vention of manufacturing machinery in the last half of the eighteenth century and the factory system of the nineteenth have created the operative class. In the earlier time almost all work was done at home, in intervals of leisure from other and different occupations; and to a great extent families did their own carding, spinning, and weaving. In the early history of the factory system in the United States the operatives were Americans; not a few of them owners of stock in the mills where they worked. But foreigners soon took their places. Poorer in purse, inferior in intelligence and, commonly, in the type of their civilization, they worked more continuously than the Americans, and more contentedly at low wages. There is great difference, however, in the character and human quality of operatives, even in the same mill. Some will naturally be good workmen, some poor; some upright and thrifty, others intemperate, vicious, unthrifty. For the predominating quality, something depends on the mill itself. Other things being equal, the most comfortable mill, with newest and best machinery, can command the best workmen ; for it will yield the largest and best product per hour, with the least difficulty in operation. Something depends on the kind of work done in the mill. If the work be uniformly the same, and in the simpler, coarser grades of manufacture, less skill is required, and the grade of workmen will be lower. Something depends on the size and character of the town. If the town be small, the mills few, and the operatives scattered through it, they will be known to every one, and continually under the influence of a higher civilization than their own. Some small towns, however, are almost wholly made up of operatives and those who supply their needs. If the town be large and the manufacturing industry extensive the operatives will live by themselves in masses, with little society except among themselves; and in the great number of them there will be many who are ignorant and vicious, and, probably, not a few who are more or less turbulent. Very much depends always on the moral administration of the mill, which will be discussed hereafter.

For the foreign operative the factory system has been in some respects a benefit. His employment has been more constant. In times of business depression mills do not stop unless it becomes absolutely necessary. The rust of inaction is a greater harm to fine machinery than the wear of manufacture. If mills stop for any length of time the best workmen seek employment elsewhere and are lost to the corporation. The least competent and least thrifty must be supported by public charity, and that means an

increase of tax on the corporations. If a mill can pay running expenses, there is less loss in paying wages than by rust and taxation. The operative thus makes his living in time of depression, when the owner gets little or no income. Since the establishment of the factory system, also, there has been an almost continual rise of wages. From 1830 to 1880 the rise of men's wages in the cotton factories of New England was 38 per cent.; the rise of women's wages 149 per cent. But between 1880 and 1883 there was a considerable fall in wages. In some parts of New England operatives were formerly expected to buy their supplies at the corporation store, by which the corporation made no profit or a good one, and correspondingly the operative was sometimes benefited and sometimes liable to extortion; but corporation stores have ceased to be. The prevalence of the factory system has reduced the price of all manufactured goods, and by this reduction the operative receives benefit with the rest of the community.

The factory system secures fellowship and society, but it may be only fellowship of the operative class among themselves. Oldcountry people from the same or adjoining towns get together in the mills, live as neighbors, revive their old associations and habits. Labor unions are formed, especially when there are several factories in the same town. As actually used the labor union may be a mischief, but legitimately used it may be a benefit in securing coöperation and better conditions of labor and life. The coöperative store, loan association or bank are other results of the aggregation of numbers.

The factory system has occasioned the intervention of law. When large numbers, especially of women and children, are dependent on a corporation for employment and their living, they are sometimes liable to direct or indirect oppression. But the corporation is a creature of law, and therefore peculiarly subject to law. Labor unions may be abused for the oppression of nonunion operatives, or for the oppression of corporations. Considering their stage of civilization the very number of operatives may endanger the well-being of a community; the community must be protected from harm. Therefore almost from the beginning of the factory system there have been factory laws, to which additions are made from time to time as may seem needful. These laws are usually a benefit to all concerned; and, specially, they have been a benefit to the operative. They have forbidden the employment of children under a certain age, and compelled the

1 Report of the Mass. Bureau of Statistics of Labor for 1885, pp. 187, 455.

education of children. They have provided better buildings for the operative to work in, protected him from dangerous machinery and from fire, shortened his hours of labor, compelled weekly payments by which, in expenses for subsistence, the extortion of the credit system and the greater extortion of trustee writs may be avoided.

So far as factories are located in towns of any size the operatives have the advantage of the environment of a civilization beyond their own, with public libraries, water brought into their houses, and many comforts and conveniences of common life not elsewhere found.

In some other respects the factory system is not a benefit to the operative. There is commonly little or no personal contact between employer and employed. Labor is directed by a hired overseer, who was originally from the same social class with the operative, and commonly has not risen out of it. The overseer makes up a pay roll, and payments are made in envelopes handed out by a clerk as the employees pass in file. Occasionally there may be personal intercourse with the superintendent; but under the factory system it often happens that workmen and stockholder or director never meet, and do not know each other by sight. Workmen commonly know the agent by sight, but perhaps never have occasion to speak with him. So far as employers are concerned the operative is often only a part of the plant, or an impersonal adjunct to the machinery. It is easy to fall into the habit of thinking of him as such, and to carry on the whole business of manufacture with scarcely a thought of the humanity of the workman. A tenement is often provided for him, but because he cares for himself when in it he may receive less thought than the teams which are property, and for which owners must care.

This practical identification of the workman with the machinery which he operates is one of the worst liabilities of the factory system. It constitutes a personal grievance of which complaint is often made, and which is the source of the most bitter feeling of workman toward employer. It is probably the ultimate cause of most of the chronic irritation which manifests itself in the antagonism of labor and capital. The wage question is more often brought before the public, but operatives uniformly feel that wages are inadequate because their humanity and its needs are practically disregarded. The element of bitterness in the conflict, on their side, comes from the feeling that they are regarded and treated as pieces of machinery, which cost nothing to procure,

and will cost nothing to replace. The cost of keeping them in motion is the only matter considered, as the operative sometimes feels; and this cost, like all others, is to be reduced to the lowest possible point. In respect to the relation between employer and employed there has been an entire revolution since the time. when, in America, both were members of the same social class, and lived side by side; or when the workman boarded in the family of the employer.

Apart from the factory system, the use of cunning machinery has a certain harmful influence upon the quality of humanity. It requires division of labor; useful for production, harmful for humanity. The workman is confined to a single process, and easily becomes so expert in it that his muscles act spontaneously, almost as if they were a part of the machinery. From that moment his work becomes mechanical, giving little or no occupation to the spiritual part of him, yet absolutely confining his attention to one and the same mechanical thing week after week, year after year. If his mind does not shrivel and become stolid, the form of his industry is not to be thanked for the escape. The mechanical dullness of mind is liable to be perpetuated through heredity. The more perfect the machinery the surer the stupefying effect upon the continuous workman. There is one partial relief, however. The more perfect and automatic the machinery, the lower the grade of employees sought and obtained. Those who are too ignorant and too undeveloped to be employed where mind is required can be made use of in connection with machinery for all the simpler products of manufacture. To begin with, they work at cheaper rates or with less complaint, and in the end they surely displace the class or nationality which is above them in development. This process of displacement has been going on continually. For the lowest grade of workmen employment with machinery may for a time involve elevation. Continual contact with numbers, even of the same class, has some stimulus in it. The system and the discipline of mill life may be helpful. The requirement of law respecting the education of children may secure for them what they would not otherwise get, or the intent of the law may be partly evaded. In a town not wholly made up of the lowest grade of operatives, there is an environment which is variously uplifting, and perhaps greatly so. The operative may be benefited; the town, into which many such operatives come, has a very serious problem to solve.

In cotton mills men, women, and children are all employed; in

Massachusetts they work sixty hours a week, in some other States sixty-six or more. The relative number of children varies in different mills. If pecuniary profit is the sole consideration, children will be employed as numerously as the nature of the work permits. If humanity is regarded, the number of children will be smaller. Here the law comes in, and, in Massachusetts, forbids any employment of children under ten years of age. Between the ages of ten and fourteen it forbids employment except upon condition of previous attendance upon school for six months out of every year. One would suppose that parental affection would desire the best possible conditions for the children. In many cases there is such a desire; but by poorer operatives, especially of the lower grade, children are regarded as means of pecuniary gain. Forged certificates of birth or baptism are often presented, perjury is not infrequent, in order to get children into the mill under the age required by law. Fraudulent certificates of instruction are sought for the same purpose. Perhaps the father aspires to live without labor, a lounger at rum-shops, or a political "worker," and therefore desires to be supported by the children. Less frequently the mother has similar ambitions. In other cases the one idea of the family is to improve their pecuniary condition. The parents have had no education whatever; they do not appreciate education for their children. Going from such homes many children attend school with reluctance, and receive comparatively little profit. During the six months of mill work they forget a great part of what they learned during the six months at school. They are sometimes put in schools by themselves; in that case they get no stimulus or elevation from schoolmates. They are sometimes put into the ordinary schools; in that case they are necessarily put into classes with children much younger than themselves, and have a certain amount of humilia

tion in consequence. Their influence upon their younger schoolmates may be the reverse of helpful. Young in years themselves, they may be old in their familiarity with evil and with vices. At the best they are in every way untrained, through no fault of their own; some of them are bright, but in the studies of school life they are often comparatively dull.

In matters of education, school committees have their temptations and difficulties. The operatives are often Roman Catholics; the bishop establishes parochial schools and requires parents to send their children to the church school. The fathers are voters, or may become such. The school committee is elected by the