In the lower ranks of teachers, competition is still more increased by the fact that common school teaching can be temporarily carried on in the intervals of study, without interfering with mental growth. Teaching is also specially adapted for the temporary employment of young men and women not quite ready to enter the actual life work. Acquaintance with human nature, which it fosters, is thought to be good preparation for home and business life. The employments in which women largely engage as wage-earners are chiefly of this temporary character. The fact that the life work of most women must be the making of the home hinders competition in employments where long apprenticeship or special skill of any kind may be demanded. Any temporary employment not only appeals to her sense of capacity for earning wages, but seems better adapted to her future. If that employment at the same time affords opportunity for social life and calls for the natural adornments of youth, the young woman considers wages only a small part of the general consideration, and is satisfied with a bare living. Hence clerkships in stores, subordinate positions as teachers and places as typewriters are crowded with applicants at wages insufficient for a life-time support. Employment in domestic service, which might be supposed more consistent with the larger work of life, is rendered less attractive by the almost entire absence of social privileges and natural opportunities for advancement in knowledge of the world. Girls who would prefer house work, with equal social freedom and the natural stimulant of contact with other young people, compete for lower wages in less satisfactory employment during the years of their girlhood. This is less noticeable in country life, where girls in domestic service become a part of the household and share in the privileges of the young people at home. Another illustration of the depressing effect upon wages of excessive competition is found in the work of women upon cheap clothing. This work is usually done by the piece in the home, and can be taken up at intervals between household duties. Many women consider earnings of this kind a mere addition of spending money to a somewhat meager support in their home life. It can be carried on without display, and so preserves the dignity of persons who would otherwise shrink from wage earning. The result is a very serious competition, reducing wages below even enough to sustain life and character.