doubt the vital
question of the age.

"Edward Everett Hale, with his far spiritual sight, has discerned the
necessity for restoring home training, and advocates, to this end, short
school terms of a few weeks annually. It is probable that in the future
many school departments will be relegated to the home, but the homes are
not now prepared to assume these duties.

"When it was discovered that citizens must be prepared for their
political duties the schools were opened; but the means so far became
an end that even women were educated only in the directions which bear
upon public and not upon household economy. The words of Stein, that
'what we put into the schools will come out in the manhood of the nation
afterward,' cannot be too often quoted. Let branches in household
economy be connected with all the general as distinguished from
normal-school grades, and we not only relieve the girl immediately of
the strain of working with insufficient food, and of acquiring skill in
household duties in addition to the school curriculum, we not only
simplify and harmonize her work, but we send out in every case a woman
prepared to carry this new influence into all her future life, even if a
large number of these women should eventually pursue special or higher
technical branches; for we are women before we are teachers, lawyers,
physicians, etc., and if we are to add anything of distinctive value to
the world by entering upon the fields of work hitherto pre-empted by
men, it will be by the essential quality of this new feminine element.

"The strain in all work comes chiefly from lack of qualification by
training or nature for the work in hand,--tear in place of wear. The
schools can restore the ideal of quiet work. They have an immense
advantage in regularity, discipline, time. This vast system gives an
opportunity, such as no private schools offer, for ascertaining the
average work which is healthful for growing girls. It is quite possible
to ascertain, whether by women medical officers appointed to this end,
or by the teachers themselves, the physical capacity of each girl, and
to place her where this will not be exceeded. Girls trained in school
under such wise supervision would go out into life qualified to guard
the children of the future. The chief cause of overwork of children at
present is the ignorance of parents as to the injurious effects of
overwork, and of the signs of its influence.

"The first step toward the r