The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1910-10-21
WHAT AMERICAN
WOMEN ARE DOING
Occupations in Which They are Engaged.
Great Advance Made by Women
Workers.

Great Advance Made by Women
Workers.
No country owes more to its
| women than does ours, and no cOun.
try with whose history l am &C.
quainted, has done more for its
women than has ours. The position
of women in America is vastly su
perior to that of her sister in the
most civilized countries of Europe
The history Of women through
the ages past, if it could be fully
known, would be painful reading
! Among the Hindoos man regarded
her as slave, and in consequence
she was bought, sold, bound and
gambled away. In the Orient, even
now her condition is that of com
pulsory servitude. Under the old
Roman law the husband controlled
the person, property, earnings, and
religion of his wife. The Greeks al
ways regarded women under the
law as mere children. Generally
during medieval times the church
forbade the education of women and
regarded them as interior beings
"unfit for instruction"
1t is necessary only to review some
Of these painful facts to make us
realize the great strides that have
been taken in more recent times
toward giving woman her proper
place in the world
In our country the social eman
cipation of woman may be said to
be complete. AS to her political
equality with man the only limita-
ton is in the right of suffrage, and
many claim that if she wishes full
suffrage, together with the political
duties and labOrs incident thereto
all that is necessary is that as a
body she make known her desires
and the burden is hers. Women are
exempt from military service, jury
duty, work upon the highways and
political duties generally.
In no other country have women
made their way into all the profess
sions and voca,ions of life as here
in America. Popular sentiment
seems in favor of opening up every
line of work to them. They practice
as physicians and lawyers, have en-
tered the university, have become
journalists and lecturers. They are
employed as clerks, type writer's and
secretaries in the government de-
partlnents, by the great railroad
telegraph and publishing compa-
nies and in all sorts of occupations
intellectual, commercial and me
chaniCal where much physical
strength is not needed. Some have
become farmers, some civil engi
| neerS, some miners and have gone
to klondlke.
Teaching in the public schools
| has been turned over almost entire.
| ly to women, especially here in the
western states, where they form an
| overwhelming ma jority ofthe teach
ers in the higher as we'll as in the
| lower grades.
In the matter Of public education
! both secondary aud higher, az
ample provision has been made fo1
the girls as for the boys. In fact il
is claimed by some that the high
school course OF study ia this coun
| try is framed in the interests of the
girls. However that may be it is
evident that some old-fashioned
| studying will have to be done BY
our young men or they will have tc
stand back on graduation day and
listen to salutatOries and valedict
ories delivered by their sisters and
sweethearts of whom it used to be
said that they could not master the
higher mathematics and abstruse
sciences.
| The objection is sometimes offer
ed that the higher education ot
women tends to raise girls of the
humber classes out of their true
social sphere, implanting tastes
which make them discontented with
their lot in life, and on the whole
developes the American fault O.
families living beyond their means
in short that they consider house
| work hard ,mOnotonous and inferior
that they would prefer to teach
school, dabble in art or embroide1
center pieces, than to make thei1
own clothes or cook the family din
ner. If such notions are prevalent
which doubt, true education in NJ
way is responsible for them.
Women have entered the fields O.
organized charity, prison reform
the management of schools, and art
bearing conspicuous part in tn,
promotion of all moral and philan
thropic causes.
The curse and bane of civilizatio,
is drunkenness. 1t is sad com
ment on our modern progress tha
as new parts of the world are open
ed up, the whiskey bottle precede!
the Bible, and saloons are built be
fore schoolhouses. What is tn,
secret of the terrible vitality of tn,
saloon? It is the rendezvous of loaf