[29] On this subject one of our most celebrated economists writes as follows: “Let us observe what to-day a good housewife of the middle class is able to get through in the way of domestic and hygienic activity, and of the education of children, and by means of the knowledge and employment of domestic machines; let us not overlook in what a one-sided way the great advances in natural science and in the mechanical arts have hitherto been devoted to the service of the great industries, what enormous economies are still possible if the same knowledge and intelligence are devoted to the amelioration of domestic service. Only the rough, barbarous housewife of the lower classes can say, ‘I have no more to-day to do in the house.’ When the mode of life is a healthy one, when to every dwelling-house is attached a garden, the housewife even to-day is fully occupied, and in the future will be still more so, notwithstanding all the schools that come to her assistance, all the shops, all the trades; notwithstanding all the products, including food-products, which nowadays she buys ready-made. And besides her domestic activity, she has to find time for lectures, for culture, for music, and for various socially useful activities--even women of quite the lower classes. Without this no social cure is possible.”--G. SCHMOLLER, “Elements of General Domestic Economy,” vol. i., p. 253 (Leipzig, 1901). THE SIMPLIFICATION OF HOUSEHOLD DUTIES.--English readers will find the questions briefly touched upon in this note--the enslavement of woman by an unceasing round of petty domestic toil, the necessity for devoting the same amount of finished intelligence to these domestic problems that has been devoted to “labour-saving” in most departments of masculine activity, and the lines on which future progress may be expected to move, bringing about in this way alone a much-needed “emancipation” of women--fully discussed by Mr. H. G. Wells in his sociological studies. See “Anticipations,” “Mankind in the Making,” “A New Utopia,” “In the Days of the Comet.”--TRANSLATOR.