Omaha daily bee., 1916-10-14
By DOROTHY DIX.


for this column urging parents to
have their daughters taught some
gainful occupation whereby they
could earn their own bread and but
ter if 1t ever became necessary for
them to do so. This has brought
forth hundreds OF letters from fathers
and mothers who ask:
What trade or profession would
you advise us to have our daughters
taught? A boy can study law, medi-
cine, dentistry, etc, but what can a
girl dol"
Broadly speaking, girl can follow
almost any career in these days that
her brother can. The door of oppor-
tunity is pretty widely open to wo-
men and the limit of their achieve
ment is the limit OF their ability
There are famous women lawyers and
doctors and there are also lady
Steamboat captains, lady longshore-
men and at least one feminine steeple-
jack.
In the face of what women are
doing in Europe at the present mo
ment, where they are raising the
crops, making munitions, driving am
balances, doing police duty, running
the street railways and motor busses,
there don't seem to be many things
that woman can't Dc if she sets her
hand to it and puts her mind on it.
Woman's sphere has grown as large
as the universe.
Personally, however, l believe in
the cobbler sticking to his last, and |
think that women are most useful
and that they are likely to achieve
their greatest successes when they
follow along the lines OF what we call
woman's work, the things that their
foremothers have done for countless
generations, and for which they have
an inherited natural aptitude.
Let girl choose any of the occu-
pations that belong to her sex, and do
it so well that she raises it to an art
or a science, and she is sure of fame
and fortune as her reward
Clothes, food, shelter, nursing
there will never come a time when
these four elemental needs of human
ity will be adequately supplied. There
will always be women and men will
ing to pay lavishly for beautiful hats
and gowns, for superlative cooking,
for we'll kept lodgings and for skill
full attendance upon them when they
are sick.
Every dressmaker who has even an
artistic sense grows rich. Women
struggle with one another to pay $50
for S. worth Of material if it is cum
ningly put together by master hand
in hat.
There are a dozen chefs in this city
who get ten thousand a year, and any
halfway sort of cook that can make
gravy can get from $3S to $40 a
month with her board and prequis-
ties. Every we'll run boarding house
where they sweep under the beds anc
give fairly decent food has a long
waiting list. A good trained nurse
can make as much as a physician.
These facts being self-evident, it
follows that no girl can make a mis-
take who chooses either one of these
professions, according to her bent. If
she is handy with the needle, send
your daughter to one cf the various
schools Of design and let her learn
dress designing or millinery, so that
when she starts. forth on her career
she will be able to turn out crea-
tions and get the price of creations,
instead Of turning out sartorial hor-
rors that no one will be willing to
pay for at any price.
II your daughter has a taste for
cooking, send her to one of the do
mestic science schools, where she
will learn every branch of the art OF
cookery and housewifery, how to
keep a budget, what cuts of meat to
buy, how to balance rations and
so on.
Thus she will be equipped to go
into kitchen, to run boarding
house profitably, to take place in
a hotel, or to teach domestic science
and it is said by those in authority at
Columbia that there are far more de-
mands for domestic science teachers
than there are for women to expound
the higher culture.
Trained nursing and kindergarten
ing are two more good professions
for girl to study. Furthermore, the
girl who takes thorough course in
any of these arts that / have men
toned is preparing herself in the best
possible manner for woman's chief
career. She will be more efficient
wife and mother for being an ex-