of every man and
woman who has had the pain and the privilege of seeing something of
the actual life of the people of this world.

CHAPTER IX

ON THE ENNOBLING OF THE WOMAN'S BUSINESS

That the varied, delicate, and difficult problems which crowd the
attention of the woman in her social laboratory should ever be
considered unworthy of first-class brains and training is but proof of
the difficulty the human mind has in distinguishing values when in the
throes of social change. We rightly believe to-day that the world is
not nearly so well run as it would be if we could--or would--apply
unselfishly what we already know. Each of us advocates his own pet
theory of betterment, often to the exclusion of everybody else's
theory.

One of the most disconcerting characteristics of advocates,
conservative and radical, is their conscienceless treatment of facts.
Rarely do they allow full value to that which qualifies or contradicts
their theories. The ardent and single-minded reformer is not
infrequently the worst sinner in this respect. To stir indignation
against conditions, he paints them without a background and with utter
disregard of proportion.

He wins, but he loses, by this method. He makes converts of those of
his own kind, those who like him have rare powers for indignation and
sacrifice, but little capacity or liking for the exact truth or for
self-restraint. He turns from him many who are as zealous as he to
change conditions, but who demand that they be painted as they are and
that justice be rendered both to those who have fought against them in
the past and to those who are in different ways doing so to-day.

The movement for a fuller life for American women has always suffered
from the disregard of some of its noblest followers, both for things
as they are and for things as they have been. The persistent
belittling for campaign purposes of the Business of Being a Woman I
have repeatedly referred to in this little series of essays; indeed,
it has been founded on the proposition that the Uneasy Woman of to-day
is to a large degree the result of the belittlement of her natural
task and that her chief need is to dignify, make scientific,
professionalize, that task.

I doubt if there is to-day a more disintegrating influence at
work--one more fatal to sound social development--than that which
belittles the home and the position of the woman in it. As a social
institution nothing so far devised by man