Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1911-05-19
GIVE YOUR GIRL
A PROFESSION
1t Is a Guard Against Pow
erty and Perhaps
Worse.

BRANDED by the police records as
- shoplifters, thieves, drug fiends
and as women Of the streets, scores
Of girls of good family, girls who be-
gan life under most suspicious cir
cumstances, have sunk into oblivion,
shaken Off by their relatives, summed
by former friends and forgotten at
last in the rush of the passing years.
There isn't day but what one or
more of such tragedies of the girl Who
fails in her endeavOr to support her
self and SO sinks into the nire is
told in the columns of the daily pa
pers, and there are many, many more
that never reach the eyes or ears Of
the public because the tragedy has not
enough human interest in the eyes of
the police reporter to make a story
Why is it?
Professor Simon Patten, of the de-
partment of sociology at the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania, declares it is be-
cause the modern wage earners,
whether men or women, get such
small pay that they cannot have any
pleasures or any OF the joys of life
unless they steal them or secure them
by FORGETTING their own pride and hon
esty.
/ Every one, he says, requires some
| pleasures and happiness, and the Wo-
man who faces a future of endless
struggling to exist on Sc or 50 at last
gives up in despair and seeks aid and
luxury however she can win 1t, put
ting honesty and virtue aside, because
her whole being cries out for the
comforts and the pleasures which she
sees more fortunate women possess
Ing.
| But paying salaries and philan-
thropy are very far apart, and unless
/ e. girl is proficient and clever and a
| hard worker she does not make her
self worth more than the small sal
! ary mentioned, and so the blame for
! the social conditions is lifted Off the
shoulders of the employer and falls
/ upon-whom?
| Why, the father and mother who
! spoiled their children by expanding
upon them money and time and love,
but forgot to arm them against the
future by giving themsa profession or
B. business training that would enable
them to take their stand among the
valued employees when fate cast them
out to wrest living for themselves.
"But my girl will never have to
work." cries the average mother.
Her father is well able to support
her, and there will always be a little
money, and, then, Of course, she will
marry"
But she may not-death or illness
may claim the father, a financial panic
nr the failure of a bank may sweep
away the savings Of his lifetime of
work, and then what?
| Will you send your girl to be one
of that vast army that cEeeps through
| the streets at dawn to take Up the
bitter labors Of the day, and then
! creeps home again at dusk, shabby
and tired and full of restless despair
+ against fate?
Or will you force her into marriage,
any kind of marriage to escape it?
| One OF the other she must face, or
perhaps a worse fate, unless she is
armed against poverty with the con-
fidence born Of knowledge.
/ If your girl has a talent for some
one thing let her follow it till she is
canan1a Of winning q fair Evino
through it. Don't let her grow up a
helpless woman who is capable only
of being social favorite; and after
all, if she has broadened brain and in
dividuality by study. if she is serene
ly conscious that she is able to cope
with life's battle, she will be three
times as fine and attractive a woman
as the prattling, frivolous so-called
feminine" woman.