Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1879-07-30
False Sentiment.

A false sentiment has rendered II deroga-
tory for woman to be a business woman,
for a girl to earn or appreciate dollars and
cents, If she can possibly find father,
brother or uncle to support her. The whole
army of working women, who Of all women
best demonstrate their rdison d'etre is in
general despised army; and while society
applauds the woman who is an artist, an
editor, an authority, 1t does so by calling her
a genius, and setting her out of that grand
corps where she legitimately belongs. Fam
lilies with three, four or five daughters,
whether there are sons or not, if their father
can possibly support them, are brought up
to do nothing but help mother little. This
helping is not generally really learning
housekeeping and seamstress work in all its
varieties, but skimming hesurface of things,
making cake, dusting room, trimming
gown, and leaving those weightier matters
of the law, as shirtmaking, ironing, bread.
making and beef cooking to some one else.
Girls speak of it as a hardship, if they are
obliged by stress of circumstances to earn a
support. "Anna thinks it so hard all her
friends have their time to themselves, and
she is forced to teach, poor child" The
whole training of the girl is aside from
knowing anything about business she reads
stories and fashion magazines, not. news
papers and works on science and architec-
ture, and practical everyday life. She does
not learn telegraphy or carving, or furniture
decorating, or gardening, or book keeping,
nor does she go into her fathers business
and learn 1t as her brother would il she had
one bless you, it would make her ,oo-kinq
'ooman Thus out of this army of work.
ing women are kept, so far as possible, all
women of education, means, refinement,
cultured taste. These organized into so.
ciety make no end of blunders in business,
and regard them creditable rather than
as Chinese lady cherishes the
ieformity of a cramped foot. If they read
common law and medicine so as to be as
we'll informed on these points as ordinary
men, bless yoR, they are very odd," at the
least These good ladies, with the very best
intentions, undertake to handle the work
Dg-woman question they are thrown into
contact with the poor, and knowing abso-
utely nothing of what it is to earn living,
y what it costs to earn dollar, or what
iollar can be made to bring, they have only
he most general and no particular sympa-
,hies; on the one hand they will be deceived
md kill by overkindness, on the other, they
and kill by hardness. It |
needs working women to understand and |
ielp working women then they know that
being bread-winners does not forfeit for |
hem their position as wives and mothers
hat while they earn daily wages they have
he affections of the HEARTH that the poor
mother, left widow, wants to keep her
children in home, not to SOW them broad |
last in orphan asylums; that the poor couple
who have passed their married fifty years,
lnhonored, it is true, by golden wedding,
10 not want to be thrust one into an Old
Mems Home, the other into an Old Women's
Home, or put in the separate wards of an
or one go to one Blind Asylum
and the other to another There is a fine
kind of charity in England, where endow-
ments have been left so that decent destitute
Did couples, or single people, can have a nice
three-roomed cottage, with fuel, water and
lights, and certain number of shillings
weekly on which to subsist; and they can
take in an orphan, grandchild, or feeble
child, living as in their own home, subject
only to certain regulations of sobriety, clean
liness and good order.-Swsddy Afternoon.