Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1883-12-25
Dailp Kennehrr 3ournaI.
WOnan'S Work.

Iwish it were in my power to persuade
| young girls. who wonder what they shall
do to earn their living, that it is really
better to choose some business that is in
the line of woman's natural work.
There is a great repugnance at the thought
of being servant, but a girl is no less a
servant TO the man who owns the shop
where she stands all day behind the coun.
ter than she is where she waits upon the
table or cooks the dinner in a pleasant
house; and to my mind there would not
/ be minutes question between two ways
of going out of service. The wages are
better, the home is better. the freedom and
liberty are double in one what they are in
the other. If, instead of the sham SER
vice that is given by ignorant and really
over-paid servants to-day. sensible New
England girls who are anxious to be tax
ing care of themselves and earning good
wages would fit themselves at the cook
ing-schools, or in any way they found
available, they would not long wait for
employment and would be valued inn
mensely by their employers. When one
realizes how hard it is to find good wo-
men tor every kind of work in our houses
and what prices many rich people are more
than willing to pay if they can be we'll
suited. it is a wonder more girls are
not ready to seize the chances. 1t is be-
cause such work has been almost always
so carelessly and badly done, that it has
fallen into disrepute, and the doers Of it
have taken such low rank. Nobody takes
the trouble to fit herself properly. but
women trust to being taught and finding
out their duties after they assume such
positions. not before.
There is an increasing demand for
skilled labor of every kind, and there is
no fear of the moneys being thrown
away that is spent in fitting ones self for
the right performance of duties that are
always to be done in every household.
A woman must take into consideration the
possibility of her being married, when
she plans her career and sets up certain
goal for her ambition. If she studies law
or fits herself to be atearher of some spec
ialty in the higher grades of schools, then
if marriage does fall to her lot all her
years of study and training are from many
points of view seem to have been waste
of time. But in following any business
that is connected with housekeeping, and
the personal interests and concerns of a
family she has spent her season of study
and training to the very best purpose. And,
as for looking at cooking and housework
as monotonous drudgery. it is not half so
much that as many other things are. 1t is
capable of thousand more variations and
pleasures and experiments than running a
sewing machine in a noisy shop, or even
selling buttons over a counter. And as
for drudgery, the longer one lives in the
world the better one realizes that if by
drudgery is meant the patient toll which
goes day by day to the building and finish
ing of our tasks, like the stones that are
laid carefully one by one to build the cas-
tie. there is every day many hours more
work to be done. We are apt to judge by
the results of work, and not see the labor
or dream of the thought, that were taken
to bring them about. Whether it is a
story to be written or picture TO be
painted certain number of yards of
cloth 10 be woven or dinner to be cook ed.
success depends upon the careful provision
for hundred small details, and it is only
much unrecognized effort and painstaking
that bring the work to an end. Emerson
says in Considerations by the Way"
wherever there is failure there is some
giddiness, some superstition about luck,
some step omitted, which nature never
pardons. SARAH o. JEwETT, IN Ctn-
gregationalist.