The Washington herald., 1917-10-08

and the most curious thing in the
world n that fathers and mothers
have never seemed to appreciate what
,, q cruel thing, what a criminal thing,
1t is to turn their daughters adrift in
life without even q financial spar to
cling to.
None are % ignorant az not to know
that money lies at the basis Of all
health. happiness and respectability. A
woman must have food and shelter
and clothes. II she has no husband
or father to supply them she must
make the money to buy them her
self, and II she II not taught some
way Of making the money honestly,
and Is forced to get 1t dishonorably.
Parents know that, and yet they
are 30 careless they trust their
daughters' fates to chance. That is
Why the sin of 30 per cent Of the
girls who go wrong Is on their par
ents'. heads. The girls would have
been glad to work II they had been
taught anything by which they could
have earned living wage. but no
one saw to II that they were taught
how to do anything weIl enough to
command q decent salary. and so.
utterly untrained and unskilled, they
drtfted from miserable Job to miser-
able job until finally they drifted on
the street.
The way to keep girls from going
wrong 10 to teach them how to work
Teach them skill at some occupation
for which they have an aptitude, for
there IL no keener pleasure than in
doing the work we know We do well,
and you will supply them with such
interests and ambitions that you will
I'LL their minds with other thoughts
than that Of dance halls and cheap
amusementA
Teach them how to do the kind Of
work that IL worth good money and
they will not have 10 buy the fnery
that all girls love with their souls.
They can pay for 1t out Of their own
pocket books. Teach a girl to be
self-supporting and you put into her
self respect and Independence that
makes her go straight Of her own
accord.
Teach a girl q good way Of making
her own bread and butter and you do
all that anybody can do to protect
her in the vicissitudes of matrimony.
Such a woman Is never wholly and
entirely at the mercy Of a brutal
husband as the dependent woman is.
II the worst comes to the worst, she
i can get up and leave him and 20
back to her old job and support her
self.
But the woman who has never been
taught any way of making a dollar
can only bow her head and submit
to any indignity that Is put upon
her. or any cruelty that is practiced
upon her. She would starve II thrown
on her own resources and SO she
must endure life that degradcs her
as the price OF her meal ticket.
Teach a girl some way Of making
a living and you give her a crutch
to lean on In the day of adversely.
Even In times Of peace husbands die,
or they become invalids, and women
are suddenly thrown upon their own
resources to make a living. II they
have ever worked before they can
take up their old occupations and
what would otherwise have been a
calamity Is merely a misfortune. But
for an unframed, untaught woman at
middle age to start out to try to
make living is a hopeless tragedy.
Therefore, because It teaches a girl
self respect. because 1t saves her
from temptation, because 1t safe
guards her from want, and because
It makes her regular human be-
ing, instead OF a helpless, useless,
parasitic female, teach your daugh-
ter some good trade or profession by
which she can support herself, II
need be.
Copyright. 1917. by The Wheeler
Syndicate, Inc)