From of old Japan's industrial system, like that of other lands, has been domestic--carried on in the house. There have been families and gilds which have made their entire livelihood by these manual industries. There have also been hundreds of thousands of farming families which have supplemented their meager income from their farms by taking up some of these domestic industries, and those who have displayed or developed special aptitude for such work have naturally drifted into this wholly industrial life. This has doubtless been the origin of industrial families and gilds. But the point to be especially noted is that this wide development of domestic industries is due to the skill and diligence of Japan's working _women_. Japanese men have produced the food by which the nation has been fed; her women have produced industries by which the nation has been clothed, as indeed is the case of all great civilized nations. Their long-continued drill, from generation to generation, in home industrial occupations, has produced a high degree of manual dexterity; the eye and hand instinctively move accurately and rapidly in the work, and the result is that Japan's leading industries to this day are dependent on female labor. "Sericulture, silk-reeling, cotton spinning, _habutae_ (a particular variety of silk fabric), and other woven goods, tea-picking, straw and chip braids, etc., are practically dependent on female labor," says the _Japanese Year Book_ for 1910. "But an industry depending on female labor has this peculiarity, namely: it is not compatible with the factory system, but thrives best on the domestic plan. Generally speaking it is in industries which admit of being carried on independently at separate homes by housewives and mothers that skilled female labor is seen to the best advantage. As operatives of family industries Japanese women show an efficiency rarely reached by their foreign sisters." But in this connection we may remind ourselves of the great skill and industry of our grandmothers and preceding generations of women, who lived before the great factory system made their home industrial occupations unnecessary. Japan is merely several decades behind Western lands in her industrial development. [Illustration: SPINNING COTTON THREAD FOR WEAVING AT WORK IN A KITCHEN]