There is one decided advantage in giving to the woman the opportunity to earn her living: she has again acquired thereby significance in the home, while the generation of women, who neither co-operated _productively_ in the home nor assumed all the duties of the mother, were regarded by man with less respect than, on the one side, their grandmothers who _produced_ all of the household requisites, on the other side, their now independent self-supporting granddaughters. Only when society _recompenses the vocation of mother_, can woman find in this a full equivalent for self-supporting labour. Another typical group of our time is formed by the numerous women for whom no choice remains in regard to their work, since it is of a kind that they must give up because of the removal to another place, or more frequently because they find so much work in the new home that every thought of anything further outside must cease. Those who think that industry has made the work of the wife in the home to-day superfluous, speak only of the _great cities_, and usually only of _opulent families in the great cities_, where they are in a position to buy cheaper everything that the labour of the wife could produce. But in the country, among all classes, the mother must be the director of the work; and in all country homes in moderate circumstances—as in countless poor or not very well-to-do city families—the work of the mother is still frequently indispensable, and in addition is more economical than her earnings out of the house could be, especially since the developed modern woman is usually capable of a more rational housekeeping than the woman of earlier times. But while the mothers of that time knew nothing except housework, those of to-day have often, as unmarried and self-supporting women, enjoyed a freedom of movement and opportunities of development which, now that they are over-burdened with household cares, they may seriously miss. The work of the mother is now still further increased by the difficulty of getting servants—at least capable ones—and also by the demands of luxury. The result of this again is that hospitality in the home decreases, that the watchword of the time, “the windows of the house wide open to the world, fresh air in the home, no creeping into the chimney corner,” is so interpreted that warmth and intimacy vanish. Yes, the overworked mother often herself insists that the family leave the house and seek some place of recreation for the annual festivals, which were once the children’s happiest and brightest recollections of home.