ooks of philosophy, and house decorators are as much in demand,
and are paid as well as architects. The present industries of women are
undeveloped; there is among them, as yet, no sphere for skilled,
high-class work, and many of the industries that naturally belong to
women have been developed by men, and are possessed by men. The wages of
women are low, because there are too many workers for the range of work
they are attempting to do.

The industries that are exclusively in their hands are almost wholly at
a stage where intelligent labor is not required, and so few of the
industries that have been developed by men are open to them, that, owing
to the great competition, even the skilled work of women, as yet,
commands but a low price. They want more work, and especially a larger
amount of intelligent or skilled work. They must both organize and
develop, by the application of the division of labor principle, the work
they already have, and they must win from men a part of their work.

But they can make their way into the industries occupied by men, only by
doing the work in men's way, and underbidding men in wages. When they
once get undisputed possession, they can and do apply their own methods.
Mr. Mundella's Bill, to which I have already referred, will, as is
believed, if it become a law, put a great obstacle in the way of their
progress. It is to the interest of the mill-owners to keep their
machinery at work as many hours as they can, and if men will work ten
hours a day, while women are prohibited from working more than nine and
a half, men will be employed in preference to women, even with the
disadvantage of larger wages. But, fortunately, it is said, the women
cannot be wholly driven out. In some branches of the work they do so
much better than the men, that even if this reduction of hours should be
enforced, the mill-owners will still find it to their advantage to
employ women.

The women in these special lines have already proved the value of
women's work done in women's way. I believe women have also got a
similar recognition in some branches of the watchmaking trade; and in
teaching, they have already proved the superiority of their methods.
They get forward slowly, because of the great strain required in using
men's methods to get the gates opened to them, and Mr. Mundella's Bill
would put an extra bar across the gates. The wages are kept low along
the line of their advance, because an army of laborers