Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-02-16

girls concerning their duty to their coun-
try.
But. oh! if We have tears prepare to shed
them now on learning the aims of our
girls. To record these aims in full would
require too much space. OF the 1J6 girls
queried 125 are aiming at a professional
career.
Some Aims in Life.
Seventeen additional, while not yet fixed
upon profession, are still so strong mind
ed as the following indefinite ambitions in
dictate:
My aim is to promote the rights o.
| women"
My aim IS to earn my own living"
My aim is to be a good, seIf-reliant
woman; help, not a burden to those with
study medicine"
My aim in life is to eventually raise and
neip the mass of ignorant people who
waste what little they have for want of
kaoWiedge, and are miserable and oppreSs-
ed; to do this by writing of them just as
they are, or by personal influence teach
ing and living and working among them"
10 be a GOOD Independent woman"
man.
Ihen, after the would-be professional
and independent women are sixteen girls
whose ann Is sentimental in this way:
My aim in life is to help my father and
mother and take care of them when they
get old as good as they have me-
MY aim is to grow up a woman worthy
Of the name''
My aim in life is to be a comfort to
py."
TO be good woman"
10 be womanly woman"
Just four girls of the entire 15G aim to
De good housekeeper. One couples this
ambition with that of being also a society
belle. Another has an all around domestic
ambition that must delight her grand
mother or New England Senator.
My aim in life is to keep house. make
my own dresses. cook good meal and
take care of my mother"
In the matter of perceiving what they
could do II thrown on their own resources
at the present time the girls bravely recon-
ellie their higher aims with stern necessi-
ties, and show the spirit of true Ameri-
can.
One who writes down her aim to be
lady says: IF thrown on my own re-
sources I would do anything except beg"
Another, who has the purely aitruistic
ambition of being comfort to her friends,
II thrown on her own resources would do
plain sewing, darning or anything about
a house."
Another says she would "do anything
but give up in despair and die of cold or
starvation"
Another, who aims to elevate humanity,
processes both ability and willingness to
be a governess or scrub and scour beau
tifully."
Another says she can't think what she
would do for a living, but she would GER
tainly "fiy around" and do something
Another says 1t would be impossible for
me to earn my own living today but the
calamity would likely send something to
me. as It's an i'll wind that blows no good
Several girls say they had never before
thought that they might have to earn
living, and so are unable to suggest what
they might do.
Marriage Not I'm View.
But this is the startling, painful dis
covery 1 make among all these girls re-
vealed ambitions. Not one among the
whole eight score is aiming to get married.
In all their varied schemes of life they
have not a thought of men or matrimony,
and, by the same token, I declare their
education is not practical. Whether pub
lie schools, parents or the unholy zeal Of
the female suffrage agitators abroad over
the land is to blame 1 don't know. But SO
much is clear: Girls cannot be so uni
versally false to nature that out of 156 OF
them none should include husband and a
home of their own in reckoning on their
future, and that not one was frank enough
to publicly refer to these things certainly
reveals false notions of dignity and wo-
mans highest aim.
Still, l daresay, this assertion is dog
matte, and it may not be true. 1 may not
know what L am talking about Perhaps
girl nature has changed since George the
Third was king and | was young. Perhaps
girls nowadays would really rather be in
tellectual than be married and love science
and art better than boys. In that case
there's nothing to be done with our girls.
They are all right But what shall We do
with our boys?
VIII the United States Senate please set
tie this question, and oblige,
Yours for progress,
PAULINE PRY.