The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-05-07
THIS CENTURY BELONGS
TO The SINGLE WOMAN

SOH. these old maid schoolteachers.
tell you, society wouldn't hold
together without them,' said
Rev Newell Dwight Hills in a recent
address. He told the audience how
little boy of eleven had been turned
outdoors by his father and stepmother
when a woman teacher who lived alona
had taken the homeless child and care
for him in her three shabby rooms
and been father and mother both to
him. No doubt he win be a credit tc
her in the years to come and make "
to her for the lack of family ties.
However. old maid te4ehers do not
usually live in shabby rooms. Througf.
organization and asitat ton among wo-
men teachers. through persistent and
insistent claiming of their just and
equal rights with men, the pay of wo-
men teachers is generally being raised.
In the higher ranks of the pedagogical
profession the wage of the spinster fire.
quently reaches several thousand dol
lars a year. Some of these ladies are
college presidents and professors. Ther
are scholarly single women not fes
who have A NJ. to their names; sew
eral are even LII. DIS. They have in
comes that secure to them comfort and
luxury.
Others among these fine single wo-
men are physicians, lawyers, editors
artists and the heads of commercial
concerns originated by themselves
| Taking the initiative in business enter
prises is something woman has been
afraid to do until recently, but where
the right kind of woman has ventured
she has won. She is apt to be Drawer
more self dependent than her married
sister, therefore more capable in mat
tiers requiring these qualities. 1t is not
an all round drawback to be alone in
the world, as many a strong, fine sin
gle woman is proving.
Many single women are becoming SUI
perintendents of dietetics in colleges
! and public hospitals and sanitariums.
This is a field for which they are pc
culiarly fitted. A lone woman who has
been trained in kitchen chemistry is
sure of profitable employment, and she
can keep her place all her life. Thor
oughly capable dietitians are scarce.
Leaving out Mr.. Andrew Carnegie
and his library habit. who today is
probably the most eminent philan-
thropist in America? Is it not Miss
Helen Gould? And is not Grace DOdg1
another example of the single womar
philanthropist? Think what Clara Bari
ton and Florence Nightingale have
done for humanity Wherever peopl
are prominent in the world of industry
and of sociological and economic sci4
strongest of them you find the single
woman.
When a man starts to address a wo-
mans club and endeavors to talk down
| to its level he is apt to begin with,
''Victor Hugo said the nineteenth cen
| fury was the woman's century" 1t is
| in order to give that time honcred OBJ
| servation a rest and say now, THE
| twentieth century is the old maids cen
fury" DR.. Hills is right Civilization
| today could not be run without her.
| The single woman. cranky, angular
and set in her ways2 Well. go to the
women's clubs; get invited to some of
the theater and studio parties engi-
neered by these new women who have
no husbands. Some of them are wild
ows, but they, too, are lone women so
far as the masculine sex is concerned.
The lone women are good looking,
sometimes handsome, elegantly gowned
in frocks they themselves often have
earned. They sing they recite, they
have teas and dinners, whey arrange
mutual journeys to Europe and conduct
camping and seashore parties. Good
times Well
The humble dependent old maid rel
ative who waited on her married broth
ers children and whose tinid, depre-
eating air bespoke a perpetual apology
for having been born Is no more. Her
day is past. In her place is the strong,
self dependent single new woman who
is somebody and whose clear, merry
eye and bright face reveal the individ-
ual who enjoys life. And If occasional
~ she mentions that she might have
been married had she so chosen what
of it2 Have not men also their little
vapities? JANE NOSES