The age-herald., 1900-12-30
Ethics NH Be Pleaded as a
 Defense A TALK WITH DR. META HALEY She is the Only Woman Dentist in Birmingham-SociaI Gossip of the Week Just Past and
 of the New Year
BY ANNIE KENpRIcK WALKER.

The new century will be reconclled to womans invasion of any or all professions. The twentieth century will not gossip over the successful woman artists. physicians, writers, lawyers, or along whatever chan mel woman may direct her energies. The nineteenth is bequeathing the twentieth not a new woman after all, for the so- called advanced woman has grown ''old." The successful professional woman is a veteran, and she no longer desires to be catalogued in a distinctive class. She Is not to be considered as an anomaly of civ- ilizauon, or written of in a sentimental vein. She may be as sentimental as she wants to be. but all this nineteenth century practicability will necessarily affect the new century and I predict that woman and her pursuits will be less discussed in the century so soon to dawn.
 The professional woman will demand that less be said of her. and the position that she will take will be forced upon her by the ethics of her professions.
 The f1n-de-siecle woman will tell you to- day that it is not ethical to write of her success simply because she Is a woman while the young fellow across the way is in the same profession and making a suc- cess of it. and yet whose name has never appeared in the newspapers. The young fellow in question, if consulted, would probably summon that chivalric spirit that is supposed to lie dormant in every man, and declare that the professional woman must be discussed and her success paraded before the eyes of a startled world He will not admit that there is the ethical side and his determination to look over what the professional woman recognizes is demanded in all professions places the latter in a position that she has reluctantly accepted. With the successful woman, with avoYed intention to pursue her col lege and professional life without the aid of columns of editorial discussion in the newspapers and magazines, I am at loss what fate to predict for the twentieth cen- tury writers whose themes must relate to woman.
 And as there is no occupation more de- lightful to me than to write of the suc- cessful careers of the business or profess sional women of today, and in view of the near approach of the twentieth century woman, 1 am going to write my story (probably my lasD of the successful career of a charming Southern woman, who IS sured me only yesterday that I would vio- late the ethics of her profession if l wrote only of her and did not mention the ca- reers of at least two or three men in the same DlOCk NIO hGIc HOldDly SuSSSoSlul in their professions. And I wanted to tell her that If I were to take the trouble to write of the successful career of any man in her profession that the editor of this paper would call it a free advertising scheme; but that the story of a successful woman was indeed another story' and considered by editors the most charming and readable stories that find their way in- to their papers. The newspaper woman of today feels that her "chief" and her read CTS as well, are always interested in the stories that record the success of the bright and progressive women in both the business and professional world.
 She is Dr. Meta T. Haley, and enjoys the distinction of being the only woman den- tist in Birmingham or in Alabama She is a Virginia woman, and opened her offices in Birmingham a year ago last October She is a graduate of the famous Pennsyl- yania College of Dental Surgery, of which Dr. C. N. Pierce has been dean for thirty years. He was Dr. Haleys preceptor, and she referred to him affectionately. pr. Pierce stands at the head of his profession in this country, and it is through his rec ognized distinction that Philadelphia has always been regarded as the very center of dental pedagogics. Dr. Haley was de- monstrator in operative dentistry at the Pennsylvania college, and was quiz master for several years. This latter chair re- quired a complete mastery of the authori- ties on dentistry. So familiar was Dr. Ha- ley with the methods and lectures of the great dean of the college that when the