Meanwhile, abetting this movement and rendering it ever more practicable, there are hundreds and thousands of commercial and voluntary corporations whose whole energies are directed towards taking the home-arts out of the hands of women. Science, as usual, following the hints implicit in values, has come to the assistance of our female population deficient in domestic skill and knowledge. The art of cooking is gradually becoming simplified into a mere fool’s game, and in its place we are being deluged by innumerable patent and proprietary products, the preparation of which requires no thought and no trouble. These products are very largely injurious to the bodies of those who live on them, but, as they leave the housewife ample leisure to gad about or else to earn money outside the home, no one complains. Quick gravy-makers, pudding- and cake-powders, tinned foods of every description all ready for consumption, custards, porridges, and jellies that require only a few minutes’ cooking, jams and preserves, and a multitude of other artificial aids to replace, though not to equal, the dishes of former days, now compose the normal contents of almost every working-class and middle-class market-bag. Never have the country’s food and its preparation been in a more deplorable condition than they are to-day. Nevertheless, so strong is the tradition to neglect bodily concerns, that all this vast machinery for supplementing traditional knowledge, skill, labour, and good food, in the home, has grown up in our midst without a word of protest from anyone. As regards the lot of infants and children, so completely broken is the tradition which, once upon a time, was handed down from mother to daughter, that now child-welfare-workers in every town in England, equipped with but a smattering of sound knowledge on the subject, have to teach the women of the masses the arts they have had no opportunity of acquiring. In the departments of dress-making, millinery, and lingerie, it is just the same. Together with the loss of skill and knowledge in the home, the supply of ready-mades from outside increases with leaps and bounds, and huge drapery-businesses, carried on in palatial premises, now line all our leading thoroughfares in a practically unbroken frontage. Thus, even if the girls and young women of the nation who are or who are not eligible for marriage were to remain at home, there would now be little for them to learn, and still less for them to do; and the recent Girl Guide Movement is the best possible proof that this fact has already been recognized. Meanwhile, it may be asked what it is that these 4,000,000 learn away from their homes. What do they acquire in exchange for their lost arts?