the question of wages is
not equally vital to them all. It is not only nature and the law which
demand protection for women, but society as well. In every case of the
number I investigated, if there were sons, daughters or a husband in the
family, the mother was not allowed to work. She was wholly protected. In
the families where the father and brothers were making enough for bread
and butter, the daughters were protected partially or entirely. There is
no law which regulates this social protection: it is voluntary, and it
would seem to indicate that civilized woman is meant to be an economic
dependent. Yet, on the other hand, what is the new force which impels
girls from their homes into the factories to work when they do not
actually need the money paid them for their effort and sacrifice? Is it
a move toward some far distant civilization when women shall have become
man's physical equal, a "free, economic, social factor, making possible
the full social combination of individuals in collective industry"? This
is a matter for speculation only. What occurred to me as a possible
remedy both for the oppression of the woman bread-winner and also as a
betterment for the girl who wants to work though she does not need the
money, was this: the establishment of schools where the esthetic
branches of industrial art might be taught to the girls who by their
material independence could give some leisure to acquiring a profession
useful to themselves and to society in general. The whole country would
be benefited by the opening of such schools as the Empress of Russia has
patronized for the maintenance of the "petites industries," or those
which Queen Margherita has established for the revival of lace-making in
Italy. If there was such a counter-attraction to machine labour, the
bread-winner would have a freer field and the non-bread-winner might
still work for luxury and at the same time better herself morally,
mentally and esthetically. She could aid in forming an intermediate
class of labourers which as yet does not exist in America: the
hand-workers, the _main d'oeuvre_ who produce the luxurious objects of
industrial art for which we are obliged to send to Europe when we wish
to beautify our homes.

The American people are lively, intelligent, capable of learning
anything. The schools of which I speak, founded, not for the
manufacturing of the useful but of the beautiful, could be started
informally as classes and by individu