The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1881-04-29
knowing Our Bounds.

knowing Our Bounds.
We still receive letters of inquiry from
women in every part of the country con-
corning their chances of earning living
in this or that occupation. They always
write to know the highest income posi-
BILE in each of them, and the best ways
or place in which to make the attempt.
But most of all they are urgent In stat
ing their own necessities. The stories
are usually pitiful enough. They have
themselves or helpless children or par
4 hts or husband to support; they are
y Hing to 90 to work at any honest bust
ness which will bring them in money.
But there is one singular omission in the
letters which explains why these, and so
many other women, have failed ia the
attempt to support themselves. They
do not state, and, it would seem, never
have inquired of themselves, what bust
ness they are fitted for. Apparently
they think they are fit for any. A man
in going about a job of work looks to see
if his tools and material are suited to
that work. He does not try to make q
fire bit of jewelry with an axe, nor cut
down tree with turning lathe. But
in this, the biggest job of work which
can fall to the lot of any human being,
the occupation by which to earn liveli-
hood, men, as well as women, seldom
look to their tools. They do not exam
inc their own brains, physical skill, or
disposition, to find out what they really
Can do. A woman discovers one day
with shock that she must buy her own
food and clothes, and straightway goes
to work writing verses or working table,
covers, not because she has any peculiar
fitness for poetry or crewels, but because
they are popular and genteel ways OF
earning money. raf3.an9
The way before a woman who wants
to earn money reputably in this country
is full Of difficulty; their letters and ev-
cry newspaper we open are full of hints
of their terrible anxiety and almost de-
spair. One word of advice we can give
to them all which will make their first
step at least successful; it is to study
their limitations Find out the bounds
which nature has laid down and keep
inside of them. That a woman sees her
hungry children about her, and is edu-
Gated and thoughtful, is not enough to
make her a popular writer. The very
realities of life which she has had to
face, grim and sad; the hard, monoto-
nous line of reflection in which her brain
has moved so heavily and long, may
have gone far to destroy the light
thoughts, the foolish, airy fancies which
publishers and public want and will pay
for She reads stories which she Justly
calls trashy in the magazines with
famous names attached, and hopefully
sends her own MS; "she has more
sense than is shown there But the
MS. comes back with thanks. The fact
is she probably has too much sense to
write stories at all. She has precisely
the energy, shrewdness and tact which
would enable her to succeed as the
keeper of dry-goods or grocer's shop;
in France she would 60 directly to such
work. But here she makes sad messes
with heroes and villains and odes to
spring, and besieges wretched publish
ers with them. Unfortunately, too, the
occupations which women usually at
tempt are those which require specific
and rare gualifications-creative power,
imagination, capacity for prolonged and
unfiagging work, the artistic eye. Not
one woman or man in a thousand pos
sesses these; and not one man in a
thousand tries to earn his living by
them. Men 60 into trade-theY raise
wheat, flowers, pigs, poultry, they hang
paper, run laundries, control manufac-
tories of candy, bonnets, all kinds of
women's gear. In many cases they are
doing work, and growing rich at it,
which women could do Just as well.
Whose fault is that? The public would
be quite as well satisfied TO pay women
for the same service if the women would
undertake it. But they will do nothing
except attempt to embroider, paint, lee
ture and write for the magazines Effem
mate men carry on the retail trade and
Cinnamon the laundries: they at least
know their limitations and keep within
them; women do not. There is the key
to the whole difficulty. Now let any
woman who wishes to support herself,
who reads this, decide dispassionately
what kind of work she could do best if
she were man, and then go at it, re-
gardless of what the world says. The
world will not trouble itself about her.
1t does not care a jot whether Polly OF
Peter writes its books or weighs its sug-
ar, provided book and sugar are genu-
inc
There are good many other folk be-
sides poor struggling women who would
do well to examine the work they have
taken up and see if it is within the mex
orable bounds which nature has laid fol-
them in their intellects and tempera-
ment. Men with the purest motives and
highest aims set about accomplishing q
reform or controlling a body of other
men, or they write, or preach, or prac.
tice, and break down in the prime Of
life with paralysis or softening of the
brain, or some other nerve disease,
simply because they did not examine al
first the tools with which they had to
work. Other men, under the influence
of passing passion or freak, marry,
when they have not single quality
which fits them to be husbands OF
fathers. The result is miserable homes
ard vicious and neglected children
There are others who have chosen to be
artists or lawyers. when nature meant
them for mechanics. or mechanics when