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scription being all that the average citizen need supply. And so year by year the number swelled till the fair islands of the East River one by one were given up to wretched lives, and crime and shameful want became the only passports to such breathing-places as yet remained to the city. Year by year the worker fared worse and the criminal better, till society seemed to have entered into a conspiracy to render labor hopeless of any return save barest existence. The factories, large and small, kept pace with the institutions. Men knew the faces of their employees, and not always even this; but where they lived, or how, formed no part

sion towards the crop of home heathen, planted and carefully cultivated by ourselves, and presenting as the result a harvest of faithless and often hopeless souls, toiling because they must, and seeking where they could such gleams of pleasure and satisfaction as could by any means, questionable or otherwise, be made a part of their starved and dreary lives. Wealth has come to be more often curse than blessing, but always among its owners may be found a few who count it their own only so far as it can be made to mean good for the many as well as the few. To these few it had become plain that the pauper and the criminal were not the only

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of the contract. Here and there some "Home" sprung up, gray and cheerless, hedged about with sharp restrictions, and ignoring most of the real needs of the dwellers within its walls. But the mass of working-women, reënforced perpetually by the stream of country girls whose faces turned always towards that Mecca in which for them all good was enshrined, had neither homes nor teaching that could give them better outlook for the future, nor any good thing save what their own dull eyes and weak hands saw and held as good.

Men were too busy making money to spend thought on any conditions that might underlie the process; but women had begun to think, and to realize that the energy given chiefly to the heathen needed immediate diver

members of the community demanding attention. Imperceptibly had come up among us a class whose existence was denied, whose needs were ignored, and who found no standing-ground save in the Purgatory which made up the only life the worker seemed likely to know. Evil fortune might thrust her still lower into the Inferno we devote to our poor, but to the Heaven of opportunity and freedom to grow there was no access. It appeared impossible for those who lived at ease to take in the new conditions or to accept the fact that more than one class must be dealt with. We had so assiduously repeated the old formula, "All men are born free and equal," that there had been no time to observe the class distinctions defining themselves more and more sharply every year.

THE LIBRARY.

"We have no class divisions; there is equal chance for all," piped the politician; and the wife of the politician sounded the same note, supplemented by the mass of women who take their opinions at second-hand, and wonder vaguely why things are so uncomfortable, and what had better be done about it. Such wonder, however, did not begin till evils had grown to such dimensions that further ignoring was impossible. It was not alone the poor and the wretched who were pouring into the city, but an equal stress of half-trained, ambitious, eager girls, who looked to factory or shop; or the trades opened up to women, as the road to fortune, and who, as the dream faded and they came face to face with increasing toil and pitifully small reward, turned, many of them, to the life which means temporary ease, and some flavor at least of what the century counts as chief good. Here and there a voice sounded a note of warning. Here and there a worker affirmed that for any such result society was directly responsible; yet neither church nor any method current in society seemed able to control the situation or to make life more tolerable for the mass of women, who, for want of a better term, must be called middle-class. No Palace of Pleasure existed anywhere save

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in the brain of some persistent dreamer; and facing this lack and this obtuseness of perception, Arnold Toynbee, who spent his high young life in a vain struggle with conditions

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that he could not alter, wrote:

I suppose what impresses us most in London is the dreariness of life. I do think that the question of recreation is a question for the great landlords in London to consider. Will not one of these great men ransom his soul by building a great building where people may come out of the dreary streets and rest, and listen, if they like, to music such as Milton listened to? Why should they not get, as we do, a sense of the Infinite?-for a great building is really the Infinite made visible. Why should they not get a sense of the Infinite from great buildings? Why should not they also share in our pleasures? If these great men would do this thing, it would be worth their while in many ways. I do think that that is a thing which the rich at any rate might think of.

What was true of London was true a hundred-fold of New York hardly ten years ago. One woman, whose name stands high on the roll of those whose mission is something more than alleviation, said deliberately in a meeting of those who had projected special missions, "midnight" and otherwise, to a class of women popularly considered unreachable:

I think, friends, that there are women even here certainly will include myself-who, if forced to live their starved and dreary lives six months, would accept anything that seemed to offer larger outlook. Until we provide some means of interesting and guiding them, give them a few at least of the things that make life worth living, we stand as their impulse towards ruin, and are responsible for every one but for the thousands we are driving in the same of these wandering souls. It is not alone for them, direction, that I speak. Something must be done. Let us consider what.

It was from such thought that the most tangible and fruitful work for women was born, and that the year 1871 saw the first formal report of the Young Ladies' Christian Association, known in the beginning as the "Young Ladies' Branch of the Ladies' Christian Union," the old-fashioned title carrying with it the flavor of Mrs. Ferrer's "Young Ladies' Guide," and being actually a barrier between its holders and the work they most honestly desired to do. But conservative women looked upon the name as in itself a guarantee against unpleasant criti

cism, and the thirty-one members who formed the little corporation were too busy and too much in earnest to spend any time upon a question of such apparently slight importance. Some common meeting-place was the first essential, and this was found in the room rented for that purpose, furnished, and put in charge of a superintendent who filled all the offices of all the embryo departments.

The desire [read the first report] to extend Christian kindness to the multitudes of young women who come from quiet country homes to this city in search of employment or educational advantages

185,000 young men for whom clubs and gymnasiums and libraries had grown up were offset by 200,000 young women for whom there was nothing save this one oasis, and to most of whom it was still unknown. Five hundred places of business where women were employed were visited in 1872 and the purpose of the Association made known, and as fast as means admitted facilities for work were enlarged and improved. By 1875 the report announced the "Young Women's Christian Association of the City of New York," and thenceforth the woman who helped and the woman to be helped stood side

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led to the formation of plans by which employment and safe boarding-places in private families might be secured for them; also church privileges with social and intellectual pleasures.

Here, for the first time, was to be found "an accessible free circulating library for women," and the providers announced with gentle pride the fact that it numbered "five hundred bound volumes." An employment bureau, with a paid secretary, was also opened; but superintendent and secretary and the thirty-one members together had no power to deal adequately with the flood of applicants pouring in upon them. Swift and sudden as the tide of Solway Firth these pent-up lives massed and rushed towards this new haven. The room became a house, the "five hundred bound volumes" doubled, various training classes proved themselves indispensable, and all within the first six months. By 1872 statistics had been taken, and the

by side, with no self-erected barrier of name between, and in mutual effort learned more of the underlying facts of human nature than had often found place in the scheme of any organization. It seemed the smallest, most trifling, of matters to a few of those who discussed the change; to others, a momentous departure from tradition, certain to bring disaster. But the point once gained demonstrated at once the wisdom of those who had urged it as vital. A year or two longer in the always narrowing quarters, and then the final move to 7 East 15th street, where the work went on with unflagging enthusiasm, demanding imperatively at last something more than any one house could offer. Friends and funds were equally ready. The ground occupied by the old house, 75 by 103 feet, offered ample room for more generous accommodations, and these were planned after long deliberation as to what were the chief

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met, more space for social purposes being one of the most imperative.

Necessarily silence had been the rule in the old library, which, for want of space, had served also as reading-room, and the girls begged for any room, no matter how small, where they might talk freely. Plans were studied with anxious deliberation, but it was not till December 1, 1886, that the corner-stone was laid, the Association resigning itself to many months' restriction in a smaller house.

Delays lengthened the period of waiting, but January 18, 1887, saw the dedicatory ceremonies, and the simple, but beautiful building, five stories in height, was thrown open for public inspection. Brick, with red freestone arches and trimmings, was the material employed, terra-cotta ornamentation being freely used, the result being one of the most attractive façades among the many examples of good work which New York now offers in this direction. A vestibule with tiled floor gives access to a broad hall, finished, like the entire interior, in ash,

stained to produce the effect of antique oak. Wide double doors open on the west side to the social parlor, thirty feet square, with carved mantel and cheerful open fire; on the east, to the employment rooms and their various offices; while back of both is the chapel, running completely across the building and some 70 by 40 feet. On the second story is the library, running across the entire front, two small rooms at each side being partitioned off-that on the east as reading and reference room; on the west, for magazines and periodicals. Something over 10,000 volumes are now on the shelves, space having been allowed for 50,000; and any woman may use the library as she would the Astor, only working-women, using the term in its largest sense, being allowed to take volumes from the building.

The third, fourth, and fifth stories are devoted to the class-rooms, including type-writing, stenography, machine and hand sewing,

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dress cutting and fitting, book-keeping and prayer-meetings, monthly evening meetings, arithmetic, and technical design; in short, all the and various special services. A relief combranches in which women engaged in over thirty mittee cares for the sick and needy among the trades may desire to fit themselves for more effi- members, and sends tired women to the councient work. In all these, save dress cutting and try, ten thousand having had this opportunity fitting, instruction is free to members, whose last year, at an actual cost of less than a dollar small yearly fee gives opportunities in every di- per head. The yearly expenses are slightly over rection. On the fifth floor are two art rooms $10,000, and it is safe to say that no system with artists' skylights, one of them occupying of education as applied in our public schools the entire back of the building, which is slightly gives in any degree so valuable return for the narrower than the front. Altogether the Edu- same expenditure. With more money better cational Department occupies more space than work could be done, but the sum handled is any other, and is doing invaluable work, not made to yield the utmost that a dollar can aconly for the numbers who seek the city as their complish. Had our legislators any training working-ground, but for the other numbers in real political economy, every ward in the

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who graduate from our public schools, helpless as babies for the real work of life: to such the Association gives the first hint of real education, four hundred having graduated from its classes in 1886, all of whom found positions. These are not included in the 12,000 who found work by means of the Employment Bureau, which in 1886 registered 1985 applications, the successful proportion making 66 per cent. An Industrial Room gives seamstresses an opportunity of exhibiting their work, fancy and otherwise, and orders are taken for every variety. Monthly entertainments, concerts, recitations, etc., give needed diversion; and a small gymnasium with a skilled teacher is the satisfactory climax of the work undertaken.

This is the temporal side. The religious includes as varied help. The great Bible class has 750 regular members, transient ones running it up in 1886 to 1263. There are weekly

city would have a similar building, supplemented by kindergartens and industrial schools for those not yet compelled to earn, and thus abolish forever the necessity for the enormous appropriations now demanded by asylums and reformatories and the myriad engines of philanthropy. Here, in the Association, is demonstrated again the fact that when brain and hand work together, in conditions that mean rest as well as stimulus, there is neither room nor time for vicious thought or vicious action. The day's work, long and exhausting as it often is, has no power to quench the enthusiasm with which these girls labor at their self-elected task, coming to it in all weather and leaving it reluctantly. Watching their enthusiasm as well as patience, and the steady development of unsuspected powers, one can only long for a time when an earlier beginning may be made possible, and cry shame upon the system which

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