more of the spirit which shall make people want to obey the laws which we have. What else does it mean when we say we cannot enforce the laws? The suffragists are clamoring for more laws, for more of the manelement in society; the anti-suffragists feel that it is the inner life and character, the mother's work, which everywhere needs strengthening. Settlement workers, doctors, ministers, and police commissioners, are beginning to feel this, too. They are telling us that in their work they find that no laws and no institutions can take the place of home teaching and influence with young people. The outer restraint and penalty are little effective unless they are met by the inner desire to do right.

On points like these I believe the accent should be laid today. The pendulum is swinging too far away from the things which our mothers and grandmothers made their chief concern. What is called "the rise of woman," her new feeling of influence and power, are blessings only as they help her to do better and of freer choice the things which are in tune with Nature and with the need of the world.

XV

THE IMPERATIVE DEMAND UPON WOMEN

IN THE HOME

MRS. CHARLES BURTON GULICK

Anne Hathaway Gulick, wife of Professor Charles B. Gulick of Harvard University; graduated at the Framingham State Normal School; taught four years in Boston and Cambridge, and is Secretary of the Public Interests' League of Massachusetts. J. A. H.

In his address to the Associated Press on April 21, 1915, President Wilson said: "You deal in the raw material of opinion, and if my convictions have any validity, opinion ultimately governs the world." This is exactly what the anti-suffragists believe and teach. They know that the vote merely registers public opinion, it does not make it. Therefore, they oppose laying the useless burden of the ballot on the shoulders of woman, who already has every opportunity in her own special province to mold public opinion by educating the inmates of her home to live right and to think right. From such homes, where high principles are inculcated, comes the public spirited, right minded man, whose vote registers the fact that the mother in

that home has done her duty faithfully and well. A woman who has thus fulfilled her obligation to the world knows that there is not time left to take up political duties. Either the home or the politics must suffer. In the end, in the great majority of cases, nature would assert herself, and the political duties would be neglected.

A minister, who is a suffragist, is quoted recently as saying: "Our young men, we believe, would be safer if their mothers and wives had the ballot, for they are the ones most injured by many evils." In what way will our young men be safer because their mothers and their wives have the ballot? Instead of devoting themselves wholly to teaching their sons and daughters the value of self-restraint, of respect for the rights and comfort of others, and the importance of high ideals of citizenship, if these same mothers and wives are dividing their attention between the home and political strife and strain, can they reasonably be expected to fulfill their greatest duty successfully? No woman should be obliged to divide her energies, and so have less time to give to the study of her children. No two children are alike, and each child requires special consideration and care for its best development. Can any one tell at what moment a child may need unusual attention and thought to guide it aright? Supposing the mother had the ballot, would the political campaign wait because her child was going through a particularly trying period, when a step one way or the other might make or mar its character? Or would the child wait to

take the step because it was important for the mother to throw all the weight of her sound sense and good influence into the political campaign, and she must, therefore, just at this critical time set aside her home duties? No, most certainly not. The mother must have no other duties which could come before her home duties at any time.

Some one said recently: "A man must have a place to go from and to come to." In order to make him continue to want to go from and come to his home, there must be something there to make him look forward to the home-coming with pleasure as the reward of his labor. If this home is kept by a woman who cannot be at home often when most needed, who labors under the excitement of the political campaign, how long is he going to look forward to his home-coming? Of course, the answer to this is that most women would not spend any more time over politics than they do now. But if that is so, of what use will they be as voters, and why add a perfectly useless body of voters, when this addition to the electorate will mean an increase in the expenses of the government and consequently higher cost of living, already too high for the average family?

We do not believe with Mr. Creel that "the old fashioned idea of home is bunk," nor do we agree with Mr. Roger Sherman Hoar, who is reported as saying that "woman suffrage, by doubling the electorate, will double the opportunities of each man for political interest." He goes on to say that when a man's wife

becomes a voter he will talk politics with her and will give more weight to her political opinion, thereby learning the home point of view on home matters. Is it probable that a man who has not spent enough time with his wife to know what the home point of view is before she has a vote, would be induced to spend more time there because she had? It is much more likely that he would spend less time there, since without political duties she was unable to make his home attractive, and with political duties she would have even less time to give to the making of a good home. Further on we read: "With increased interest in matters political"—this increase to be brought about by giving women the vote- "the men will scrutinize their public servants more carefully." What becomes here of the contention of the suffragists that the ballot is the only thing that wakens interest in good government, if the men who already have the ballot are not interested in good government, but need to have the women enfranchised before they can have a real interest in matters political?

No, woman must specialize in the home. I am not speaking of those who "by choice or accident have missed the highest privilege of womanhood," as Mr. Pyle ably puts it, but of the great majority of women. To my mind the advantages of a properly conducted home life far outweigh the advantages of any institution, no matter how good. That I am not alone in this opinion is witnessed by the fact that the trustees of the best orphan asylums are making every effort to