g to the workmen than anywhere else. Where not a single
woman was employed in the works and factories before the war, except in
textiles, "there will soon be fifteen thousand of them in the munition
workshops alone, and that will not be the end."

Wherever she goes, Mrs. Ward's eyes are wide open. From her own home,
which is in the midst of one of the most patriotic regions of the realm,
she can witness the perpetual activity which has come about in preparation
for the war in all its varied phases and branches; everything and
everybody is in vigorous motion, both there and in all the counties of
England which she has visited. Great camps in every direction for the
shelter and training of recruits, all coming and going, all marching and
countermarching, training and drilling everywhere, and as fast as the
citizen is converted into a soldier, he is bound for the seat of war with
all the equipments that war requires, tramping everywhere, tramp, tramp,
along the land; tramp, tramp, along the sea, until the new supports, all
ready for vital service, reach their destination on French soil.

Mrs. Ward has made a careful study of the effect of the novel introduction
of women into all these works of men, especially in the munition
factories, and dwells with great significance upon the rapidity of the
women's piece-work and the mingling of classes, where educated and refined
girls work side by side and very happily with those of an humbler type.
What Mrs. Ward well calls "the common spirit" inspires them all, and holds
them all in just and equal relations. At every step she is startled by the
vastness of the work and the immense hand that women have in it, finding
one shop turning out about four thousand shrapnel and four thousand
high-explosive shells per week, heavy shell work all, which they thought
at first they must furnish men to lift in and out of the machines, but
"the women thrust the men aside in five minutes." Surely this new
education of women, of these girls and women who are to become the mothers
of the next generation, must have a most inspiring and exalting effect
upon the days to come. War may be postponed for whole generations, but
England will never fail to be ready for it as a necessary part of the
education of the race.

It is quite evident that this war is breaking down the barriers that have
heretofore been impassable, not only between men and women, but between
the various classes of society, and that it