Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1871-05-17
WHAT THE GIRLS CAN DO.
A woman's Plea for the softer Sc


Gail Hamilton still maintains that
women don't like hard work, and are
not fitted for hard work, and that this is
no discredit to them. This is what she
says in recent article in the lndepend-
ent:
when man who has inherited an
abundant fortune lives narrowly, dresses
meanly, and shuns the interests, the
amenities, the responsibilities of life, we
do not call him great man, but small
man, a miserable man, miser. If
young man in good health, good educa-
ton, refined associations and ample
means, should at the age of twenty
choose to become a miner, or a coal
HEAVIER, or a hod-carrier, we should not
call it nobleness or independence. We
should merely think that it showed low
taste. He is not earning his living, be-
it. A living is the first, least, and low
est object of desire. II is the common
aim to secure that, and then build upon
it the beauties, graces and sweetness of
living. So it seems to me that woman
who turns away from the living which
her father provides, and gives her time
and strength to providing one for her
self, is wasting the advantages to which
she was born, and falls below the stand
ard of divine-that is of natural require
ment. Instead of beginning her as
cent from her halfway house,
where she finds herself, she goes
to the foot .of the mountain
and climbs up. If the question is be
a lysp htyo
means let girl leave her comfortable
home and apprentice herself to dress
maker; but let her not demand admira-
ton for her grandeur in so doing. 1t is
better to be dressmaker than to be an
idler; but it requires a far higher order
of mind and heart to do the social work
that awaits the woman Of leisure than
to make gowns. 1t is better to dc the
lower work than none at all; but it is
not better than to do the higher work
If girl goes into shoe factory to run
a sewing machine, 1t is chiefly matter
of hours, pieces, routine. If she lives
her best life at home, she must observe,
infer, compare, forbear-she must in
short, enlist every faculty of mind and
heart; and this is far more complex than
routine work If she must enter the
factory because her father is poor or
churlish, that is another question; but
if she goes because she chooses it, she
simply confesses thereby her incapacity
for a more exacting career, and ranks
herself beneath many poor girl who
tolls because she must-toils under pro-
test, and lives high all the while she lives
low.
81 do not think these cases are com
mon in life. The girls one usually meets
in society are, happily, quite ready to
take the good the gods provide them.
Petted and caressed daughters, whose
comforts are provided and whose tastes
are gratifed, will sometimes become ar
fists, writer's, teachers, Sisters of Charity
but / never knew one who was possessed
with the desire to earn her own living
There may be such women; but probably
the closest scrutiny would discover that,
almost without exception, women earn
money from necessity, not choice. They
do it to piece out the scanty income of
husband or father They do 1t because
he is niggardly, tyrannical and insulting,
and any menial service to a stranger is
better than dependence on such kin
folk. They do it from love, or from dis
dain for help or defense; but never OF
pure liking and free choice. The hon
ored and beloved wife, the beloved and
cherisheddaughter not only never ought,
but never does, feel discomfort in de-
pendence. She has no desire to renounce
serfdom or to break chains; for there is
no serfdom to renounce, no chain to
break. Probably she seldom thinks of it
at all, but if she does think of it, she
thinks only how much happier is her lot,
who is nourished through the ministry
Of love, than her neighbor's, whose
life is only o thankless round Of
buying and. selling. Girls born 20
wealth are ready enough to be idle,
ready enough to be ignorant, and more
ready still to be frivolouss Unhappy
giFls break away from narrow homes
from selfish, domineering fathers from
wayworn, heart-weary mothers from
coarse, hated and hopeless surroundings
to sz4r feebly or bravely, but single
handed, the hard battle. The one sadly
needs to be reused and melted to higher
aims, to better thinking to wiser and
wider living. The other as sorely needs
to be reorganized, encouraged. But
neither the one nor the other is ena-
mored of pure selfsupport. Without as
suming to have made the slightest in
vestigation, count it not hazardous to
assert that of all the respectable young
working-women in the country, the most
excellent and intelligent, nine out of ten |
would relinquish with joy their money
and independence in the prospect Of
becoming the Loving and beloved
wife of a man who was able to maintain |
them while the caressed and petted |
daughters who would rush into selfsup- |
port as refuge from their caressing |
and despotic fathers is class of the |
community never met, except in the |
eolumns of certain earnest and benevO- |