The number in domestic service is nearly twice as great, something like 40 per cent of the 7,000,000.
There are almost as many dressmakers, milliners, and seamstresses as there are factory operators in this 7,000,000.

There are nearly twice as many earning their living in dairies, greenhouses, and gardens as there are in shops and offices.
The greater number in domestic service is not what gives this class its greater importance.

Its chief importance comes from the fact that it is in a _permanent_ woman's employment; that is, the household worker becomes on marriage a housekeeper and in this country frequently an employer of labor.

The intelligence and the ideals which she will give to her homemaking will depend almost entirely on what she has seen in the houses where she has worked; that is, our domestic service is _self-perpetuating_, and upon it American homes are in great numbers being annually founded.

In sharp contrast to this permanent character of housework is the transientness of factory and shop work.