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WOMEN’S  ORGANISATIONS

THE WOMAN—BLESS HER

NOT AS AMIABLE A BOOK AS IT SOUNDS

The six chapters of this little book are devoted to studies of women in Canada. The purpose of these studies is to find an answer to such questions as, What are the most promising developments amongst Canadian women: and in what ways are they preparing for the greatest economic and social contribution which they can make to Canadian national life?

Women’s organisations offer a promising starting point for a study of the Canadian woman. Supposed to be efficient and progressive, they are often spoken of as representative of the best work of women in Canada. An analysis of their characteristics and the actual work which they have accomplished cannot fail to produce interesting results.

According to a careful estimate, two hundred and fifty thousand women belong to national organisations in Canada. But so far no question has been asked as to the influence these associations exert on the development of Canadian women. Many of the most thoughtful among this membership already must be considering if their work is producing any appreciable effect in higher standards of living. But it is necessary to discover first if they have decided what these higher standards ought to be.

Broadly speaking, women’s organisations in Canada may be divided into two, or even three, groups.

The first group consists of such large bodies as the National Council of the Women of Canada, the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire, Women’s Institutes, the Young Women’s Christian Association, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and Women’s Canadian Clubs. The National Council, with its affiliated societies, is estimated to have a membership of 150,000. The Daughters of the Empire, an affiliated society, has a membership of 30,000. Women’s Institutes have a membership of 30,000 in Ontario alone. These Institutes and Home Makers’ Clubs, comprising the most remarkable body of women in Canada, are organised in all the provinces and must number from 80,000 to 100,000.

The second group includes clubs for the study of literature, travel, social science, art, music; clubs in occupations such as associations of nurses, women journalists, teachers and business women; political organisations both Conservative and Liberal; suffrage societies; and women’s trade unions. Organisations in this second group are comparatively small; they deal more or less with the work of occupations, and have definite or restricted ends.

The third remarkable group consists of missionary societies in the various religious denominations, and has a membership of not under 200,000. These missionary societies are not affiliated with any other body and are not included as societies in the Women’s Council group. They were the first great national organisations to develop among women in Canada and have retained a special character. The income which this third group collected, managed and designated in an average year before the war was between $400,000 and $500,000. No other women’s organisation raises money of any large amount altogether for altruistic purposes. During the war, however, all the women of Canada, in local and national organisations and as individuals, are earning and collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars for Red Cross, patriotic and relief work.

With membership statistics such as these, why is the estimate of the total membership placed as low as 250,000? It is not unusual for a woman to belong to four or five different organisations. She may be a member of a missionary society, the W. C. T. U., a Women’s Canadian Club, a Chapter of the I. O. D. E., and if she has joined these four, she probably will not escape joining one or two more. It is literally impossible to tell how many women are actually represented in national organisations. Two hundred and fifty thousand is a conservative estimate. But, important as such a membership is, it is well to remember that the Census of 1911 places the number of women in Canada between fifteen and eighty years of age at 2,186,000. For one woman who belongs to a national association eight do not.

Canadian women have a genius for organisation. The national character of their associations must be regarded as an achievement of real social value. It is considered by them as a matter of course for a single association to have branches in Halifax, St. John, Charlottetown, Quebec, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria. To have succeeded again and again in establishing and maintaining this intercommunication between province and province is a genuine contribution to national life.

These organisations, however, with the exception of the missionary societies, are claiming largely to speak for the women of Canada; their leaders are being put forward as the leaders of all Canadian women. This statement is specially true of the 150,000 group. It is necessary to distinguish clearly, therefore, between the first and third groups in women’s organisations.

The national missionary societies, broadly speaking, are wholly devoted to missionary work, and have consistently refused to express an opinion on public or social questions. They began to organise thirty or forty years ago, convinced that their work could be best accomplished by keeping to a single purpose.

We have then two great groups of women’s associations in Canada, both highly and efficiently organised, the one with a more or less definite purpose to be heard in public affairs and to represent Canadian women; the other, with a single purpose for missionary work and an extraordinary business development, publishing magazines, books and leaflets, supporting and managing hospitals, employing, educating and supporting missionaries and deaconesses, collecting and designating an income of somewhat under half a million. This business is carried on almost altogether by voluntary effort. The only charge for management is less than three per cent.

The typical member of these associations in both groups is married, not single. She is middle-aged. She is a woman with household occupations and yet with some leisure. Her children are wholly or halfway grown up and she is able to undertake some work outside. As the employment of home-making is at present understood, a woman in charge of a house, whose children are not in need of constant attention, has time for other employment. She also has sufficient initiative and energy to make other occupation necessary. She must have social intercourse. Few things are more unhealthy mentally than for a woman whose work is keeping house to remain indoors alone, all day, every day. The need of this middle-aged, married woman for work and social co-operation, her impulse to help others and accomplish something worth doing in the world outside, are the forces which have created women’s organisations.

These associations undoubtedly have developed sympathetic understanding amongst their membership and have helped to broaden the interests of women.

What else are they developing? To arrive at the correct answer to this question a number of points should be considered: The autocratic or democratic character of the organisation; the distribution of authority throughout the country; the type of officer; the type of member; and the efficiency of any work actually accomplished.

In the early days of what are now national associations the movement began in a single meeting in one city. It has spread gradually over thousands of miles and multiplied into hundreds of meetings. The simple procedure and work have grown extremely complex. One of the greatest dangers which has threatened, and still threatens, women’s national organisations is the tendency to keep all the business and all the authority in one city. During the last two or three years provincial councils or boards have been developed to take over a good deal of the work and some of the authority of the central board. But discontent with the policy of keeping the management in one city has been unmistakable in different parts of the country, particularly in the west. The peculiar difficulty and temptation of Ontario is that the central board in many cases originated and has remained in Ontario.

If leaders are competent they must learn that all business and authority which can be distributed amongst provincial boards must be so distributed. Details of reform may be difficult, but they must be arranged. In this way Canadian women can actually work powerfully and immediately for national unity. No one can possess sufficient vision, imagination and knowledge to decide details of management for the whole of this country in any one city.

Is any one unwise enough to think that the management of women’s organisations is unimportant? On the contrary, it is a question of real statesmanship. Every woman who is a member of a national association should test the character of her association by the degree in which it distributes business and authority. These women, whether they are aware of it or not, are to some extent responsible for strengthening or weakening Canadian unity.

Few people outside the management have any adequate idea of the exacting duties of a typical officer in a national organisation. Suppose this middle-aged, married, home-making woman is the president of a central board. In this case she takes charge regularly of as complicated a business meeting as any business man would care to handle. She is a member of fifteen or twenty committees, each responsible for a section of work, neglect of which would mean a breakdown in somewhat important affairs. Her work involves endless conferences, consultations, planning and thought. It is as hard work as the paid skilled occupation of an average man or woman. Women who are officers of national organisations in reality have developed an occupation of their own. Their home circumstances must be such as to allow them to give the time. The circumstances of the president must be exceptional. Surely, the uninformed citizen will say, there are practically no Canadian women who follow this occupation. On the contrary, there must be four or five hundred women in Canada who are making an occupation of being an officer in a national association. The occupation is having a decided effect on the character of Canadian women. Some idea can be formed now as to the importance of whether the management of these associations is autocratic or democratic. There is always, of course, the additional consideration that so much organisation, procedure and machinery of work tend to destroy equality in social co-operation and make the business of running an association an end in itself.

And now, dear madam, do you enjoy making a pedestal with the president on its summit out of the officers of your association; or do you favour a plain democracy, each woman’s word and brains as good as another’s, with due use of talents possessed by officers and members alike? Is a president a presiding officer, a woman like the rest of you, or do you feel that she is a member of a royal family, a reigning president as it were, and you instinctively speak lower in her presence? The reflection is somewhat comic, but the democratic and the ruling ideals both exist in Canada. It is not certain that the ruling ideal is not more prevalent than it used to be in women’s organisations.

There are two clear conceptions of the nature of officers. One is that the officers are there because they work harder than the rest of the membership. It is their task to discover the prevailing views of majorities and minorities, to reconcile and compromise, to bind together the different sections of the organisation. Such officers rarely have their own way; they have to devise plans which meet with the approval of every one, or at least a large majority. Above all, they must have intimate friendly relations with as large a number of members as possible. The strength of a democratic organisation is great; but it can only be obtained through the self-denying labours of officers who serve the membership regardless of self-interest, while the membership must co-operate actively and sympathetically.

The other conception of leadership is that the officers are superior to the membership. They have authority, and the members wait to be told what is to be done. The etiquette of approaching and addressing the president of this kind of society is considerable and it is rigorously enforced. Men have foibles as well as women. And something about the autocratic organisation reminds one irresistibly of politics. Certainly, there are women politicians as well as men politicians. But the women’s organisation, unless it is democratic, offers a field for the development of a type of official lady whose authority, it is true, is derived only from the membership, although the onlooker would never believe such to be the case, so remote seems to be her responsibility to those who have elected her. In this class of organisation decisions are arrived at in a hidden way. A few elected leaders, and a few others who establish an unexplained influence, decide what is to be done. A plain member may be on a committee and may wait to be summoned to a meeting which will frame a decision or a policy to be submitted to the association. Instead of being called to a meeting she will be told that it is all arranged already. “So much less trouble and so much better done if a few talk over things amongst themselves!”

When an organisation of this kind holds an annual meeting the business is arranged beforehand and goes through with a skilful management which one is persuaded no meeting of men, bank directors or other, could emulate. Such an organisation is constituted of members who know nothing and see the wheels go round, never understanding what makes them go round at all.

Which is to be your choice, dear madam, the democratic women’s organisation or the autocratic? Remember, if you refuse to continue in its membership the autocratic organisation ceases to exist. Only the silent membership, who do what they are told, without exerting an intelligent co-operation in work, make it possible for officers to be autocratic. There is no real power, except in the membership, and no real authority, except what is given by you and your equals.

These exact types of women’s associations may not be found in Canada. But organisations with a tendency to be autocratic and those with a tendency to be democratic do exist in this country. The first are harmful. The second, the democratic, promote a social co-operation which is of great benefit to our citizenship.

What is the degree of efficiency in the work actually carried on by women’s organisations in Canada? Not what kind of work do they do, but in what way is their work done? As far as the missionary societies are concerned, the question may be put to one side. They have shown that the givings of women—generally savings—are of economic importance. What effect the placing of responsibility for missionary giving on women rather than on men and women together has had on church and social life would be a difficult question to determine. Perhaps any effect this may have had is now largely ended, having been met by the Laymen’s Missionary work and the Young Men’s Christian Association. Whether or not the business management of the missionary societies is saving of labour could only be determined by a special study. Their contribution of voluntary work is so great, and has been so beneficial to the contributors, that the question may not be a pressing one. In the same way the work of Women’s Institutes and Home Makers’ Clubs may be exempted from discussion. Their organisation is comparatively recent, and the work of the association is practically identical with the occupation of its members, which is home-making. The management also is directly under the governments of the provinces.

The harshest criticisms brought against women’s organisations are that the result of their work is inefficient rather than efficient, and that there is too prevalent a tendency to emphasise the importance of receiving credit for work accomplished.

Only prolonged discipline teaches women or men how to work well. It is just this discipline of work which the average member and officer of women’s organisations have not experienced. Partly as a consequence of this, women’s associations, or rather some of them, attach too great importance to having placed on record, especially in the public press, that they were the first to begin the movement for some remarkable reform, that they bore the heat and labour of the day and that in fact no one else is entitled to any credit. What difference does it make who does the work if the work is done? It is seldom a useful business, this determining of credit. The great opportunity of women’s associations in Canada is to grow more efficient and thorough in their work, to raise their standards so that what they do, no matter how small in quantity, in quality will rank with professional work anywhere.

Women’s organisations have helped to develop social feeling and friendliness, mutual understanding and sympathy amongst women. They will continue to do so if they resolutely determine to remain democratic and promote democracy. If they are inefficient in work and undemocratic in management, they will fail in leadership. They may not fail with the few, the 250,000; but they will do so with the many, the 3,000,000 women of Canada.

Are women’s associations, especially national organisations, likely to be permanent characteristics of modern society, or will they disappear, be merged in something better? Lastly, have they helped, and are they helping now, to promote comradeship between men and women? Is the type of woman developed by women’s associations—if there is such a type—better fitted to work in partnership with men as well as with other women?

It would take much knowledge and courage—perhaps useless courage—to answer these questions fairly.

Women should ask themselves, however, why their organisations have not made a particular study of the special business of women, for this special business merges into national questions to solve which every effort must be made by the men and women of Canada. Why have not these associations studied thoroughly and scientifically the subject of infant mortality, collected money to employ experts if necessary, but made the saving of infant life and the health of children their special care? The reply will be made that they have done so. The answer to this assertion is, Where are your statistics, and where is the improvement which would have taken place, as sure as sunrise, if women’s organisations had done this work? The rate can be reduced to 50 in 1,000; it is double this in Canada.

Why have not women’s organisations studied the food supply of Canada; why have they not issued food bulletins? Ten million dollars was spent last year in Canada, practically by women, in buying imported fresh fruits and vegetables. Do any of the women’s organisations know this? Will not Canadian women take the trouble to work out a diet as interesting, as palatable and as wholesome, using our own food? At the same time, if they so desire, they should press for the growing of fruit and vegetables under glass in Canada.

The economic welfare of the country is a question which men and women must solve together. It cannot be solved unless women who buy co-operate with men who produce, manufacture, export and import. The experience of the business women of Canada is that men welcome co-operation, whenever the co-operation is skilled and efficient. There are not enough of us to do the work of Canada in any case. The co-operation of women cannot be lacking. It is particularly the work of women’s associations to help in the solution of these questions and others, such as public health, sympathetic unity between the east and west of Canada, the education of boys and girls, employments of women, immigration, and the effect on social well-being of a more economical, more elevated standard of living.

To introduce a finer standard of living can be accomplished only by women, middle-aged married women with time to give, such as make the membership of women’s associations. But it means economic study and consecutive thinking. Will they undertake it?

THE  BUSINESS  WOMAN

The business woman is the most interesting product of paid employments for women in Canada. But how far she is likely to change social conditions is a question which has not yet been answered.

Over 360,000 Canadian women are in paid occupations. In reality, a far larger proportion than this total indicates are employed for wages at some time in their lives. For telephone operators the average length of service is only three years. A young woman remains in stenography on an average between six and seven years. The wage or salary earning woman may leave one paid occupation to enter another, but this does not happen often. When she gives up her employment, as a rule she does so to marry, and she becomes a home-maker. The majority of girls go to work when they leave school. A very large proportion, therefore, of women in Canada are first in paid employment and afterwards enter the more important occupation, socially and economically, of creating the homes of the country. Statistics from the United States indicate that a fraction over 87 per cent. of all women in that country marry. The percentage, if there is a difference, is likely to be higher in Canada. There were approximately 400,000 more men than women in Canada before the war. Since that date between 300,000 and 400,000 men have enlisted for active service.

The largest women’s employments are manufacturing and domestic work. These occupations well repay study with regard to their effect on women, especially in arriving at the influence paid employment is having on the later employment of home-making. But the most noticeable contribution made by any paid occupation to the general life of women is that of the business woman. She is a modern development and we know little of her. What is business doing for Canadian women, and what are business women doing for our national life?

First, we should define what a business woman is. Business women themselves reserve the title for a woman worker who has made good, whose character and outlook have noticeably become more efficient and practical in actual affairs through her working experience. They do not mind so much what she is doing, but they judge her by the way she is doing it. Every woman would be eligible for a business women’s association who recognises that her work has a right to her time, thought, the best that is in her, and who carries this belief into actual practice. As an example of the way wage-earning women make use of these distinctions among themselves, it is a fact that a shop girl and a saleswoman belong to different ranks in business life. “Do not say ‘shop girl,’ ” a business woman will remonstrate. “A shop girl has no interest in her work. A saleswoman is a business woman with an outlook.” The term business woman is confined, generally speaking, to women in city occupations working in co-operation with men.

All paid employees who are women do not recognise the claim of their work. Neither do all paid employees who are men. But the point of view of merely occupying a position for one’s own convenience is more prevalent with girls. This is partly a consequence of the fact that the girl is likely to remain in paid employment only a few years. Besides, she has not been taught that work, and character made by work, are two of the most important and happiest things in her life. The girl employee in an office may look at her fellow employee with a sombre and scornful eye and remark of her employer, “He’s no gentleman. Sent me out on a message in the hot sun.” This is her point of view. That the work ought to be done and that she is paid for doing it make no difference to her. Her idea of the fact to be remembered is, not that she is paid to work, but that she is a girl. The business woman, the business girl, is the efficient worker.

Business life thus is teaching a large number of girls thoroughness and method. It tends to teach them orderliness and efficiency. They learn how to work with other people and how to deal with them. The necessary effort to understand those with whom she comes in contact reacts favourably on the business woman’s character. She becomes tolerant and recognises that her side is not the only side of a question. She knows, too, how hard people have to work in order to earn a living or do anything worth doing. She understands the anxiety of work and business and she makes allowance for nervousness and irritability. She learns good sense, helpfulness and non-interference, and she has some knowledge of affairs. She comes to know after a while that it is not easy to keep a position or remain at the head of a business, and also that other people are able frequently to do better work than one can oneself. This may sound like exaggerated praise of a business woman; but there are many Canadian women from whom the description might have been taken. Character like this is a contribution to the life of a country.

Employers and business people generally believe that paid employment under present conditions is the best preparation a girl can have for married life. This statement never ceases to seem strange; but it has not been successfully refuted. The opinion of the business world is that the average home does not afford as good a preparation for home-making as paid employment. Not only are knowledge of people and tact acquired in business life; but a girl learns more about money, how to spend, plan and save, knowledge which is a prime requisite for efficient home-making, than if she remained in the average home, assisting but not responsible for house-keeping, as is generally the case with girls who are not in paid employment.

The business woman is not a revolutionary. She is not likely to begin any outstanding or conspicuous movement among women. Her time is fully occupied and for this reason she is more likely to belong to an average type than those who have much spare time. The business woman values the average woman’s life more than she does anything else. As soon as she is of sufficient age to recognise realities, an age which comes early with her since she has to deal with realities, she knows that nothing is of greater importance to her than to belong to a home. At this point her experience is not exactly the same as that of the average home-making woman. The unmarried business woman with a home either contributes largely to its support or maintains it altogether. She provides the income; some other woman makes the home. The business woman knows that unless she earns her salary or wages she has nothing to live on. If she is maintaining a home, she will have no money for the home unless she earns it. To manage always to have the money on hand helps her to understand the work of a man with a home to support. Accurate inquiry shows that while very young girls at work receive part of their support, the average business woman either is a large contributor to her home or its sole support. A home is practically necessary, however, to the efficiency of the business woman; she cannot get on without it. But beyond her actual loss in physical and mental efficiency, work and money only seem worth while to her if they give her in return “some one to love and some one to take care of.” “There’s nothing in having nobody to love and nobody to care what happens to you,” is the actual saying of such a woman. Her contribution to national life, therefore, is business efficiency and a strengthening of home-making ideals.

The business woman does not need the activities of women’s organisations in the same way that these associations are necessary to the middle-aged married woman. When such associations do appeal to her, they have definite aims and do not take up much time. It is impossible for her to go to frequent or lengthy meetings. She has no time to undertake much extra work. It is not uncommon, however, for a business woman to join a reading club, study art or music, or belong to such an organisation as a Women’s Canadian Club. She wants to know about public affairs, progress and the general knowledge which has been accumulated in the world. She is eager for recreation, loves going to the theatre, concerts or a show; and the better business woman she is, the more likely she will be to be fond of social life. Clubs to promote social enjoyment, when successfully managed, are highly approved of by business women. All of which proves that her type is normal and healthy.

She does not believe that she is the most lovable or fascinating type of woman. This description she reserves in her own mind for a woman who has some leisure and who can devote herself wholly to the life of the ordinary woman. If her mother is making the home where they both live, she believes that her mother is a more lovable type of woman than any business woman can be. There is often a fear in her mind that she herself may be somewhat hard and unsympathetic, because she knows real life rather intimately and has to deal with situations quickly and sometimes firmly. She has great respect for grace and beauty and, as far as she can, tries to copy those who are examples. Her dress is often a model in choice; it is so exactly suited to her employment, and is as attractive as her surroundings permit.

Her efficiency, fairness, insight and the fact that she is in business working with men have enabled her to increase comradeship in work between men and women. Her friendships with other women are admirable.

But what does the business woman think on the whole of women at home? It is natural that she should judge them according to their efficiency in their own occupation; and she is a good judge of the way in which work is done. Something which appears to be antagonism exists in the attitude of the business woman towards women who, she thinks, are not working out a full equivalent for whatever share of life they have.

Remember, she is a very usual woman, with all the tastes and likings which belong to usual people. She has to spend so many hours a day in paid work and she wants to be as womanly as those who have no fixed daily employment. To make a real home and care for children is as exacting work as any woman can undertake. The business woman understands this thoroughly. She understands, too, when the work at home is not efficient. She watches the parasitical woman, her pretty finery and pretty ways, with a somewhat unsympathetic eye. Yet there is no one who more thoroughly admires and likes the efficient woman at home: she is, indeed, as has been said, the business woman’s ideal. Deep underneath, however, the girl who works, especially the girl because she has not lived very long and has not learned to reckon values accurately, compares her lot with the lot of girls and women who are not doing paid work. She thinks of her hours, of how little she earns, and how little she can have that she wants for her salary or wages. She knows that they are not different women from herself: it only happened that way. Well, to say that she does not regard her unoccupied or slightly occupied sisters with a wholly sympathetic eye is not too strong a statement.

The not agreeable truth might as well be faced that there is some antagonism in the attitude of even the efficient woman who earns a salary to the woman who is not self-supporting. But remember, she regards the woman who truly makes a home as splendidly self-supporting. One would undertake to say that in the business woman’s opinion the efficient woman at home is the woman above all others who in an economic sense is best and most fully self-supporting. What then is the difficulty? Is she merely jealous of other women who have more, and do not work as hard as she does?

Part of the explanation may be found in her salary or wages, which are not often large enough for the standard of living that would satisfy her. She may have to work too hard, with consequent fatigue. All over-occupied people, both men and women, would welcome more leisure, but it is not always true that they would know how to spend it with real advantage or enjoyment. This is not a reason, however, for not helping them to get leisure. The question of wages is one of the most difficult in the world. The rate of payment for women is part of the whole question of wages. But perhaps the antagonism is caused more than anything else by our false standards. As long as we all believe that to have nothing to do, plenty of money, more recreation than anything else, pretty clothes and an exquisitely cared for appearance are the outward symbols of perfect happiness for a woman, how can we wonder that girls who work for wages, and even business women, object to their exclusive possession by others?

But if the wage or salary earning girl or woman does feel antagonistic occasionally, she is mistaking an appearance for, what it is not, reality. What she really wants is happiness. If she had all the rest and was unhappy, she would not be satisfied. She thinks happiness is secured by the condition described above; but to think so is to be deluded. This case is put extremely, of course; few business women feel in this way. But it is wise to remember that the antagonism exists, especially among girls with longest hours and least pay who are not likely to be able to value the externals of life wisely. When women know this, especially those who belong to women’s organisations, it would be truly national work for them to promote sympathetic comradeship and unity between the girls and women in paid occupations and those who work at home and have leisure to use for good ends. There is a feeling of comradeship already amongst girls and women in paid employments. They may not belong to unions, but they are comrades nevertheless; this is specially true of the class described as business women.

The business woman’s opportunity to work for her country has never been greater than to-day under war conditions; it may be even greater in the coming time of reconstruction. Let her remember that a comparatively high percentage of the whole number of women in the population is engaged in skilled work; probably no other country in the world has afforded its women an equal opportunity for entering skilled employments. Not only is this so, but the class of paid work in which women are engaged is relatively a higher class of work than in most countries. It was once said that women in the educated classes in the Old Country were often compelled to take trifling work at low wages which their brothers would think beneath their social standing altogether. There is now apparently a vast revolution in the work of women in Great Britain. The question of how war is affecting the work of women in Canada will be dealt with in another chapter. Here it is desired to point out that the skilled Canadian woman worker has to-day an unequalled opportunity to use her training. No adequate study of paid work for women in Canada can fail to show that wage-earning employment on the whole is a useful and beneficial experience for Canadian girls. Nevertheless, the fact that so many Canadian women earn wages and later marry makes it important that paid occupations for women should not interfere with the efficiency of home-making and the care of children, occupations in which the contribution made by women to the state is out of all comparison more valuable than in any other.

What women workers are specially desired in Canada?

The supply of domestic workers never approaches the demand. In most manufacturing industries in which women are employed, the demand for workers is generally greater than the supply, although this was not true in the depression of 1913-14. It appears practically certain that the need of factories for women workers, which is now (September, 1916) great, will increase, once the re-adjustment following the war is over. The demand, however, which is never fully supplied, is for the efficient worker, for skilled and trained women in many occupations, and particularly for women workers with initiative and managing ability.

Such women are welcomed into practically every suitable occupation in Canada. The attitude to women who work is characteristic of the country. There was a time in every nation apparently when it was thought unfitting for gentlewomen to have paid employment. Even yet in some small unchanged circles of society it is considered grievous or astonishing. There is now practically no employment in Canada where modern opinion is surprised to find a woman, or even disapproves of finding her. It is true that scarcely as yet do girls of well-educated families expect to go to work exactly as their brothers do. When talking to the Canadian business woman she will tell you if the subject of how she happened to go to work comes up, that her father died, or lost his money, something happened which made it necessary for her to go to work. But this is already of a passing generation. In a number of cases Canadian women work not from necessity but by choice. Already in some instances a well-educated woman will say, “I was brought up to expect to work just as my brothers were.” Her point of view is not yet that of the majority; but it gives her some possession of mental freedom in work which does not belong even to all business women. Undoubtedly, girls and women are better able to find work, and to work happily, in Canada than women are in almost any other country in the world.

Women in Canada must be equal to such an opportunity, not in untrained, unskilled, ill-paid employment, but in work which requires great intelligence, training, skill and economic insight.

THE  COLLEGE  WOMAN

The universities of Canada are King’s College, Dalhousie, Acadia, St. Francis Xavier, New Brunswick, Mount Allison, Laval, McGill, Bishop’s College, Ottawa, Queen’s, Toronto, Trinity, Victoria, McMaster, Western, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. All but two teach women students and grant them degrees. In the University of Toronto, with which the Universities of Trinity and Victoria are federated, for the last academic year, the number of women students was 1,460; the number of men, 2,968. The last published report of Queen’s University gives the number of women students as 244. The number of women enrolled in fourteen other universities are: McGill, 151; McMaster, 54; London, 60; Mount Allison, 38; Dalhousie, 92; New Brunswick, 22; Bishop’s College, 10; Acadia, 70; King’s College, 9; St. Francis Xavier, 30; Manitoba, 153; Saskatchewan, 53; Alberta, 55; British Columbia, 151.

The number of women undergraduates is, therefore, over 2,600. The number of women graduates is a matter of some thousands, probably between five and six thousand.

In Queen’s University there is a dean of women students whose duties include advice with regard to studies, supervision of health and general well-being. A council of women graduates has prepared a booklet instructing women students in traditions and customs of the university. Mount Allison has a residence for women students of which a woman is dean. Alexandra Hall is the residence for women at King’s College. An alumnæ association manages Forrest Hall, which is the women’s residence at Dalhousie. In Toronto an adviser to women students has been appointed this year. Previously a general oversight of health and manners was exercised by a lady superintendent. Three residences for women students are connected with Toronto University: St. Hilda’s, Annesley Hall, and Queen’s Hall. Each is in charge of a lady principal or dean. At McGill, the Royal Victoria College for Women, chiefly used as a residence, has at its head a warden who is a woman. As resident tutor in history, the warden is a member of the Faculty of Arts and is consulted with regard to the courses of studies to be prescribed for women students.

The duties of these deans of women students, lady principals, advisers, or lady superintendents, are confined to advising women students in their choice of studies, with regard to health and social matters. No Canadian university, with the exception of McGill, has on its faculty a woman holding an official position with regard to women students who has authority to discuss with other members of the faculty the curriculum of studies to be taken by women. The universities of Toronto and British Columbia have women as members of their senates; but in these universities the senate merely approves courses of studies as prepared by the faculty.

University life for women in Canada differs widely from that in Great Britain or the United States. The acute controversy as to the admission of women to universities died down quickly in Canada. But the fact that women have been admitted to practically every Canadian university has hardly been noted. The university women of Great Britain have been educated in women’s colleges. The university woman of the Eastern United States is from a women’s college. This is not true to the same extent of the Middle West and West. But the Canadian college woman is educated with men and by men; there is no women’s college after either the British or American model in Canada.

Thus it has come about that the development of the Canadian college woman is largely in the hands of the university presidents. In the United States the office of university president has been interpreted as highly executive, requiring great concentration of authority. In Great Britain the government of universities has remained more in the control of bodies of learned men. The government of Canadian universities seems to be passing from the control of a body of men to that of one man. But examples of both methods of government are to be found. The president may have a great concentration of authority or he may be the first authority among equals. In the case of women students, since no woman member of the faculty represents their interests, the authority seems to remain with the university president altogether.

He needs to possess, therefore, some special knowledge of the types of women that belong to Canada and particularly of these types which are developing. He may still ask why he should have this knowledge. Because he has the power to determine how women shall be educated at Canadian universities. There is no one, certainly no woman, whose duty it is to confer with him about how women shall be educated.

In the world to-day there is a romantic and momentous mingling of types of women. Some are developing, some are perfected types or near perfection, and some are vanishing. A revolution is in progress among these types which is none the less significant although there is little to be seen of its development on the surface of social affairs. The novelist who could see this revolution and these types clearly has a world to show of supreme interest. The economist, the sociologist, more than all the university president, should be concerned with the women’s revolution, and the types of women to be preserved or developed.

Women are studying these types consciously or unconsciously. They know it is important for them to recognise the type they belong to themselves. A woman knows that other types will affect the successful development of her own type enormously. She wakes up some morning to discover that she belongs, for instance, to an old type. If she is lucky, it is a useful type for which there is an urgent demand when she has been turned out with any degree of efficiency. Or she may wake to realise that there is no longer a sure provision for her kind of woman, as may happen to the unmarried daughter without training when her family home breaks up. She may be a new type, in which case she will find herself regarded with some suspicion, a little lonesome on account of neither quite understanding or being quite understood. The woman’s crux is that her type, as a rule, has been established by those who have been educating her before she knew what they were about.

The university president should be warned in passing that this knowledge of types of women, and the women’s revolution cannot be obtained from observing the girl undergraduate who, alas! appears to be the only type of woman believed to be of significance educationally by university presidents. He will have to look into the world outside to see what is happening to them when they are succeeding or failing in practical life. Now, observe, the conditions of life for women are that the average young woman at eighteen, a usual age for entering the university, does not know whether she is to support herself by earning a salary in trade or professional life, whether she will earn her living in home-making, or earn a salary for a while and then be a home-maker. The last alternative is the career of the average woman graduate. Clearly, it is not her occupation, but it is the type of woman she is to be which is the vital concern of the university.

The type of college woman is modern, direct, and desirous of being honourable, straight and fair. Whatever may be her faults, these are characteristics of the average college woman, and the improvement of her education must be based upon these characteristics.

Two aspects of the college woman may be considered usefully. These are what she knows about herself, and how she appears as a type to others. In dealing with these aspects it will be advisable probably not to appear to flatter her. She does not regard herself as having yet approached the ideal type of what a college woman may be. She knows she has intelligence and training of a sort and she believes she can apply this intelligence and training to her work and problems. She has an impression at times that she is lacking in grace and persuasiveness. She is conscious that she could do more with people, in the interests of society and her own interests as she understands them, if she had some quality which she recognises in other women, not in all other women, but in some of them. While she has many friends among college women, the body of college women generally does not seem to her to have that quality of cohesiveness which is so useful for getting anywhere. To this extent at least, she seems to be aware of her deficiencies.

The public, generally speaking, agrees with this estimate. It may add that she is not able to forget the fact that she has a degree; that she is inclined to underestimate the amount of knowledge possessed by other people in the subjects of which she knows most; and that she has lost some of the lovable qualities of womanhood without adding others of equal advantage. Many professors, lecturers, fellows and undergraduates are kindly disposed to college women. But possibly the severest comments on the type have come from the orders enumerated. They complain of her hats.

But at least it can be said truthfully of the college woman that she wants to improve her type. She finds herself, however, with practically no direct means of doing so. She would like to be able to help college women who are undergraduates, but she has no means of communicating with them. She has a generous, self-sacrificing feeling towards these girls, but she cannot get it over to them. She would like to warn them to develop qualities in which she finds herself lacking. But she is met with the difficulty that the woman undergraduate seems to have a tendency to look down on the woman graduate. Somehow the undergraduate has acquired an impression that the woman graduate is lacking in scholarship, knowledge of the world and distinction. This is rather a comfortable feeling for the undergraduate since she is under the impression that her own scholarship, knowledge of the world and savoir faire are excellent. But when she herself becomes a graduate she finds with bewilderment that she has lost what had seemed to be hers for good, and is now in turn regarded as wanting in these qualities. The most probable explanation of the attitude of the woman undergraduate is to be sought in the attitude of the university towards the college woman.

The question of importance, however, is to arrive at the worth of the college woman to the community. Fundamentally, what can be said in her favour? There is an impression that she does not marry. She certainly marries later than if she had belonged to a class of women who do not attend a university. There are no accurate statistics to show, however, that the college woman in Canada has a lower percentage in marrying than the average woman of all classes. What can be said of her marriage is that when she becomes a mother, she brings every good quality she has to the care of her children. She uses her trained mind to acquire knowledge of childhood in every way in which it can be acquired usefully. Her powers of concentration, patience, perseverance, self-control, her character and intelligence are bent on being a good mother, and she has succeeded in being a better mother than the average woman of her social class. This statement is made after somewhat careful inquiry, and it alone is sufficient to justify her existence. In comparison, hats are of secondary importance.

A second point in her favour is that any improvement in the type of college woman has a favourable reaction on the general body of women, a more favourable reaction than improvement in any other type of woman. Why is this so? Because the average college woman is more likely to interest herself in the improvement of social conditions than the average woman generally. She believes that she is directly connected with the social fabric and she is impelled to do something about it. Many women of other classes do not recognise that they have any responsibility outside their own immediate surroundings. Much has been said of a widely varying character of the relations between men and women and of what these relations may become in the future. There is a general agreement that comradeship will increase. The college woman when she marries appears to be more successful in becoming her husband’s comrade than the average woman. Judging the college woman, therefore, by her motherhood, her recognition of her relation to the social fabric and as a comrade in the marriage relation, she may be described as a useful developing type and of special value to the community.

No doubt the state has done a great deal for the college woman. It is evident that some university presidents are in sympathy with her aspirations. What more can be done for her improvement? Two favourite plans are spoken of. One is a woman’s college where she will be by herself, educated, trained and formed by other women, with men professors to lecture to her. One of the most keenly felt advantages of this plan, although it is seldom mentioned, is that the college woman will be removed from the university, which will then be left to men. It is a good plan in many ways. The college woman will gain something by it and may lose something. She will gain perhaps in grace and dignity; she may lose in broadness and in thinking of herself more as a human being and less often as a woman. The university also may gain something and may lose something. It may gain in more peace and less problem or complexity, although less complexity is not always a gain. It may lose in being less like the real world, perhaps less modern. The difficulties are obvious. To establish, equip and maintain a woman’s college of the first rank is a great additional expense; and if the standing and teaching are not equal to what is afforded in the university it is unfair to the college woman. Like universal suffrage, every one may not approve of it, but once given the privilege can scarcely be taken back again. The college woman has been admitted to the university and it is more or less impracticable to dismiss her.

The other plan is to provide a pattern for her in the university, some woman whom she can admire and by whom she can criticise herself usefully. Indeed, the failure to provide this pattern—and inspiration—is probably the one subject on which the college woman has a desire to address the university president.

She believes that a woman should hold some position of authority in university affairs in connection with women students. Call her a dean of women students, if this is the title most in favour. But it is the reality which is desired, not the title. The dean of women students should be a woman of some age and experience, with knowledge of life and good judgment, a lovable woman who values loveliness and fine conduct, with dignity and reasonable persuasiveness, who understands Canadian character and ideals and is in sympathy with them, and finally a scholar who will understand and forward the aspirations of the girl who is naturally a student. This may seem an unattainable ideal. Possibly. But this is the way in which to improve the type of college woman. The irreducible minimum for the pattern is that she must be a scholar, that girls in the university must be able to look up to her scholarship as something which they would desire to possess themselves, and that she should hold such a position in the management of university affairs that her opinion and advice should be sought officially in the decision of matters affecting women students. The women students will not respect her, as they must if they are to receive the full benefit of a university education, unless she has authority with other heads in the university, and has also a responsible share in its management, at least as far as women are concerned.

Such a dean of women students will be a bond between the woman graduate and the undergraduate. She will embody a high type of college woman; and the girls at the university will look to her when they wish to learn grace, dignity and fine conduct. When the college woman leaves the university under present conditions, she is likely to say, “Why did no one ever tell me that these things made a difference?” All she is shown to-day is to pore over books, make herself as much like a man as possible, and pass examinations. With such a dean of women students, holding a position of adequate authority, no girl at the university will mistake the small-town invitation of the boy she knew at home to come to see him. Nor will girls then be likely to join unasked a couple of their distinguished professors in a hotel dining-room. It must have been a shock to the professors. But no adequate provision has been made to teach the girls what not to do. The only way for them to learn confidence, serenity and distinction of bearing is from a woman. This is why girls from the old-fashioned girls’ school are so charming. But, nevertheless, the college girl is the more modern, more useful type, and there is no reason why she also should not learn confidence, serenity and distinction.

The college woman’s ideals must be the ideals of this dean of women students if she is to be in any useful sense a pattern. She must be a woman of direct methods. She must be a scholar and believe in scholarship. She should believe in comradeship between men and women and should recognise that women are a responsible part of the social fabric. Her advice to girl undergraduates should not be, “There’s nothing in this education business, girls. Marry a man with ten thousand a year,” as has been said to girls in a university. But it should be, “Make yourself a more useful woman, and a better wife when you marry, by means of a university education.” A Canadian woman who was a teacher among foreigners once remonstrated with the mother of Anita because Anita was at a positive standstill in geography. Anita’s mother replied, “I know no jography. My mother know no jography. My sisters and my aunts, none of them know jography. We are all married. You know jography and you are not married. Anita not learn jography.” It still would not be advisable to make the marry-a-man-with-ten-thousand-a-year lady, or Anita’s mother, the official pattern at the university for women undergraduates. Any fine type of woman would be better as dean of women students than it would be to leave the position vacant. What a barren place a university would be for young men if there were no older men in the university for them to learn from, to respect and copy, more than all, admire!

It seems that the college woman must be right when she says that a woman who is a dean of woman students, or who holds some similar position of authority, should be consulted as an officer of the university when matters affecting women students are decided. No man can wholly represent a case as it affects women, as no woman could represent altogether a case as it would affect men. For one thing, in the pressure of action, it is so easy to forget. Some one should be there who is practically unable to forget, since it is natural to think of one’s own case. No woman of sense would be willing to do without the advice of a man with regard to the education of girls if she could consult with a wise man. No woman could conceive of seeking to decide by herself the education of young men. It is fair to add that a man surely should not be willing to decide the education of women, without consulting a woman, if he is in control of the education of young women.

The world has taken care of its types of men and women with success on the whole for a very long time. To be disquieted is part of the process of improvement as types learn sooner or later. The college woman does not need to harass herself unduly. What a man knows of women he learns from his mother and his wife, and this way seems wise and satisfactory to women. A few generations, therefore, will decide the question. By the time her son has grown up to be a university president, there is more than a possibility that it will be decided in the college woman’s way.

THE  COUNTRY  WOMAN

A force which has not been realised until now is coming within the vision of thoughtful Canadians. The Canadian country woman has earned a title of nobility during the great war. But she does not yet know her own power; and the majority of Canadians are not aware of what she is already doing for the country.

Country women have their own great national associations, the Women’s Institutes and Home Makers’ Clubs, which are organised provincially, but which have not any large degree of interprovincial communication. The country woman is one of the strongholds of the national missionary societies. Red Cross and every patriotic association speak with admiration of her contribution to soldiers’ comforts and relief work. A woman packing cases for overseas has told with tears in her eyes of dresses from the Canadian country for French and Belgian children, with handkerchiefs in the little pockets and mending material in addition. The country woman’s power of work in association, it is clear, has so far only been slightly known. War has proved her willingness whenever demand is made upon her for national work. No other class in the country is so uniformly industrious; nor is the economic contribution of any class more stable and valuable. What Canada should do for the country woman is a question which comes readily to the lips of an inquirer. But the country woman herself will welcome questions of a different character, What is she doing, and what can she do, for her own country?

At three special points and for three reasons the country woman is becoming a powerful national factor. She is strong numerically, numbering between seven and eight hundred thousand. The only larger class of women in Canada is the whole body of home-makers, and the country woman herself is one of the largest divisions of this class. The country woman who is a home-maker belongs therefore to the most influential body of women in the nation, reckoning both by numbers and by occupation. Besides her strong position numerically, she controls a unique contribution to Canadian life in two other essentials: her work and her character.

Consider first the economic position of the country woman as compared with that of other classes of women. She is a home-maker and has therefore one of the indispensable employments which she shares in common with the majority of women. Her house-keeping is of a more complicated nature than city house-keeping. Household manufacturing in the country—if one may coin such an expression—is more extensive and varied than in the city. This may tax the country woman, but it also tends to develop her intelligence. At the same time her work of making—turning raw materials into finished products—has definite economic value. Unless the city woman employs her spare time—saved from household operations—in definitely useful employment of some kind, the country woman is more valuable economically than the city woman. Besides this, the country woman has a share in production which goes to market and is sold, or is used in the household, enriching the standard of material living. The extent of the country woman’s contribution to the productive wealth of Canada has not yet been estimated by the Census. She has a share in the products of the dairy: butter, milk and cheese; in the output of eggs, poultry, honey, vegetables and fruit. She also is in a position to co-operate intelligently in the management of farm work. Generally speaking, there is a strong opinion in Canada against women undertaking manual work on a farm. Nothing which has happened so far during the war indicates that this opinion is to be changed. It is agreed that country women have enough to do without helping in the fields, barns or stables. This is evidently true; and anything which tends to alter the standard with regard to women not undertaking manual work on farms will be strongly resisted by Canadians.

Evidently, however, the country woman is in a position to understand a good deal of her husband’s field operations, and whenever intelligent farming is going on she must learn something of it. But whether or not she knows anything of farm management or has a share in it, the country woman’s economic contribution to Canada is plainly of great importance. The day will come—it may come to-morrow—when governments will recognise that a survey should be made of the economic and social work of women in the country. To have this contribution of the country woman clearly in mind, it must be remembered that she is a home-maker, that she trains her children and cares for them, and that she is also an economic factor as a producer. Her responsibilities are many and she must depend on herself. It is no wonder that her character and intelligence are of a kind to command attention.

The country woman is a better thinker than the average Canadian woman. How this should happen to be so is an interesting question. But that it is so is the judgment of observers who have attended conferences of city and country women. In discussing questions, country women speak from experience and say what they think. They do not repeat opinions which they have taken from books or newspapers, but their conclusions are drawn from actual life and knowledge of people. The value of this type of woman in national life is self-evident. The power she has of being able to think may come from the fact that her life is more secluded than that of many city women. Or because she reads more thoroughly when she has time, not being overwhelmed with more reading matter of ephemeral interest than she can comprehend. Or it may be that her more varied and responsible household work develops power of thought and ingenuity.

In using this power of thought the country woman ponders over the happenings of her life and reaches conclusions with regard to them. She comes to these opinions slowly, but she retains them. She is, generally speaking, a single-hearted woman, that is, her purposes are not divided amongst many interests, but she is attached to the interests she has. It is sometimes mistakenly supposed by others, and even by country women themselves, that they are not shrewd. They are often shrewder than other classes of women. Indeed, it sometimes appears as if they might be too shrewd to have that confidence in human nature which is necessary to bring the best out of those with whom they come in contact, both strangers and friends. This opinion is stated with deference. But our able country women should consider if they have not noticed that a very shrewd judge of human nature often has the effect on others of making them less capable of good work than they might have been. This war has taught us that every one may be a hero and that we have had many heroes whom we have not recognised. It is absurd to suppose that life does not make as urgent and effective a demand for heroes as war. So also we have learned that a just war leads us as directly to heaven as any peace no matter how beautiful. The Canadian country woman has never been as true to herself and her country as when she has given, and is giving, her husband and sons to fight that “Thy will may be done upon earth as it is done in heaven.”

To repeat again, because of her character, Canada must receive great national help from the country woman. She is patient, steady, strong, self-sacrificing. She is intellectually generous and admires other people readily when they once command her confidence. This last is a notable virtue and one in which Canadians often fail. Many of us form a habit of belittling anything that is done by those whom we know. The country woman should take care not to lose her intellectual generosity; for if she does so she will lose at the same time one of the great enjoyments of life and a virtue which is powerful in creating other virtues. She is eager to learn and will learn from any one who can teach her something that is worth knowing. But she recognises quickly people who in reality know little and have nothing to teach.

In all probability the finest expression of patriotism in Canadian literature was written by a country woman, Miss Agnes Kingston of Watford, Ontario. It first appeared in Mr. Peter McArthur’s magazine, Ourselves: and it is an epitome of the country woman’s character, quiet, steadfast and natural, a surety for affection and kindness. Canadians should read it carefully, for its dignity, simplicity, deep feeling and intelligent meaning are the best exposition which can be given of the women of Canadian country districts.

“My love for Canada is bound up with my respect for the commandment ‘Honour thy father and thy mother.’ My father and mother hewed out a home for themselves in Canada, they are laid to rest here and I ask that my days may be long in the land.”

Country women have their faults like other people. They are inclined to exaggerate the importance of details. The governing power of detail is extraordinary. There was once a woman who dried each crevice in her cut-glass dishes with a fine towel and a pin. Homes where large-minded people flourish are not made in this way. It is a mistake also to suppose that detail is absent from any kind of work. The Canadian actress, Margaret Anglin, said on one occasion that making a play ready for the stage and producing it successfully was largely a matter of house-keeping, close and persistent attention to detail. Worry and the tyranny of duty, which cannot be as important a duty as tranquil living, are said to be faults of housekeepers, both rural and urban. Besides these difficulties, there is the money difficulty and the difficulty of work.

In other provinces Ontario people are accused of meanness. In other countries, for instance, the United States, the whole nation of Canadians is accused of money meanness. Until recent years Ontario people, especially in the country, had little money. It has been natural for them to see a ten-cent piece and a silver quarter as far larger sums of money than they really are.

In the West money has come more readily than it ever came to our grandfathers and grandmothers on Ontario farms. But when the hospitality and kindness of the older generation and this generation in the country are remembered, the accusation becomes absurd. People when generous are generous with what they have to give. Country people give food and help and time and labour.

But it is sometimes said that Canadians generally are small and mean. To deal with such an accusation rightly is not to prove its untruth, but to make sure that we redouble our exertions to be generous and large-minded. Do we underpay those who work for us? Are we slow to divide our profits with others? Are we generous with opportunities and with money? If Canada is to be a great nation, we must cure ourselves of failings such as these; and we cannot deny that we possess these failings in some degree. It may be difficult for women to see through details into the great ideals of life; but women must succeed in doing so if they are to have their share in saving the life of the nation.

To turn from ideals to practical work. The writer is one of those who believe that the country woman herself, because she is on the average the ablest woman we have in Canada, will solve the problem of the overworked country woman. We believe that she is solving the problem now. Because the country woman is a working woman who has to plan, invent and carry on is one of the reasons for her strong character and ability. Neighbourhood by neighbourhood, she will so invent and contrive that the women’s work on the farm will develop the worker, but will not burden her, and will endow her with the dignity and standing which belong only to a great economic factor in the well-being of the country.

Does the Canadian country woman accuse the city woman of want of friendliness? Or is it a mistake to suppose that there is some degree of chill in the relations between them? If good feeling does not abound between country and city in Canada, it must be partly on account of want of understanding. But if it is true that the country resents the city and the city misunderstands the country, then this is a serious national weakness. What we lack is knowledge of one another and a channel of intercourse. Again, this problem is a women’s problem. Country men and city men know nearly as little of each other as country and city women do. But it is the women, and the women only, who can bring country and city together. In these days of terrible national testing, every one who can build one stone on another in the life of a nation should build. The day may come when every Canadian woman will pray that she might know other Canadian women as intimately as if they were her sisters and might care for them as tenderly as if they were of her own house.

To no one does the appeal for national unity and understanding come more powerfully and clearly than it does to the Canadian country woman. She is able, strong, self-reliant, generous. She is not subject to unemployment, like the business woman. She may not have great wealth, but her household and herself never lack food as homes in the city sometimes do. She may say that it is the duty of the city woman to seek her out. It is never the duty of another to show kindness first. Besides, there is no time to wait, nationally. To find fault with things being wrong or for not being what we want them to be will not help us a particle. Dislike and wrong-doing bring war. Friendliness and right-doing create peace. We must be more friendly than we have ever been, first with our own people in Canada and the Empire, then with the people of every right-doing nation. Nothing can be simpler than to make a beginning. Let women’s organisations send greetings to one another, invite other organisations to send visitors, offer to help in each other’s work, exchange experiences. “Is there anything you need that we can send you? Have you a lecturer, or a plan of work, that you can send us?” There is no greater work that Canadian women can do than to promote national unity between east and west, and between country and city.

There is other work, however, which, with the assistance of the Government, the country woman is now engaged upon, or which she will see shortly that she must undertake. These special problems of the country woman are: co-operative marketing; co-operative buying; further remunerative employment for women in the country, a movement intended to discover and plan work which will bring in money to the country home and which will result in keeping young women in the country, and a study of opportunities for employment in the country, intended for boys and girls at an age when they leave school.

The Women’s Institutes and Home Makers’ Clubs are splendidly adapted for this work, probably the most important economic work of a modern character that the country woman can undertake. It is in reality an extension of the work of the country home which is designed to train boys and girls, not for the city, but for life in the country. The country woman’s object is to make the country the most attractive place for her sons and daughters, and create an environment where they will find the fullest opportunities for all their gifts and ambitions. Nothing less will satisfy this able, intelligent, patriotic and home-loving country woman.

THE  WOMAN  AT  HOME

The Census for 1911 tells us that single females number 1,941,354, and married females 1,251,182. The unmarried thus apparently predominate by over 700,000.

But single women between fifteen and eighty years of age number only between 700,000 and 800,000, which shows what can be done by subtracting the years below fifteen and above eighty. Between fifteen and thirty-five there must be at least 300,000 or 400,000 single women, and of these the large proportion, between 80 per cent and 90 per cent, marry and are occupied in home pursuits.

There can be no question, therefore, that the representative Canadian woman is the woman at home. All other classes of women are represented in this class. They influence her, it is true, but she more greatly influences them. The business woman, the college woman, the country woman, members of women’s organisations, the single woman of any class who never marries, are more affected by the standards of the woman at home than they are by any other woman’s standards. She is the most influential woman among women, and the contribution of women to progress and the state must be measured to a large extent by her contribution.

It is generally supposed that this representative woman knows exactly what her work at home is. But on the contrary it is probably more difficult for this woman to think out to-day what her service to the community ought to be than it is for any one else. The arrangements for the work of the home, her position and responsibilities have altered greatly. Then, too, people are apprehensive that she will change for the worse if she changes at all. We are so dependent on her and so attached to her that many think it would be safer for her to leave things alone. But if leaving things alone had not been prevented by the ordinary changes of the world, it would have been made impossible by two other factors, the women’s revolution and the war.

Although not yet recognised as occupations by the Census, the two most important women’s employments are home-making and the care of children. They are the most important in every way. In one sense the state may be said to exist for its homes; and the greatest potential wealth of any country is its children. These truths are generally recognised, which makes it the more remarkable that little effort has been made to introduce skill and training into these women’s employments. If a girl becomes a stenographer, she will receive more careful and precise instruction for her work than the woman has received who is caring for children—unless that woman is a trained nurse. Graduate nurses are the only class of women who receive this training. What do we know about the care of children? One has actually heard the statement made within the last year that a mother is a better mother who is not taught anything. War has not been left an unskilled occupation!

A plea then is made that for the economic and social well-being of the nation girls and women should be trained for the employments of home-making and the care of children. Over 80 per cent—possibly 90 per cent—of all women are engaged at some time in their lives in one or the other or in both of these occupations.

Business life has been revolutionised, but not more thoroughly than the economic position of the woman at home. The Canadian income last year was estimated at two billions. It is admitted that women spent one billion of this income. How many of these women knew that they were having any economic effect on the life of the country outside their own houses or apartments? The successful business of the country, which consists of the proper balance between producing, manufacturing, exporting, importing, the home market and the foreign market, borrowing, paying and lending, can hardly be carried on if the woman who buys is ignored. Is the farmer important? the manufacturer? the banker? the wholesale merchant? the retail merchant? So is the woman. Nor is her place at the end of the list economically. Who is taking the trouble to learn her opinion or inform her of national economics, or of the importance of what she can do to maintain and build the solvency and strength of the country?

One class only in the community has recognised the importance of the woman buyer. Stores address their advertisements to her. Her training in economics of a kind is going on through the printed description of what to buy. But while the advertisement is meant for the convenience of the woman buyer, it is particularly intended for the individual good of the advertiser. It is not devised for real economic training, or for the good of the country. So far one does not know of an instance in which a Government has trained or taught women by means of an advertisement. But training can be given in this way, and governments often address advertisements to citizens. Yes, it is true that the “Eat an Apple” advertisement was addressed to women buyers as well as to men. It succeeded in its purpose a few years ago. But what is happening to-day? What ought we to do, and what ought we to buy? How useful it would be if the Government advertised again what food we ought to buy! What about “Eat Fish,” or “Buy a Canadian Cereal,” or “Cheese Is King,” or “Explanation of the Price of Sugar,” or “Do Your Best with Home Vegetables?” The writer said to a lady who had been making apricot jam in June, “Imported, of course.” She answered, “Do you think so? I ought to know about fruit, but I am more interested in flowers.” Well, well, it was perfectly natural. But we cannot afford it, nationally. Still, she was making the jam, and she might easily have imported it from another country, as many do.

The contribution of women at home in making homes and caring for children is beyond computation. This statement does not mean that their contribution has no economic value in dollars and cents; it means that the economic value can be expressed only in an indefinite number of millions. There is social value besides. The purpose of this chapter is not to make the women’s contribution seem less than the incalculable sum it is; but to point out that these women’s occupations are not what they might be if the same advance was made in home-making and the care of children as has been made in medicine, business, science, nursing and other pursuits in which training, skill and devoted intelligence have compelled advance. There is as great an opportunity for leadership in these women’s pursuits as in any occupation in the world, no matter what that occupation may be. It would take great knowledge to say positively that there was not even a greater opportunity.

Think of the varieties of workers in these occupations and of what might be done in improving their work. These workers range from the woman who does her own housework and looks after her children unassisted, to the woman who does no manual work at all, yet who may be a hard worker in other ways. The average woman in a home is a manual worker and has no paid help. All impressions to the contrary notwithstanding, women home-makers who have paid help in housework belong to a small minority. At one extreme of the home-making occupation is the charwoman who goes out to work by the day, three or four days in the week, who has her own home to look after and the care of her children, except during the time when they are kept in the day nursery, an institution maintained for the children of women day workers. At the other extreme is the woman who does no work, is wholly irresponsible and idle, a spender of money to be sure, sometimes in large sums, but who is of little or no economic or social value.

A woman can easily identify her own place among these varieties of home-makers. The great majority are workers, kindly and knowledgeable, adding much to the happiness and usefulness of others. Consider what a conservation of knowledge and experience there would be if this was an organised and skilled occupation. Many women at home are skilled, it is true, but they are self-taught, and their experience and discoveries are not available to other women. What do these women think of their problems, and how far have individuals solved these problems? Why should all classes of workers and students feel the need of conferences and discussion, except home-makers? Those occupations are gaining most rapidly in which the most advanced workers share their discoveries. Either women at home make no discoveries—which is impossible; or they are not thinking of the revolutionised economics of the home; or they have not considered how girls are to become better home-makers than the present generation; or there is an extreme need of some means of communication between one home-maker and another.

Where are the leaders in home economics, not the ones who talk of leadership, but those who produce results in advantage to the occupation? While it is true that women who care for young children have neither time nor strength to undertake work outside their homes (yet the charwoman is compelled to do so to the detriment of her home and children), many women at home, especially those in the most useful period of middle life, have leisure and do need occupation, as has been shown in the chapter on Women’s Organisations. The time is surely coming soon when we may expect a great advance. Great as is the contribution to national life of women at home, there are undoubtedly a number who do not work, and many whose work is not effective because they are untrained and unskilled; nor have those who are capable given leadership.

What is the work of a home? It means providing and preparing food; making and buying, washing and mending clothes; keeping the house clean, sanitary and comfortable; buying and making many kinds of household necessities; doing all this work personally, or assisting in part of the work and superintending the work of others; caring for children and training them; taking charge of the health of every member of the household; making the home a place from which people go ready for work and where they find most of their happiness. The statement of the work of the home-maker is sufficient. It is universally agreed, by all women at least, that the woman at home has all she can do, if she is capable of doing such work and if she does it. The happy social condition of the country means that she is doing her work on an average as successfully as many other branches of national business are being transacted.

But the economic interests of the woman at home are wider than has so far been indicated. One reason for the high cost of living is the fact that those whose interests are served by moderate prices are not represented effectively. This statement concerns home-makers primarily. The farmer, the importer, the manufacturer, the wholesale merchant, the retail merchant, all have organised and have representatives. But the woman at home whose household is keenly affected by high prices has no voice to be heard in conferences and decisions regarding the supplies of the household. This is not a discussion of the vote. The retail merchant and others are not represented by their votes when they discuss business with government officials, but by agents and committees of organisations. They study all the time what prices mean to them and explain the meaning thoroughly to the proper department. But consumers, men and women who are heads of families, are not organised and have neither agents nor committees. The price of food, the price of rent, the price of clothing, are problems of the home-maker. What is she going to do about these prices, which eventually have a share in determining the comfort, happiness and well-being of her household? This is work in which women have a share. It will not do to leave the higher economic work of the household altogether to men. For the woman to fail here is unfair to men and not good for women. How many women understand that the food supply of Canada requires attention? What do they suppose is causing the present price of meat, and what will meat cost in the future if the question of increasing our supply is not taken in hand now?

These questions come more closely to home-makers than to any other class in the community. If 100 butchers, bakers, grocers, etc., maintain costly deliveries where, if home associations were organised, 10 of the various kinds of tradespeople would do, what would be the saving to the housekeeper? Do women realise that they pay for inflated real estate prices, a toll of so many cents on everything they eat or wear? A real estate boom is paid for by every household, and the poor pay more than the rich. If you cannot make your money go as far as you need it to go, you yourself have helped to create your poverty. How? By not opening your eyes; by thinking there was nothing to learn through hard study in house-keeping.

The home-maker is not lonely in her indictment. All of us are with her. It has always been supposed and taught that questions of this kind did not need to be studied by women. The high cost of living is partly the result of our shortsightedness, that is, of women’s shortsightedness, and of some indolence. The woman can help to find a remedy, and while no one remedy is likely to prove effective the home-maker should undertake a study of co-operation by means of which an association of consumers working together can reduce costs and labour. No work has as much happiness as it ought to have or is as well done as it might be until the worker exchanges experiences and advice with others in the same occupation. This is true also of home-making, which has been a highly individualistic employment and which has much to gain in association.

With all these responsibilities storming down upon her, it is wonderful that the woman at home manages to survive at all. What has become of the unoccupied sister said to be regarded unsympathetically by the girl in business? It was found to be true that there is a degree of antagonism felt by the wage or salary earning woman for the woman who is not working as hard as she is, and who has so much more of the kind of life that the business woman would prefer. That is, some antagonism is felt if the woman in paid employment makes the mistake of thinking that happiness is insured by plenty of money, nothing to do, unceasing recreation and perfect dressing.

What is the highest attribute of the woman at home, an attribute which is her best contribution to the community and which seems to surround her with happiness? This attribute belongs to many home-makers, sometimes in association with abundance of material prosperity, more often with a medium economic standard, seldom indeed when the woman is idle and merely pleasure-loving.

The woman at home makes her best contribution to the community by knowing how to live. “To make things go well” in a home is an art, and the woman who does this is an artist. Her achievement is an attitude to life. Most women at home have a little of this quality and some are almost perfect. Such women are great artists. As a rule, human nature finds some leisure necessary to hold this attitude, and this is one of the reasons why, if possible, the woman at home should have leisure. But many of these women do not find leisure necessary. A good mother, a really good mother, will surround her children with this atmosphere of tranquillity, poise, confidence and serenity. She must keep her mind happy and she does so. She forbids anxiety. She knows how to live—savoir vivre. To come back to a home like this is worth living for! If any one asks what is the economic value of her work, it is work of this kind that is meant when it is said that every successful man has a woman working with him.

Now, this attitude of an artist in life can belong to men and women in paid employments as well. But it is the real employment of the woman at home, and this is an advantage in one’s efforts towards possessing it. All that one has to do is to discipline oneself all the time until it becomes an involuntary habit to think first of the well-being, tranquillity and peace of others. There is no reason why all of us should not have some of this attitude. In fact, we are not much good if we do not learn something of the art of living, and above all of living in a home. Knowing how to live has little to do with beautiful clothes or recreation: it is as has been said, an attitude. But the business girl is generally clever enough to distinguish between idleness and tranquillity.

The problems of the immediate future for the woman at home are three: To make the care of children a skilled occupation; to bring the outlook of domestic and national economics into the work of Canadian home-makers; and to form some kind of association by means of which women at home can unite to study their own employment of home-making, so that the methods of home-making may be as much improved as the methods of modern nursing.

WOMEN  AND  THE  WAR

The War has brought a question to Canadian women, “What work ought I to do?” The persistence of this heart-searching question is unparalleled among Canadians. No woman who is herself working has failed to have been asked over and over again, “If you hear of any work, will you remember me?” “I can do clerical work. Will you find me some work to do?” “I have some money, but I would need a little pay. Will you think of me if you hear of any work?” “I can work for three months in the holidays this summer, and will come back to Canada. Tell me what work I can get to do.”

These are actual transcriptions from conversations and letters. It is war work they want, anything, everything. They will give so many hours a day. They want to help in any way. They do not know what to do. But they ask themselves constantly, “What can I do more? Am I doing all that I can do?”

The purpose of this study is to help Canadian women to recognise their work in war and reconstruction. It has been undertaken because the writer has so often failed to find war work for women who have asked for it. The study is an analysis of Canadian conditions, undertaken for women by women, so that conclusions may emerge regarding what our real contribution to the life and work of the nation ought to be.

Women and the war cannot be an account solely, or even mainly, of Red Cross work, knitting, sewing, making bandages, hospital supplies, clothing, the giving of money, patriotic speaking, all the hundreds of useful activities in which women are engaged during the war. The analysis must go deeper. What is the whole contribution we can make? What is the most useful work each of us can do? Women have made a magnificent contribution in voluntary work. But are we keeping pace in progress with business, with science, with medicine, with women who are giving such a contribution as trained nursing? The answer to this question is not plainly in the affirmative. An honest opinion is that the answer must be no.

The previous chapters have placed us in possession of some knowledge regarding the women of Canada. We know the various classes into which Canadian women are divided and the relative value of these classes numerically. We know the special contribution of each class and some of its characteristics. It is possible to continue and discover by reasoning and comparison what advance the women of each class can make in their own special work.

The whole number of women in Canada is 3,387,771. Those between fifteen and eighty years of age, which includes practically the whole population of women capable of work, number 2,186,000. Married women number 1,251,182; single women from fifteen to eighty, 746,000. In realising the importance of the class of married women it must be remembered that the majority of single women are between fifteen and thirty-five and that from eighty to ninety per cent of these women will marry. Women in paid occupations number 364,821. Reckoning together married women and women in paid occupations, and even allowing for the fact that some married women are also in paid employments, it must be recognised that the leisure class of women in Canada is very small. A fair estimate places this leisure class at 50,000. Allowance must be made for the fact that a large number of single women are fully engaged in work at home, although they are not in paid employment. Take, for instance, the number of daughters of farmers who live at home and are not returned in the Census as having any occupation. It would be absurd to regard this class of single women as belonging to a leisure class.

Broadly speaking, therefore, in Canada we have: Married women, engaged in home-making and the care of children; women in paid employments; single women working at home; a small leisure class; and girls and young women who are in training at schools and universities.

Every woman can place herself in her own class and should be able to identify her occupation, or should recognise that she is making no economic contribution to the life of the nation.

Besides the small leisure class, some married women, who are not caring for children or whose children are partly grown up, have leisure in which they may undertake additional useful work; and single women working at home but whose time is not fully occupied in housework have also some leisure. Married women with young children normally should have no time to give to other work.

Every woman in Canada, therefore, is either a married woman, fully occupied or with some leisure; or a woman in paid employment; or a single woman working at home, fully occupied or with some leisure; or she is in training; or she belongs to a leisure class. The most useful economic and social war and reconstruction work that each woman can do will be found more readily if she can define the economic and social duty of the class to which she belongs.

Before discussing the employment which would be most useful to the nation for women in any of these classes, several points should be noted with regard to conditions of work affecting Canadian women.

The first is that it is advisable to take a practical view in the choice of work. Any one who is looking for work should choose an occupation in which she has an advantage over others. Women should not necessarily try to do the same work as men; they should if possible choose an occupation in which they have a better opportunity than men, or an occupation hitherto left to men in which there is some work that a woman can do particularly well. In any employment having to do with young children women are at an advantage. A woman home-maker wishing to make use of her leisure time should not interfere with her primary occupation, which is home-making; and she should at the same time, if possible, discover some employment in which she is at an advantage compared with other women and with men. Work that some one else is doing is not by any means always the work you can do best.

A second point to be considered is the difference in war work for women in Canada and Great Britain. Although war has made work advisable and indeed necessary for every one, including women of leisure, any change in the employment of women in Canada is comparatively slight. Few women apparently who were not at work before the war have gone into paid employments since the war began. This condition is largely explained by the fact that the great majority of Canadian women are either employed in home-making and the care of children or they are in paid employment already.

But has the leisure class of Canadian women gone to work? If they have not, what is the reason?

The unemployed employable women of Canada are an extremely restricted class. If you will go out into the streets of a Canadian city on a flag-selling day, you will see them, some hundreds of girls and young women selling flags; these represent our unemployed employable women. In addition the leisure class consists of a few single women living at home or boarding, a few married women who do not keep house, and a few widows who have no home responsibilities.

Skilled work for women is regarded with favour in Canada, but work involving physical strain is looked on with disfavour. Munition work is accepted as being so essentially war work of the most necessary kind that it is not to be supposed many Canadian fathers would refuse to let their daughters engage in it. But it is plain that a number of Canadian employers would rather not have women in munition factories if they can get on without them. In any case, there are no scores of thousands of unemployed Canadian women to go into munition factories. But if women are asked to take up munition work by the Government as men have been asked to enlist, thousands of them will leave other work and go.

It is possible that the few thousands of women who have leisure may make the difference between Canadian munitions being what they ought to be and falling far below our requirements. If the call is made for their service, they unquestionably will give it. Physically able women of a fine type are attracted by the call of munition work. Spirited girls would also like to do munition work. The best way to get them would be for a well-known woman to ask for a group of girls to work with her and under her supervision. In this way Canadian conditions would be met, and it is Canadian conditions which have to be met. No large opening, however, has yet been made for women in munition work in Canada.

In the same way the Canadian standard of social well-being, which is against physical strain for women, reacts unfavourably in the case of ordinary agricultural employment. All agricultural employment of a lighter kind is looked on with approval. A few women manage farms, and this also is regarded favourably. But actual field work for women does not under present conditions please Canadians. Nothing in the war so far has changed this point of view. The necessity that every one should do his best and her best has further increased the general favour in which skilled employment for women has been held in Canada at least since Confederation.

Canadian women themselves by their efforts and good judgment, their willingness and fitness, must see that these opportunities for paid employment are maintained and extended. This is one of the economic contributions which they can make both during the war and afterwards.

Women anxious to work in war and reconstruction may therefore lay down for themselves these principles. Each individual should find by study her most useful national work, according to the class of occupation in which she finds herself. She should choose work in which she can be employed to advantage. She should study the conditions of employment for women in her own country so that these employments may be made as useful as possible.

The first great opportunity for Canadian women is skilled work. Three classes should find their duty here. Women who belong to the small leisure class and girls and young women in training should fit themselves for skilled employment. No country in the world offers a more wonderful opportunity to women in occupations which require training. Even before the war it had become evident that no Canadian girl should be allowed to grow up without a skilled employment of some kind. Since the war began it has become plain that all patriotic women of the leisure class as well should seriously consider the question of training themselves for skilled work. It is a mistake to suppose that a woman needs to be very young in order to acquire skill in any occupation.

Here it must be pointed out that no other occupations for women are as greatly in need of skilled training as the primary employments of home-making and the care of children. It can be said truly that it is impossible for the nation to do its best unless women of leisure become employed. But it is far more true that it is impossible for the contribution of women to reach its greatest apex if the primary employments of women remain unskilled.

Again, if educated and trained women fail to study the big fields of employment open to women the opportunity for woman’s economic and social contribution cannot be realised. Examples of these largest employments are domestic work and factory work. Thousands of women are employed in these fields. But practically no women economists or sociologists are studying them. Where is the trained and certificated domestic worker that we ought to have? Only women can produce her. One of the largest paid employments is factory work. We know little about its effects on women. One class of factory may produce one type of worker. Another may make a different type, not nearly as satisfactory from the point of view of the primary employments of women. Women who are leaders should study factory work for women. Young women who are receiving a university training should prepare themselves to enter higher positions in such large women’s employments. What woman knows, for instance, how women are engaged either as factory hands or how they are discharged? How long they hold their positions, or why they leave them? Women who undertake this work can render great economic service.

Preparation for and the carrying out of skilled employment is, therefore, the duty of the average member of three classes of Canadian women, the leisure class, the class in training, and the class of women already in paid employments. It is plain that it is to the advantage of any woman in paid employment to be a skilled worker. By her skilled work is also the best way in which she can serve the community.

There remains the great class of married women. The national organisations of Canadian women prove that middle-aged married women have a certain amount of leisure, that they crave employment, and that they have a genius for organisation.

The war work of the past two years has convinced these women that there is a great good in productive work undertaken in co-operation with other women. They are not willing to go back to pre-war conditions. They continually ask themselves what arrangements can be made so that they may continue to do some useful productive work. “The work of my hands has proved to be valuable,” these women say. “I am not willing to lose this feeling of satisfaction. This productive work and this co-operation with other workers for effective ends should be continued.”

Will not these women make home-making and the care of children skilled employments, and place them on a far higher level of efficiency than the position which they now occupy?

These are the employments in which they have an advantage over every other worker and in which they can make a contribution to the nation of inestimable value. They have the genius for organisation. Why should not their organisations undertake the study of skilled work in the care of children and household economics? Let them study the relation between the buying of home-makers and the economic prosperity of the country. Let them ask the Government of the country to recognise and deal with the needs of home-makers and their households. Is the price of living at home to soar unchecked? It cannot be made a fair price until the woman at home who controls the family budget knows what that budget means multiplied by all other budgets of home-making women, and aims at securing the best interests of the consumer.

To make these occupations skilled employments the woman at home must interest herself in the education of girls. The girl should be taught what she needs to know. But the average Canadian girl is not properly trained for home-making and the care of children under present conditions. If the Canadian woman will do this, if she will make her own occupations skilled employments, and if she will see that the girl is taught what she needs to know—remember, over 80 per cent of all girls marry—she will have advanced her own country’s usefulness and happiness immeasurably, and indeed for this the woman will be blessed!

There can be no doubt that Canadian women will vote. Many are voting already. The vote when it comes will mark progress. But, as compared with these questions of training and skill in women’s employments, votes may be regarded as unimportant.

While we believe that Canadian women are ready for this great advance, it is not to be supposed that women are wholly responsible for the unskilled condition of home employments. They have not framed the present system of education. In this, as in everything else, men and women together, the whole fabric of society, is responsible. Nor can women by themselves make this advance. They would be attempting the impossible unless strongly supported by public opinion. Why should not the Federal and Provincial Governments establish Home Departments to look after the development and well-being of the work of the home? In what government department is adequate attention paid to the care of children as a national interest? Nor should this be regarded as a matter affecting women only. The home and children are the joint business of men and women. A government department, which will recognise this co-partnership, which will lead in the better care of children, and represent the interests of households as consumers, may be part of the solution of national advance offered by a better Canada.

To help in this and in all other work in which women have a part, we need leaders among women. But they must be women of training and skill, able to do work of a world’s standard. They must have accurate and scientific knowledge; and in their leadership, while they should be able to give the happy impulses of character and personality, they should add as well the definite power of the efficient worker, whose absence has been so far a drawback to the women of Canada. What women have to do in this day is not the work of a man, but the work of a woman, in co-operation with men at work.

No one knows what conditions will be in Canada after the war. But all Canadians must regard themselves as bound together in a working confederacy for national and international unity, for health, the employment of all able workers, education, and the care and nationalisation of immigrants. Without the whole-souled co-operation of Canadian women these ends cannot be carried out with the high efficiency which is possible. The only safety for women, as for men and the nation, is in not shirking; and we can and should adopt better standards of living, less extravagance and more beauty, less useless spending and higher ideals in the good use of money.

The sacrifices which have been made in the war are reasons for believing that, not declining into melancholy and depression, the world will continue to receive powers of service which have never been equalled. In the same way our higher standards of work will be continued. To be trained, to have skill, to address ourselves to the new problems of life, to reorganise the economics of home-making, to make the care of children a highly efficient occupation, to bring higher standards of economy and beauty into our average lives, and to further comradeship between men and women in work and recreation, are the national opportunities of Canadian women.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

[The end of The Woman—Bless Her, Not as Amiable a Book as It Sounds, by Marjory MacMurchy.]