Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1864-12-02
Profession OF Women.

Harper's Magazine has paper on the pro-
fessien Of women, which is said to be house
keeping, and winch it is declared is thoroughly
dishonored. We quote the proofs Of this state
ment:
The delicate constitution and failing health
of young girls, the sickness and sufferings of
mothers and housekeepers, the miserable quail
ity of domestic service, the stinted wages of
seamstresses, the despair of thousands who
vainly strive for an honest living. and the aw-
full increase of those who live by vice, are more
and more pressing on public attention..
What is the cause of all this? The chief
cause is, that woman is not trained for her pro-
fession, willie that profession is socially dis
graced
Women are not trained to be housekeepers
nor to be wives, nor to be mothers, nor to be
nurses of young children, nor to be nurses OF
the SICK nor to be seamstresses, nor to be do
mestics.
And vet what trade or profession of men in
wolves more difficult and complicated duties
than that of housekeeper.
When parents are poor, the daughters are
forced into considerable practical training for
future duties, though many a mother tolls to
the loss of health that her daughters may have
all their time for study and school.
subjected to a constant stimulus of the brain,
involving certain debility of nerves and mus
Giles. Books in the parlor, books in the school
room surround her. Her body is deformed by
pernicious dress, her stomach weakened by con-
fectionery and bad food. She sleeps late in the
morning, lives more by lamps and gas than
sunlight, breathing bad air in close rooms or a
crowded school. A round of scientific study
and fashionable accomplishments alternate,
while her ambition is stimulated to excel in
anything rather than her proper business.
School is succeeded by a round of pleasure
BILE excitement till marriage is secured, and
then-perhaps in one short year-the untrain-
ed novice is plunged into all the complicated
duties of wife, mother and housekeeper, aided
only by domestics as ignorant and unframed as
herself.
What would matchmaker be called who
should set up Lis son in the trade when he had
never put together watch, furnishing only
iourneymen and apprentices as ignorant as his
son? II in addition to this the boys right hand
were paralyzed he would be no more unfit for
his business than are most young girls Of the
wealthy classes when starting in their profess
ion at marriage.
Then, on the other hand women who do not
marry, especially in the more wealthy class,
have no profession or business, and are as i'll
provided as men would beswere all their trades
and professions ended, and nothing lett but the
desultory pursuits of most single women who
do not earn their living. A few such men Gre
ate some new sphere as authors artists, or phi
lanthropists But the great majority live such
amless lives as men would do were all their
professions ended.
Almost every method that can be devised to
make woman's work vulgar, and disagreea6le,
and disgraceful, has been employed.
Meantime while woman's proper business is
thus disgraced and avoided all the eXcitemcnts
of praise, honor, competition and emoument
are given to booklearning and accomplish
ments. The little girl who used to be rewarded
at school for sewing neatly, and praised when
she had made a whole shirt for her father, now
is rewarded and praised only for geography,
grammar and arithmetic. The young women
in the next higher school goes on to geometry,
algebra and Latin, aud winds up, if able to af-
ford it, with French, music and drawing. Twen-
~ other branches are added to these, not one
of them including any practical training for
any one of woman's distinctive duties.
The result is, that in the wealthy classes a
woman no more thinks of earning her living
in her true and proper profession than her
brothers do of securing theirs by burglary or
piracy.
This feeling in the more wealthy classes de-
sends to those less favored by fortune.
The only chance for some mems hats ever 10