THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

709

to any department of thought or work. The great people of the world, as a rule, are not developed in societies, but almost always in solitude. Then, too, if one belongs to an organization which, by the united effort of its members, accomplishes this or that work, quite frequently one is deceived into the belief that he individually has done the work, and thus is begotten an exaggerated opinion of one’s own powers.

In brief, the Chicago woman has attracted so much attention of late, has been the recipient of so much adulation, it is well for us, for our own sakes, as well as for all women, to bring out the quadrant and the line, take our latitude and longitude and sound our depths. Of one thing we may be assured, without quadrant or soundings, we have not arrived! We are still at sea! And many of us who are known as great commanders are only common sailors. Common, did I say? All honor to the com­monest of common who does his duty. Who knows if in the infinite adjustment of the relation of things the common shall not be.exalted, as the last shall be first?

In our population of- fifteen hundred thousand, probably about one-half are women, for we are midway between the excess of one sex in New England and of the other sex in the West.

What are these six or seven hundred thousand women doing? Probably one hun­dred and fifty thousand of them are domestic servants. They are taking care of our homes at the greatest possible expenditure of resources, in the greatest possible extrava­gance. In the three hundred thousand homes of Chicago it would be hard to find a scientific domestic department. Domestic science is scarcely germinated. Here is an army of at least one hundred thousand women representing unskilled labor; worse than a devastating army of soldiers destroying health, life and property.

Here is a problem for Chicago women, a real home mission. I am glad to say that the Columbian Association of Housekeepers has made a beginning, but it deserves more encouragement from women than it has yet received. The truth is American people do not know how miserably and extravagantly they are fed and housed. Cooks and housekeepers need training schools just as much as nurses need them. Good as our nursing schools are, they are defective in one great essential, viz., economy. It is almost impossible for people of moderate means to satisfy the many demands of a trained nurse. Our people have yet to learn that economy is a great fundamental prin­ciple of universal application—the exact adjustment of means to an end, and not something to be practiced merely when people are poor. It is the great and almost only preventive of poverty.

We do not think seriously enough of this alien population, which forms an integ­ral part of our households. These girls come to us young, their characters unformed. They represent, sooner or later, a hundred thousand homes, each with its children, the future citizens, good or bad, of Chicago. What are we doing for them ? Literally noth­ing. Why should we be puffed up with vain glory, our heads in the clouds, when this great population of wasteful, unskilled labor stands upon our thresholds? Let no Chi­cago woman boast of her sex until her sex has grappled with and solved the problem of problems—household economics—the one department which undisputably belongs to woman. One is positively filled with despair to think of the amount of hot bread and greasy pie daily consumed in Chicago. Still we have the face to raise money and send missionaries to the heathen; the mote in our brother’s eye is such an irresistible and universal temptation.

It is estimated there are about five thousand day laborers among the women of Chicago who earn upon an average about six dollars a week. They work in all sorts of factories, the manufacture of liquor being about the only industry in which they are not engaged. This group of women is still more isolated and alien than the domestic group. They almost never come in contact with women who have greater opportunities. Yet if you were to know them intimately and analyze their aspirations you would find that their standard pf getting on in the world is a purely material one, just like ours; a finer house, more clothes, more jewelry, especially more jewelry. It has always been a mystery to me why people as they acquire money begin to hang out signs.