tled definitely that this was seldom the case, and in their
constitution demanded equal pay for equal work. For both sexes
machinery is more and more superseding the labor of each; and as women
and children are quite capable of running much of it, this fact, of
course, brings the general wage to their standard. This, added to
various physiological and social reasons, makes woman often a less
dependable worker than man, and tends to keep wages at a minimum.

As to the final effect on wages, I regard the whole aspect of things as
purely transitional, and must answer from personal conviction in the
matter.

The entire movement appears to me a part of the natural evolution from
barbaric law and restriction, and a necessary demonstration of the
spiritual equality of the sexes. I regard it also as the nurse and
developer of many small virtues in which women are especially
deficient,--punctuality, unvarying quality of work, a sense of business
honor and of personal fidelity, each to all and all to each. But I
cannot feel that it is a permanent state, or that when the essential has
been accomplished women will have the same need or the same desire that
now rules. I believe that wages must necessarily fluctuate and tend to
the mere point of subsistence when either child labor or the lowest
grade of woman's labor exists, and that the only way out of the
complications we face is in an alteration of ideals. Statistics and
general reports show the demoralization of family life where such work
goes on, and the fact that in the long run the workman loses rather than
gains where his family share his labor.

The lowering of wage may be considered, then, as in one sense remedial,
and the present state of things as in part the mere action of inevitable
and inescapable law. But it is impossible to make this plain in present
limits. Having passed through every stage of feeling,--sick pity,
burning indignation, and tempestuous desire for instant action,--I have
come at last to regard all as our education in justice and a demand for
training in such wise as shall render unskilled labor more and more
impossible. So long as it exists, however, I see no outlook but the
fluctuating and uncertain wage, the natural result of the existence of
the lowest order of workers.

For them as for us it is the development of the individual from the mass
that is the chief end of any real civilization. No Utopias of any past
or present can bring this at onc