The Savannah morning news., 1904-08-07
GIVE THE GIRLS A CHANCE.

L ne GSSttltttt III JlSLAAf VI otN - III -
so bitterly illustrated as in the diff
ference in the way in which we pre-
pare our boys and girls for life. From
the first We seek to safeguard our
sons future. but we trust our girls
to blind luck.
AS soon as a boy comes home from
college his parents first thought is to
have him taught some trade or pro-
fession or business in order that he may
have a weapon with which to fight the
battle of life, and so be able to win
with his own hands at least a rea-
sonable amount of the prosperity that
is necessary TO comfort and happi-
ness. This is without reference TO what
his father may be able to bestow up
On him. Riches have wings that are
mostly used in flying away from us,
and we feel that the boy should have
within himself some resource, some
cultivated ability on which he can re-
ly in the day of adversely.
But curiOusly enough, however, no.
body thinks it worth while to provide
the girl with a weapon with which to
fight her battle. She, too, like the
boy, is scheduled to live in a world that
is full of ups and down, and shifting
fortunes, where the dead sure things
always turn out a failure and the bank
that couldn't break smashes into smith
Greens, and the millionairess of yes
terday is the shop girl of to-day, but
nobody concerns themselves to prepare
her for any of the contingencies that
she is liable to meet. our ideal of
kindness to a girl is to send her forth
to sail a stormy sea that is full Of
breakers, without giving her any chart
or compass, or teaching her the art of
navigation.
OF course. the excuse for this is that
we always expect a girl to marry. Now
marriage is not the end of trouble, but
the beginning of it. Neither is it an
Illuminating process by which a wOm-
an becomes suddenly and miraculous
ly possessed of knowledge that -she
ought to have had beforehand. The
girl who didn't know the value of
money before marriage, will not find
that the wedding ceremony converts her
into Hetty Green. She who was I'M
aware of how to sew on a patch, or
make bread as a maid. will find out that
she still has to learns those arts as a
matron, and that the mere act of walk
ing to the altar with a man has no
more fitted her to wrestle with the COM
pick problems of housekeeping than 1t
has fitted her husband to practice law.
or medicine. or civil engineering, or
any other profession of which he is
ignorant
The truth is that we never seem able
to take a sane view of a womans life
and destiny. We either approach the
subject in a spirit of irresponsible hope
fulness. or irrational despair. In the
one we cherish the comfortable and
amiable illusion that when a woman
needs to know anything, or the abi-
tty to do anything, she will somehow
re inspired to do it without being
taught. In the other we go on in the
equally ridiculous assumption that a
woman is never going to know any
thing practical anyway, and there is
no use trying to teach her. and be-
tween these two false theories I'M
counted millions of women meet their
Waterloo
There is no use, at this late day,
of arguing the relative mental ability
of the sexes. We are not contrasting
the men geniuses and the fool wom-
en-, while between the masculine and
feminine pinheads there is precious lit
tie to choose. On the broad middle
ground of average ability there is
nothing that the ordinary girl cannot
learn just as well as the ordinary boy.
AS long as they go to school together
the girl holds her own IN the classes,
and the only reason that the aver
age man is more capable than the
average woman is because his educa-
tion goes after he leaves school while
hers stops short. She lis never taught
the practical affairs of life. No idea
of responsibility for her future is
held up before her. 1t is not even
suggested to her that 1t would he well
to learn the rules of the game she
has got to play. She is just left to go
It alone. and get euchered because she
doesn't know how to play her hand.
Nobody has taught her.
One of the things to which men in
variably point, when they want to
prove women's unfitness for business
is their ignorance about money mat
tiers. The woman who buys a thing
she doesn't need because it has been
marked down from 81 90 to 81 cents
ir order to save, and her sister who
signs a check Mrs. John Smith" one
day and Mrs. Mary Smith" the next
day and "Mayme Smythe" the third
day, has been the subject OF innumer-
able Jokes. but how should she know
any better, when she has never been
taught the value of money. or ini-
tiated into the mysteries of bank
ing?
Husbands and fathers slave them
selves to death trying to lay up for
AuAVH W ltdNt W AlltiT WIVES ana
daughters, but they do not teach them
how TO handle money so that when
we hear that a woman has been left
a fortune we begin Specializing as to
whether she will buy gold bricks with
It, or lend It without security to the
pious deacon of her church. We know
that one or the other is bound TO
happen to her and we groan over the
helplessness of It. It Is a cruel help
lessness. because II is so unnecessary.
and when the woman is defrauded and
robbed she may well ask why the
men who should have protected her
did not protect her by teaching her
the things she should have known
Her brother was not left to depend
on other peoples advice and knowl-
edge, and honesty. From his earliest
years he had some pocket money and
was taught at least common business
usages. A girl is taught nothing Of
the kind. what she needs Is given her
She seldom handles dollar. No one
even shows her which is the business
end Of check. and if she comes into
any money. she is the victim of the
first sharper who gets hold OF her
Every one OF us know penniless women
who fave signed away their property
without knowing what they were
putting their names TO. and who have
been inveigled into schemes so wild II
seems as If baby might have known
- RyM4% R1 49, Rgz Am ~ n