St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1880-06-26
Two Mistakes That Men Make.

The stars in their courses see fewer
sadder sights on the face of our trouble
furrowed earth, than the family from
which death has taken the bread-win-
ner, while it has laid on a penniless
mother, unskilled in remunerative la
Dor, the burden not only of the entire
care but the entire support of her little
children. And they look down, alas!
on such sights every night, in every
village, and every city street. It is not
quite but it is almost as hard fate
when the mother is left with a little
property, to be Swallowed daily by a
dread of the suffering its loss would in
volve, and to be worried day and night
because of her inexperience and igno-
rance in business matters-by its care.
This trouble comes to many and is the
harder to bear that it gets little SYM
pathy. ''She is left in comfortable cir
cumstances," friends say, and give the
matter no more thought.
Two great mistakes, mistakes that
almost every parent makes, are the an
tecedent of such trials. No girl has
such fair prospects that her father can
excuse himself for not giving her, as a
supplement to her learning and accom-
plishments, the skillful training in
some form of work that will insure her
livelihood if misfortunes fling her
upon the unaided resources of her own
head and hand. It is grave indict-
ment against the pretensions of our CIV
ilization that the fathers who wish
thus to train their daughters are so
perplexed to find suitable occupations,
outside of sewing, teaching and house.
hold service. We are still in the semi
civilized stage of society as regards the
multiplied opportunities for work that
ought to stand open to woman. The
case is bad enough for the woman who
has not the gift for teaching or
the strength for homework, but
who is free to go to the work
she has the training to do, if haply
she can find it by the hunting. But
it is most cruel that there is so little
choice of work, and oftentimes SO little
work, beyond unskilled and unpaid
drudgery, for the woman who is anch-
ored at home by the children for whom
she must earn living. Social science
and philanthropy surely have not done
GutlI UcSU Ill tlllS ullCCOlOus
The other mistake is that which the
husband makes who not only keeps his
wife in ignorance of his business affairs
but is content to have her remain igno-
rant of business methods generally.
He comforts himself, perhaps, with the
thought that if he dies he will leave his
family "enough to do with He
strangely forgets how untitled his wife
would be in such case to take good
care of property; how liable she would
be to loss from unwise investments; how
dependent she would be on advisers
who might take advantage of her. Our
girls, in getting an education nowadays,
range through all sciences and 'ologies.
There are classes in cookery, nursing,
and making courtesies. But many a
woman sees the time when she could
well afford to be ignorant of several
sciences and arts in exchange for little
practical knowledge on the principles
governing safe investments, the risks in
different sorts of securities, the precau-
tons to be taken and the snags to be
Stunned in making contracts, the COM
moner maxims of law involved in cred
its, mortgages, leases, discounts, usury,
conveyances, etc. Il she learned moth
ing of such things before her marriage
it is her husbands objectionable mis-
take if she does not acquire some ele-
mentary knowledge of them afterwards.
Good COnapaay.