The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1911-03-30


tell others how they "made good"
If you want to get a really intimate
view of the woman who works; if
you want to know just how much
woman can endure before she decides
to earn her own bread; if you want
to know the real meaning of the
words, perseverance and pluck
read a few of the articles published.
In late years we women have lis
tened to a tremendous amount of talk
about "bettering the condition of
women; to that end we have had
brilliant arrays of very rich and very
eloquent women demanding all sorts
of 'rights from that of easy and
frequent divorce, to the right Of vot-
ing at the polls with men.
When one has read a few of the
articles which have been published,
one is amazed to see how great is still
the problem of the woman who has
to face the world as a worker for
wages.
Despite the conventions, the
speeches, the resolutions, the de
mands" and all the rest of it, the
simple question, "What shall | do?"
is just as difficult for the inexperi-
enced woman, thrown on her own re-
sources, to answer.
After awhile we, as a people, are
going to realize that the conditions
under which we raise our daughters,
handicaps them in every possible way
for entering, with success to them
selves or their employers, the bust
ness world.
1t isn't SO much the question as to
what a woman shall do, as it is: what
can she do we'll?
To this end, wouldn't it be far bet
ter if the girl was handled-as to her
future, just as boy is? Every
mother has planned for her sons
business career" Why not for the
daughters?
When this is done, it will be i'm
possible for any newspaper to>publish
another series of articles of just such
pathOs and tragedy as the one re-
ferred to.
Fully seventy-fve per cent of the
women who have written the articles
are women who have married, who
have had to take up mans work
and assume a mans responsibility;
and this is where it shows so palp-
ably how remiss we have been in the
training of our girls.
In the old, simple-living times, it
was quite possible to believe that God
meant woman to be mans help-meet,
and in some communities we still find
that condition; but on the whole, life
has become too complex, too eXtrav-
agant and too intolerant to believe in
anything so Old-fashiOned.
Girls marry for a home, or for any
of a dozen reasons, and occasionally
for lOve-but this latter is of so rare
Occurance, Judging from the divorce
court records, it scarcely enters into
the argument.
If a girl had been successful in a
business career-say for two or three
years after her school days had ended
isn't it to be supposed she would
have clearer, saner and safer knowl-
edge of the real life she was to live?
If she had been made to rely on
her own udgment-base her opin-
ions on facts as she knew them to be
not as she had deduced from some
others experience or expression of
OpiniOn-Wouldn' she stand a better
chance of choosing wisely, when it
came to a question of marriage?
There are few women, successful,
not old, nor even elderly, who have
taken up business careers in prefer
ence to matrimony, and who have
abided by their choice-but it is a
melancholy fact that more and more,
the unfortunately Situated married