The Savannah morning news., 1904-08-07
WORLD

better. One can but marvel at a
father, who carefully trains his son
up to take care of the property he
leaves him. but will leave his daughter
to find out by bitter experience the
things he should have taught her for
her own protection. There isn't any
I thing in the rudiments Of business that
the average girl can't learn. She may
not develop into a Napoleon of finance,
but she will at least know better than
to indorse for cousin James because he
has family prayers every night, or buy
stock in the Wild Cat Mines of no
where because a glib talking promoter
recommends them.
If we are to regard marriage as the
chief career for girls-and it is-it
certainly seems only fair that they
should be fitted for the role of wife
before they undertake to practice it
upon a defenseless man. We teach
boys that they can only hope to
achieve prosperity in their chosen oc-
equations by mastering the details of
their callings, attention to business
and good management, and in order to
dc that they serve some sort of an
apprenticeship either in the shop or
the school, but we chuck a girl into
the most complicated profession on
earth without any training whatever,
flih tat'i I@hPNNe III " AlAeAiNN q SUI
cess Of it.
Every day we hear a mother say:
"Oh, l don't want my girls to have
tn cares of learning how to cook, and
sew, and keep house. They'll learn
it when they have to-" OF course, in
time they do, but at the expense Of
trials and tribulations, and tears, and
domestic misery and examinations. IL
would be about as sensible as if a
fR I oh I 1ag,xsn
my son taught any business, or sent
to a medical college. BY the time
he has made two or three assignments.
and killed a few people experiment.
ing on them, he'll learn how to be
a merchant, or a doctor. Nobody
ever seems to stop to think that If
a girl had only been taught how to
keep house before she was married,
instead of afterwards she too might
have avoided bankruptcy and muir
de-.
It is perhaps looking forward to an
impossible millennium to hope that the
time will ever come when plain, sim
pie, human justice is shown to girls,
and they will be as carefully prepared
for life as boys are, for even matri-
mOny doesn't settle things for a Wom-
an. We might fall back upon it as a
universal panacea for all the difficult
TIES IN a woman lie II husbands were
always tender, and generous, and kind.
or even if they were always prosper
Gus. But men are sometimes cruel
Husbands die. They fail in business.
and many a woman who has married
well has found herself widowed and
penniless, or through some stroke of
il fortune her husband is not able to
provide for her. Then she faces the
great bread and butter problem that
her own inability and lack of training
change from a slight unpleasantness
into heart-breakng tragedy. Mo-
body has prepared her for this. No
body has taught her any gainful oc-
cupation to follow. She knows no
earthly way of making money. She is
the most piteous creature in all Gods
world. and yet this fate is one that
may befall your daughter or mine, and
we are doing nothing to prevent it.
We take nothing for granted about a
boys future. We try to arm him at
every point. but we abandon the girl
to blind luck, and to do this is worse
than cruel. 1t is criminal. Our girls
are of the sane caliber as their broth
ers. They are neither inspired sibyls
nor fools. Both are subject to the same
Vicissitudes in life. and women have q
right to ask that the handicap of sex
should not have the weight of ignor-
ance added to it, when they contend
with the difficulties of life.
Teach the girl some of the practical
affairs you teach her brother Give her
a chance in life. Dorothy Dix.