New-York daily tribune., 1863-11-18


dress and dance and play, but utterly untitled
TO earn an honest livelihood in any useful vocal
ton. Some of them can teach music or draw
ing. or some other accomplishment: but the de-
mand for these is at best limited, and, in times
of trouble, convulsion, distress, fails altogether
Some will get married, and mistakenly suppose
that the end of their need of industrial capacity;
when il is rather the beginning. Not one man
in ten is or ever can be able TO support his wife
in idleness if he does so ior season, it is at the
expense Of his creditors, and ultimately Of bis
integrity and solvency. III a few years, he
falls and takes to drink, or becomes hopeless
and inciiicent; or he dies, and leaves widow
with three or four young children TO live on the
charity ofreativeS or by the degrading shifts
of more or less genteel pauperism. No young
woman, however wealthy, ought ever TO marry
before she has acquired thorough knowledge
of some art or vocation whereby she nay, at
all events, earn decent livelihood for riches
take wings husbands die, and a helpless and
destitute widow with brood of young chill
drcn about her is the most ill-placed Of human
beings.
We insist that imperfect, deficient, radically
false education is at the base offcmale destituton
and wrctchedness. Every man knows that his
sons must be trained to efficiency N some pro-
ductiyc vocation: how many consider this
equally necessary for women? Your great
merchant with his brown stone front and his
lbock of stores, knows that bis sons should be
trained to habits Of and aptitude for industry
and business: why not his daughters also !
Thirty years hence, some of these daughters
viii be selling apples or matches in tic streets
and shivering at night in bare garret, because
he did not realize that present Wealth is no pro-
lection against future Want, unless it inheres in
the brain and fingers Of the possessor.
We mus, train our girls TO skill in some indus
trial pursuit, not necessarily that they may fol-
low it in after life, but that they may have sure
resource against the day OF adyersity. And If
they wsre 70 trained, the complaints Of made
quate rccompcnse for Womens industry would
be sensby abatcd.
Il to-day ten thousand Of the yirtuous, self
respecting women Of our City were hrSt-rate
lcooks-not such raw bunglors and botehes as
arc too generally, for want Of better, employed
in the preparation OF food, but thoroughly
yersed in the science and practice OF cookery,
knowing not only the how but the why Of every
process--they would all soon find employment
at fair wages, and where they would live as
well as could DE desired. Most Of Us endure
bad cookery because we can gc, no better; we
swallow dyspepsia and cholera morbus because
We can't help ourselves. And II women of good
education, eminent capacity and refined -.an.
ners would apply themselves mot conlefcond) }
10 cookery, they would soon render II respect
cd aud cred,able vocation.
As To Sewing the truth may seem uniccng
but Il is always wholcsomei and the solemn
fact is tha, many women are only scamstTcsses
because they are nothing else, just a. the old
law books classed every girl who was not some
thing else AS a spinstcr.' Every grl pr,.umes
that. If shc can do nothing else, She can, AZ all
events, sew; which Is onen mistake. We be-
leye there are five thousand families in our
city to-day who would gladly hire drcssinaker
At fair wages for the next two or three months
if they could be sure Of getting good one
They have learned by SAD experience that many
who offer as seamstrcssos are woiully ignorant
Of the usc Of the needle.
But all women cannot live by cooking aud
sewing, especially in a city like this where f..
males are largely in excess Of males. We mus,
have a wider and freer range Of employmen's
for women. He who deyiecs "a new pursuit
wherein girls may honorably and usciully
earn livelihood, j. lasting public bcneiacior.
4 great many manufactures 1rc now prosecuted
mainly By female labor; but not nearly 20 many
as should be- Women can adyantaeoously pur-
sue many indoor cmpoyment- now nearly mo-
nopozcd by men. They should be ccrkf and
lbook-acepers at least in every retail dry-good
store; they should be put in charge Of every
new machine invented which does not require
decided muscular power; they should be en-
couragcd 30 attempt gardening, vine-drcssing
and other ut-door pursuits that are not beyond
their strength. In short they should be- made
to realize, what 80 many as yet do not, that
u.elll labor IS its own yudcation, and should
never be justified nor apolog1cd for. Never ak
" f. this re.pcc'ablcl" but rather " l. it uscfull"
and "Can do it well ?" Doing well any thing
that ought to be done IL is own abundant just-
icaion.
SO long IA women will flock to aud cling
10 the citics they must suffer unless they can
have frccr scope No art, no dcnunciation no