no restriction as to color. Nevertheless, this condition is not true of the teaching business for the country as a whole, and the situation is exceptional even for the northern states.
The whole race question is closely tied up with the economic one, and there is a tendency, in mixed communities, for the races to become segregated into restricted occupations. In the cities there is practically no opportunity for a negro girl as a stenographer; on the other hand, a white man can not become a porter on a Pullman car. If a man prefers a Japanese butler and will not consider the application of an Englishman, there is the same kind of discrimination. Indeed, the discriminations shown in the economic field are not so much influenced by race prejudice as might be supposed, although this insidious type of narrow-mindedness does enter, of course. An illustration in point is the fact that the employment agents of a number of large high schools for boys reported great difficulty in placing Italian, Hebrew and negro boys with business houses. One of these agents explained the situa- tion as follows:
"They don't want negro boys because they do not expect any to have the ability to become responsible officers in the business. They object to Italian boys on account of the outlandish names. They object to Hebrew boys because these are too ambitious."
"They" meant business men of all kinds — inclvding Jewish &ttft- ness men! "Too ambitious" turned out, on enquiry, to mean that many of these boys are not content to remain at a routine task for a long time; that they will even leave one employer to go to another in order to learn a new line of work; that they are too impatient for promotion.
The most varied group of considerations is found in connection with the physical conditions of an occupation. The conditions of work in the packing industry were so vividly described by Upton Sinclair in "The Jungle," that many people upon reading the book resolved to become vegetarians. As the author says, he tried to reach the heart of the American people, but got no farther than the stomach. We still refuse to consider how the workers work and live.
The question of sanitary surroundings is in itself a complex one. We have all been impressed with the importance of suitable ventilation; we have not all yet learned to insist upon it. Then there is the ques- tion of temperature. One may work in a refrigerating room of a packing house and have constantiy cold feet and blue fingers; or one may work before the open furnace of a steamship, or the oven of a bakery. The "top-filler" of a blast furnace used formerly to be exposed to almost unbearable heat, but in the modern plants much of his work is done by mechanical devices. Yet there is great variation in the condi- tions under which he now works. In some plants the top of the fur- nace is exposed to the wind, and a hose furnishes water for cooling off
