She was happy and contented until one day when the awakening blow came. In the attic she and her thirteen-year-old son, who was just entering high school, were looking through an old chest when she drew forth some examination reports and some old school cards--holding them up side by side. One set of the cards bore the father's name and the other set the mother's maiden name. In great surprise the boy exclaimed, "Why, mother, I never knew you studied algebra and Latin; why, mother, I never knew you were educated." Her eyes were immediately opened, the scales fell off, she was awakened to the fact that her own son was coming to regard his mother as somewhat inferior, in intellectual attainments, to the father--that she was considered in that home as a mere domestic. True, the steak had been broiled well, the pudding was exquisite, the children's clothes were always in order, the husband's trousers were always beautifully pressed, his ties were cleaned as well as a cleaner could clean them; but where did she stand in her boy's mind and where was she in her husband's mind? "Do you notice how trim and nice Mrs. Smith always looks? Her clothes are always in the latest style, and she combs her hair so becomingly." Such remarks as this from the well-meaning husband cut keenly, and it is well that they do, for often it is only such remarks that wake up our "home mother." Dear reader, I want you to ponder this story. I wish to say to the mother who has started out upon a career in life, who has prepared herself for teaching school, for a business career, for story writing, for millinery, for lecturing, or has perhaps graduated in a domestic science course, that she makes the mistake of her life in settling down, just because she has taken another's name, to be perfectly satisfied with becoming the household domestic, the household mender, the household cook. MOTHERS IN THE PROFESSIONS I have in my acquaintance scores of mothers in the professions, newspaper women, women who have carved out brilliant careers for themselves, women who have taught school for twenty years while their children have been growing up, women physicians who have risen in the esteem of all their professional brothers and sisters, women who have conducted cooking schools, who have occupied positions of trust in hospitals and in every walk of life, and who have successfully reared children at the same time. You will pardon me for being personal when I say that since our own little fellow was six weeks old his clothes have been washed and mended and his food has been prepared by earnest and honest women who had not fitted themselves for the career which this boy's mother had chosen. His mother went to her office, cared for her patients, kept up by the side of her husband in the battle of life. All the time there was a woman at home just devoted to that little fellow.