Another advantage gained by the consumers is that they are thus able to take advantage of specialized labor. This, again, is evident in the domestic department. The consumer is usually obliged to depend on the skill of a single cook or baker, while through the exchange the works of many producers are placed side by side in competition, and thus in the end the highest standard is secured. For both producer and consumer, therefore, the exchange is of advantage in thus affording an avenue for specialized work. It thus makes possible to a certain extent the division of labor which has been but partially accomplished in the household. Another field of work open to the exchange is in becoming a medium for the exchange of workers as well as of work--of affording a means of communication between workers in different lines or between the producer and consumer. Very much of the work now done in the house by those living there could be done to better advantage by those coming in from outside. Special skill in arranging rooms, hanging pictures, preparing for lunches, teas, or other social entertainments, repairing furniture and wardrobes, fine laundry-work, special table-service, etc., could be performed for housekeepers by those who retain their own homes and yet are able and anxious to give a few hours daily to outside work. The exchange, through a bureau of information, could accomplish much for both those wishing work and those wishing workers, as well as in a business way for itself. In many ways, it is thus seen, the exchange is in harmony with the economic and industrial development of the time. As far as this is true it has in it the elements of permanence. Wherever it runs at right angles to present economic tendencies, it must be open to criticism and also contain in itself the germs of subsequent failure. If all idea of charity _per se_ could be eliminated from the exchange, if the word “gentlewoman” could be dropped from the pages of its reports, the by-law limiting consigners to self-supporting women stricken out, its consigners known by name instead of by number, and the idea abandoned that it is to help women to help themselves only “when misfortune comes;” if it could cease to be supported by donations, kermesses, charity balls, and miscellaneous entertainments; if it could refuse to constitute itself a judge of its consigners’ necessities; if the name could be changed to Household Exchange, or one signifying the character of the goods sold rather than the nature of the makers; if, in other words, the Woman’s Exchange could be put on a purely business basis and become self-supporting, it would cease to be what it now is, “a palliative for the ills of the few,” and become what it aims to be, “a curative for the sufferings of the many.” FOOTNOTES: