The herald., 1895-03-03
THE
ADVICE
JENNY JUNE
GIRLS WHO
MUST WORK

use to make of it. Teaching? This is
the one vocation for which competenS
schools are provided at the public expense,
consequently it is crowded both by these
who are fit and those who are uniit by
nature to become teachers. The teacher
is born. The schools furnish the weapons,
the technical instrumentalities but Eot
the insight, the sympathy, the patience,
the personality which makes the teacher.
The girl OF today, choosing u career,
finds herself still between two fires: one.
the traditions OF her sex; the other, that
which guards the door to the desire and
achievement. The majority OF those
women who are deemed successful who
have been the successes of the past half
century, have made their own way, have
cut their own road through untried paths,
and have thus opened the way for others.
But all are not made to be pioneers.
That there is still problem not solved
by the vocation of the teacher, the stenog-
rapher, the trained nurse, or the decor
tive artist is known to many; and one Of
the most natural solutions appears to me
to lie in treating boys and girls more
alike, and from the human rather than
the sex point of view. We make too
much of the difference of sex.
The reeds OF both are the same. The
best qualities of both are as necessary to
one as the other to make the well rounIcd
human beings.
Fathers should take their daughters into
their own business, have them trained for
business, and pay them or give them an
interest in it as they do their sons. Girls
have often business capacity, and gen
orally degree OF steadfastness anu re-
liability in which boys are frequently lack
ing; but these qualities are lett to foster
and create discomfort in the girls heart
or she is reduced to a subordinate
capacity in the service of stranger,
simply because she is a girl y:
years training in business collcre
turns out practical bookkeepers ana
ca~hiers at good salaries. Many man
would have saved himself from failure IL
the bright daughter who was teaching or
typewriting, had been behind his own
desk or counter. The Puritan spirit has
had much to do with the sex difficulties
of women in this country. 1t put the iron
heel upon the PROSTATE woman. 1t made
her subjec to part of her religion. In re-
moving the distinctions OF class, it cree
ates those vi sex, and made the woman
subject to the authority vested alone in
the man. The man claimed this author
ity as divine right. but tempered it with
the theory OF protection, and, like some
other things, women have been protected
almost to death.
When women arrived at this point they
decided to look out and see how it was
| for themselves. They saw that protec-
ton that was every body's business was
nobody's business. They saw that food
and clothing and shelter and participa-
| ton in the life about them was necessary
to every human being, and that these
did not come like mamma in the wilder
| ness, but had to be worked for and strug-
gled for and held by persistent energy
when once they were obtained.
This is what a career means. 1t means
work, work, woodwork with a pur-
pose and without stopping.
For ii you leave the ranks the surging
crowd fills up the gap, and you lose that
up to this time between the careers OF men
and women has been mainly that men
seek career for its own sake as q law of
their life, of their manhood. Women
from necessity, from some failure or in
competency on the part OF men, This is
help, no stimulus, no Inducements in this
direction; intead Of these all sorts OF OBJ
stacles-the opposition, above all, OF pub
lie opinion. Motherhood and the care of
the husehold wele demanded Of her.
Whatever her SPECIAL aptltudes they must
be set ASIDE; she must be wife and mother
without recognizing the fact that mother
hood is a career ~ Itself the most. COM
prehensiye, many sided and exacting of
all careers.
We read OF the perfect motherhood of
birds ard animals. It is pirely physical;
~ ieeuS anu guards us young, Dut Inc
human mothe: has always had to perform
far higher duties. and these also In
primitive age she was the care-taker of
the inter ests of TIE family, she acqilcd
tile property, she transmitted her name,
she represented its wealth and social
status If we have passed the matriar, hal
age, SO also have we passed the patrar-
chal. Today the individual is King, or
queen, particularly the young man. the
young woman. To-Day 1t is almost a
crime to he old; it is the young who are
called to the front: it is the young blood
that is wanted, the daring of inexpericnce
that is most priced. Society, public
opinion releases sons and daughters from
obedience, bat it cannot release tho
mother from her responsibilities it only
makes them more difficult of fuliillmont
She mLstkcep in touch with the activities
Of the universe. She must be an eternal
reservoir, always runLing, never ex-
liaV sted. She must know how to use
nerves and vital forces without straining
tlem she must know what is good for
the body and also for the growing soul.
Finally, she must respect the newly ac-
knowedged individual kngship and
oueeEship in the children she has reared,
and be willing to wait till the buds bios
som and the fruit "opens for reward for
her labors.
Itisnot, however, so necessary today that
every woman should marry as it was % 10
years ago. Women are women us men are
men, whether they are wives or mother,
or not. 1t is just us much their business
to work out their own lives TO build char
acter, S it is that of a man. Ma an II
women are their own artists: thew cary
out of their own lives, the man or the cur
the woman or the creature Of instinct and
appetite. Jenny June. y