"It is the present duty of the economist," says Mr. Devine, "to
accompany the wealth expender to the very threshold of the home,
that he may point out, with untiring vigilance, its emptiness,
caused not so much by lack of income as by lack of knowledge of
how to spend wisely."
Mr. Deville's proposition therefore would seem finally to
sanction some such conclusion as this:
Physical science and social science (and common sense) are making
such important contributions to the subject of the rearing of
children and to the subject of the maintenance of wholesome and
beautiful living conditions and to the subject of the use of
leisure that, while the home woman has lost almost all of the
productive industries which she once controlled, she has
simultaneously gained a whole new field of labor. Consumption has
ceased to be merely PASSIVE and has become ACTIVE. It has ceased
to be mere ABSORPTION and has become CHOICE. And the active
choosing of the products of the world (both spiritual and
material) in connection with her children, her house, and her
spare time has developed for the home woman into a task so broad,
into an art so difficult, as to require serious study.
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