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institution for embryo wives since childhood. We are told in our early
teens: "Well, only your mother would bear that. No husband would;" or,
"You will have to be more gentle and unselfish with your brother, if
you want to make some man a good wife."

A good wife! It has a magic sound!

Of course, every girl expects to marry, and the shadowy idea of making
a _good_ wife to this mysterious but delightfully interesting
personage, who is growing up somewhere in the world, and waiting for
her, even as she is waiting for him, makes the hard task of
self-discipline easier, for we all wish to make "a _good_ wife."

Nor are we taught alone to be gentle and sweet and faithful. We girls
have to learn that all-potent factor in a happy life--tact. We are
early taught that it is not enough to master the fundamental
principles which govern the genus man. We have to discover that each
man must be treated differently. We must cater to individual tastes.
We must learn individual needs, and fill them. In short, we are taught
to observe men, to study them, and then to hold ourselves accordingly.

Pray do not imagine that all this is put into words, or that we have
certain hours for studying how to make good wives, or that it is as
rigid or exhausting as a broom drill. It is the intangible, esoteric
philosophy which permeates the households of thousands of American
families, where the mothers are the companions and confidantes of the
daughters. It is an understood thing. You would be surprised to know
how young some girls are when they have thoroughly mastered this
wonderful tact with men. And what is it that makes the American girl
so dangerous for all the other women in the world to compete with? It
is because she studies her man. And how did she learn it? By seeing
her mother manage her father--or, perhaps, by seeing how easily her
father could be managed, if her mother only understood him better.

There is a good deal of progressive thought among girls in this
generation.

Why in the world mothers train their girls and boys alike up to a
certain point in general courtesy and consideration for each other,
and then go on with the girls, teaching them the gentle, faithful
finesse which every wife has to understand, yet leaves her boy to
"gang his ain gait" just at the formative period of his life, I am not
able to say.

If I could only hear some mother say to her son, "Don't let your
slate-pencil squeak so! Try not to make dis