The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1898-01-14

that there is strong probability that
they will have to fight the battle of
life alone, they will be getting the
timber ready for their own fortune,
and their saw and AK and plane sharp
ened for its construction. since every
wise woman buildeth her house"
As no boy ought to be brought up
without learning some business at
which he could earn livelihood, so no
girl ought to be brought up without
learning the science of self-support.
The difficulty is that many family
goes sailing on the high tides of sue
cess and the husband and father de-
ponds on his own health and acumen
for the welfare of his household, but
one day he gets his feet wet, and in
three days pneumonia has closed his
life and the daughters are turned out
on a cold world to earn bread, and
there is nothing practical that they
can do. The friends come in and hold
consultation. GIVE music lessons
says the outsider Yes, that is use
full calling, and If you have great
genius for it, 90 on in that direction.
But there are enough music teachers
now starving to death in all our towns
and cities to occupy all the piano stools
and sofas and chairs and front door
steps of the city. Besides that, the
daughter has been playing only for
amusement, and is only at the foot of
the ladder, to the top of which a great
multitude of masters on piano and
harp and flute and organ have climbed.
My advice to all girls and all I'M
married women, whether in afiluent
homes or in homes where most strin-
gent economies are grinding, is to
learn to do some kind of work that
the world must have while the world
stands. | am glad to see a marvellous
change for the better, aud that women
have found out that there are hundreds
of practical things that woman can
do for living if she begins soon
enough, and that men have been com
PEELED to admit it. You and / can re-
member when the ma iorty of occupa-
tions were thought Inappropriate for
women; but our civil war came, and
the hosts of men went forth from north
and south; and to conduct the bust
ness of our cities during the patriotic
absence, women were demanded by
the tens of thousands to take the va
cant places; and multitudes of women,
who had been hitherto supported by
fathers and brothers and sons, were
compelled from that time to take care
of themselves. From that time a
mighty change took place favorable to
female employment.
Oh, young women of America as
nf xu.1l houa 70 Ggrhf
own battles alone, do not wait until
you are flung of disaster, and your
father is dead, and all the resources of
your family have been scattered; but
now, while in II good house and en-
vironed by all properties, learn how
to do some kind of work that the world
must have as long as the world stands.
Turn your attention from the en-
broidery of fine slippers, of which
there is a surplus, and make a useful
shoe. EXpend the time in which you
adorn a cigar case in learning how to
make n good, honest loaf of bread.
| Turn your attention from the making
of flimsy nothipgs to the manufacture
ing of important something's.
Much of the time spent in young
ladies' seminaries in studying what
are called the higher branches might
better be expended in teaching them
something by which they could sup
port themselves. If you are going to
be teachers, or Il you have so mrch as
sured wealth that you can always
dwell in those high regions, trigonom-
etry of course, metaphysics OF course,
Latin and Creek and German and
| French and Italian of course and 100
other things of course; but If you are
not expecting to teach, and your
wealth is not established beyond mis-
fortune, after you have learned the
ordinary branches take hold of that
kind of study that will pay in dollars
and cents in case you are thrown on
your own resources. Learn to do some-
thing better than anybody else.
But" you ask, what would my
father and mother say if they saw |
was doing such questionable work?''
Throw the whole responsibility upon
us, the pastors, who are constantly
hearing of young women in all these
cities, who, unqualified by their previ-
GUS luxurious surroundings for the
awful struggl, of life into which they
have been suddenly hurled, seemed to
have nothing left them but choice
between starvation and damnation.
There they go along the street seven
o'clock in the wintry mornings,
through the slush and storm, to the
place where they shall earn only
half enough for subsistence the
daughters of once prosperous mer-
chants, lawyers, clergymen, artists,
bankers and capitalists, who brought
up their children under the internal
delusion that it was not heightened for
women to learn II profitable calling.
Young women take this affair in your
own hands, and let there be an insur.
rection in all prosperous families on
the part of the daughters of this day,
demanding knowledge in occupations
and styles of business by which they
may be their own defense and their
own support if all fatherly and hus.