undeveloped condition, just because it is in their hands.
The low rate of female wages leaves them the monopoly of it, and they
dawdle along in the ways of their grandmothers, out of sight behind the
advancing masculine industries.

It is surprising to foreigners that in the application of the division
of labor principle to domestic work, we are actually behind them, that
we still permit such excess of work and excess of waste in our domestic
arrangements. Cooking and sewing, the two leading branches of domestic
industry, are with them to a very large degree trades, while nursing and
laundry-work are trades in a far greater degree than with us.

Upon this point of the organization of domestic industry, though one
that I have long been considering, I can do no better than to refer to
the suggestive article of Mrs. E. M. King in the _Contemporary Review_
for December, 1873. The substance of this article was presented at the
last meeting of the British Association. The Right Honorable Mr. Forster
occupied the chair, and at the close of the discussion remarked that he
should not like to give up his private home. Now, it is not to be
supposed that Royalty would at once give up its palaces to rush into the
society of a set of co-operative homes, nor that Right Honorables with
"large fortunes" would make close bargains in domestic service. The
scheme at the outset would recommend itself only to those whose incomes
did not provide an adequate supply for their wants on the present
wasteful plan of domestic life, and who saw in this system a means to
secure larger returns for their outlay of money, and it could advance in
favor only as it fulfilled this promise.

Seeing a trustworthy principle of economy in the plan, the _Spectator_
turned pale, and declaimed against the destruction of the time-honored
English homes; and London builders began to consult Mrs. King in regard
to the house arrangements for carrying out her plan.

There will be no difficulty in preserving the desired privacy for the
family, though the wearying privacy of many English homes leads not a
few to think it is not worth preserving in the English degree.

Adopt and apply the plan of which Mrs. King suggests an outline, press
the division of labor principle in woman's work as far as it will go,
and the wives and daughters who make our homes will not break down from
overwork.

The readiest and surest corrective for the excessive greed of our girls
for soc