LITERARY NOTICES. 



4*3 



myths and propitiatory rites ; and there is a 

 singular similarity in these myths. The 

 psychic identity of the Americans is well 

 illustrated in their languages, which are 

 strikingly alike in their logical substructure. 

 The precise number of linguistic stocks in 

 use in America at the discovery has not been 

 made out. The Bureau of Ethnology has de- 

 fined fifty-nine north of Mexico, forty of 

 which were confined to the narrow strip be- 

 tween the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific. 

 The stocks, including the South American, 

 are divided by Dr. Brinton into five groups 

 the North Atlantic, the North Pacific, the 

 Central, the South Pacific, and the South 

 Atlantic ; and each stock is considered sepa- 

 rately. 



Woman's Work in America. Edited by 



Annie Nathan Meyer. New York : 



Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 457. Price, 

 $1.50. 



This voluminous record deals with a sub- 

 ject which within the past generation has 

 risen to great interest and importance to 

 both sexes. The volume comprises an edit, 

 or's preface, an introduction of two pages 

 by Julia Ward Howe, and seventeen chap- 

 ters, by as many writers (all women), three 

 of them being on the education of women in 

 different sections of the country, while the 

 others deal with different fields of activity 

 into which women have made their way, gen- 

 erally against obstacles. Of the latter four- 

 teen chapters, seven treat of special divis- 

 ions of woman's work in philanthropy, and 

 the subjects of the other seven are woman 

 in literature, in journalism, in medicine, in 

 the ministry, in law, in the state, and in in- 

 dustry. The editor explains, in answer to 

 the question, which has been asked her, why 

 she has no chapter on woman in marriage, 

 that the book is restricted to fields " in which 

 women, if entrance were not absolutely de- 

 nied them, were at least not welcomed nor 

 valued." The editor had a perfect right to 

 limit the book as she saw fit, but thus lim- 

 ited it does not fulfill the promise of its 

 title. An exact title would be, The Exten- 

 sion of Woman's Work in America; the 

 present one is a weapon for those who charge 

 inexactness as a characteristic fault of wom- 

 en. The occupations that are omitted, in- 

 cluding the one above mentioned, domestic 



service, teaching, and dressmaking represent 

 the greater part of the work that women do, 

 and others are such as the sex has won some 

 of its proudest laurels in, namely, the fine 

 arts and the stage. Although this record 

 seems to have been limited by a purpose of 

 celebrating triumphs over public opinion, it 

 contains much information, and recounts 

 many noble works. The profession in which 

 woman has won the highest success in spite 

 of the most determined opposition, and 

 hence has the greatest victory to celebrate, is 

 that of medicine. The chapter on this sub- 

 ject is by Mary Putnam Jacobi, M. D. It 

 traces the history of the movement with con- 

 siderable detail, giving many names and 

 dates, but without permitting the statistical 

 to overshadow the literary features of the 

 essay. The most important division of the 

 volume is the group of occupations included 

 under the general head Woman in Industry. 

 The essay with this title is by Alice II. 

 Rhine ; it describes the transfer of spin- 

 ning, weaving, and knitting from the home 

 to the factory, the change in the labor of 

 seamstresses which the sewing machine in- 

 troduced, the establishment of exchanges for 

 goods made by women, the participation of 

 women in trades-unions, various State investi- 

 gations of the work of women, and some of 

 the legislation based on the information thus 

 gathered. It also gives an account of the 

 rise of woman's education in industrial art, 

 the establishment of various organizations to 

 furnish working-women with comfortable liv- 

 ing, to protect them from being cheated out 

 of their wages or savings, and to teach them 

 various gainful occupations, and closes with 

 glowing praise of the Knights of Labor and 

 the principles of socialism. Little or noth- 

 ing is said about saleswomen, or women 

 as stenographers, typewriters, telegraphers, 

 cashiers, book-keepers, Government clerks, 

 canvassers, and teachers of cookery. Miss 

 Rhine calls the sewing-machine a curse, " like 

 all other labor-saving machines " a delusion 

 which is mostly confined to the uneducated. 

 One quality for which this essay deserves 

 praise is its freedom from useless words. The 

 paper on Woman in Literature, by Helen G. 

 Cone, records much of glorious achievement. 

 It is rather apologetic, assigning lack of ad- 

 vantages and opportunities as the reason why 

 still more women have not succeeded in this 



