Daily Yellowstone journal., 1888-09-15
WORK FOR IDLE GIRLS.
What Might be Done by the Daughters
OF Prosperous Parents.

OF Prosperous Parents.
A class Of young ome generally con
sidered to be in a most enviable position,
md whose discomfort, where it exists, Is
considered TO be without excuse, have in
fact fair cause to be discontenlsd. These
are the idle girls Of good society; the
young women who, after having been
we'll educated and taught TO think for
tbemselves-after having had their eyes
open to see a certain degree Of the truth
about social relations and the exigencies
of human existences-are condemned to
comparative i~naction by the assumption
ON the part Of their parents that the
proper thing for them to do next is TO en-
joy life, and that they are fortunate in
not being obliged to do any manner Of
work except that which is involved in
this apparently enviable vocation.
These girls have fair cause TO be dis
contented, because, in truth, there has
yet been no place made in the world for
girls of their class. 1t is perfectly true
that parents who are in prosperous cir
c~umstances, and able to provide for their
daughters without any help of theirs,
nv III IlHhl W doh vi lllOlh Alldls lHtI
school education finished, their mental
powers well trained, and their especial
abilities developed to the point of being
able to give and receive pleasure through
art, or music, or what not, they should
now adorn and enliven their parents
home; and it seems TO be an ~ungracious,
not TO say ungrateful, thing forsuch girls
toask for a career, to require to be taught
a profession, or to be put at once in the
way of some wage earning occupation.
And vet girls Of this class, earnest,
thoughtful girls, the very girls to delight
a fathers eyes and 10 be the comfort of a
mothers heart, will persist in just these
unreasonable demands. They know,
theoretically, the uncertainties OF life and
of fortune; they know, theoretically, of
course, the need Of the world for honest
workers, and its small need Of mere but
terfly e~xistences; they know, still the
oretically, the bitter woes of a large class
of human being and the urgent neces-
sity thSt the wcsld should stir itself up to
find a remedy. Why, then, should they
be idle, or merely occupied in those So
cial duties which seem so trivial, and
which are Often more laborious than the
work they fam would undertaken
The girls are right, and yet their
parents are not wrong. Fathers and
mothers have a claim upon their daugh-
tiers for the gentle services which only
they can give. They have a right to ask
them to beautify their home. to be a CEN
ter Of attraction 10 their friends, to keep
the wheels Of social life in motion, to
give to their parents the exquisite pleas
ure of making much Of them, and show
ering gifts and pleasures upon them, and
yet the daughters, too, have rights other
than those Of maintenance and Of in
diligence, which their parents are bound
10 respect.
They have the right to ask that, hav-
ing been trained to think, and having
been given the materials for most solemn
thought in the knowledge which comes
from history, from literature and from
political and social science, they shall be
allowed to carry thought into action.
Though duty forbids them to ask for a
career which would sequester them from
their home ministry, they have a right
TO that larger horizon, that broader field
of activity which their training has made
to them a necessity, and failing which.
not merely their mental and moral, but
even their physical natures must
dwindle.
Such girls as these should be intro
duced by their parents into philanthropic
work. The crying want Of the times il
for unpaid workers who are trained
thinkers, in all branches Of work for
Others. Not only for personal service
among the poor-though the need for
that is enough 10 occupy the energies u
all the idle girls in our large ciues-but
fer the study Of social problems; for the
collection OF statistics; for writing news
p articles, magazine articles. tracts
and books on special subjects. There is
a need Of women Of leisure and of intelli-
gence and activity to serve upon boards
TO visit prisons and iails, and a~lmshouses,
and insane ~asyluns, and, since abuses
are by no means always the result Of in.
doleace or Of ~deprayity, but mostly Of
ignorance. TO study into their nature, and
10 learn by what means 4 remedy may
be found.
One great cause Of those difficulties
with which society is now graphing, the
labor problem and the problem of pau.
perism, is that while physical science hai
been making rapid progress, economic
science has been almost at a standstill,
The study Of economies has at last be
come the imperative duty Of every edu.
Gated man and woman. These womer
Of leisure, these lille girls with theiI
trained mental powers, it to theil
generation and 10 the world to do al
that in them lies to advance, by study
and by experiment, the present state O
social and economic science. - Franl
Leslie's.
wild Kittens Of Paris.
GI -