The Press., 1889-02-21
TOOL CHESTS FOR GIRLS.

Parents do not object to see saw and hammer, gimlet and crew-driver in their sons hands at very tender age. They look upon tools as a boys birthright. But little girl is hurriedly told in hor- rifed tone to put them down, :" "to not touch" that she will cut herself or pound her fingers, and ''get hurt generally.
 But the time is not far off when there will be room in the house set apart for the workbench, and that bench and it's tools will be as free to the daughters as to the sons. In their fashionable brass-ham mering and wood carving the girls have ''got taste'' of it. We may expect to yet see the carpenter come to give lessons as regularly as the music teacher. Why not? That eight children ont of ten would like it better there is no doubt.
 A dozen years hence certain branches of many trades will be largely occupied by women. We shall see young women at study and work in architects offices, in the wallpaper designing rooms, mixing paints and stains and finishes and fresco-washes. We shall See the student at the Harvard anne emerge from her long companion ship with the "higher mathematics" with the "plans and elevations of house in one hand and "bill of lumber" in the other as applied m .thematics. At pres ent the training, in geometry say, is so unapplied that the "sweet irlgradate' lays the tea table with the cloth awry, and the plates at all angles and distances, and Is serenely unaware that she has hung her watt r-color drawing crooked until some distressed occupant of the room points it ont.
 The modern female hand and eye are so far untrained that not one young woman in five can take shears and cut straight across breadth of goods unless she fold and crease the cloth, or ''slowly cuts by g thread"
 For myself have saved many a dollar first and last by being "handy with tools. ,
 When l was little girl and held nor tai objection to allowing my older brother any accomplishments which I had not, conceived the brilliant idea, one summers rainy day, of making myself Il churn which was to be an exact reproduction 1T miniature of an old-fashioned instrumen my grandmother used and called "an up and-down churn p
 A gentleman called at our house ant found me under the shed diligently boring a hole into round piece of wood. Wish ing to make himself agreeable to me, suppose, he inquired what I was making I replied in the most matter fact way as if it were the most common matter il the world for seven-year- girls to msnu facture household tools, "A churn ; an' great was my indignation when he wen away laughing as if he had heard tn greatest joke in the world. After that never met him, ever after had grown t. the dignity of young ladyhood and train ed gowns, but what he inquired with most aggravating interest, if my churl was done.
 It never was, I am bound to say but
 learned my lesson, just the same, an, whenever want nail driven iu, shel put up, or window shade adjusted, d not wait for carpenter. Instead than my stars that ever prac icsd on churn and wooden sewing machines and if
 were necessary, I think could-with al the confidence I once began my churn- build house-after fashion !-Helen A Winslo,O, in February Wide AsOake.