pay her board out of that than do housework in a home where she gets all her living expenses and can show a profit of at least twenty dollars every month. It is a great pity. If domestic service could be standardized, humanized, and yet made more businesslike and consequently more attractive to girls who must support themselves, more of them would choose it as a means of livelihood, thereby saving the health of many an over worked mother and forcing the shops and factories to pay their women better wages in order to attract enough of them to carry on their work. If employers made domestic science popular. more girls would take a domestic science course in school, and the taxpayers would be more willing to pay for such courses Women well trained for domestic work would be able, wher finally married, to run a home better than the average factory girl, who hardly knows a bean from a potato, a sheet from i tablecloth.

After your profession, trade, or craft is mastered, so far as school can teach you to master it, you will have another lesson to learn if you are going to succeed out in the world—the lesson of submerging your own opinions and expressing those of your employer. For this reason it is important for you to find out all that you can about the man or woman who offers you a position before you accept it. . . .

Competence is the first quality demanded, the habit of not bungling or hesitating but going straight to the point. Beyond this, an employer likes to have a certain respect paid to his idiosyncrasies. Probably they will seem silly to you, but he may be rather vain of them. The doubling or not doubling of a letter in some word may seem to him to be of sufficient importance to cause a wearisome recopying of a letter, while in the meantime the mail goes out. You should carry out these ideas amiably and without comment even to your co-workers. Criticism of your employer to your associates is in very poor taste.

The way to be good-looking physically is to be healthy, well developed, and amiable.

I think a look of intelligence is perhaps the best fundamental expression for a face. On that should be a layer of humor. On that a look of great kindness, and on top of that an expres

sion that suggests what, I believe, the modern girl calls "pep." The most unattractive expression is no expression at all—a kind of blank, cowlike appearance. Worry, bad temper, and discontent make very disagreeable lines on a face. The experience of genuine sorrow bravely borne only adds to the interest of a face on which are expressed intelligence, kindness, humor, and veracity.

Girls, have you ever stopped to think how much you consume? The almost constant time and thought of your parents, the services of friends, teachers, perhaps servants, tons of food, hundreds of articles of clothing, much space? What do you produce of equal value to what you consume? . . .

Unless you are singularly unfortunate, you ought to be able to produce a little more than you consume. Indeed, if the majority of people had not been doing that for the thousands, perhaps millions, of years the world has existed we should not be better off to-day than were our most remote ancestors.

You can be a producer in various ways, spiritual and physical. Unless you have a rare talent for one of the great arts, the best thing you can do for the world and for yourself is to marry and create children and that partly tangible, partly intangible thing called a home. If you do not marry, but still are supported by your father, you can be worth all you consume if you do gratuitous work for the benefit of the community. If you become that admirable person, the self-supporting woman, you can easily earn all you consume.

If you are going to marry on a small income, you will probably have to do a great deal of housework. Do you know how to cook, how to keep your house in order, how to systematize the housework so that it will not take all your time and strength? Do you know anything about buying, so that your money will go as far as possible, or anything about the utilization of the waste material of the household-paper, rags, bottles, scraps of food? If your husband is well off, you should know, in addition to the things enumerated above, how to manage your servants so that they will do the work of the house satisfactorily and yet will be contented in your employ.

It never seems to me quite straight of a girl to marry and undertake to run a house when she knows nothing about it and does not even take an intelligent interest in doing it well. . . . I have known people with plenty of money and a so-called "good" education in whose houses, when you looked below the surface, dirt, confusion, and even vermin prevailed everywhere. When such a condition of affairs exists, it is always the wife's fault, unless she is a serious invalid. . . .

I cannot deny that housework is very monotonous, but so is all work. Sometimes it is extremely uncongenial work to the women who have to perform it, but this much can be said in its favor: You are your own boss when you are doing it, and the more skill, science, and thrift you put into it the more interesting it is.

And now, you may say, how am I to learn all these useful things? If you live in or near a big city, you can attend a domestic science course in some school or college. In the smaller cities and villages such advantages may not exist. In that case I can only say that you must teach yourself. This you can do perfectly well if you will read, keep your eyes open, and develop your critical faculties.

For reading, subscribe to one or more of the women's magazines.

us say,

A good exercise (and an amusing one also) is to set yourself some imaginary problem in housekeeping. Allow yourself, let $50 with which to furnish a room. With the aid of catalogues, which the great mail order houses and big city department stores will gladly furnish you, you can easily select in imagination furniture that will come within the price limits you have set yourself. And what shall this furniture be? Do you want to spend all your spare time dusting it? No. Well, then, choose things with flat surfaces, simple, straight lines. Simple, plain things are more restful to live with, anyway, than things of meaningless elaboration. Choose beforehand some definite color scheme, and try to follow that out in your selection of rug, hangings, and covers. If you have to economize in something, try to use good judgment as to where you will economize. . . .

Women of independent means and leisure are making a won

derful record for themselves as unremunerated workers in the field of philanthropy and public service. ... Women, volunteers, still without the vote in most of our States, are toiling to promote better legislation in all our States and in the Nation. Women are active in village improvement work and have done wonders in the last few years to make our country places more sanitary and more beautiful. .

I could fill a book if I were to record all the useful, civilizing things the unpaid woman is doing for the country.

If you should go to work while you are living at home, you ought to be able to lay up a good sum of money.

. . There is a real fascination about seeing the figures in your bank book gradually getting bigger and bigger. After you have a couple of hundred dollars, let us say, in the bank, you can wisely begin to save up for a more lucrative investment.

Girls, I wish I could make you feel the real comfort of having a little income of your own-even if it is only ten dollars a year-that comes in regularly, rain or shine, sick or well. You can soon save it if you bend your mind to it.

look up to the intellect of the girls he is attentive to. He is not Nowadays the best type of man likes to admire and even afraid of the girl with a trained mind and a strong active character. All right-thinking girls want to be attractive to men, of course, but those of this generation will not make this desire the sole object of their lives; nor, for the sake of attaining this attractiveness, will they willingly sacrifice the expression of their own tastes and talents. Remember, too, that a well-trained mind is not inconsistent with good looks, pretty clothes, graceful dancing, and pleasing manners.

Even Mary Lyon, that great New England teacher of nearly one hundred years ago, when the shadow of the gloomy Puritan theology was still dark upon her section of the United States, said: "God wants you to be happy; he made you to be happy. And, "You have no right to give up your happiness just because you are willing to do so."

If it is right for one person to work for the happiness of another person, it must be right for the latter to receive and enjoy this happiness.

Do not mistake pleasures or amusements for happiness; people who make them their object in life are the most bored, unhappy people in the world. Nevertheless, pleasure and amusements occupy a very important place in life.

With the modern self-starter and demountable rims any woman can run an automobile, as far as muscular strength is concerned. Her mind should work quickly and she should have decision of character. She should also have self-control enough to keep calm under trying or dangerous circumstances. If she has not these characteristics to start with, running an automobile will develop them. Perhaps it is unnecessary to say that they are characteristics which are useful not only in the auto but on many occasions of every-day life. It is said that many physicians recommend being physicians recommend being an amateur chauffeur to nervous women who, if they once learn to conquer real dangers, will seldom worry about imaginary ones.

The old illogical idea that women were too frail to do any thing out of doors, but were strong enough to bring ten children into the world, and do all the housework and dressmaking for this large family, does not receive much credence in these days.

A REQUEST

In The Outlook of February 27, 1918, we printed an editorial paragraph based on a letter from a lady living in a university town in the State of New York, in which she described the need in that town, even in school and university circles, of the right kind of information about France and the French people. We recommended certain books which ought to be read by intelligent men and women who want to know something about the real traits of our gallant allies. Unfortunately, we have lost the name and address of our correspondent, and we have received an interesting letter from a wellknown Frenchman living in France who desires, as a result of that editorial, to get into communication with this lady. If this paragraph should fall under her eye, will she kindly send us her name and address?