The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1865-03-23

placed than to be wholly i'll placed
COMPARATIVE WAGES OF MEN AND WOMEN.
One great obstacle in the way of
woman's attaining strength is her lack
of perseverance OF the many pursuits
possible to women, few are embraced to
any great extent, because girls are said
to be, and probably are, unwilling to be-
stow upon trade or profession the
study and thought necessary to insure
skill. Bntkbis is a result as well as
cause, and must be removed by the re-
moval of the cause. Promotions and
political preferment shine before man
as reward for whatever eminence of
character or intelligence he may attain.
His business is a separate department,
and dispenses its separate reward. The
first of these is entirely, and the second
partially wanting to women. A female
assistant in a high school, q woman of
education, refinement, accomplishment,
tact and sense, receives six hundred
dollars, and if she stays six hundred
years she will receive no more. male
assistant, fresh from normal school,
thoroughly unseasoned, without elegance
Of manners or dignity Of presence. or
experience, teaching only temporarily,
with view to the pulpit, or the bar, or
o professorship, receives thousand dol
lars. His thousand is because he is
man. Her six hundred is because she
is woman. Her little finger may be
worth more than his whole body, but
that goes for nothing. In a certain '.col-
lege,' / wot of, the professors have
a larger salary than the preceptresses'
who perform double the amount of la
bor, and without any hope of promotion.
Female assistants in a grammar school
receive three or four hundred dollars
where the male principal has ten or
twelve hundred, and where the differ
ence of salary bears no proportion to the
difference of care and labor. No mat
ter how asiduously they may devote
themselves to their duties. nor how sue
cessful they may be in results, they have
attained the maximum. Worse than
this, since the increase of prices conse-
quent upon the war, teachers salaries
have been increased: but where two
hundred dollars have been added to
those of the male principal. only twenty
five have been added to those of the fe-
male assistants so that the man 8 salary
is sixteen per cent. higher. This Is
done in Massachusetts. One excuse is
that it does not cost a woman so much
to live as it costs a man. If men
would be willing to practice the small
economies that women practice, they
could live at no greater expense. There
are some things in which women have
the advantage; there are others in which
it lies with the man. A woman's calico
gown does not cost so much as mans
broadcloth coat, but her dress, the ward
robe through, costs just as much as his.
He can be decent on just as small sum
as she. Another excuse is that men have
a family to support. l suppose, then,
that women never have families to sup
port. No female teacher ever has
widowed mother or an invalid father to
assist, or brothers and sisters to educate
No widow ever had recourse to the
school room to provide bread for her
fatherless children. Or if such things
ever happen, the authorities make ade-
quate provision for it.
A woMANs CHOICE.
There is not one woman in a million
who would not be married, i'll borrow
a phrase from the popular, pestilent
patois, but transfigure it with its high
est meaning-if she could get chance.
How do I know? Just as I know that
the stars are now shining in the sky, tho
it is high noon. / never saw a star at
mid d-day. but l know it is the nature of
stars to shine in the sky, and of the sky
to hold its stars. Genius or fool, rich
or poor, beauty or the beast, If mar
riage were what it should be, what God
meant it to be, what even with the
worlds present possibilities it might be,
it would be the Elysium, the sole COM
plete Elysium. of woman, yes, and of
man. Greatness, glory, usefulness. hap
piness. await her everywhere; but here
alone all her powers, all her being can
find full play. No condition, no eharac-
ter even, can quite hide the gleam of the
sacred fire, but on the household hearth
it joins the warmth of earth to the hues
of heaven. Brilliant, dazzling, vivid, a
beacon and n blessing, her light may be,
but only happy home blends the pris-
matte rays into n soft serene whiteness,
that floods the world with divine illu-
mination. Without wifely and mother
ly love, a part of her nature must re-
main sealed; but thousand times bet
ter that it should remain unciosed than
that it should be rudely rent open, or
opened only to be defiled. A thousand
times better that the vestal fire should
burn forever on the inner shrine than
that it should be brought out to boil the
pot But the pot must boil. you say, and
so it must: but with oak-wood and
shavinss, not with beaten olive OIL
WIVES AND COOKS.
Cooking is the cook $ profession sh e
ought to attain skill. and her employer
has right to require it, and as great a
variety and profusion of dishes as he
can furnish material for. But if he is
not able to hire n cook, and must depend
entirely upon his wife, the case is differ
ent Cooking is not her profession. 1t
is only one of the duties incident to her
station. 1t is incumbent upon her to
spread plentiful and wholesome table.
1t is culpable ineffieiency to do less than
this. 1t is palpable immortality to do
more. No matter how fond of cooking.
or how skillful or alert woman may be,
she has only twenty four hours in her
day, and two hands for her work: and