But the significance of the strike is not in the actual gain to the shirtwaist makers of three hundred union shops, for there was great weakness in the ranks of the opposition. Trade-union gains, moreover, are measured by what an organization can hold rather than by what it can immediately gain. The shirt-waist makers’ strike was characteristic of all strikes in which women play an active part. It was marked by complete self-surrender to a cause, emotional endurance, fearlessness and entire willingness to face danger and suffering. The strike at times seemed to be an expression of the woman’s movement rather than the labor movement. This phase was emphasized by the wide expression of sympathy which it drew from women outside the ranks of labor. It was fortunate for strike purposes but otherwise unfortunate that the press, in publishing accounts of the strike, treated the active public expression of interest of a large body of women sympathizers with sensational snobbery. It was a matter of wide public comment that women of wealth should contribute sums of money to the strike, that they should admit factory girls to exclusive club rooms, and should hold mass meetings in their behalf. If, as was charged, any of the women who entered the strike did so from sensational or personal motives, they were disarmed when they came into contact with the strikers. Their earnestness of purpose, their complete abandon to their cause, their simple acceptance of outside interest and sympathy as though their cause were the cause of all, was a bid for kinship that broke down all barriers. Women who came to act as witnesses of the arrests around the factories ended by picketing side by side with the strikers. These volunteer pickets accepted, moreover, whatever rough treatment was offered, and when arrested, asked for no favors that were not given the strikers themselves. The strike brought about adjustments in values as well as in relationships. Before the strike was over federations of professional women and women of leisure were endorsing organization for working women, and individually these women were acknowledging the truth of such observations as that made by one of the strikers on her return from a visit to a private school where she had been invited to tell about the strike. Her story of the strike led to questions in regard to trade unions. On her return her comment was, “Oh they are lovely girls, they are so kind--but I didn’t believe any girls could be so ignorant.” The strike was an awakening for working women in many industries, and it did more to give the women of the professions and the women of leisure a new point of view and a realization of the necessity for organization among working women than any other single event in the history of the labor movement in this country. VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR WOMEN SARAH LOUISE ARNOLD Dean of Simmons College, Boston