hence intolerable. Out of' that notion arise many lamentable
phenomena. On the one hand, we have the spectacle of a great
number of healthy and well-fed women engage in public activities
that, nine times out of ten, are meaningless, mischievous and a
nuisance, and on the other hand we behold such a decay in the
domestic arts that, at the first onslaught of the late war, the national
government had to import a foreign expert to teach the housewives
of the country the veriest elements of thrift. No such instruction
was needed by the housewives of the Continent. They were simply
told how much food they could have, and their natural competence
did the rest. There is never any avoidable waste there, either in
peace or in war. A French housewife has little use for a garbage
can, save as a depository for uplifting literature. She does her best
with the means at her disposal, not only in war time but at all times.


As I have said over and over again in this inquiry, a woman's
disinclination to acquire the intricate expertness that lies at the
bottom of good housekeeping is due primarily to her active
intelligence; it is difficult for her to concentrate her mind upon such
stupid and meticulous enterprises. But whether difficult or easy, it is
obviously important for the average woman to make some effort in
that direction, for if she fails to do so there is chaos. That chaos is
duly visible in the United States. Here women reveal one of their
subterranean qualities: their deficiency in conscientiousness. They
are quite without that dog-like fidelity to duty which is one of the
shining marks of men. They never summon up a high pride in
doing what is inherently disagreeable; they always go to the galleys
under protest, and with vows of sabotage; their fundamental
philosophy is almost that of the syndicalists. The sentimentality of