Los Angeles herald., 1891-03-01
"A GIRLS TRUE SPHERE.
luARRMGE NOT BY ANY MEANS THE
ONLY COURSE FOR HER.

Judge Pryor's Estimable Wife Gives Her
opinion on How Girls Should Be
Trained-what She Herself Has Done
Mistakes in Notions of Girlhood.
What have women done? / know
what these fingers have done. To re-
member all carries me back to Virginia
through the most exciting pages Of
American history. They were trained
to do elegant embroidery and to play
well the best classical music During
the Civil war and since they have done
everything that fingers could do. In
war times they plated and sewed my
children's hats, made all their garments,
even little kid and cloth boots, while
their father was in prison.
After the struggle, in the experiment
we made to earn a living, these hands
copied briefs for the lawyer, then too
poor to afford clerk, the while sewing
for theseven dear children. They made
every robe from the christening to the
bridal for my two elder daughters, and
the work in which they have engaged
since has been most varied.
Woman's sphere is where the Lord has
placed her. We all deplore the condi
tions that reduce young children and
tender women to hard labor for which
they have neither fitness nor strength,
but I believe that things adjust them
selves in the end and we mold circum-
stances till we find our level Home is a
sweet place, but it is not the only place,
nor are maternal the only duties of
womanhood. Life is made up of a Sc
ries of conditions, and the talents of men
and women are equally varied.
EDUCATION is NECESSARY.
/ deny that woman needs special
training for what you are pleased to
term the profession of motherhood. Ma
ternal love is innate. 1t is part of wo-
mans nature. She may be holden in
her youth, heartless lover or treach-
erous friend, false to every trust, and
stillbe good mother. Even the savage
brute is kind to her young, and will risk
her life in protecting it. believe that
the training and education necessary to
the perfect development of womanhood
will fit the girl for any sphere in life she
chooses to enter.
do not believe that marriage is all
this world holds for the sex, nor that a
wife should round herself to the four
walls of her home. 1t is necessary for
the height and breadth and freshness of
its atmosphere that she go out, mix with
the elements and become imbued with
the spirit, the progress, the thought that
is accelerating the motion of the earth.
Theworld is moving with a velocity
so great that one cannot afford to stand
still, and the mother must be up and
about and around, even if she is obliged
to take her little brood with her, to
watch the swelling tide. l am always
so glad to welcome the young woman i'll
any new line. When take up the news
paper Ibegrudge the valuable space given
to the reports of the Four Hundred /
do not care to read about their coats of
arms, their coaches and coquetry. !
want to know what the brave, bright
gifted young men and women are doing !
and thinking about and striving for.
This talk about girls losing their
femininity and unsexipg themselves in
Industrial enterprises l think idle and |
senseless. The very word ''unsex" is to
me misnomer, and if woman becomes |
coarse and bold and rough in business, |
in the art world or in the industrial |
school she would not be lady in
parlor or gentlewoman in any con-
dition. The decollete dress does not
make woman vulgar.
MISTAKEN TRAINING.
Thegirl who stands behind the counter
to oserveus and the one who stands be-
hind the footlights to entertain us may
have the same nobility of purpose and
the same lofty principles as the one
to i'll use and cnticise her. 1t
is barelypossible that our ladies do go
tosDelmonico's for dinner or supper, that
they are even reckless enough to sip
g4ass-of wine, and at the same time be
as-intrinsically worthy and noble as the
woman in quiet russell garments who
views .thescene from the other side OF
che window.
That our girls want training there is
groS a doubt, neither has the inability of
some mothers been questioned. They
don't want piano lessons unless there is
an Unborn love of music. The piano has
been the ruination of more than one
generation of women. Another fallacy
is the hitherto universal tendency to di-
rect all energies to marriage. In the
south. as soon as a daughter reached her
young ladyhood the mother at once pro
ceeded to refur1lish the house.
The girl went to the hair dresser and
had her tresses arrangedin q dozen differ
ent ways to find out which would be the
most becoming style; colors were tried
against her pretty face to get ''her
color" she took her beauty maps, and
from every source, even the old servant,
a. hint 'fto be sweet"
In discussing a new acquaintance one
beard that she was very beautiful and
clever and nice, but she was not pretty"
Being what we called 'pretty" was con-
=, ,dered a-superior virtue, and everything
in the girls training tended 70 this one
The victim was being decked for the
sacrifice, although the fond mother
would never admit that she was busy at
the art of matchmaking. Prepare a
girl for the altar, for the duties of a wife
and mother, before even lover has pre-
sented himself? There is not only droll-
ery to such situa&ion, but the tinge of