ld suffer if he provided seats for his saleswomen. He believed that
he would go into bankruptcy if he allowed his women clerks human
working conditions. Then came the Consumers' League and mercantile laws,
and a new pressure of public opinion, and the dry-goods merchant found
out that a clerk in good physical condition sells more goods than one
that is exhausted and uncomfortable.

The fact is that welfare work, carefully shorn of its name, has proved
itself to be such good business policy that in future all intelligent
employers will advocate it; public opinion will demand it; laws will
provide for it.

It used to be the invariable custom in stores--it is so still in a
few--to lay off many clerks during the dull seasons. Now the best stores
find that they can better afford to give all their employees vacations
with pay. A clerk coming home after a vacation can sell goods, even in
dull times. More and more employers are coming to appreciate the money
value of the Saturday half-holiday in summer. Hearn, in New York, closes
his department store all day Saturday during July and August. The store
sells more goods in five days than it previously sold in six.

THE FILENE SYSTEM OF DEVELOPING EFFICIENT WORKERS There is one
department store which has demonstrated that it is profitable to pay
higher wages than its competitors, and that it pays to allow the
employees to fix the terms of their own employment. This is the Filene
store in Boston, which has developed within the past ten years from a
conservative, old-fashioned dry-goods business into an extremely
original and interesting experiment station in commercial economics.

The entire policy of the Filene management is bent on developing to the
highest possible point the efficiency of each individual clerk. The best
possible material is sought. No girl under sixteen is employed, and no
girl of any age who has not graduated with credit from the grammar
schools. There are a number of college-bred men and women in the Filene
employ.

[Illustration: A DEPARTMENT STORE REST-ROOM FOR WOMEN]

Good wages are paid, even to beginners, and experienced employees are
rewarded, not according to a fixed rate of payment, but according to
earning capacity. Taken throughout the store, wages, plus commissions,
which are allowed in all departments, average about two dollars a week
higher than in other department stores in Boston.

No irresponsible, automatic employee can develop high ef