ion. But on whatever grounds we despair of more
(if we are weak enough to despair), surely the least reasonable ground is
that we cannot see more: the mole might as well swear that there is no
Orion.

THE MUSES ON THE HEARTH

"How to be efficient though incompetent" is the title suggested by a
distinguished psychologist for the vocational appeals of the moment. Among
these raucous calls none is more annoying to the ear of experience than
the one which summons the college girl away from the bounty of the
sciences and the humanities to the grudging concreteness of a domestic
science, a household economy, from which stars and sonnets must perforce
be excluded. We have, indeed, no quarrel with the conspicuous place now
given to the word "home" in all discussions of women's vocations.
Suffragists and anti-suffragists, feminists and anti-feminists have united
to clear a noble term from the mists of sentimentality and to reinstate it
in the vocabulary of sincere and candid speakers. More frankly than a
quarter of a century ago, educated women may now glory in the work
allotted to their sex. The most radical feminist writer of the day has
given perfect expression to the home's demand. Husband and children, she
says, have been able to count on a woman "as they could count on the fire
on the hearth, the cool shade under the tree, the water in the well, the
bread in the sacrament." We may go farther and say that our high emprise
does not depend upon husband and children. Married or unmarried, fruitful
or barren, with a vocation or without, we must make of the world a home
for the race. So far from quarrelling with the hypothesis of the domestic
scientists, we turn it into a confession of faith. It is their conclusions
that will not bear the test of experience. Because women students can
anticipate no more important career than home-making, it is argued that
within their four undergraduate years training should be given in the
practical details of house-keeping. Any woman who has been both a student
and a housekeeper knows that this argument is fallacious.

Before examining it, however, we must clear away possible
misunderstandings. Our discussion concerns colleges and not elementary
schools. Those who are loudest in denouncing the aristocratic theory of a
college education must admit that colleges contain, even today, incredible
as it sometimes seems, a selected group of young women. It is also true
that the High Schools