Housekeeping, then, does provide a check upon the development of woman’s individuality through the use of special powers, a check which extends over all her life and is independent of that imposed by childbearing. Finally, is this check necessary to the well-balanced life? This must be determined for individual cases. In trying to answer the question, we must keep in mind that whenever an activity is necessary to the realization of the ideal of home, it is necessary to the complete life, whether it involves the sacrifice of talents or not; when it is not so necessary and does not provide an outlet for special talents, it is an unjustifiable waste of woman’s life and of society’s resources. That which is necessary for good home-making can be determined only by holding fast to the highest ideal of home and by having a clear understanding of changing social conditions. The ideal never changes; the best home-making must always be an intelligent, affectionate effort to help others to attain as nearly as possible to completeness of life by securing for them those essentials of good living which they cannot obtain in other ways as well or better; but while the ideal remains always the same, the means by which it must be realized undergo constant change. Once it was necessary for a woman to make candles or to leave her husband and children in darkness. That time passed, for husband and children found a better light than that of homemade candles. And yet the woman continued her candle-making for a long period. She has done this with most of the varied activities of housekeeping, continuing them long after they had become only an obstacle in the way of her own independent development. The reason for this useless clinging to outgrown activities is to be found in our conception of the purposes of housekeeping. We have thought of its multiple activities as the ends toward which the talents of all women should be bent, no matter how difficult or how wasteful the bending process. A frank recognition of the varied character of women’s talents and of society’s need for the full and free exercise of these talents, and an appreciation also of the value of good home-making, not only to the world at large, but to women themselves as a means of rounding out and balancing their lives, will lead to a different conception. A special trade, craft, profession, business, or form of public work will seem the end toward which the peculiar talent of a given woman should be directed, while housekeeping will appear, not as an end in itself, but as a means, the means which at a given stage of industrial development all women may find it necessary to employ if they would give expression to their love by making homes.