Any woman or man might in simpler times be turned into the fields to hoe or bind corn, and with little instruction might do it as well as their fellows; but a comparatively high training is required even for the modern labourer who is to take control of our complex modern agricultural machinery, of our steam-driven ploughs and binders; and as we advance from these, the simpler forms of manual labours, to the intellectual callings, the demand for prolonged and special training has become imperative. From this specialized training for particular callings woman is largely excluded, and therefore her hold on many old forms of labour is relaxed. Even amid her other domestic labours the woman of the past might find time to acquire knowledge of the simples and poultices which formed the staple of the healing art, and might, with a proficiency excelled by none, minister to the complaints of her family or community; and the old woman was the recognized accoucheur and adviser of her societies. Now, without long and complex training, no woman can practice her old art, and a field of study, surprisingly large if we study the history of the past, falls from her. Finally, in the one great field of labour which is and must always remain woman's exclusive domain, there is shrinkage. The changed conditions of life accompanying modern civilization have reduced the demand upon woman as a child-bearer. In primitive societies, where war and the exigencies of primitive life were continually denuding the race, woman was as a rule compelled to bear persistently, if the number of warriors was to be maintained; and in a later social condition, where all the crude labours of life were performed by human labour and a vast and unlimited supply of unskilled labourers was always required, there was almost the same demand upon her. Moreover, the training and rearing of the young was a comparatively simple matter.