The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1904-10-21
a REAL FIELD FOR WOMEN.
French Chefs Are Being suppIanted
BY our Cooking School Graduates

This is good news that comes from
Philadelphia, if it is only true. II Is
that many Of the rich with big 5stab-
| 1ishments are replacing high priced
French chefs with women who have
learned their trade in American COOK
ing schools. The explanation is not
patriotism, but poverty, at least com
parative poverty. The shrinking OF
incomes caused by the slump in the
stock market last year led many rlcn
people into retrenchment and TINS
substitution of women cooks for nlgh
priced men is che of the devices to
! tide over hard tines. The interesting
part of the story is that the substl-
tutes are said to be satisfactory, or at
least their cooking is. 1t is even adj
ded that these women might hope IN
time to secure the same salaries
which used to be paid to men cooks il
they had executive ability enough TO
run a big kitchen. One o. two women
run theaters, a few conduct large
shops and perhaps in time women VIII
develop ability enough to manage the
kitchen of a country place, and to
cook also. At least the salaries paid
in that field are we'll worth trying for
and far exceed those earned by wom-
en-, or by all save small minority
of men, in the professions which wo-
men have shown such anxiety 70
enter.
A curious, even pathetic side of the
movement fer the emancipation OF
women has been that while women
were anxious and proud to ill small
nitches at the bottom of the profess
sions which used to be considered as
exclusive fields for men, they have al
lowed men to usurp the places at
the top in the lines which we're once
thought Of as peculiar to women.
Not only were the best paid cooks
men, but the best paid dr9ssmakers
and milliners as we'll. When able
women were looking for new fields
it has always been good deal OF q
puzzle that they did not really CON
quer these original spires Of Wo-
mems d0minions and pitch the in
truding men out Apparently some
women are at last turning their eyes
toward the private kitchens where
salaries running into thousands are
paid. There is room for a great
many more women there and the re-
wards are Of professional size.
/
part of women may be that cooking
of the sort demanded is both sci
ence and an art, and that excellence
in it requires years of patient and
faithful study and practice. Prac-
tice over a range may not be harder
than on a piano stool, but it isn't
nearly so ornamental, and the girl
who spends three or four years learn
ing all there is to be known about
cooking cannot very we'll prevent
| that she is just havins fun. The
cooking schools have made this sort
of serious study easier than it used
to be, and, in spite of the Iudicrous
results achieved by rich girls who
I Just smatter at cooking in them, they
seem to have done some good.
| 1t is commonly said, too, that the
social barrier against domestic ser
vice keeps women of education or Of
American background out of the
work. That is no doubt true SO far
as general housework in ordinary
| homes goes. but it is difficult to be-
lieve in any very serious social bar
rier against woman who earns S.
600 or $4,000 a year running the
kitchen of some plutccrat. Who is
I going to administer the snub of pro-
fessionaldom to her? Will it be
$4,000 doctor CT a $1,000 teacher or
an $500 lawyer, who will rise and OBJ
ject to a woman earning four or five
times as much to the clubs and so
cieties which are open to profession
~ vv.o,,oy,0 Tbof would hn a cnnn-