ing, in our coloring, and in our ideas of art, because of the crude, rugged violence that those apostles did to our Philistinism. Then there is something else to be said about the ethics of clothing. Men and women are not the only sentient beings upon this earth. The dumb creatures are dumb only because you and I can not understand the language they speak. I am certain that when the animals. and the birds pray, God hears their prayers. It is only because we haven't learned their language that we do not know what they are saying, and realize the agony of their crying because of our cruelty. But I do say to every woman here who has a heart of tenderness, an ear for harmony, and an eye for coloring - How can you and I be partners in the great cruelty and dishonesty of robbing God's plaisances of all their loveliest denizens- the singing birds, the jewelbedecked birds, and the little animals who have never harmed us? I see some hats and bonnets around me with things in them that I was forever cured of wearing two and a half years ago. I had gone down to give a lecture in one of our smaller country towns wearing upon my bonnet an aigrette, and after I reached home again there came a letter saying: "Dear Mrs. Chant, when I saw on your bonnet the other night that aigrette, through my tears I wondered how a woman so tender as you are could be so cruel. I think that you can not know that those aigrettes are taken from the mother and father herons just when the little ones are most needing their care." This was a voice from God sent through a human pen, and I cut the aigrette out of my bonnet. No one has said that my bonnets have not been quite as pretty and becoming since. It is a great pity, isn't it, with such an embarrassment of riches in the way of beautiful things, that we should encourage a great army of men to be ruthlessly and brutally cruel?

One of the worst bargain-hunters I know of is one of the richest women; it is not the poor ones only who hunt for bargains. When you go along the streets of Chicago at

night, and walk behind a girl who looks as if life were not going to be a happy thing for her, remember that very often poor girl-she is the product of the careless woman who likes to have bargains, and wants to have everything as cheap as possible; who, instead of paying a proper price for one thing, and being able to enjoy it, pays an unrighteous price for a dozen things, and never has any enjoyment out of any of them.

ELIZABETH KRECKER OF PENNSYLVANIA CONTINUED THE DISCUSSION THUS:

Shall we dress according to our own convictions, regard less of the opinions of others? Considering the state of the world, how much time, thought, and money, beyond procur ing decent, hygienic clothing, shall go to dress? These are some of the questions we must consider.

It seems to me that we should not compromise on our convictions of beauty, ease, and utility, that we should follow the fashions only so far as they do not interfere with our convictions.

I have found some thoughts of others which fitly express my ideas on this point: "It will be evident to all lovers of nature that no fashions can be in good taste that seem to imply a contempt for the beautiful arrangement of created things." "A dress which is in accordance with the age, complexion, and situation can never be wondered at as out of the way, or laughed at as not being in the fashion."

On the need of beauty in dress: "As if he who so clothes the grass of the fields that even the meanest forms of his handiwork are lovely beyond all our poor imitating, were displeased in our delight in that wherein he most continually delights."

The question of time, money, and thought is treated in this way: "The evil begins where woman is absorbed in clothes, and regards herself as a sort of peg whereon to

hang a variety of gowns." "Let us only so clothe ourselves," wrote Dinah Mulock Craik, "that this frail body of ours while it does last may not be unpleasing in the sight of those who love us; and let us so use it in this life that in the life to come it may be found worthy to be 'clothed upon' with its Maker's own glorious immortality."

OCTAVIA WILLIAMS BATES OF MICHIGAN THUS CONCLUDED THE DISCUSSION:

From observation and thinking about women and their work in the world, and from a thorough study of the literature of the "Reform Dress Movement," it has been my conviction for years that there is nothing which more closely and intimately concerns the well-being of women, and through them the welfare of the race, than their dressnot only in its physical effects upon the woman herself, but in its ulterior and more enduring effects upon the mental and moral status of mankind. If the dress of women has such important influences upon themselves and upon the men with whom they are associated, if this influence extends to the born and to the unborn, as it certainly does, then the question of dress becomes ethical and vital, and it assumes the importance of a subject worthy of our highest thought and our most serious consideration. True Christianity gives encouragement and impetus to this idea, for it teaches that the body is a beautiful temple, to be guarded as a sacred trust and a most precious possession; that it is a noble instrument upon which mind and spirit play; a servant, whose rewards are many and great for kind and intelligent treatment, but whose revenge is terrible for ignorance and willful abuse.

Hence, anything that interferes with the natural and harmonious working of the body is wrong from an ethical or moral point of view. Consequently, as a natural result of this teaching, the wearing of any garment that impedes the

circulation of the blood or hinders the free play of the muscles must be considered wrong.

The wearing of any ligature that keeps the lungs from their full action in aerating the blood is wrong; the wearing of any style of dress that keeps the woman who wears the dress from doing her full share of the work of the world is wrong. These things are all wrong, in that they lessen the health and vigor of the individual, make her a weaker member of society, and lessen her efficiency and usefulness in any line of work.

"The judgments of science pronounced against dress from a hygienic standpoint are judgments against it from a moral standpoint," says Mrs. Ecob, and all right-minded persons must coincide with her opinion. It is worthy of note that the present style of dress for women confines their activities within very narrow limits, and really closes many avenues of honorable and lucrative employment that might be open to them if they wore a different style of dress. Girls in factories are not allowed to tend certain machines because of the flowing garments that they wear. Managers of manufactories say that there are many machines. that women could run as well as men were it not for the danger of their clothing becoming entangled in the belting of the machinery. It is not a question here of brains or of strength at all, but simply one of dress. There are undoubtedly thousands and thousands of women out of employment to-day in the United States, who, if they were clothed suitably for such work, might find agreeable and remunerative labor in shops and manufactories.

The ethics of any question is always closely allied to the esthetics of the same subject. Nothing can be esthetic that is opposed to ethical principles, and so we find that the esthetics of dress is continually touching the ethics of dress. A perfectly healthful dress may not be in accordance with esthetic principles, but an essentially esthetic dress must be, of necessity, one that conforms to the laws of health of the body it covers. A trained gown worn