le token of disaster, sorrow, and wrong of every order--"the
asp upon the breast of the poor."

Civilization has always in the nature of things meant war. It is only
out of the conflict of class with class, interest with interest, that
advance comes. "Strife is the father of all things and the king of all
things," was the word of Heraclitus the Wise. "It hath brought forth
some as gods and others as men, and hath made some bond and others
free. When Homer prayed that strife might depart from amongst gods and
men, he wist not that he was cursing the birth of all things, for all
things have their birth in war and enmity."

It is only in this later day that we begin to realize other
possibilities, and to wonder if the world has not had enough of wars
and tumults, and cannot bring about the desired end without further
expenditure of blood and tears. With war has ever been, and ever will
be, the forcing of women left with no breadwinner into the ranks of
the earners, and only later centuries have given an opportunity beyond
domestic service. It is the last fifty years that has suddenly opened
up the myriad possibilities in the more than four hundred trades into
which women have thronged.

The field is so enormous that one is tempted aside from the real point
at issue. What we have to do is to consider work for women as a whole,
with all that it involves for womankind. It is not alone the worker
herself, but the woman who uses the product of the worker's labor that
should understand what obligation is laid upon her. She is not free
from responsibility, for certain conditions which have come to the
surface, that form part of the life of the day, and must be dealt with
in wiser fashion than heretofore, if we are to attain the
"consummation devoutly to be wished."

In the beginning of our history, women were at as high a premium as
they are now in the remote West, but this was a temporary state, and
as more and more, Fortune smiled on the struggling colonies, many
forms of labor were transferred from male to female hands. Limitations
were of the sharpest. That they were often unconscious ones, made them
no less grinding. To "better one's self" was the effort of all. Long
before the Declaration of Independence had formulated the thought
that all men possess certain inalienable rights, amongst which are
"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," this had become the
faith of those who, braving the perils of the deep, had se