Excerpt from The Economics of the Household: Six Lectures Given at the London School In trying to make clear the conditions of life which now prevail amongst large classes of our population, it has been impossible not to speak strongly about the incapacity and apathy of many of the women in all classes. I should like to remind the teachers that this incapacity and apathy can seldom be looked upon as the fault of the individual woman. It is the result of the circum stances that surround her. But she can be helped to rise superior to her circumstances and be shown how she may modify them. It is a counsel of despair to say that we can expect no improvement from her until her circumstances are changed. That this is not so is shown by the many women who, under hard and difficult circumstances, have brought up their families well and made their homes happy and comfortable. We must wish to improve their circumstances, we must try to realise their almost insuperable difficulties, we must go to them with the sympathy which wishes to under stand rather than to judge, there must be no harsh spirit of criticism in us, and yet, if we would really be of service, there must be an undying faith in the possibilities of human nature. What some have done, others can be helped to do. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.