PREFACE.
Some two years since, having been commissioned by the chief of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor of this Commonwealth, to make certain inquiries as to the conditions of homes and employments of working-people whereby their health might be unfavorably affected, I had my attention called, while visiting a factory near my home, to the marvellous rapidity of the digital manipulations required by the processes of a light manufacture conducted by girls. A reflection upon the possible physiological tendencies of such extreme celerity opened a wide door of inquisitive thought; and the interest thus awakened, heightened by the immediately subsequent appearance of Prof. Edward H. Clarke’s “ Sex in Education,” which contained much bearing directly upon the subject, stimulated a wider study of the true relations sex sustains to industry.
3