knowledge, his arguments will be considered and have weight among the modifying influences of society. But the trade union, even where a mere minority of the men belong to it, is regarded as the fortress of the working men. Even women will calmly face starvation with their children, and exhort their haggard and hungry husbands to stand firm. The word "scab" is synonymous with heretic and traitor. The isolated workman, standing alone before a huge factory, with nothing but his bare hands, pitted against costly machinery and masses of capital and credit, seems to himself a pigmy. His personality shrinks into a shadow. But in his trade union he is among his comrades; he is a free citizen; he has power with him to exact respect and consideration. A worker among the self-supporting wage-earners who does not believe in organization can be of little value.

If the resident studies the conditions of working women, the case is even more pitiful. The isolated sewing woman is ground by the unregulated competition of her own sisters as between the upper and nether millstones. Employers and customers, the most philanthropic, cannot raise their wages very far. Nothing but vast organization of the workers, and refusal to serve society for the wages of vice or starvation, can redeem them from bondage. Hence the residents have generally come into friendly touch with the unions, and have frequently assisted the most helpless to form associations.

As Ruskin said to working men: "I beg you

most solemnly to convince yourselves of the partly comfortable, partly formidable fact, that your prosperity is in your own hands."

And yet the effort of the Settlement has aimed at conciliation. There may be some exceptions. It would be strange if the sight of misery, and the stories of consecrated wrong in high places, did not provoke a rash, hot word. Such indignation may not be anti-social and destructive, but sound and conservative. The residents have enjoyed the refinements of life. Many of them have come from families of wealth. They have the large historic sense which comes with culture. They are naturally conservative. Much of the wild, bitter assaults on existing institutions which they must hear seems to them unwise. Hence they have frequently intervened to promote rational modes of settling disputes. They generally advocate boards of arbitration and conciliation. Their teaching tends to bring into view all the best modes of coming to an understanding. They seek to make their friends familiar with the wonderful history of social protection of labor in all modern countries, and thus to dull the edge of hatred by suggestions of reasonable hope and pacific measures.

"A Settlement is not affrighted nor dismayed when it sees in labor-meetings, in caucuses and turbulent gatherings, men who are—

'Groping for the right, with horny, calloused hands,
And staring round for God with bloodshot eyes,'

although the clumsy hands may upset some heavy

pieces of convention, as a strong, blind man overturns furniture, and the bloodshot eyes may be wild and fanatical. . . But the Settlement should be affrighted, and bestir itself to action, when the groping is not for the right; when the staring is not for God, but for Mammon-and there is a natural temptation towards both. . . . The labor movement must include all men in its hopes. It must have the communion of universal fellowship. Any drop of gall within its cup is fatal. . . . If to insist upon the universality of the best is the function of the Settlement, nowhere is its influence more needed than in the labor movement, where there is constant temptation towards a class warfare." (Miss Addams.)

The exhibits of activities in Great Britain and America will reveal many practical schemes for aiding the wage-earners to make the most of their slender incomes. Coöperation in use and enjoyment is a word on every tongue. There are clubs for the purchase of coal, clothing, groceries and other necessities of life. The enjoyments of art, music, social assemblies, which the Settlement provides at low cost, are constant reminders of the happiness which can be secured by those who combine friendly efforts for a common end. Food cooked in a public restaurant, and sold at lower cost and of better quality than it could be prepared at home, brings before them the possibilities of coöperation.

The "Jane Club" has worked successfully at the problem of coöperative housekeeping for unmarried

working women. They have shown how such persons can enjoy freedom, protection and comfort at a cost within very narrow incomes. (Hull House.)

A feature of the Browning Settlement is a Labor Bank, "where honest and industrious workers can obtain needed loans by mortgaging a portion of their wages, and so avoid the extortionate rates in vogue, which commonly exact an interest of one penny per shilling per week."

There are plenty of people to preach thrift and advise economy. But the Settlements provide conveniences for saving. In a great city the savings bank is a foreign institution. Even if we had government postal banks, the very poor would not use them until they were trained. The workers become missionaries of thrift.

COMMUNITY ACTION.-There are some objects which cannot be attained by individual nor even by associated action of the poor. The supply of water, light and conveniences of washing, bathing and transport is beyond the reach of private enterprise in great cities. Friends of the poor are helping them to see the connection between good local government and the enjoyment of comforts which they value.

Thus also legislation on behalf of laborers is made a matter of Settlement discussion and effort. Who should most naturally agitate on behalf of the helpless child prematurely wrecked and crippled by factory employment, stunted in body and soul by deprivation of school privileges? The educated neighbors of the poor can write and speak, and

they have observed the effects of the iniquity of child labor until it is sadly familiar to them in all its wretched details.

It has been observed that residents among working men are apt to become "Socialists." It is easy to fling this vague epithet at one we do not like. No one has a moral right to personally apply an offensive and injurious phrase without at least defining what he means. Granted that many residents are young, inexperienced, lacking the historic sense, moved by emotion, and therefore rash. Admit that such persons are only too apt to fall into the ways of thinking about them, and take the color of the community feeling. Without much experience in business control, such persons are very prone to treat property rights superficially, and give advice to business men which could not be followed without financial ruin.

All these sins of youth and illusion may be confessed for some of the workers in Settlements, and yet we can claim for their method a high degree of wisdom. The extension of government functions is practicable, and it is inevitable. Not merely wage-earners, but all others are interested in securing common objects of use and enjoyment through our city and state governments. If this is "Socialism," then we are all "Socialists." The limits of this tendency will be determined not by theory, but by trial; by experiment, not by controversy.

C. Instruction. The resident living among the poor of great cities discovers very early the defects in our system of public instruction. Knowledge is