eral public. They are formulated only by
the physician, whose business is silence, and who gives only an
occasional summary of what may be found in the sewer underlying the
social life of great cities. Decorously hidden from view the foul stream
flows on, rising here and there to the surface, but instantly covered by
popular opinion, which pronounces such revelations disgusting and
considers suppression synonymous with extermination.

Naturally this phase of things is confined chiefly to the great cities,
but the virus is portable and its taint may be discovered even in the
remote country. It is one of the many causes that have worked toward the
degradation of this form of service, but it is so interwoven and
integral a part of the present social structure that temporary
destruction would seem the inevitable result of change. Yet change must
come before the only class who have legitimate place in our homes will
or can take such place. If different ideals had ruled among us; if ease
and freedom from obligation and "a good time" had not come to be the
chief end of man to-day; if our schools gave any training from which boy
or girl could go out into life with the best in them developed and ready
for actual practical use,--this mass of undisciplined, conscienceless,
reckless force would have been reduced to its lowest terms, and to
dispose of the residuum would be an easy problem. As it is, we are at
the mercy of the spirits we have raised, and no one word holds power to
lay them. No axioms or theories of the past have any present
application. It is because we cling to the old theories while diligently
practising methods in absolute opposition to them, that the question has
so complicated itself. We cannot go backward, but we can stop short and
discover in what direction our path is tending and whether we are not
wandering blindly in by-ways, when the public road is clear to see.

It is certain that many among the most intelligent working-women look
longingly toward domestic service as something that might offer much
more individual possibility of comfort and contentment than the trades
afford. But save for one here and there who has chanced to find an
employer who knows the meaning of justice as well as of human sympathy,
the mass turn away hopeless of any change in methods. Yet reform among
intelligent employers could easily be brought about were the question
treated from the standpoint of justice, and the demand made an