EDUCATED WORKING WOMEN _ESSAYS ON THE ECONOMIC POSITION OF WOMEN WORKERS IN THE MIDDLE CLASSES._ BY CLARA E. COLLET, M.A., _Fellow of University College London_. LONDON: P. S. KING & SON, ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER. 1902. BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. In Memoriam. FRANCES MARY BUSS. CONTENTS. PAGE THE ECONOMIC POSITION OF EDUCATED WORKING WOMEN. Read to the South Place Ethical Society, February, 1890 1 PROSPECTS OF MARRIAGE FOR WOMEN. The _Nineteenth Century_, April, 1892 27 THE EXPENDITURE OF MIDDLE CLASS WORKING WOMEN. The _Economic Journal_, December, 1898 66 THE AGE LIMIT FOR WOMEN. The _Contemporary Review_, December, 1899 90 MRS. STETSON’S ECONOMIC IDEAL. The _Charity Organization Review_, March, 1900 114 THROUGH FIFTY YEARS: THE ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF WOMEN. _Frances Mary Buss Schools’ Jubilee Magazine_, November, 1900 134 “_Because precisely, I’m an artist, sir, And woman, if another sate in sight, I’d whisper,--Soft, my sister! not a word! By speaking we prove only we can speak, Which he, the man here, never doubted. What He doubts is, whether we can_ DO _the thing With decent grace, we’ve not yet done at all. Now, do it; bring your statue,--you have room! He’ll see it even by the starlight here; And if ’tis e’er so little like the god Who looks out from the marble silently Along the track of his own shining dart Through the dusk of ages, there’s no need to speak; The universe shall henceforth speak for you, And witness, ‘She who did this thing, was born To do it,--claims her license in her work.’ And so with more works. Whoso cures the plague, Though twice a woman, shall be called a leech: Who rights a land’s finances is excused For touching copper, though her hands be white,-- But we, we talk!_” _“It is the age’s mood” He said; “we boast, and do not.”_ E. B. BROWNING.--“Aurora Leigh,” Book viii PREFACE.