Nurses and attendants in several of the state institutions of Illinois have during the last two years formed unions.  Already they have had hours shortened from the old irregular schedule of twelve, fourteen and even sixteen hours a day to an eight-hour workday for all, as far as practicable.  The State Board is also entirely favorable to concede higher wages, one day off in seven, and an annual vacation of two weeks on pay, but cannot carry these recommendations out without an increased appropriation from the legislature.

There are now eight small associations of stenographers and bookkeepers and other office employes, one as far west as San Francisco, while there is at least one court reporters’ union.

The various federations of school-teachers have worked to raise school and teaching standards as well as their own financial position.  They have besides, owing to the preponderance of women in the teaching profession, made a strong point of the justice of equal pay for equal work.  Women teachers are perhaps in a better position to make this fight for all their sex than any other women.

The fact that so many bodies of teachers have one after another affiliated with the labor movement has had a secondary result in bringing home to teachers the needs of the children, the disadvantages under which so many of them grow up, and still more the handicap under which most children enter industry.  So it has come about that the teaching body in several cities has been roused to plead the cause of the workers’ children, and therefore of the workers, and has brought much practical knowledge and first-hand information before health departments, educational authorities, and legislators.

Yet another angle from which the organization of teachers has to be considered is that they are actually, if not always technically, public employes.  Every objection that can be raised against the organization of public employes, if valid at all, is valid here.  Every reason that can be urged why public employes should be able to give collective expression to their ideas and their wishes has force here.

The domestic servant, as we know her, is but a survival in culture from an earlier time, and more primitive environment.  As a personal attendant, with no limitation of hours, without defined and standardized duties, and taking out part of her wages in the form of board and lodging, also at no standardized valuation, she will have to be improved out of existence altogether.

On the other hand as a skilled worker, she fills an important function in the community, satisfying permanent human needs, preparing food to support our bodies, and making clean and beautiful the homes wherein we dwell.  Surely humanity is not so stupid that arrangements cannot be planned by which domestic workers can have their own homes, like other people, hours of leisure, like other workers, and organizations through which they may express themselves.  The main difficulty