The age-herald., 1898-02-04
A Woman's Need for
 Business Training

The following advice from a bright news paper correspondent commends itself to every sensible and observant woman. She says:
 Among the saddest sights in the world, one that no familiarity ever renders less pathetic, is the spectacle of the gentle woman who is suddenly and unexpectedly confronted with the necessity of earning her own living. We meet her at every turn, waging her feeble and intellectual struggle for existence, and, indeed, there is scarcely a day when every successful man and woman is not appealed to by one of these hopeless derelicts on the sea of life for assistance or advice.
 'When 1t is a mere question or giving, the matter is comparatively simple, but it is only in the last extremity that the gen. tlewoman will accept charity. She wants work and independence, and it is when you confront the problem of her ignorance and inexperience that you despair of giv- ing any counsel or making any suggestion of the slightest use. Generally, she is middle-aged, oftener than not she is frail and delicate, always she Is gentle and re- fined, but, alasi of what use is gentleness fin an age that is pushing and scrambling for the best places, or where the market where one can sell refinement?
 What, you ask timidly and hopelessly, can you do? What service have you to offer that the world is willing to pay for? Well, she says that she can paint little. Her flowers have been thought sweetly pretty. Or, perhaps she used to play a little on the piano. little! Good heavens, a littlei in this day of profess sionals in every line! Or she hopefully believes there is a market for poetry, be- cause she writes obituary verses on all her friends who die, and so she goes through the little list of accomplishments that shrivel up and seem so pitiful when they must be subjected to the critical test of bread earning.
 'You say as gently as you know how, that none of these things will bring her in money, and make some futile sugges- tions, and she goes her failure doomed way, because there is nothing under the sun that she knows how to do thoroughly. And, then, it comes to you with renewed truth, that for all our boasted tenderness to our women, there is no other civilized country that makes so little preparation for their protection as we do in America, We rear them in luxury, we handicap them by habits of extravaganza and enervate them by lives of idleness, and then too often turn them adrift to fight their own battles of life.
 "The transtory nature of fortune in this country is proverbial There is no middle- aged person who has not seen the wives and daughters of supposed millonaires re- duced to want. Every one of us have known women reared to every imaginable luxury. suddenly thrown by the death or failure of father or husband on their own pitiful resources to live or die by the work of their own hands. Sometimes, after years of untold misery, they succeed. off, tener they die under conditions for which they are so i'll prepared, and one is left wondering at the lack of forethought that would leave women exposed to such hardsbips
 Money has wings. Scarcely an American fortune has lasted for two generations. These are truisms, with which we are an familiar. and since no man may be cer- tain of being able to retain fortunes golden smile, is 1t not cruelty not to prepare girls. as we'll as boys. for the evil day that may possibly be in store for them? It is the greatest injustice, nay. more than that it is a crime, not to give every wo- man some trade or profession in which she shall he sufficiently skillful to earn living If the need for it should ever arise"