Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/723

 REVIEWS 703

and population-classes of the world, and discusses the causes why mar- riages in the professional classes take place now at a later age than formerly. She considers the question of the number of women engaged in industry and the proportion of occupied married women.

Another chapter treats some more general questions in connection with the labor of professional women. The author evidently firmly believes in women's intellectual power and holds that many of their physi- cal disabilities have been exaggerated. She thinks also that when once the first ardor of revolution, with its inevitable tendency to mannish- ness, has passed by, women who work need lose none of their proper grace and charm a view which is certainly borne out by facts. It is quite remarkable how the younger generation of professional women differ in this respect from the older. If a teacher or doctor is dressed without taste or tidiness, if her manners are rude or brusque, it is ten chances to one that she is well over forty, and so must have been among the pioneers of the women's movement. Frau Braun also dis- cusses at this point, solely with reference to the professional woman, the difficult question of the extent to which her economic activity may interfere with home life and the proper care of children. We gather that, provided the work of housekeeping can be taken off her shoulders, Frau Braun thinks that a professional career is not impossible for a childless woman, or one whose children no longer need her constant attention, though apparently even in this case she would, under present circumstances, advise that such a woman should enter on charitable work, on poor-law and school administration, rather than attempt to earn her own living. She treats with great contempt the tales sometimes told of American women," who as physicians or lawyers have large practice, in addition personally manage their houses, and care for and educate successfully a dozen children." These are "fairy- stories, and only the lecturers of the middle-class women's movement, who are unfortunately so frequently unmarried or childless, would be naive enough and spread them abroad." But she cherishes the hope that the development of more modern methods of housekeeping, coupled with the co-operative employment of trained nurses and kindergartners for the care of children, may bring about the solution of this difficulty. But it must be admitted that she puts the drawbacks of married women's labor much more forcibly than its possible devel- opment under these hypothetical new conditions.

Finally, she discusses the question of the mental caliber of women, and gives utterance to a prophecy that women will in future win