Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-04-06


that which is produced by stretching
the mind over our life problems and
solving them ourselves instead of hav-
| ing some one else solve them for us.
The consciousness that we are doing
something in the world worth while,
! that we are taking our places like real
men and real women, is the only thing
1 that makes life worth living.
We may manage to get through the
world without helping ourselves, with
out doing anything for others, but we
/ can't manage to do this and be a
real woman. We can't manage to
| shirk our part of the worlds work,
when we are perfectly able to do it,
and be anything but a dwarf, a scrub
| oak of a human being; we can't do
! it and be a happy man, or happy
woman.
There are thousands of able bodied
girls, many of them college gradu-
ates, who lead a useless existence be-
cause they have not found their places
in life, they have not felt the pressure
of a great life purpose. Although they
are educated and fitted to serve man
| kind, they have not developed any
special bent or talent. 1t often hap
pens that these girls belong to families
of moderate means, and they drift
along for years without marrying, and
finally become burden to themselves,
their relatives, or their community,
and are demoralizing to the real pro-
ducers.
With the average American girl, her
definite purpose has ended with her
ND DIM
Their were brought up with the idea
that marriage was a woman's inev-
liable goal, and the girl of the past
was not encouraged to have any other
ambition.
The tremendous increase in Ameri-
can divorces the past decade was
largely due to the idle, aimless lives
of the wives, especially the wives of
wealthy men. Wage-earning occupa-
tons were unthought of in the girls
training and not even limited at in the
fashionable schools.
There has been infinitely too great
emphasis placed upon two different
ideals for the boy and the girl. Every
thing in the boys training has pointed
toward his future. He has been
taught that he is expected to do some
thing, and to be somebody in the
world-to be a man of influence and
power, and to stand for something in
his community The boys training
has been calculated to develop his IN
dependence, his self-relianee, to call
out his initiative and qualities which
accomplish things. Achievement along
the line of definite purpose has been
emphasized in his training.
The most pathetic picture in Ameri-
can life has been that of the unframed,
helpless daughter. waiting around at
home after her schooling was over,
for some man to come along who was
willing to support her. These helpless,
ambitionless creatures, however. are
fast disappearing. The new giri will
be much more of prize than the old
type of girl. and she will be much
more sought after The new girl will
not have the same temptation to sell
herself for home, for some one to
support her, because she will be able
to provide for herself.
The coming girl is going to be train
ed in a business way, TO fit herself
for some useful vocation which will
make her self -respecting, self-support-
ing independent. She is not going to
be the clinging- vine, dressed up doll,
mans plaything of the past She is
going to be a much higher order of
being: a character worth the name of
woman"
The new girl, if she doesn't marry,
is not going to live upon her father
and mother. She is going to be asham-
ed to be a further drag upon her par
ents, drain upon the family treasury.
She is going to regard it just as much
of a disgrace to hang around the
home for years and do nothing, while
she is waiting for the right man to
come along, as it would be for her
brother to live upon his family after
he is perfectly capable of earning his
own living. This living upon the par
ents after one is capable of earning
ones own living is a great character
weakener. 1t is practically accepting
charity when one is perfectly capable
of taking care of oneself, and the new
girls sense of justice, her superb in
dependence, and self-reliance will pro-
test against her longer accepting these
conditions.
One of the first obligations of par
ents toward a child is to teach him
what tremendous debt he owes to
the world, into which he was born.
There are many parents, especially
mothers, who have made slaves of
themselves to help their girls gain a
college education, and who are not
willing that they should work.
The daughters will sometimes sit
around the house and see the mother
cook for, and wait upon her family,
even when she is sick enough to be
abed, without the slightest feeling of
conjunction, simply because they have
been raised that way. They have come
to take it for granted that they are
not expected to do anything, that they
were intended to be waited upon.
These young women would be shocked
If told that they were selfish, that they
have been unkind to their poor worn
| out mother They were brought up
TO be waited upon, to have everything
brought to them, until they have
grown to expect that everything is
coming toward them, and they do not
seem to think that anything Is ex-
pected of them in return. They accept
/ of he.