ey fall out of all reputable employment and
starve on poor wages is, that they become physically, mentally, and
morally incapable of rendering any service which society will think
worth paying for."

"I remember," said I, "that the head of the most celebrated
dressmaking establishment in New York, in reply to the appeals of the
needlewomen of the city for sympathy and wages, came out with
published statements to this effect: that the difficulty lay, not in
unwillingness of employers to pay what work was worth, but in finding
any work worth paying for; that she had many applicants, but among
them few who could be of real use to her; that she, in common with
everybody in this country who has any kind of serious responsibilities
to carry, was continually embarrassed for want of skilled work-people
who could take and go on with the labor of her various departments
without her constant supervision; that, out of a hundred girls, there
would not be more than five to whom she could give a dress to be made
and dismiss it from her mind as something certain to be properly
done.

"Let people individually look around their own little sphere, and ask
themselves if they know any woman really excelling in any valuable
calling or accomplishment who is suffering for want of work. All of us
know seamstresses, dressmakers, nurses, and laundresses who have made
themselves such a reputation, and are so beset and overcrowded with
work, that the whole neighborhood is constantly on its knees to them
with uplifted hands. The fine seamstress, who can cut and make
trousseaus and layettes in elegant perfection, is always engaged six
months in advance; the pet dressmaker of a neighborhood must be
engaged in May for September, and in September for May; a laundress
who sends your clothes home in nice order always has all the work that
she can do. Good work in any department is the rarest possible thing
in our American life; and it is a fact that the great majority of
workers, both in the family and out, do only tolerably well,--not so
badly that it actually cannot be borne, yet not so well as to be a
source of real, thorough satisfaction. The exceptional worker in every
neighborhood, who does things really _well_, can always set her own
price, and is always having more offering than she can possibly do.

"The trouble, then, in finding employment for women lies deeper than
the purses or consciences of the employers: it lies in the want of
education