Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/862

 846 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

other of the writer's main propositions amount essentially to this, namely, that the male is more highly differentiated than the female, and that the female is more completely sexually saturated and her interests more sexually limited than in the case of male. These are probably truths, though not new ones, and it would have been fortunate if he had substituted a simple and sane exposition of them for such extravagant statements as I have quoted above.

W. I. THOMAS.

Some Ethical Gains through Legislation. By FLORENCE KELLY. New York : The Macmillan Co., 1905. Pp. 341.

The titles of the chapters indicate the scope of the volume : the right to childhood ; the child, the state, and the nation ; the right to leisure ; judicial interpretations of the right to leisure ; the right of women to the ballot; the rights of purchasers, and the courts. In the appendix are reprinted several of the most important decisions bearing on the subjects.

One marked distinction of Mrs. Kelley's discussions is *he vivid- ness of the concrete images used to enforce the argument, and these illustrations are not borrowed from books ; they come from personal observations as factory inspector, special agent of the Bureau of Statistics of Illinois, resident of Hull House and of the Nurses' Settlement, New York, during thirteen years ; and secretary of the National Consumers' League since 1899.

This is a fine example of the kind of ethical discussion which really grips the modern conscience. That which Professor Small has declared to be the demand upon ethics is here actually done for certain definite problems. The exact situation is analyzed and the significant facts are laid bare, and a judgment is asked in view of the contradiction between the requirements of life and the actual conditions and the existing law. There is no escape from the issue save in refusal to read. Moral umbrellas will not shed this rain of fire, and no citizen can escape ; all are participants in the evil, and all suffer, most of all the innocent.

One of the author's indictments falls heavily on those forms of philanthropy which train girls only to sew when the needle trades are already at the bottom of the scale of wages, and then send out the poor wretches to a labor market which is packed to the doors with hungry competitors.