The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1906-11-27

pam Ii displaced Dy an lnduSLr1-
Gus Woman-Women Bring Finer
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 vocations, 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
unfairness to men in the ease and IA
cility with which women slip into DO
sitions hitherto filled by their fathers
and brothers.
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 equipped
young women who fulfill every require
ment from the high school to the kind
ergarten, throughout all grades includ-
ing not only the most difficult and alb
struse scientific and intellectual stud
les, but as well the domestic and man
ual training that are now insisted upon
as necessary.
Here and there one finds 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 m~onopoiized
this avenue. They have not sought
nor cared for it. 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 $1,000 q
year for her services as principal OF
a school, a man doing perhaps less
work receives from $1,000 to $1,000 as
an annual salary. 1t might perhaps
be thought, and it 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 moi
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 il
should go. There is no reason to re-
greet the numerical superiority Of
women as leaders in the schoolroom.
= .
Women certainly have not p~ercepta
bly, crowded men in the professions o.
law and medicine, and a in the
pulpit is a novelty and so exceptions.
that she is usually explained or &C
counted for by some special pleading
Thus far, the woman lawyer has mo-
%appearedSa jas counsel for great corpora
tions, nor does she reap the magnif-
cent harvest Of gold and fame accru.
ing to the successful lawyer of thu
other sex. Admitted to the bar IL
many states, she generally confines hel
practice within narrow limits ant
often finds her peculiar work in a sor
of ethical and humanitarian lance
breaking for the poor and oppressed
who are defrauded of their rights
The woman lawyer has not as yet beer
is a competitor to be feared or reck
oned with by brother lawyers.
AS for the woman doctor, it remain.
to be seen what the next 20 years ma,
show in her case. She is at present
favorite in many towns and in larg
cities she is consulted on equal term
by medical men and has an increasing
vogue as a specialist in diseases o
women and children. Her return
when she is successful are large, an
in hospital work particularly anon.
women and children, she has widenin
opportunities. There is, however, thi
reservation, many people declare tina
they would never trust a woman t
perform a surgical operation on them
selves or on anyone lear to them. L
the field OF foreign missions, the won
an doctor daily performs surgical OF
erations of the utmost difficulty an
delicacy and in large percentage he
treatment Is successful