nder
whether, on the whole, man _is_ so very much dependent upon her. She
comes to rely more and more upon the specialist women to help her feed,
clothe, and nurse her husband. She has so much done for her that she
comes to understand the remainder left to her far better. She becomes a
specialist herself, and feels kindly towards other specialists. Then she
demands a vote and meets Chesterton, who tells her to go and mind the
baby and be as free as she likes with the domestic apparatus for making
pastry, when her baby is in point of fact being brought up by other
women at a Montessori school to be much more intelligent and much more
of a specialist than she herself is ever likely to be, and when she
knows that her dyspeptic husband has an absolute loathing for the
amateurishness that expresses itself in dough.

Then there is the alleged wrongness of permitting women to work in
factories and offices. We are all probably prepared to admit that we
have been shocked at the commercial employment of women. But it has
probably occurred to few of us that the shock was due simply to their
commercial employment. It was due to their low wages and to the
beastliness of their employers. When they drew decent wages and their
employers were decent men we were not the least bit hurt. But when an
employer made use of the amateurishness of young girls to underpay them,
and then make deductions from their wages on various trivial pretexts,
and put them to work in overcrowded factories and offices, then we all
felt acutely that an indecency was being committed. The obvious
democratic remedy is the duckpond, but in our great cities none remain.
So one is sorrowfully brought round to the slower but surer expedient of
attacking and destroying the amateurishness of women at the point where
it is dangerous to them. Amateurishness has encircled women in the past
like the seven rivers of Hades. Every now and again a daring excursion
was made in order that the wisdom of those imprisoned within should be
added to our store. A good deal of aboriginal amateurishness has been
evaporating as the woman doctor has been taking the place of the
time-honoured amateur dispenser of brimstone and treacle, and even
horrider things. And will Chesterton maintain that it were better for us
all if certain women had remained amateurs and had not studied and
specialized so that, in time of need, they were enabled to tend the sick
and wounded at home, in Flanders and