hinted at. But the domestic system of housework, if that expression may be used to distinguish it from the present individual system, and the proposed system of unconscious co-operation, enables women to work in their own homes and, by exchange of such commodities and services as each can best dispose of, to contribute to the general welfare. The plan of specialization of household employments has already been put into partial operation by many housekeepers and its success attested by those who have tried it.[310] Conscious co-operative housekeeping has in nearly every case proved a practical failure, but the unconscious co-operation that comes through business enterprise has brought relief to the household in many directions and it is one of the lines along which progress in the future must be made. CHAPTER XIV POSSIBLE REMEDIES—PROFIT SHARING Domestic service, as has been seen, is accompanied by certain social conditions that prevent many from entering the occupation. The present unclassified state of household employments operates in the same way. But in addition to this lack of organization, other industrial disadvantages are found. These are the lack of all opportunity for promotion within the service, the lack of kindred occupations opening out from it, the irregularity of working hours, and confinement evenings and Sundays, the necessary competition between those of American birth and foreign born and colored employees, and the lack of personal independence. These, in addition to the unorganized condition of the work, are the industrial disadvantages that tell most strongly against the occupation; they are the economic maladies that can be alleviated only by the application of economic remedies. The attempt has been made to show how the lack of organization in household employments can be partially met by taking out of the house a large part of the work now performed there, and having much of what must necessarily remain done by the piece, hour, day, or season, thus securing better specialization of work and directing it into the current of industrial progress. The second group of industrial difficulties enumerated must in a similar way be met by measures that have proved successful in similar fields. The vexed questions of wages and hours of labor in the industrial world are still unsettled, but in certain industries some little progress towards a solution of those difficulties has been made through the introduction of the profit-sharing system. In order to answer the question whether profit sharing could be introduced with advantage into domestic service, it is necessary to consider somewhat in detail the question, What is profit sharing, and also the question, What have been its advantages in general economic society?