Guardians received these theories, I learned that "they knew she was
right and dropped their plan."

The faith of leading women that experience would be the best teacher for
the soldier's wife has been justified. A labor leader in the Midlands
told me that an investigation by his trade union showed that only one
hundred women in the ten thousand cases inquired into were mis-spending
their allowances. And when I was visiting a board school in a poor
district of London, and remarked to the head teacher that the children
looked well cared for, she told me that never had they been so well fed
and clothed. There seemed no doubt in her mind that it was best to have
the family budget in the hands of the mother. In the sordid surroundings
of the mean streets of great cities, there is developing in women
practical wisdom and a fine sense of individual responsibility.

Perhaps of greater significance than just how separation allowances are
being spent is the fact that women have discovered that their work as
housewives and mothers has a value recognized by governments in hard
cash. It makes one speculate as to whether wives in the warring nations
will step back without a murmur into the old-time dependence on one man,
or whether these simple women may contribute valuable ideas towards the
working out of sound schemes of motherhood pensions.

The women of Great Britain are experiencing economic independence, they
are living in an atmosphere of recognition of the value of their work as
housewives and mothers. Women leaders in all classes give no indication
of regarding pensions or remuneration in gainful pursuits as other than
permanent factors in social development, and much of the best thought of
men as well as women is centered on group experiments in domestic
coöperation, in factory canteens, in municipal kitchens, which are a