A fifth tendency is towards a realization of the fact that all who share
in industrial processes should participate in the benefits resulting
from their work, that “perpendicular” rather than “horizontal divisions”
in labor should be the aim in all industry. This is seen in the various
efforts made to introduce productive and distributive co-operation,
profit sharing, and other measures intended to give employees a share
in the results of their labors, and thus to take a personal interest in
their work.
A sixth tendency is towards greater industrial independence on the part
of women. This is an inevitable result of the substitution of the factory
for the domestic system of manufactures, and of the entrance of women
into all industrial pursuits at the time of the Civil War, as well as of
the inherent demand in every person for some opportunity for honorable
work. A comparison of the different census reports shows that the
percentage of women engaged in remunerative occupations increases faster
than the percentage of men so engaged. Massachusetts shows a larger
percentage than any other state of women occupied in business industry,
while the investigations of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of
Labor show that the marriage rate and the birth rate in that state are
both increasing. The facts and conditions do not seem to show that the
tendency is incompatible with home life.
One other semi-social and industrial tendency must be noted. It is
the result of that systematic study of social conditions seen in the
evolution of the principles that the best way to help a person is
to help him to help himself, and that reasonable measures aim at the
amelioration of some of the conditions under which work is performed, not
at the cessation of the work itself. The application of these principles
has led to wiser charities, to the Chautauqua movement, to university
extension, to working-girls’ clubs, to enlarged opportunities everywhere
for every class. These movements springing up in every locality mean
that every individual is to have the opportunity of making the most of
himself possible, and that the responsibility of so doing is to rest
with him, not with society; they mean that ultimately the position in
society of every person is to depend not on his occupation, but on the
use he has made of these increasing opportunities for self-help and
self-improvement; they mean that in time all social stigma will be
removed from every occupation and work judged by its quality rather than
by its nature; that in time, for example, a first-class cook will receive
more honor than a second-class china decorator, or a third-rate teacher.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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