We are just on the eve of being socially conscious enough to perceive these things and prosperous enough to afford a different policy. Is it insane to hope that in the fulness of time industry will be so arranged as to advance human life by its process as well as by its produce; to hope that we shall have, as one might say, a maternal government acting on the principles of the mother of a great and busy household who makes education and work coöperate throughout, who cares for her family and economizes and develops their powers and makes their complete welfare her controlling object? My contention is that while we cannot make women efficient in any complete sense under conditions which so militate against their efficiency, we can make them less and less inefficient as we shape education to that end, and as we get increasing control of industrial conditions in the interests of human life in its wholeness. FOOTNOTES: [36] A paper presented at the meeting of the Academy of Political Science, December 3, 1909. STANDARDS OF LIVING AND THE SELF-DEPENDENT WOMAN SUSAN M. KINGSBURY Simmons College, and Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, Boston An investigation of the cost of living may look ultimately toward minimum wage laws, or it may aim at the creation of opportunities for industrial education which shall result in ability to earn a certain desired wage; but the immediate object of all such study is to determine a desirable standard, and every consideration of the cost of living is prefaced by a discussion of the importance and difficulty of fixing standards. The method must be to discover what expenditure the average family or individual under normal conditions finds actually necessary; but heretofore essential study of the habits and needs of self-supporting women has been lacking. The following significant differences between wage-earning women and men have become apparent from an examination of census returns and a study of more than a thousand working women in and around Boston, in connection with the promotion of savings-bank insurance: 1. A large majority of wage-earning women are under thirty years of age. In our cities the average age is below twenty-five. 2. The larger part are living at home, or in the families of relatives, friends or acquaintances. 3. A very large proportion of those living at home turn in all their earnings to the family purse and receive back only so much as is necessary, without knowing whether their contribution is above or below the expenditure on their account. The young men of the family, on the other hand, are not expected to contribute to the family income, unless it be to pay board. 4. A woman is not usually responsible for the support of a family, nor is she looking forward to the carrying of such a burden. 5. She often has obligations for the full or partial support of members of the family, but these obligations decrease or cease as she grows older.