The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1877-11-02
Teach the Girls to Earn Money

We make a mistake in the manage
ment of our children when we educate
only the boys with a view to their be-
coming selt-supporting. The girls are
taught to do only little housework,
and to lock on their various accomplish
ments and requirements as merely olna-
mental, with no eye to their failure
" living" A girl Is not expected to earn
money, while the boy, even if he inherits
a competence, is considered a lazy
fellow" if he contents himself with
merely existing and goes into no
business.
Now, take the world as we find it; are
Lot the majority of the women in COM
munity in great need of some money
making talent? How many do we know
porous villigge who have a competence
provided for them, with no thought or
care of their own, except to spend it
prudently? Would not a great deal of
the pinching and distressing privation
which no eye but One sees be done away
with if women had their own private
purse with which they could supplement
the scanty fund doled out to them, some
times from necessity. sometimes from
sheer ParsimOny? Then, too, when
thrown on their own resources, they
would have something to depend on be
sides the hard bread of charity.
! Within q square of my house there is,
/ first, young lady who is obliged to get
her living by homework. She is nice
/ American girl, but can make surer,
/ steady support by that means than by
. any other, and so has wisely chosen il.
! She is treated like one of the family by
/ the aged PAIR with whom she lives. She
would not take a situation in every
home; but girl of her steady, tidy
ways will never be out of place.
/ Next is a home where a widowed
mother and two widowed daughters live.
They cultivate their little garden and
are all vest-makers, and live as coy and
comfortable as possible.
Then comes another widow lady who
/ owns a house or two which she rents,
and attends to her business with as sharp
and accurate attention as any man. 4
maiden sister lives with her, who makes
a handsome living as q nurse.
Then come two maiden sisters, one of
/ whom gives music lessons. They board
an aged widow lady who has a good
support, and so they make out living.
/ These are only within a few doors of my
/ home, and / do not think our village is
/ peculiar. There are many single women
in every place who are largely dependent
on themselves for a support, and often
/ have little clinging hands about them
which hinder their work. and which
look to them for daily bread.
You cannot tell, mother, how il will
be with your dear girl whom you are
rearing so tenderly. She may be left
widowed .and alone when you have no
power to eielp her. Begin early to teach
her some useful art that could, in an
emergency, earn bread and shelter. Let
the little girls have this in view from
their early years. Tax your powers of
invention to devise ways and means to
help them in it. If you live on a farm,
give them some perquisites, as patch of
strawberries to cultivate, or dozen to-
mato or cucumber hills. Let them pick
wild berries, if they abound in your re-
giOn, and have the proceeds for them
selves. Let one daughter qualify herself
as a dressmaker, and you have in man
her made her self-supporting. If one
child has a marked talent for music, give
her as thorough an education in that line
as you can, though her chances of max
ing living by it are much less than the
dressmaker's.
Whatever the line you mark out, be
sure to lie list on thorough training in it;
for it is this only that will win success.
The great army of incapables is large
enough now without seeking to add to it.
1t is they who swarm about the places
where " slop-work" is given out in our
cities; it is they whe constitute mainly
the suffering classes" when times of
financial disaster sweep over the coun-
try. Train the girls, even the little girls,
to be bread-winners as well as the boys,
and you will do much toward making
them truly independent and comfortable
without sacrificing anything in the way
of womanly refinement and delicacy.
Good common sense is a sterling virtue
in either man or woman.-F'drnaers'
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