rsons, or one sixth of
all the wage-earners. The contributions are made 3/8 by employers, 3/8
by wage-earners, and 2/8 by the state. There are several original and
interesting features of the act, such as rewarding, by the refunding
of dues, those employers that provide regular employment and older
workmen that have received benefits amounting to less than their
contributions. Its administration in close connection with the labor
exchanges will give valuable experience in this field. The working
out of the many minor problems of classification, assessment, and
administration, of unemployment insurance, will require many more
years of experimentation.

Sec. 13. #Need of ideals in social insurance#. The world has had nearly
forty years of experimentation of a remarkably varied kind, in the
field of social insurance, since the German system was inaugurated in
the eighties of the nineteenth century. America stands almost at the
beginning of a development along those lines that is certain to be of
enormous extent and importance. It would be folly for us to repeat
the costly errors of other countries by failing to recognize certain
principles which have been clearly established by experience. If these
could be grasped and firmly kept in mind our progress in this field
in America would be faster, more certain, less costly, and farther
reaching than it promises otherwise to be. We can here attempt no more
than merely to outline these principles that must be embodied in an
ideal system of social insurance in America.

Sec. 14. #Insurance rather than penalty#. The principle of social
insurance rather than that of legal penalty should be universally
recognized. At present, in all countries where the several kinds of
insurance are found side by side, accidents are indemnified on plans
that are still rooted in the notion of employers' liability for
negligence; whereas, necessarily, the indemnity in case of sickness
and of old age has no such explanation. The unfortunate result of
this difference of view is that whereas all cases of sickness and
invalidity entitle to benefits, only those accidents suffered "in
the course of employment" are indemnified, and the worker is left
unprotected in a large share of the accidents to which he is liable.
The worker's need and the social need are thus not adequately met. We
have started along the same line of development in America, and it
is to be feared that only through a long series of lega