The women of education who attempted to make the conditions of working-men's families better, found their own education advanced, their values of essentials greatly modified in some respects, greatly enlarged in others. This was due to the bravery, the unselfishness, the contradictions of character forced on their attention through the natural, familiar intercourse made possible through neighborhood and club relations.

Probably the most astonishing experience in working-girls' club life is the revelation of the entire lack of self-consciousness on the part of working girls as to anything remarkable in their giving up wages not only week after week, but year after year, for the benefit of their families. The closer one gets to the poorest paid of the working girls, the more common is this unconscious unselfishness. In fact, the girl at this level who would attempt to hold or even to introduce a business relation in her family relation, would find herself an object of contempt, even when the personal habits of those who controlled the use of the money she earned were of such a character as to certainly mean waste of the money, perhaps worse.

However one's judgment may at times condemn this unselfishness and recognize in it a positive evil, one's heart is thrilled by the spirit of loyalty and devotion of which it is the evidence. Three sisters belonged to a working-girls' club. They were all employed in one establishment and earned good wages, yet they never had clothes that made them even comfortable. It was a mystery. They did not belong to the race which too frequently make thrift a vice, but were descendants of one the world counts thriftless. The months passed on. One of the sisters became indispensable to the club. She had the rarest tact, while straightforward and frank. When the second winter came, the pressure of life on these girls was very evident. How to relieve it, how even to approach the subject without appearing intrusive and meddlesome, was the wearing problem of the club directors. After the holidays the influence of one of the directors was asked by one of the sisters in behalf of a brother. Then the cause of the pressure was unconsciously revealed. There were five brothers and a father in the family.

The story unfolded. For years these three girls had supported the family; the six men had always been the victims of cruel "bosses." Worthy, industrious, anxious to work, looking for work all the time, they never succeeded in finding work under conditions that made it possible for them to continue. The years of self-sacrifice had not shaken the faith of these sisters in the smallest degree. "What would happen if your foreman would become arbitrary and cross?" was asked. The reply revealed the whole conception of woman's relation to life as they held it. "It's different with women; they have to bear things."

Another year passed without any change, except that the sisters grew old faster than they should. A quiet, determined effort was made to influence these girls to pay board to their mother instead of giving all their wages. They listened to the argument that as long as they continued their present system the brothers would not work steadily. The sisters listened, but the system did not change. Every penny was handed to the mother for disbursement.

One morning in the early spring, three years after these girls had joined the club, word came that the sister who had grown dear to the club directors, to every member of the club, was dead. She had dropped to the floor at her bench the day before, and died in the night. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." The sacrifice was complete. Standing in the room of death with the six able-bodied men for whom this girl had given up her life, the sacrifice seemed barren, for its fruits had been garnered in her own character and had gone out of this life.

A year later the mother sent for one of the directors of the club to have her plead with the sisters remaining that they would give her their wages as formerly. "They only pay board now; they refuse to do anything for the poor boys. 'Twas a bad day when —— died. Shure, she gave me every cent. Not one did she keep back. Ever since she died, the girls just pay board, not a cent more. See how comfortable they are. They bought waterproofs, both of them, last week, and Jim has no overcoat. —— would have bought him an overcoat."

"Yes, doubtless she would. I remember the winter before she died she wore a spring jacket all winter, and that her shoes had been broken for weeks before she died." "Shure, I know." Tears fell from the woman's eyes, and her face bore every evidence of sorrow. "The boys could not get work that winter. God knows they tried. They had to have clothes, and —— was a good daughter. 'Twas a bad day for me when she died." The mother had not the slightest conception of the sacrifice her daughter had made—a sacrifice that had cost her her life. Her thought was for her sons; their comforts were to be secured through the daughters, who were a secondary consideration.

When her visitor protested against the sisters working to support the brothers in idleness, the mother was indignant. When she tried to show the woman that if the boys were forced by hunger and cold to go to work it would be their moral salvation, the mother insisted that they did try to get work, but that it was their "fate" to have unreasonable "bosses," who made it impossible for them to work under them.

"Do you think the girls always work under conditions that are easy?"

"No; but it is easier for a woman to stand a hard 'boss,'" was the mother's answer, without any expression of sympathy. Again she urged that the visitor use her influence with the two sisters for them to go back to their old method of giving the mother their wages. When the visitor refused, the amazement of the woman at her refusal was pathetic. When the visitor confessed that she was largely responsible for the change in the girls' use of their wages, the mother's indignation rose to the point of abuse. That her boys were robbed was the idea fastened in her mind. That the club was the enemy of that home was the mother's conviction.

The mental attitude of this mother is by no means unusual. It is a common thing to find mothers who insist on controlling the wages of daughters who make no exactions in regard to the wages of sons. The effect is to lessen the self-respect of the girls and the sense of personal responsibility of the boys. In the family referred to the experiment of paying board to the mother was watched carefully. It was a success. The effect on the girls was positive. They developed a sense of personal responsibility; they grew more dignified and more reliable; above all, they developed self-respect. The fight was a hard one, but the moral victory was won. The brothers either found work under men who were fair, or they learned to endure control and discipline under a "boss," which was probably what they needed. The girls grew to have a care for their father's and mother's appearance and bought them clothes. Never as long as the mother lived did her feeling of her resentment against working-girls' clubs die out.

After her death, the father and brothers agreed to pay one of the sisters so much each week if she would stay home and keep the house. The sister did it, though it meant hours of loneliness, and, from her point of view, dependence. She had taken courses in cooking and sewing in the club; she had listened to talks on sanitation and hygiene; she had learned the value of money through the management of her own wages. She created for that family a far better home than it had ever known under the shiftless, thriftless management of an undisciplined mother.

The daughter was able to pay more rent from the money given to support the house, and the pride and self-respect of the family were greatly increased by the possession of a parlor, which was furnished on the installment plan out of the weekly sum paid to the sister. The home became a social center for the friends. The boys bring even their girl friends to their home, because it possesses more attractions than any other place to which they have access. A banjo lies on top of a piano—hired—and two of the boys take music lessons. In a family of seven wage-earners, even though the wages of each may be small, the combined income is large in proportion to the standards of outlay, and secures more than comfort, if rightly managed.

In this family a home maintained at a social level is of greater importance than clothes, and all work to keep it. Sacrifices are made to buy things for the home by every member of the family. The sisters are to these brothers the finest type of women, and no girl whom they meet quite comes to their level. The sisters will never marry. The home, the father and brothers fill their cup of interest. There is still a latent suspicion that men are non-dependable, and they must be in a position to meet emergencies; the unjust "boss" may appear at any time, and they may be needed. Their brothers are a trust and must be guarded.

A visit was made to a home in which a girl of sixteen was dying of tuberculosis. The plaint of the mother, even in the presence of the girl, was, "She was such a good child. She always brought home her envelope unopened." To the visitor this was at the time incomprehensible, as the advantages of the envelope to her were two-fold, that it could be opened as well as closed. The child had worked nearly three years, had been paid her wages in a sealed envelope, which she always gave to her mother as she received it. This is the measure of goodness for husband and child in thousands of working-men's homes. This mother was unconsciously brutal. Whether from lack of sensitiveness, or because of a life spent in fighting just homelessness and hunger, to the very last hour of her child's life her moan was, "What will I do without her wages?"

Not once did that little girl hear her mother give expression to any sense of personal loss for her companionship. The child herself became weighed down with the sense of responsibility, and resented the lack of strength because it added to her mother's burdens. This was her regret, the only thing she mentioned: "I wish I could have helped mother till the others grew up. I've cost such a lot being sick so long and not earning anything." That was her estimate of life at sixteen.

A son went wrong in that family, and as the time approached for his return home, the mother moved, lest he should be annoyed by questions and comments on his absence by neighbors. No power could be brought to bear on that mother to make her move that the daughter might sleep in a room having an outside window. One influence came within the range of her experience, the other was beyond her comprehension, and her daughter died in an absolutely dark, unventilated bedroom, in which she had slept eight years.

She was a dainty girl, in spite of the bad taste with which she dressed, this second victim. She floated, rather than walked, and her cheeks were like carnations. The girls in the club all liked her, and their young men friends at the receptions showed at once how attractive they found this girl. She was reticent as to her affairs, except in the question of work. When out of work, she did not hesitate to speak of it and ask to be remembered if any of the club members knew where she could get work. At last she came quietly one morning to the director and said the doctor told her she must stop working for three months. The expression in her eyes filled the listener with fear. In a voice that trembled, she said: "I am the only one working. Mother has a baby and cannot work, and—and"—her voice lowered and her eyes fell—"my father will not be home for three months from last Monday. He got into trouble. He would not if he had been sober," she added, in proud defence. Two months later the end was near, and the girl knew it. All that could be done under the conditions had been done. It was little, for an unreasonable, drunken mother had to be reckoned with all the time. She would stand railing against the girl for not going to work when the girl could not walk across the floor for lack of strength. The girl was under eighteen, and her mother was the controlling power in her life.

One of the young men who had been frequently a guest at the club receptions worked in an office near the girl's home. He passed one day as she sat by the window, and she saw him. "If he knew where I lived, he'd come in and see me," she said with a smile, full of friendship as the young man turned down the street. "I'll run after him. I know he would like to see you. He asked about you at the club last night." She clutched convulsively at her visitor's hand, saying: "Oh, don't! I wouldn't for the world have him see this place." She closed her eyes, after a searching glance about the room. Of course, the mother broke out in wailing about how hard she tried to do for the children and how ungrateful they were—ashamed of their home.

The girl gathered her strength and sat up, her eyes blazing with indignation. "Mamma, I'm dying. I'll not be here another week. There are three more girls; I don't want them to live through what I have." Slowly, solemnly, she continued: "You have not been good. Papa earned good wages, enough to keep us all comfortable; you know what you did with the money. He stopped giving it to you, and you got what you wanted on credit. You kept that up. You know what happened to him. I went to work. You know what you did with my money. I could not keep it from you even when I knew the little ones were hungry, for you beat me and took it, unless I had spent it for groceries and meat and coal before I came home pay-day. I heard what the doctor said, that I was dying because I have not had food and have to sleep in that hole, or holes like it." She pointed to the horrible bedroom. "I am dying. You are planning with the insurance money to have a big funeral. Have your own friends, but not one of the girls from the club or their friends, even when I am dead. I don't want them to come here. Promise me," she panted to her visitor, "that you will not let them come." The promise was given.

The mother was shrieking, whether from grief, or rage, or remorse the visitor could not determine. That night death came.

The girl was buried from the church she attended. When the club members were requested not to go to the house, there was scarcely concealed indignation. "Did she ever ask you to call on her when she was well?" There was no assent. "Have you any right to intrude there when she is silent? The church is open to all." No comment was made. At the church early in the morning the young men and women friends met. The mother could not even that morning hold herself in control. The girl's secret was out, and a great sympathy was added to the love her friends bore her. Her memory was an incense because of what her life must have been. Her unconscious unselfishness, her devotion to her little brothers and sisters, was revealed to them when they saw her mother. Good fathers and mothers found new expressions of affection for awhile at least, while the sharpness of contrast stood out between the dead girl's parents and their own, her life and theirs.

The girl who presents the most difficult problem in club life is the one whose social impulses are dominant. Noise, activity, excitement, seem inseparable from her presence. This type of girl arouses enthusiastic friends. She leads because she is daring; because she does not in any experience question results. One such girl had been studied for months. There was a superficial response to the efforts to win her regard, but the response was too transparent not to be understood. The girl would speak to any man who looked at her. One day she was playing "tag" with the other girls in front of the factory where she worked. A rag-picker pushing a cart made some remark as he passed. The girl, Molly, gave a spring and alighted on the man's shoulders like a cat. She clung there. He began to run, but he could not throw her off. She twined her fingers in his hair, made him turn back and carry her to the place where her shrieking, laughing companions stood. She sprang off. Still holding the man, she made him get down on his knees on the curb to the girls and apologize. Like a bird she flew to the place where he had dropped his push-cart, and, pumping the handle up and down to make the bells jingle, she brought it back to the man, still exhausted by his unwonted exertions, and with a mocking bow placed the handle of the cart in his hand. Then she stood up straight and ordered him to move on, adding: "If you ever show your nose around here again, you'll get more than you got this time." The man ran as if for his life.

Molly then turned and saw the friend whom she had promised she would be more quiet on the street. Her face crimsoned as she came toward her. "I could not help it. You don't know what he said. He won't never speak to another girl minding her own business as he spoke to us. I won't tell you what he said; it was too bad." The girl was about seventeen years old. She had cut off her hair, and it was bleached. She wore the gayest hats, which only served to emphasize the poverty and shabbiness of the rest of her clothes. One day she passed her friend's house without a jacket. She ran, holding her hands under her arms. Her jacket had been bought with money earned by working overtime, a result secured by the most persistent effort and argument.

Now the jacket was gone, and the slack season coming. As five o'clock approached, the girl's self-appointed guardian took her station at the window to watch for the girl on her way home. She came skipping along, slapping her arms to keep warm. She entered the house reluctantly in response to the call, "Where is your jacket, Molly?"

"I ain't cold. I ain't a bit cold."

"Where is your jacket?"

"Really and truly, I ain't cold. I'm thin, but I don't feel the cold as much as other girls. I ain't a mite cold."

It was impossible for the girl to stand still. She was shivering with cold, and her teeth, which were beautiful, were chattering. After a time the explanation was given.

There were five in family. The girl's mother, a stepfather about fifteen years younger than the mother, a brother one year younger than the girl, and a feeble-minded sister of fourteen. The girl was the only regular wage-earner in the family. The brother was a worthless fellow, who bore every evidence of degeneracy and rarely worked. The stepfather drank, and worked only occasionally. Molly earned six dollars a week, except in the slack seasons, two a year, when she earned about three dollars a week for four weeks each time. She began working when she was fourteen, and had never kept back one penny of her wages. Her mother had bought her new hats, but in all her life no other new garment except the jacket had ever been bought for her. She never asked any questions about the money, but she supposed the rent was paid. When she reached home the night before everything was on the sidewalk, and her feeble-minded sister was watching them. The jacket was the only thing owned on which money could be raised; it was pawned. "Molly, may I call on your mother?" A reluctant consent was given.

The home now was in a rear basement, the ceiling just above the level of the yard. The mother and husband occupied the bedroom; Molly and her sister slept on a narrow lounge covered with Brussels carpet, every spring broken. It was a series of humps. It was impossible to sit on it. In reply to a question, the mother acknowledged that no provision was made to make it more comfortable. The brother slept on the floor. The rooms were dirty and overcrowded. Food was of necessity poor, and because of the mother's indifference and ignorance, was poorer than it need have been.

This was what Molly received for six dollars a week. The moment the mother knew who the visitor was, she began abusing the girl. One special cause of offense was the keeping back of overtime money to buy a new jacket. She evidently imagined that she did not get all the girl's money every week. When it was pointed out to her that the new jacket had paid half a month's rent, she refused to be mollified, because the money paid for it would have paid the rent for a month and a half. Of course, this extra money would have gone like the regular wages if it had been given to the woman.

The walls were covered with pretty advertising cards and pictures cut from papers. Not a vulgar nor ugly picture was on the walls. "Who put up those pictures?" "Molly. Shure, that's all she's good for when she's home, a-cutting and putting up these things." This was one more charge against the girl. Evidently the girl gave her wages, and gave them willingly; but that ended her interest in her home and measured the mother's in her.

It was decided to move the family into one of the model tenements and furnish a room for the girl and her sister, paying the difference in rent for one year, to see what the result would be in health and morals in that family. When the proposition was made one evening to Molly, her face lighted and she emitted a sigh of perfect consent. But the light died out, and an expression of almost self-pity supplanted it.

"No, I must not let you do it. It would be lovely to have a room for Katie and me alone. I must not let you do it." She was silent for some minutes; then, with eyes cast down, she said in a quiet voice that indicated that persuasion was useless: "I know them houses. They're awful nice. I'd like to live in them. They're awful particular. They won't let no noisy people in. They make them move right out." Then slowly, with burning cheeks, she said in barely distinct tones: "Mamma is noisy sometimes, and when she's noisy she gets into fights with people. There ain't no use of moving in there; they'd not let us stay. Then, Billy"—the stepfather—"and I fight. I never speaks to him, excepts when he speaks ugly to Katie or mamma. He's drunk a lot now, most all the time, and then he's ugly to them. He ain't to me, 'cos he knows I'd break his head; but he is to them, and then I has to shut him up. I ain't spoke to him since he struck mamma, just after they was married."

"But your wages give him a home and food."

"Yes, I know it, but I can't help that, 'cos he's married to mamma and must be where she is." There was silence again, and then the girl continued: "Mamma didn't do it so much till she married him; she's worse now. I wish I was dead;" and the head of many shades was buried with the limp, "frowzled" feathers in the sofa cushion. "No, I can earn enough to keep them where they are. I must not move; but it would be lovely," she added with a sob.

A couple of weeks later she came in the evening. It was raining hard. After a moment's silence, she announced, with shining face: "We have the loveliest baby at our house, born last night week. I wanted to tell you before, but I had to do the work night and morning. He's lovely." She fussed at her pocket and brought out a pair of baby shoes of worsted. "I got them with some money I earned overtime. You say I ought to get what I want with that money." The eyes of the hostess followed the lines of Molly's dress to her feet. Her swollen, purple foot was seen through the broken upper of her shoe. Molly was looking with pride and love at the tiny shoes on her knee. "I named the baby Willie, and I'm his godmother," she added with pride, without the slightest conception of the relation between "Billy" and "Willie."

"Billy? Oh, he's drunk; been drunk a week. I ain't let him in yet; I'm goin' to wait until the baby's bigger and mamma's up. She'll let him in," she added, with disgust.

Matters grew worse with the advent of the new baby, for Molly had to fight with her mother to get it cared for. At last it died, to Molly's pathetic grief. The mother had consented to Katie's removal to an institution, where she could receive care and training. Molly was persuaded she owed a duty to herself. No impression was made until her mother had been arrested twice. Then Molly consented to leave home. It was deemed best that she should contribute part of the rent to insure her mother a home and to maintain a natural human tie. Molly did this for three years. Then she married a man controlling a good business. Molly is a quiet, devoted wife. She married a man old enough to be her father. When the wisdom of this was questioned, she said, with emphasis and a nod of her curly head: "No young man for me, thank you. Look at Billy!"

It was Friday morning—a warm, sultry morning in August. The bell rang. A mother in black and a young daughter of eighteen were in the reception-room. The daughter had evidently been crying. "I've come to tell yer that Annie can't go to the country to-morrow. She's sick'm. She's cried all night. Her brother was discharged'm. He do be havin' a bad man for a 'boss.' He's discharged'm, and Annie can't go to the country with the girls to-morrow. I can't spare her wages. It's all I got. Shure, if I could get work in washin', or anything to do, I'd do it, but I can't'm. I'll look all the week; and the boy'll get somethin', perhaps. She can't go this week; will yer let her go next? Shure, the rent is due, and her wages is all I got for three of us. Yer can go to work to-day, even if it be a bit late, and yer can go next week to the country."

"Oh, mamma! the girls talk nothing but country. I can't go to-day," was the sobbing response.

The girl did not go that summer. There was no room for her until September. By that time the work at the factory had increased and not one girl could be spared. Patiently Annie commented: "It wouldn't be any good if they could spare me. My brother is out of work yet. He's awfully unlucky."

The quiet heroism of thousands of working girls can be appreciated only by those who become familiar with their lives in the natural intercourse of club life. There is, of course, the other type of girl—the girl who insists on spending the major portion, if not all, of her wages for clothes; who assumes no responsibility for the family, and who has conceded to her the right to spend her money for clothes. She would make life most uncomfortable if she were compelled to share what she earned, even when the family live under conditions that make the home merely a place of shelter—conditions that make even decency impossible. The fathers and mothers seemingly have no rights that this type of girl feels she is bound to respect. When such girls marry, the mothers will do the washing for their daughters, hold the menial relation, and neither mother nor daughter questions the justice of the relation. Sometimes the daughter will pay the mother for doing the washing, "to," as she expresses it, "help her mother out." Such families usually cannot be helped through any influence but the evolution that comes through environment and neighborhood development. There is a superficial difference in the social development of such parents and children. The parents concede the higher position to their children, and the children take it as a matter of right.

The wages of skilled workmen enable them to keep their children in school until they are sixteen or seventeen years old, if the children will stay. These fathers can support their families, but not dress them as they desire. The girls go to work for the sole purpose of dressing better than their fathers could dress them. This indulgence creates false standards, and is a serious blot on the American working-man's life. It prevents marriage. Both young men and young women understand that the wages of one cannot buy luxuries for two that the wages used for one bought. The army of clerks on small salaries increase yearly. This class, through association, develop tastes and standards of living that make impossible the establishment of homes on their incomes and at the same time the continued indulgence of developed tastes. No type of family develops less that adds to the wealth and attainment of the country than this type. The children are selfish; they marry; they discover that the wages that bought clothes to suit the extravagance of one is wholly inadequate to support a family. Discouragement, friction, ennui follow, and life becomes a grind, without hope, without inspiration. The second family slips backward, and it is but two generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves, with this difference, that the arms covered by the shirt sleeves of the third generation lack the muscles of the first, as the spirit lacks its moral fiber. It is this type of family that keeps alive the most vexing of social problems. The skilled working-man's family, the family of the small salaried men, present the most difficult problems not only in the use of money, but the use of time. Their daughters are often far more helpless than the daughters of men of wealth. During their school days, except in the exceptional home, they are not trained to do housework; do not learn to sew. As soon as school days end, office or store work begins, and then there is no time to learn the household arts. If in these homes the money-saving value of time were taught, independence and freedom impossible in wage-earning would be secured; the standards of life would be the essentials, not the non-essentials, that so often rob life of what is best and most valuable.

Hundreds of girls become wage-earners because they dislike housework. Anything else is preferable. Dean Gill, of Barnard College, New York, in an address recently delivered, said there were three types of college girl: The girl who never could learn any of the arts of home-making. She advised that that girl be allowed to choose a career, and that men make no attempt to interfere with it. The girl who had in her the latent qualities that, if developed, would make her a home-maker. Such a girl it might be wise to keep home for one year between Sophomore and Junior year. And the third girl had the home-making gifts so well developed naturally that no amount of college training would modify them. This classification holds good of the daughters of men earning small salaries, wages, and no wages.

As the Domestic Science department is developed in our public schools, the homes of working men of the better class will benefit by it. This distaste of housework will disappear, because it will have gained a place equal in value to geography and mental arithmetic, and these will have value because a knowledge of them adds to the home-maker's ability.

There are homes of thrift and order where all must be wage-earners; homes where the claims of parents on the wages of children are conceded. There is a bank account, but on this the children have no claim, no matter how much of their wages may have gone into it, or how much educational opportunity they may have lost because its demands have been paramount. When the children marry they establish homes without any or very little help from their parents. They do not expect it. Home, food, clothes have been given them; all claims have been met. They are as free as their parents when they began. Usually there is a gift of a piece of furniture or table linen; but money to start a new bank account is not expected. Without doubt, much of the inability to use money to prepare for future emergencies is due to the fact that financially the new home-makers from these homes are infants in practical experience. The marvel is that they keep homes as well as they do, and meet the future as well as they do without planning to meet it.

The second generation of this type of thrifty families rarely carry the habits of thrift of their parents into their home-making. The new financial freedom is a novelty, and presents in itself enjoyment that the new home-makers use. Here and there is a recovery from the danger of extravagance by a young couple, but the recovery is rarely so complete as to repeat the restrictions that the thrift of the parents compelled in their homes. The new generation demand better clothes and better furniture. Food and rent are regulated to meet these demands.

One stands appalled sometimes at the degree of vitality, the hope and the cheerfulness that prevail in the homes protected only by the muscles of one man; what they can buy representing all that the home may have. There is no spirit of recklessness; there is no failure to comprehend the slight protection a husband and father can give, though he be skillful; but there is a sublime confidence in the future. Though familiar with suffering, if not personally, then sympathetically, with full knowledge of what sickness and death bring to other unprotected homes, such men and women, and there are thousands, live from youth to and through age cheerfully, happily, without any financial safeguard except against Potter's Field. This weekly insurance is kept up; the family live cheerfully, gayly, sometimes to the end.

One result of doling out small sums to young wage-earners, whether thrift or necessity is responsible, is disastrous, especially disastrous for young girls. It has seemed to the writer that if mothers and fathers could be brought to a realizing sense of its dangers, they would endure hunger rather than have their daughters exposed to it. After all, it could be averted by making a division of the money spent for dress. Girls are often dressed out of all proportion to the sums they earn, if a fair division of their wages were made, if the dignity of the daughters was protected by any degree of independence financially. Of course this disproportionate use of money is due to false standards that will only be regulated when the people on salaries learn to universally live true to the law of proportion in their expenditures.

It seems to be a fixed idea that a girl is dependent on invitations from young men for her social pleasures. If she is not invited, it is not only her misfortune, but her fault; she should be more attractive. On the other hand, the young man is scarcely any better off than the young girl financially, yet he expects, and his world expects, that he shall bear, not only his own social expenses, but those of at least one girl. His impulse is to be chivalrous, for chivalry is not regulated by income nor deadened by pennilessness.

It is oppressive at times to see how the lack of money prevents the natural association of young men and women; how often the young men are forced to give up the society of girls for this reason. Girls often unconsciously force invitations. As one goes down the scale, the girls invite themselves, where the young men have to bear the expenses. So small a matter as carfare will make a girl thrust herself on a young man's care. The girl will not resent indifference, even discourtesy and neglect, if only her aim is accomplished. The young men suffer the reflex of this attitude of mind, and their estimate of women is regulated by these misconceptions, and even their manner as husbands is regulated by this conception of the relations of the sexes, and wife and daughters suffer in consequence.

The higher up one goes in the social scale, the less evident is this aggressiveness on the part of girls, and the more natural relation of man as the suitor is apparent. As girls are brought more familiarly under the guidance of women willing to discuss the financial relations that should be maintained between the unmarried of both sexes, the more careful girls become in permitting the expending of money by men for their social pleasures; especially so where the limitation of a man's resources is understood, or even suspected.

How to make mothers put their daughters in an independent position where their pleasures are concerned is a very important and at the same time a very difficult question. When it is a question, as it often is, of the very necessities of life for a family and the allowing of money for the pleasure of a fun-loving daughter, necessities bear down the scale, even of justice, and dignity ceases to have value. For it must be remembered that the girl's wages, used for her exclusively, would often allow the exercise of independence in her social affiliations. This it is that makes Settlements so important in our social life. Here boys and girls do meet on a platform of independence, chaperoned naturally by those who know intimately the home surroundings, the social standards, the limitations of life in the regions, and all that creates environment, that most positive factor in the making of character. The social attitude of the young people who grow up in affiliation with the Settlements is found to differ greatly from that of young people untrammeled by oversight or influence that develops dignity.

The influence of working-girls' clubs is positive in its effect on the majority of the members. The girls are taught in the clubs directly and indirectly. It is not only in the teaching of the home arts, but through lectures, talks, books and contact with women of education. The members often astonish those who know them best by their responses to their opportunities. This mental development makes them critical. The men they meet rarely have had their opportunities, and they suffer by comparison. The young women often find they have larger interests and sympathies; far clearer ideas of the responsibilities of life; are better equipped than the men they meet. Every girls' club shows members who thus develop. Often they will not marry. They are the support of one or both parents, now too old to work; they help married sisters and brothers; they are the prop and stay of all the halt and lame of their families; wiser and better guides for growing nephews and nieces than their own mothers and fathers. Frequently they are the most important helpers in club life, exerting a positive, upbuilding influence. Yet one always grows sad when thinking of them. Not thriftlessness, but unselfishness, may leave them penniless in old age. There is no place for them. Rarely is there a corner to which they are welcome in the tenement house; often even where there is love and gratitude there may not be space. Floor space often regulates the expression of love, where the heart may have unlimited space.

The saddest figure in tenement-house life is the unmarried woman who can no longer work and is dependent. In her effort to serve her people she may have played the critic, and that is remembered when her service is forgotten. It is this type of girl who by instinct refuses to accept attentions that mean the spending of money by men who cannot afford it. Their wages would, if used for themselves, have given social opportunities that did not involve obligations, but family demands seemed to make such use impossible. Sometimes the fun-loving sister will secure both shares. One is taken to a home of her own; the other left to carry the family burden, and no one questions why. If it is unanswered, it is attributed to the lack of attraction in the unmarried sister.

There are homes in the tenements where the wages of the earners make a family income, in which all share equally, independent of the amount contributed. There is a bank account. It may be in the joint name of father and mother, but it is far more commonly the unquestioned property of the mother. The children look upon this as the protection of the parents from dependence in old age, should it not be called upon by illness or misfortune. Such families represent the highest moral development in tenement-house life. The children have been trained to appreciate educational opportunities, and school is through childhood an important factor in life. When the wage-earning period comes, night-school advantages are appreciated and used. When the work is chosen, some thought is given to the promise of future wage-earning powers by the acquiring of skill in that employment. The maximum wages possible at the present time is not the controlling element in the decision. The future is not sacrificed to the present. Such a home is kept, no matter how small, in a condition that makes social life in it possible.

Hallways, street corners, store steps are not the only places for the development of the social instincts of the members of such families. After marriage the family is united, and home, though it be in the top of a tenement, is the Mecca for children and grandchildren.

At the other end of the social scale in this world of workers is the happy-go-lucky family. Here the system of financial management has its faults, but much is found that is better than wisdom in money matters. Spending extravagantly when there is money, going without cheerfully when there is none. Why, the going without is scarcely treated even with the respect of making it a subject of conversation. The habit of sharing when any member has anything to share becomes a fixed habit, and "mine" and "thine" are not in the family vocabulary. The result is a close and inter-dependent family relation, of which the mother is the center. Often you will find that this mother has never had any clothes that would do to wear on the street, except to early Mass, if she is a Romanist, or that she rarely goes to church, if a Protestant, because her clothes are not what she calls "fit." Her life is the gospel of unselfishness, and she reaps the reward of love. One may fret at the waste, resent the short-sightedness, which means ignorance and shiftlessness; but there is so much pleasure in these families, so much that means happiness in them, that one even learns to forget the frets. They never grow beyond childhood in worldly wisdom, and childhood is always attractive. It is so rich in promise. Happiness is the cement of human life. Poverty does not change its power of holding the members together through weal or woe. There is a common inheritance of memories that never lose their power of cohesion where love and friendship reign in families.

The people who do not know the lives of the working people can have no idea of the extent to which the working men trust their wives. The majority of working-men's wives are financially in a far more independent position than the wives even of capitalists, where the wives are without an independent income. Not only is the money given to the wives, but their use of the money is unquestioned. There is a constant revelation of the unselfishness of these men. Children will be overdressed, while the father will not even be comfortable; but there is no complaint, for the pride of the father is gratified. He, with the mother, has one standard—clothes. There are men who say frankly that they would waste the money if it were in their care; that their wives secure far better results than they could; that the practice of having only carfare, at the most lunch money, reduces greatly the much abused social habit of "treating." The married man who can "treat," it is generally conceded, is not fair to his family; he keeps his wages at their expense.

Sometimes the observer marvels at the infinite patience of many men. Their wives drift. Neither money nor time is used for their families. A week's loss of work, and there is debt; a day's sickness, and to its suffering is added the knowledge that there is no money in reserve to meet this emergency, even though the wages insure it. While knowing well the cause, one resents the unjust conditions that control many marriages among the young people of the wage-earning class. The young women rarely have the knowledge that will enable them to do their share in establishing the home. The young man contracting a marriage without the prospect of supporting a home is condemned and his bride pitied; but there is little criticism if she spends years—years that mean discomfort and waste—in learning to do her part, if she ever learns.

The mental attitude of the wage-earners toward their income is confusing and yet interesting. In reply to any question of wages, the maximum sum is always given. The question of idle time does not enter into computations of the year's possible income and necessary outlays. This holds good before as well as after marriage. Work may last for only forty weeks of the year, but the other twelve, even among intelligent wage-earners, sometimes are not counted in their relation to income. This perhaps explains much that is counted as thriftlessness. It is, in fact, a failure to apply arithmetic to daily life.

After all is said, no one who is familiar with the income of the wage-earning class can fail to see that the results obtained prove conclusively that the use of money in the well-regulated home is a fine art; that many working-men's wives could give post-graduate courses in the use of money to women who consider they have the right to teach them. Even waste and misuse are regulated by education and experience where there is even a modicum of intelligence. The second conclusion is that thrift under certain conditions is a vice that causes distinct deterioration of character. It should be combated as vigorously as thriftlessness. It can only be done by raising the standards of living; by creating other standards of value than money.

But everywhere among the wage-earning people the independence of the wife in money matters is apparent.

There are men who are niggardly and who hand out small sums daily, and never recognize that the wife has a right to anything beyond food and shelter, who grudgingly buy clothes when they must. These men are despised, spoken of with contempt as not being good fathers or husbands, and their wives are openly pitied. But the mass of working men place their wives in a perfectly independent position by making them the absolute disbursers of their incomes. The small shopkeepers, to all intents and purposes, treat their wives as partners. The wives work with them, sharing their knowledge, their responsibilities, and appear as joint owner in the bank account. The wife usually is the safe until the money goes to the bank account.

When a wife is a good financial manager, she is the head of the house, whose reign is never questioned. "Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her," though the Book of Proverbs may be unknown. This financial independence of the wives of working men develops the spirit of independence and aggressiveness that so often disturbs and upsets the plans of the woman who would do them good, and is the cause of the charge of ingratitude that is often made against the women of the tenement-house regions. It is scarcely natural to develop gratitude for efforts made in the wrong direction. Poverty has its degrees, as has wealth. There are families living in tenements whose conditions represent wealth when contrasted with that of their neighbors. One fact remains. Both women do not need the same opportunities, the same help. The student of the management of wages in a tenement-house home rapidly acquires a spirit of humility. While everywhere there is waste, there are times when money seems to buy double the amount that the student thought possible. With the wage-earners' families, as with all others, the income buys that which is most desired by those spending it. Choice is the master of decision, even in necessities. What is needed in the wage-earner's family is that education, that opportunity for development that will make a choice of the highest things, those that will mean a body and mind so nourished and cared for that moral resistance is the available capital of every member of the family in time of need.