oduce. If they will not or cannot that is not her fault; she
is always there with the urge. Even when girls think they sell
themselves for the adornments so dear to youth they are merely the
victims of the race, driven toward the goal by devious ways. Nature,
of course, when she fashioned the world reckoned without science. I
sometimes suspect her of being of German origin, for so methodical and
mechanical is her kultur that she will go on repeating "two and two
make four" until the final cataclysm.

I think that American women are beginning to realize that American men
are played out at forty-five; or fifty, at the most. There are
exceptions, of course, but with the vast majority the strain is too
great and the rewards are too small. They cannot retire in time. I
have a friend who, after a brilliant and active career, has withdrawn
to the communion of nature and become a philosopher. He insists that
all men should be retired by law at forty-five and condemned to spend
the rest of their days tilling the soil gratis for women and the
rising generation. The outdoor life would restore a measure of their
dissipated vitality and prolong their lives.

This may come to pass in time: stranger things have happened. But, as
I remarked before, it is the present we have to consider. It seems to
me it would be a good idea if every woman who is both protected and
untrained but whose husband is approaching forty should, if not
financially independent, begin seriously to think of fitting herself
for self-support. The time to prepare for possible disaster is not
after the torpedo has struck the ship.

A thousand avenues are open to women, and fresh ones open yearly. She
can prepare secretly, or try her hand at first one and then another
(if she begins by being indeterminate) of such congenial occupations
as are open to women of her class, beyond cooking, teaching, clerking.
Those engaged in reforms, economic improvements, church work, and
above all, to-day, war relief work, should not be long discovering
their natural bent as well as its marketable value, and the particular
rung of the ladder upon which to start.

Many women whose energies have long been absorbed by the home are
capable of flying leaps. These women still in their thirties, far from
neglecting their children when looking beyond the home, are merely
ensuring their proper nourishment and education.

Why do not some of the public spirited women, whose own fortunes are