II. HOUSECRAFT The position of modern woman towards matters domestic is somewhat undefined, and at best can hardly be considered satisfactory. Her attitude towards housekeeping is not one of enthusiasm. The Lancashire mill-girl is proud to have a house of her own, but prefers her life at the mill to one spent in ordering that house; the elementary school teacher considers housekeeping of so little economic interest that she is injured if she may not devote her married life to a profession demanding the best of her energy; the university graduate pretends to a mind superior to physical comfort and welfare unless it can be produced by a creature less specialised than herself. In the field of paid occupations for women, educated and uneducated, domestic work stands low; not necessarily low in scale of payment, but uninviting as a sphere of work and lacking the dignity of skilled employment. That good housewives may be found in every grade of society is evident, but the general trend of our social evolution demands that some organised effort shall be made to simplify actual work and to raise the appreciation of that work. In history and philosophy, the moral advantages of a good home have been acknowledged and extolled. The physical advantages are only now being fully emphasised, and there is an ever-increasing demand that women shall diligently apply their best efforts, first to the problems of the individual household, and then beyond it to those forms of housekeeping that fall to municipal and national control. We need a different estimate, a better realisation, of the enormous responsibility that lies in feeding, housing, and general hygienic conditions, and such a realisation must work from the top downwards in our social and intellectual strata.