The record-union., 1893-05-20


vices of men, the necessities of poverty,
the errors of education or the false senti-
ments entertained by parents are the
causes, the fact remains that there is an
unwhOlesome, unhealthful, degrading,
dangerous disposition on the part of pa
rents to put their girls into employment
that units them for the natural and
higher duties of womanhood that this
drift is displacing wage-earners who
should be the heads of families; that it is
so far underwriting the wages of labor
that the possibilities of homes for the
natural care-taker are deplorably narrow
ing; that this drift is by the association of
young womanhood with the coarser side
Of life, brushing off the bloom of youth,
and destroying that refining and gentle
influence the exercise of which by wo-
man has been a saving grace for man and
made the mother the anchor Of salvation
for the son and the inspiration for the
best impulses and most noble virtues Of
men.
The RECoRD-UNIoN does not deny tha
to throw all women out of business en-
ployment would result in woe, misery
and undeserved suffering; it would advo-
cate no heroic means of that order.
Indeed, the application of check that
ought to be imposed upon this drift to
which we have referred would cause
temporary suffering. But we are speak
ing not for those of to-day or for
present time alone, but for a race and an
era boundless in scope. In debate of
such questions we must lift our eyes to
a horizon broader than the present hour,
or year, or decade, or quarter of a CEN
tury.
The RECORD D-UNIoN has not advanced
a single thought that warrants the sneer
concerning ''clinging femininity, the ten
der female vine, the trusting helpless
ness OF the weaker sex, woman pam
pered as thing of beauty and wholly de-
pendent upon man." etc. There is
enough and more than enough for
woman to do in this world without get
ting down into commercial ruts and the
crowding and elbowing of the market
and shop. There are vocations in great
number ready to her hand, and not
enough fully qualified workers 10 fill
them, She is the ideal teacher she is
the model trained nurse; she is the natural
housewife; she ought to fill all lines of
domestic service to the exclusion of men
OF whatever race. Along the line of fine
arts there are scores Of places calling for
her dexterity, taste, skill and wit Liter
ature, art and the sciences open to her in
largest degree broad fields; the world of
invention is hers; there are almost
countless occupations in which she may
engage that will not in any respect tend
to unseX woman, break down the domes-
tic instinct, or unfit her for those ten
derer offices that Nature fashioned her to
perform that will not expose her to those
charged by many who are employers of
women-because of the lowness of her
wage and the pressure of her surround
ings she so often yields.
Let the RECORD UNION be clearly un-
derstood-it holds that the girl who is in
domestic service to-day, learning and
practicing the arts of housekeeping, is
far and away better off than the girl
whose parents deem high ambition ac-
complished when they put her into a
store to sell tape, or into any vocation the
tendency of which is to bring her into
close and constant relationship, upon the
cold, emotionIess commercial plane. with
the other sex, and in which occupation
she displaces the wage-earner who is the
natural bread-winner and home-builder,
The REcoRD-UNIoN's claim is that of
Professor Cope, that the male, as rule.
in nature is the fighter and provider, and
is specialized to success as such. That
by her reproductive functions woman is
restrained from the active part of man in
the world: she has inherited disability in
certain directions that ought to be en-
couraged and that she should be trained
to improve in all fullness, that matri-
mony, domesticity and motherhood may
be conserved-whereas it is an unde-
niable fact, established by statistics
and common observation in daily life,
that the drift of women is in opposite di-
rections to these ends. If it is alleged
the vices of men are largely responsible
for it, it is to be replied that the false
sentiment which is pushing girlhood out
of home and into business is in large
degree responsi bic for the vices of men.
THE ROAD CONVENTION.