There are certain people who cry out that for a woman this undertaking has no meaning—­that for her it is a cook stove and a dustpan, a childbed, and a man who regards her as his servant.  One might with equal justice say that for the man it is made up of ten, twelve, or more hours, at the plow, the engine, the counter, or the pen for the sake of supporting a woman and children whom he rarely sees!  Unhappily, there are such combinations; they are not homes!  They are deplorable failures of people who have tried to make homes.  To insist that they are anything else is to overlook the facts of life, to doubt the sanity of mankind which hopefully and courageously goes on building, building, building, sacrificing, binding itself forever and ever to what?—­a shell?  No, to the institution which its observation and experience tell it, is the one out of which men and women have gotten the most hope, dignity, and joy,—­the place through which, whatever its failures and illusions, they get the fullest development and the opportunity to render the most useful social service.

It is this grounded conviction that the home takes first rank among social institutions which gives its tremendous seriousness to the Business of Being a Woman.  She is the one who must sit always at its center, the one who holds a strategic position for dealing directly with its problems.  Far from these problems being purely of a menial nature, as some would have us believe, they are of the most delicate social and spiritual import.  A woman in reality is at the head of a social laboratory where all the problems are of primary, not secondary, importance, since they all deal directly with human life.

One of the most illuminating experiences of travel is visiting the great chateaux of France.  One goes to see “historical monuments,” the scenes of strange and tragic human experiences; he finds he is in somebody’s private house, which by order of the government is opened to the public one day of the week!  He probably will not realize this fully unless he suddenly opens a door, not intended to be opened, behind which he finds a mass of children’s toys—­go-carts and dolls, balls and tennis rackets—­or stumbles into a room supposed to be locked where framed photographs, sofa cushions, and sewing tables abound!

To the average American it comes almost as a shock that these open homes are the logic of democracy.  It is almost sure to set him thinking that after all the home, anybody’s home, even one in such big contrast to this chateau as a two-story frame house, on Avenue A, in B-ville, has a relation to the public.  He has touched a great social truth.

To socialize her home, that is the high undertaking a woman has on her hands if she is to get at the heart of her Business.  And what do we mean by socialization?  Is it other than to put the stamp of affectionate, intelligent human interest upon all the operations and the intercourse of the center she directs?  To make a place in which the various members can live freely and draw to themselves those with whom they are sympathetic—­a place in which there is spiritual and intellectual room for all to grow and be happy each in his own way?