Primitive society demands the service of even its immature members. Children are adults before their childhood is well begun. Civilization, recognizing the possibility of self preservation through lengthened youth, has said to the child "Play." Long youth means long life. Play time--leisure--for the youth is the bone and sinew of a high standard maturity. Leisure in youth for play, leisure in mature life for reflection and creation--these are two of the most precious gifts of civilization to social progress. The United States has led the nations in providing opportunity for leisure time. Labor saving devices have been brought to a higher perfection there than in any other part of the world. Nowhere are children kept longer from assuming the responsibilities of adult life; in few countries is the workday shorter for adults. Probably no other people in the world can supply themselves with the necessaries of life in so short a working time as can the inhabitants of the United States. If every able bodied adult engaged for five hours each day in gainful activity, enough economic goods could be created to provide all the necessaries and many of the comforts of life. The leisure obtained through American industry, if rightly directed, may provide for every child born a thorough education--an ample opportunity to express the qualities which are latent in him--and a thorough preparation for life. The emancipation of women is another force which may be directed toward the improvement of race qualities. Women bear the race in their bodies; at least half of the qualities of the offspring are inherited from them; as mothers, they educate the children during the first six years of their lives, and then, as school teachers and mothers they play the leading part in education until the children reach the age of twelve or fourteen. The youth of the race is in women's keeping. They shape the child clay. The twig is bent, the tree is inclined by women's hands. The emancipation of woman means her individualization. Both in primitive custom and in early law her individuality is merged in that of the man. "Wives," wrote Paul, "be obedient unto your husbands, for this is the law." Mohammedan women wear veils that they may not be seen; Chinese women bind their feet that they may not escape; the women of continental Europe spend their lives in ministering to the comfort of their liege lords. They are dependent--almost abject. From such a sowing, what must be the reaping? Into the hands of these subject creatures, men have committed the training of their sons. Can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit? If women are inferior to men, can they be worthy to train their future superiors--their sons? If they are of a lower mentality than men, how is it that, in the school as well as in the home, men have given into their hands the power to shape the destinies of the race?