Page:The Business of being a Woman by Ida Tarbell.djvu/165

 quently an employer of labor. The intelligence and the ideals which she will give to her homemaking will depend almost entirely on what she has seen in the houses where she has worked; that is, our domestic service is self-perpetuating, and upon it American homes are in great numbers being annually founded. In sharp contrast to this permanent character of housework is the transientness of factory and shop work. The average period which a girl gives to this kind of labor is probably less than five years. What she learns has little or no relation to her future as a housekeeper—indeed, the tendency is rather to unfit than to fit her for a home.

But why is the American woman not stirred by these facts? Why does she not recognize their meaning and grapple with her labor problem? It is certain that at the beginning of the republic