forward-looking ones who feel that the domestic side of woman's
activities is overemphasized, and from those who still hark back, who
would fain refuse to believe that the majority of women have to be
wage-earners for at least part of their lives. These latter argue
that by affording to girls all the advantages of industrial training
granted or which may be granted to boys, we are "taking them out of
the home." As if they were not out of the home already!

This assumption will appear to most readers paradoxical, if indeed it
does not read as a contradiction in terms. A little thought, however,
will show that it is just because we are all along assuming the
economic primacy of the boy, that the girl has been so disastrously
neglected. It is true that the boy is also a potential father, and
that his training for that lofty function is usually ignored and will
have to be borne in mind, though no one would insist that training
for fatherhood need occupy a parallel position with training for
motherhood. But popular reasoning is not content with accepting this
admission; it goes on to draw the wholly unwarranted conclusion that
while the boy ought to be thoroughly taught on the wage-earning
side, and while such teaching should cover all the more important
occupations, to which he is likely to be called, the girl's
corresponding training shall as a matter of course be quite a
secondary matter, fitting her only for a limited set of pursuits, many
of these ranking low in skill and opportunities of advancement, and
necessarily among the most poorly paid; these being all occupations
which we choose to assume girls will enter, such as sewing or
box-making. Only recently have girls been prepared for the textile
trades, though they have always worked in these, first in the home and
since then in the factories. Still less is any preparation thought
of for the numberless occupations that necessity and a perpetually