SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 1886. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

 This and the two succeeding numbers of 

 Science will be largely given up to the reports of 

 the meeting of the American association at Buffalo. 

 In this number is given the address in full of the 

 retiring president, Prof. H. A. Newton of Yale, 

 and, with this, abstracts of several of the vice- 

 presidents' addresses. We are also able to present 

 our readers with a portrait of Prof. Edward S. 

 Morse, of Salem, the incoming president. Professor 

 Morse, was bom at Portland, June 18, 1838. His 

 career as a scientific man is one of the results of the 

 enthusiasm aroused by the elder Agassiz, Professor 

 Morse being one of the well-famed gi'oup of young 

 Americans who came about Agassiz during his 

 first years in this country. Professor Morse's in- 

 vestigations of the moUuscoids, worms, and lower 

 arthropoids, his marked success as a lecturer in 

 biology, his enthusiastic study of Japan and the 

 Japanese, which he has partially set forth in his 

 admirable ' Japanese homes and their surround- 

 ings,' are the works which lead us to congratulate 

 the association on their choice. 



CAPITALISTS AND LABORERS. 



The adjustment of the relations between capi- 

 talists and laborers is the greatest problem pre- 

 sented for solution in the present age. It is one 

 that has baffled the skill of the wisest men in 

 times past. There is a bitterness and alienation 

 between these classes that threaten the peace of 

 society and the stabUity of government. There 

 are milHons of discontented people to a greater or 

 less extent under the influence of socialists, who 

 openly publish doctrines subversive of all good 

 government, and contrary to religion and moral- 

 ity. Their leaders are bold and reckless, and 

 avow their purpose to disturb society in order to 

 make what they call a just division of property. 



Quotations, from writers worthy of confidence, 

 were given, in order to show that the condition of 

 the laborer is far better in all respects than it was 

 fifty years ago. In the increase of wages, and the 



Abstract of an address before the section of economic 

 science of the American association for the advancement 

 of science at Buffalo, Aug. 19, by the Rev. Joseph Cum- 

 mings, LL.D., of Evanston, 111., vice president of the section 



No. 185. — 1886. 



lessening of the hours of toU, he gains from fifty 

 to one hundred per cent in money returns. Ad- 

 vantages of education, comforts, and privileges, 

 and means of relief from sickness and pain, that 

 formerly were unknown, are now common. This 

 improvement in the condition of the poor gives no 

 reason for the haughty rebukes of their employer, 

 nor for his advise to them to be content with their 

 condition. With all our boasted advantages of 

 modern civilization, the condition of a large 

 portion of the laboring classes is pitiable. Thou- 

 sands have no employment, and thousands more 

 are compelled to live on a mere pittance, and sub- 

 mit to conditions destructive of all manhood and. 

 nobility of spirit. 



In New York city there are two hundred thou- 

 sand women and girls employed in ninety-two 

 trades. They earn from four to eight doUars per 

 week. Hundreds of cases are reported where wo- 

 men work from fourteen to seventeen hours per 

 day at from four to seven dollars per week. Loss 

 of time, from ill health and inabihty to obtain 

 work, reduces their earnings till they barely sustain 

 life. Many persons receive twelve and a half cents 

 a day. Many of them are wronged, and on various 

 pretexts deprived of their pay. The rules of many 

 factories are abusive and degrading. The home 

 life of such laborers is pitiable, being passed in 

 circumstances where decency and womanly re- 

 spect are impossible. About nineteen thousand 

 tenement houses accommodate about fifty persons 

 each, and some of them three times as many. The 

 condition of a large number of the poor is a re- 

 proach to our age. 



It is a sore evil that has resulted from the effec- 

 tiveness of machinery. It separates the wage- 

 workers into a permanent class, making it more 

 and moi'e difficult for them to rise above it. 



The improved condition of the laborer makes 

 him more restless, gives him new views and 

 higher wants, which he seeks to gratify. He now 

 longs for more rational living, better food, better 

 clothing, a better house, the education of his chil- 

 dren, and time for self-improvement. While his 

 circumstances have improved, he sees greater im- 

 provement in those of others. The product of the 

 union of capital and labor is greater than former- 

 ly, and the laborer demands as his just due a 

 larger share. 



The causes of discontent among laborers are 

 serious and wide-spread. One cause is the differ- 

 ence in views as to the relations between em- 



