Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/142

 see, Cornelia, that for the immense majority of girls the only way of getting anything but their conjugal and maternal capacities valued or expressed, and the only way of getting even their feminine charms to a suitable market lies through some such avenues as I have mentioned?"

"Yes," said Cornelia, "I know girls are going in for these things more and more; that is why I am so much worried about my son. I don't want him to become interested in that sort of girl. She wouldn't make him happy. She wouldn't be a good wife for him. Yet, just now, he seems to have a mania for 'girls that do things.' I know it's the fashion for girls to 'do things' nowadays; but don't you hate to see them doing them?"

"I truly do not. I admit that 'careers' for women are still in a more or less experimental stage. But the results from the ancient experiment in keeping women out of careers are all in. I am curious to see the results of the more recent experiment. Professional men, as life wears on, come to look upon a career, with all its burdens, as literally the one indispensable element, without which existence would be intolerable. For ages, men have lied to their sweethearts; have