ESSAYS ON THE ECONOMIC POSITION OF WOMEN WORKERS IN THE MIDDLE CLASSES. BY CLARA E. COLLET, M.A., Fellow of University College London . LONDON: P. S. KING & SON, ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER. 1902. BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD. , PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. In Memoriam. FRANCES MARY BUSS....

The six essays brought together in this small volume, in the order in which they were written, leave many questions, still warmly debated with regard to working women, almost untouched. The point of view of the writer is circumscribed by the conditions set forth in the first two chapters, which, true in 1891, may have a narrower or a wider application as time goes on. The position of women in the small section of the community known as the middle classes is there shown to be exceptional. The gre

Mrs. Browning’s advice to women, much needed as it is at the present time, was somewhat harsh and unpractical at the time she gave it, more than thirty years ago. At that time it would not have been possible for a woman “to prove herself a leech and cure the plague”; for on the one hand she was debarred from obtaining the necessary qualifications, and on the other she was prohibited from practicing without them. The hospitals and lecture rooms were closed to her by prejudice, and practice was th

April, 1892. A century has passed since Mary Wollstonecraft published her “Vindication of the Rights of Women,” and Maria Edgeworth, with greater tact and knowledge of the world, pleaded for the higher education of women in her “Letters to Literary Ladies.” Whatever views we may hold as to the change, there can be no doubt that the modes of thought and of life of women in all classes have altered considerably, for good or for evil, in the last hundred years. It is, however, possible to exaggerat

December, 1898. In making an appeal to middle class working women to keep and utilise their accounts of expenditure, some little explanation is necessary of the ends to be furthered by such tedious labour. For the keeping of such accounts is to most people a weariness and a vexation. One friend of mine declines to make the attempt because it makes her miserable to have the smallness of her income and the gloominess of the future brought before her mind with such regularity. Another after six mon

December, 1899. “Rather than remain braced and keen to watch the world accurately and take every appearance on its own merits, the lazy intellect declines upon generalizations, formalized rules and Laws of Nature.” —“Idlehurst, a Journal kept in the Country.” Every reader of the educational journals must be familiar with the typical advertisement that “The Council of the —— High School for Girls will shortly appoint a Headmistress. No one over 35 need apply.” The restriction produces an effect o

March, 1900. The argument of Mrs. Stetson’s book, “Women and Economics,” may be briefly summed up as follows:— (1) Man is the only animal species in which the female depends on the male for food. (2) The married woman’s living ( i.e. , food, clothing, ornaments, amusements, luxuries) bears no relation to her power to produce wealth, or to her services in the house, or to her motherhood. (3) The woman gets her living by getting a husband. The man gets his wife by getting a living. (4) Although ma

THE ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF WOMEN. November, 1900. Looking back fifty years for the best picture of the middle-class woman’s outlook on life, spreading itself before her after some startling shock of reality, none seems to me so true and so vivid as Caroline Helstone’s vision of her own future given in “Shirley.” The book appeared in October, 1849. Although not so instinct with the flame of genius as “Villette,” yet in some respects “Shirley” is Charlotte Brontë’s greatest work. Her other novels pr

The Influence of the Dwelling upon Health in Relation to the Changing Style of Habitation. By John F. J. Sykes , M.D., D.Sc. ( Public Health ) Edin.; Medical Officer of Health, St. Pancras, etc., etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 224 pp.; numerous Diagrams and Statistical Tables. 5s. net. Scotsman. —“The clear view given, both of the ascertained facts relating to the effects had upon health by varying conditions of habitation, and of the means devised by hygienic and architectural skill for preventing and

The Case against the Housing System in Rural Districts. By W. Walter Crotch . Second Edition; revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo, cloth, 160 pp. 2s. net. Pall Mall Gazette. —“A really useful book.... It deals with the housing problem in a plain, straightforward, practical fashion.” Spectator. —“We welcome it as a contribution of value to an important question.” Daily News. —“ Mr. Crotch wields a pretty pen and draws his pictures of bad housing in settings of rural loveliness vividly and with a nice

By C. P. Sanger , M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; Barrister-at-Law . Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d. net. Glasgow Herald. —“This little book will be found very useful by those who have become recently interested in the temperance question and are apt to be troubled by rival declamations upon the ethics of compensation.... Mr. Sanger is to be commended for his dispassionate and lucid exposition of a question which prejudice has sadly darkened and confused.” Economic Review. —“ Mr. Sanger ha

By Arthur L. Bowley , M.A., F.S.S., Lecturer in Statistics at the London School of Economics ; Guy Silver Medallist of the Royal Statistical Society . Edited by Prof. W. A. S. Hewins , M.A., Director of the London School of Economics . Demy 8vo, cloth, 342 pp., numerous Diagrams, 10s. 6d. net. Economic Journal. —“The London School of Economics has, since its foundation, had systematic courses of lectures on the elements of statistics, and the school therefore is entitled to share with Mr. Bowley