Montpelier examiner. [volume] (Montpelier, Idaho) 1895-1937, 1906-10-05
BY MARGARET e. sANGsTER.

Atmosphere Into Business Life.
BY MARGARET e. SANGSTER.
Copyright 1906. by Joseph B. Bowles.)
Women and men are not natural
enemies, they are not set over
against one another in opposing
camps. On the contrary, their inter-
ests meet and mingle, and such a
thing as conflict and antagonism based
on the score Of sex is supremacy alb
surd.
yet we constantly hear the assertion
made that women should not enter
certain professional vo~cations, lest
their presence should crowd out men
who have secured the right Of way.
and by tradition and training are es-
tablished In their callings. The same
objection has been urged times with
out number against women in bust
ness, the feeling being that there is an
u~nfairness to men in the ease and IA
ciltty with which women slip into no
sitions hitherto filled by their fathers
and brothers. 1ra{L
As everybody knows, there are lines
OF work peculiarly adapted to wom-
ans quick wit, quick sympathy and
mental culture. Very few men choose
teaching as a profession. Thousands
OF women turn to the education Of the
young as their proper sphere. Our
public schools enlist an army Of splen-
didly endowed and fully euuipped
young women who fulfill every require
ment from the high school to the kind
ergarten, throughout all grades includ-
Ing not only the most diffcult and alb
struse scientific and Intellectual stud
les, but as well the domestic and man.
u a training that are now insisted upon
as necessary.
Here and there n fiAds a man or
two engaged In special work and the
superintendent and principals are usu-
ally men, but this is not because wom-
en- have crowded men out, but be-
cause men have never monopoiized
this avenue. They have not sought
nor cared for 1t. Very unfairly, when
ever they do enter this particular
field, they ask and receive larger sal
aries than women for precisely the
same work. Where a woman thank
fully accepts from $500 to 1000 a
year for her services as principal Of
a school, q man doing perhaps less
work receives from $500 to 81, 800 as
an annual salary. It might perhaps
be thought, and 1t may be partially
true, that the possibility OF getting
good work for less money here acts
as a factor in the employment of
woman rather than of men, but the
truth Is that the average man prefers
to put his talents to almost any other
use than that of teaching. He is not
sufficiently patient, sufficiently unset
to like this day by day task of guild
fish, and sufficiently fond of children
ing the next generation in the way 1t
should go. There Is no reason to re-
greet the numerical superiority Of
women as leaders in the %schoolroom.
Women certainly have not percepta-
bly, crowded men In the professions Of
law and medicine. and a woman In the
pulpit Is a novelty and SO exceptional
that she Is usually. explained or ac-
counted for by some special pleading.
Thus far, the woman lawyer has not
appeared as counsel for great
tions, nor does she reap the magnif-
cent harvest of gold and fame accru-
ing to the successful lawyer Of the
other sex. Admitted to the bar in
many states, she generally confines her
practice within narrow limits and
often finds her peculiar work In q sort
Of ethical and humanitarian lance
breaking for the poor and oppressed
who are defrauded Of their rights.
The woman lawyer has not as yet been
taken so seriously anywhere that she
Is a competitor to be feared or reck-
oned with by brother lawyers.
AS for the woman doctor, 1t remains
to be seen what the next 20 years may
show in her s She is at present q
~favorite In many towns and in large
cities she is consulted on equal terms
by medical men and has an increasing
vogue as a specialist in diseases Of
women and children. Her returns
when she is successful are large, and
In hospital work particularly among
women and children, she has widening
opportunities. There is. however, this
reservation, many people declare that
they would never trust q roman to
perform a surgical operation on them
selves or on anyone dear to them. In
the field OF foreign missions, the wom-
an doctor daily performs surgical op-
erations Of the utmost difficulty and
deiicacy and In large percentage her
treatment IN successful.