bering and being thankful."

Such has been the story of most of man's inventions. Beginning as
blessing they have in the end shown themselves largely as instruments
of oppression. But in this case it is not the factory; it is the
principle of competition, carried to an extreme, that has brought in
its train child labor and many another perplexing problem. So many
changes for the better are also involved; the general standard of
living is so much higher, that unless brought into direct relation
with workers under the worst conditions, it is impossible to know or
realize the iniquities that walk hand in hand with betterment.

To one who has watched these conditions, the question arises, does the
general advance keep step with the special? Mental and spiritual bonds
are broken for the better class. Does this mean a proportionate
enlightenment for the one below? Has the average worker time or
thought for self-improvement and larger life? Are hours of labor
lessening and possibilities increasing? These questions, and many of
the same order, can have no definite answer from the private inquirer,
whose field of observation is limited, and who can form no trustworthy
estimate till facts from many sources have been set in order, such
order, that safe deductions are possible for every intelligent reader.

It is to Massachusetts that we owe the first formal, trustworthy
examination into the status of the working-woman, and the remarkable
reports of that Bureau of Labor, under the management of Mr. C. D.
Wright, have been the model for all later work in the same direction.
As the result of a steadily growing interest in the subject, we have
now under the same admirable management, the first authoritative
statement of conditions as a whole. The fourth annual report of the
United States Bureau of Labor, entitled, "Working-women in Large
Cities," gives us the result of some three years' diligent work in
collecting information as to every phase of the working-woman's life,
from the trade itself, with its possibilities and abuses, to the
personal characteristics of the woman who had chosen it. It is not
only the student of social science who needs to study the volume, but
the working-women themselves will find here the answer to many
questions, and to some of the charges now and then brought against
them as a class.

The value of figures like these is seldom at once apparent, since many
facts seem isolated and irrelevant. But the fa