I go 



SCIENCR 



[Vol. XX. No. 504 



All the seeds were placed under the soil and put as nearly as pos- 

 sible under the same conditions. "Whenever the weather was dry, 

 they were watered twice every day. Five species germinated twice 

 as many seed when planted pappus end up as the same species 

 did when planted pappus end down. 



This at least suggests a reason for the inversion of the ovule in 

 these and many other seeds. By assuming the anatropous form, 

 the seeds in this order are able to bring their hypocotyl near the 

 opening at the base of the akene, and at the same time secure 

 advantages to themselves in the process of germination. I cannot 

 help but believe that these adaptations are a factor in making 

 the Order Compositae the largest of the orders of flowering plants, 

 in the number of its species as well as in the great abundance of 

 individuals in some of its species. 



WOMAN'S WORK FOR WAGES. 



BY 0. E. HENDERSON, RECORDER AND ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL 

 SCIENCE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 



Social science has few more important problems than the con- 

 ditions and effects of the earning of wages by women. Some 

 sanguine advocates of women's rights apparently do not see that 

 there are grave perils attending the enlargement of industrial ac- 

 tivities on the part of the natural mistress of the home. They 

 hail with rapture unmixed with foreboding the mere fact that 

 the former "slaves of men" are becoming independent of the 

 lords of creation. That access to new employments has its bright 

 side there can be no reasonable doubt. There is a physical gain if 

 the work is confined within certain limits and is adapted to the 

 frame and forces of the sister toiler. Regular labor in sunny and 

 well-ventilated rooms, or even in the open fields, is far better for 

 health than idleness and husband-trapping. Intellectually, the 

 sphere of mental life is vastly enlarged by the modern diversity of 

 employment. There are domestic and social advantages in being 

 able to wait and select a husband rather than take up the first 

 thing in the shape of a man who offers a secure living. The eco- 

 nomical advantage is so apparent that it needs nothing more than 

 mention. At first sight all that a girl earns is clear gain, and is 

 an absolute addition to the income of the fauiily. In many occu- 

 pations the dexterity, deftness, and honesty of female helpers 

 have proved their superior value. As nurses, physicians of 

 women and children, matrons of institutions requiring the pres- 

 ence of ladies, their gentleness and insight have been an untold 

 blessing. These advantages are so real and great that any modi- 

 fications of the present tendency to widen the industrial sphere of 

 woman must take them into the account. 



But there is also a very dark side to this subject. Passing the 

 dangers of imposing labor prematurely on young girls, consider 

 the indirect effects of feminine competition in some lines. That 

 which we first see is a positive addition to family revenue. But 

 later we discover that girls are taking the places of men at lower 

 rates. This often means that the natural head and bread-winner 

 is out of work or is receiving the woman's rate. The girl has 

 herself to support, and that only in part. The man must support 

 at least four persons. What must be the effect on domestic life ? 

 That which is actually observed : the husband and father at home 

 while the daughter or wife is in the factory earning the living. 

 Marriages are dimished, and among those most suitable for par- 

 ents there are fewer births. A recent French economist of high 

 repute gravely declares that the State ought to support and edu- 

 cate foundlings and orphans because the better members of so- 

 ciety either cannot or will not keep up the population. What must 

 be the results of propagating a human stock with such pedigrees ? 

 Ask the Kentucky horse-breeders. Think of the disorder of 

 households where the normal conditions are reversed, the wife 

 being in field or shop. Dr. Bushnell wrote about a "a reform 

 against nature." It is against civilized human nature to throw 

 the burdens of procuring sustenance upon those who have all 

 they can endure in bearing, nursing, and starting the education 

 of children. That cannot be a good tendency, economically or 

 morally, which tends to extinguish a higher race. Herbert Spen- 

 cer, in his pages on the status of women, gives abundant illustra- 



tions of the law that the imposition of bread-winning on women 

 belongs with savage conditions. 



What can be done to secure the advantages of women's work 

 for wages and avoid the perils ?■ There are natural forces which 

 counteract the momentum of these evils. Fortunately it is the 

 disposition of most women to have a home of their own. This 

 inclination, deep as human life and old as history, removes much 

 female competition. But unconscious forces need to be supple- 

 mented by foresight, prudence, and philosophy. Biology, as De 

 Greef teaches, is not sociology. There is a physical law of 

 "must "and a moral law of "may" and "ought." Women 

 should be taught that she who works for less than normal wages 

 in order to get " pin money " is the foe of her kind, and is under- 

 mining the foundations of economic and domestic welfare. This 

 conviction, once generally diffused, will create trade-unions. 

 These unions, because they are human, have done many foolish 

 and wicked deeds. But they never did a more foolish or wicked 

 deed than they have done who taught that unlimited work of 

 women, at any price they could get, was an unmixed good. If 

 women unite and demand the normal rate of wages then it will 

 be found out whether it is really profitable to hire them. If their 

 peculiar gifts give them superiority they will retain their places 

 at the jiroper rate. If men are really more fit for the places, they 

 will be preferred. Thus this social disease might be healed. To 

 let it alone is to let a cancer alone, or permit incipient consump- 

 tion or germs of cholera to have free-course. To take hold of the 

 evil with will and unity is to cure it. Thus alone will young 

 men be able to marry at a suitable age, and young women will 

 generally find their most congenial and happy places as mothers 

 and educators and home-makers. There is sufficient earning 

 force in men without forcing children to eat scraps of bread and 

 cake out of scavenger barrels and without compelling women to 

 exhaust their energies in field and factory. 



HEREDITY. 



BY JULIA BROWN STRODE. 



All men are created free and equal, says that famous document 

 the Declaration of Independence, and, in a remote and abstract 

 sense, it may be true; but, all in all, we are bound by a thousand 

 chains, and equality is unknown. Fetters have been imposed 

 upon us by our forefathers; limitations have been set us by our 

 ancestors, which it will take years of study and self-culture to 

 overcome. And as to equality, this man may average well in one 

 particular with his fellow-men, but is totally deficient in another 

 respect, and no two men are alike. Many of the lower tribes in 

 Africa, says Stanley, resemble the ape more nearly than human 

 beings. Either these lower classes have sprung from a brute an- 

 cestry, or their lives and environments have continued such that 

 they have taken on the dispositions and appearance of the higher 

 animals with which they have been surrounded, and have trans- 

 mitted them to their progeny. ' Whether we accept the theory of 

 evolution or not, the fact remains the same, i.e., that many savage 

 tribes are more allied to animals than to civilized man. But, 

 whatever our parentage is, or may have been, true worth is recog- 

 nized and acknowledged wherever it may be found. 



The problem of how to intensify the higher attributes of human 

 nature and obliterate the unworthy is the problem of the age. The 

 old theory that children were sent into the world, figuratively 

 speaking, mere pieces of blank paper was long ago exploded. 

 The paper is all written, traced, and re traced. The child has as 

 decided a character, though not one so easily discernable, when 

 it enters the world as when it leaves it. As genius, disease, 

 peculiarities of appearance often transmit themselves from parent 

 to children, so do villainy, crime, and moral depravity. 



Here is a child with the idiosyncracies, the peculiar mannerisms, 

 of his great-grandfather dead before he was born. I know of a 

 boy whose attitudes and voice are like no other member of his 

 family, but that of an uncle whom he never saw. Often an indi- 

 vidual retui-ning to his home town, from which he has for years 

 been absent, readily determines to what families the new-born 

 generation belongs. 



