The history of combination among women lies within a narrow compass. Its action has been confined entirely to the working classes, and even among them the period of its existence is as yet but short. No organization fulfilling the purposes of a Trade Union is to be found among women of the cultured classes, and the corporations by which professional and commercial men secure the maintenance of a definite system of employment and a fixed standard of payment have no parallel among workers of the other sex. So far as women join the ranks of a profession already thus guarded--as, for instance, the medical profession--they share its privileges, and we are thus spared the spectacle of women doctors underselling their male colleagues, and earning their maledictions thereby. There are various associations of women engaged in teaching, but these as a rule are formed purely for educational purposes, and are powerless to defend or protect their members in any way. Indirectly, however, they may serve some of the purposes of a Trade Union. Thus the Association of Assistant Mistresses in secondary schools, though carefully disclaiming all title to be called a Trade Union, is able, by means of friendly conferences with headmistresses as well as by the information it disseminates among its members, and the publicity which it is able to give to matters in which their interests are concerned, to confer upon its members some of the minor benefits of combination. The National Union of Teachers in elementary schools (men and women) comes much nearer to the Trade Union type; but though affording its members valuable aid, and able through its Parliamentary Committee seriously to influence legislation, it is not constituted upon a Trade Union basis, and does not profess to fulfil its functions. The associations recently formed among men and women employed in shops are, however, Trade Unions, both in intention and in fact; but with this solitary, though important, exception, the progress of unionism among women has been entirely confined to the classes engaged in strictly manual labour.