y; that regards itself as a purely isolated,
unrelated, irresponsible unit,--an atom without affinities! The home
can be, if it will, the most antisocial force in existence, for it
can, if it will, exist practically for itself. That excessive
individualism, which is responsible for so many evils in our country,
has encouraged this isolation. The girl who finds herself without a
productive place at home at the same time finds none of the fine
inspiration which comes from fitting herself into a social scheme and
helping to do its work. The spirit of the age is social. She feels its
call, she sees how unresponsive, even antipathetic, to it her home is.
She concludes that if she is to serve she must seek something to do in
some remote city. The attraction the Social Settlement has for the
girl finds its base here. The loss to communities of their educated
young women, who find no response to their need, no place to serve in
their own society, is incalculable.

It is not infrequent that a girl who may have by some chance of
fortune a sufficient sense of independence in her home, who knows
herself needed there, and is ready to perform the service, is driven
out by the persistence of that spirit of parental authority, which
looks upon it as a duty to rule the life, particularly of the
daughter, as long as she is at home. There is nothing clearer than
that the old domination of one person by another is a thing of the
past. A new spirit of cooeperation and friendly direction has come into
the world. The home which it does not pervade cannot keep its young.

The most essential thing for a woman to understand is that her
business is _not to order_ her daughter's life, but to assist that
daughter to shape it herself. She should be prepared to say to her:
"The most interesting and important thing in the world for you is to
work out your own particular life. You must build it from the place
where you stand and with the materials in your hands. Nobody else ever
stood in your particular place or ever will stand in one identical;
nobody ever has or can possess the same materials. You alone can fuse
the elements. Hold your place; do not try to shift into the place that
another occupies. Keep your eye on what you have to work with, not on
what somebody else has. The ultimate result, the originality, flavor,
distinction, usefulness of your life, depend on the care, the
reverence, and the intelligence with which you work up and out from
w