Page:Meta Stern Lilienthal - From Fireside to Factory (c. 1916).djvu/45

 plays an important part in the shaping of mind and character; but we also know that the influence of heredity can be offset and counteracted by the influence of environment. When we change the environment of a child, his body, mind and character, his whole future life is bound to be changed thereby for good or evil. Even in adult life a person's habits and mode of thinking may still be vitally modified by a changed environment. Being aware of the influence of environment in the lives of individuals, we can realize how great the influence of a changed environment must be when an entire section of the population is affected by it. When people, accustomed to isolated lives, are brought into daily intercourse with one another and with other people, when their work, until then performed along traditional lines, is suddenly performed in new and unaccustomed ways, when their interests, until then strictly personal, are thrust forward to mingle with social interests, a revolution in the thoughts and habits of these people is bound to follow.

Such a complete change of environment is what happened to womankind since the close of the eighteenth and the rise of the nineteenth century, when industry ceased to be a domestic function and became a social function, when the home as a workshop was superseded by the factory. Until that great industrial transformation took place, the overwhelming majority of women led isolated and intensely personal lives. Every girl grew up with the idea that marriage and the service of a family was her only destiny in life. The training of her mind was utterly neglected, but her hands were trained early to the performance of domestic tasks. She worked at her mother's side in her father's home until the time of her marriage, the only great event in her uneventful life, and then she went to work in her husband's home, assisted perhaps by a hired woman and later by her own daughters. The character of her work was such that it required all her time and strength and left her little or no leisure for outside interests. So the four walls of her home confined not only her body but her mind as well. But when woman began to work outside the home, when the performance of her daily task caused her to mingle with other women and with men, when she became a factor in the wonderful