Before concluding the recital of my experiences as a working girl, I want to sum up the general conclusions at which I arrived and to trace in a few words the history of my impressions. What, first of all, was my purpose in going to live and work among the American factory hands? It was not to gratify simple curiosity; it was not to get material for a novel; it was not to pave the way for new philanthropic associations; it was not to obtain crude data, such as fill the reports of labour commissioners. My purpose was to _help_ the working girl--to help her mentally, morally, physically. I considered this purpose visionary and unpractical, I considered it pretentious even, and I cannot say that I had any hope of accomplishing it. What did I mean by _help_? Did I mean a superficial remedy, a palliative? A variety of such remedies occurred to me as I worked, and I have offered them gladly for the possible aid of charitable people who have time and money to carry temporary relief to the poor. It was not relief of this kind that I meant by _help_. I meant an _amelioration in natural conditions_. I was not hopeful of discovering any plan to bring about this amelioration, because I believed that the conditions, deplorable as they appear to us, of the working poor, were natural, the outcome of laws which it is useless to resist. I adopted the only method possible for putting my belief to the test. I did what had never been done. I was a skeptic and something of a sentimentalist when I started. I have become convinced, as I worked, that certain of the most unfortunate conditions are not natural, and that they can therefore be corrected. It is with hope for the material betterment of the breadwinning woman, for the moral advancement of the semi-breadwinner and the esthetic improvement of the country, that I submit what seems a rational plan.