than when it is given to her. She may not be as economical in all ways
perhaps; but if she chooses to spend three dollars for a Wagner opera
ticket when she has a shabby bonnet, because she loves music, she may be
putting the true emphasis on her purchase, which she might not dare to
do if some one else supplied the money.
On the whole, I am inclined to think that most unmarried women, as well
as many who are married, should support themselves. Where the necessity
exists, it is base to shrink from doing one's part. When others of the
family must endure privation to keep her at home, it is seldom that home
is a girl's place. But I would not have a girl too eager to support
herself. And I would not have her urged unless there is necessity. Above
all, I would guard her from illusions.
It is not easy to earn one's living. It is true there are some
delightful modes of making money open to the fortunate few. But if one
earns all one spends,--which is the meaning of earning a living,--there
will always be hardships to meet. It is not best to anticipate trouble,
but it is cruel to let any girl try to make her way in the world with
the fancy that it will be easy. Yet most must make their own way, and
perhaps most of these have a fair share of happiness, for there are
compensations in all work done in the right spirit.
V.
SELF-SUPPORT--HOW SHALL GIRLS SUPPORT THEMSELVES?
And now how shall a girl choose her occupation? And how shall she be
fitted for it?
If she has a superb voice she may sing. If she has undoubted genius in
any direction her decision is easy, whatever difficulty there may be in
getting her education. Most people, however, have not genius. They can
do some things better than others, and it is of great importance to
their success and happiness that they should be able to use their
natural powers to the best advantage. Still their gifts are not great
enough to be perfectly clear at sight. It is only by careful cultivation
that they become really available, and if a mistake is made in the line
of one's education it is hard to repair it.
I think the course I have already described as practical for girls
should be the foundation for the education of all girls, save in a few
exceptional cases. If, in the end, a girl marries, her reading and
cooking and housekeeping are all necessary. How can she use these homely
accomplishments in earning a living?
They will not, to be sure, bring her a large income, but there is a
steadier demand for good work in these directions than in any others. So
a woman who has them is almost sure of a modest support. She need not go
out to service to be a cook. Who has seen the dignified and refined Mrs.
Lincoln giving lessons at the cooking-school without realizing that
cooking may be a fine art, or who has read the cook-book of Mrs.
Richards without perceiving that cooking may be an intellectual pursuit?
But these women are exceptions. I will take a humbler example. I knew at
school a stylish, energetic girl who was too dull to learn her lessons,
but who had the air of polish which comes from association with educated
people. Half a dozen years later she found herself obliged to earn her
living. She had a little money, and she risked it in leasing a good
house on a good city street which she filled with boarders. She worked
very hard, and she had much to discourage and disgust her. But she knew
how such a house ought to be kept, and she had the determination to keep
it in that way. It will be seen that she was a rare landlady. Some
landladies do not know how a house ought to be kept, and some have no
clear purpose of keeping it as it ought to be kept when they do know the
way. Therefore she had great success. There were always two applicants
for every vacant room. Higher and higher prices were offered her. At
last she bought her house. Then she laid aside money. By and by she had
a comfortable fortune. She might then have retired from business, but
she chose to go on. During the first five years of her career her
experience had been so bitter that only necessity kept her at her post.
But now she had learned how to meet her difficulties, and it was a real
pleasure to her to see how well she could do her work. It was the work
she was born to do, as certainly as Raphael was born to paint pictures.
Few women are so successful; but at the present stage of the world I
think it is true that no woman who thoroughly understands cooking and
housekeeping need fear that she cannot support herself if she must. I
knew a lady who excelled in these arts who was able to help her husband
in establishing a school. He was a fine teacher, but too individual to
work well in most schools. She took a dozen young people into the house
and gave them a delightful home. Her husband earned the living of the
family, and a very good living, too. She did little work with her hands,
and an assistant teacher was employed to care for the pupils out of
school. The housekeeping took but little time, and the lady was
apparently almost as free as when her husband had been struggling along
in a high school. But she understood so well what was needed that a word
here and a look there kept all things smooth, and her husband who had
seemed on the brink of ruin came out a successful man.
But all who can manage their own homes cannot manage those of others,
even if they are willing to do so. Suppose with all her practical
education our girl never shines as a cook or a housekeeper! I have
suggested that she should be so thoroughly grounded in primary school
work that she could teach her own children till they are twelve years
old. Then, if she has the natural power to discipline, she can, if need
be, teach a primary school. Now the number of primary schools to be
taught is vastly greater than in any other grade, because all pupils
must begin at the foot of the ladder, though most of them do not climb
to the top. And it is doubtful whether competition among teachers of
primary grades is proportionately great. I have heard of a leading
normal school principal who decided to train his own daughter for
primary work, because his experience showed him there was always a
demand for such work. He said truly, "There are few schools which will
pay much for unusual learning. Executive ability and tact in imparting
knowledge are most wanted, together, of course, with thorough grounding
in the rudimentary branches."
His daughter had both taste and talent for higher studies. He wished her
to indulge her taste. "But," he added, "she must buy this higher
knowledge as she would any other luxury, and not delude herself with
the idea that it will make much difference with her power of earning
money. If she earns her living by primary work, which requires little
study out of school, she will have leisure to pursue her own tastes. Of
course she may thus in time be fitted for higher work, and she may
prefer to do it, and may even earn more money by it, but she will then
do the work because it is her natural choice and not for the sake of the
money." So altogether I believe that any girl who has the foundation
education which will fit her for a home life will also be able to earn a
respectable living if the need arises.
I would not, however, have her stop there. A woman who has to work
wishes to work to the best advantage, both as to the amount of money she
earns, and the quality of the work she does. I believe every girl should
have the simple solid foundation I have indicated, but I also think that
in most cases a superstructure should be reared upon it, and that there
should be almost as many forms of superstructure as there are
individuals. Therefore, in choosing your occupation I will suggest this
rule: Do not despise the lowest drudgery which comes plainly in your
way; but always choose the highest work you are able to do.
For example, I knew a highly educated young lady who found it necessary
to teach. She hated the work, as many teachers do, and yet she had a
fine, forcible character, so that she did her work well. One day in a
moment of vexation she was heard to exclaim, "I would rather be a waiter
in a restaurant than teach school!" Now it happened that one of her
pupils did become a waiter in the very restaurant which had called out
the remark. And she made an excellent waiter. Her apron was always clean
and her hair was always smooth. She was quick and quiet in filling an
order, and modest and self-possessed and sweet-tempered. She did her
work well and used her leisure well, and she deserved great praise. But
in her case this was the best work open to her. She was a hopelessly
dull scholar, and she was awkward with her needle. Nor did she have the
kind of mind necessary to direct others. She could not have conducted a
boarding-house. She could, however, do her own little bit of work well.
Now what was fine in her would not have been fine in the teacher. To be
sure, it is a pity to teach if one hates it, more of a pity than to do
some mechanical work, because there is danger that the feeling may react
upon the scholars. Still, this woman had the necessary self-control to
do this good work. On the other hand, she was not attracted to any
inferior work for its own sake. She would have made an excellent
duchess. Her talents as well as her tastes fitted her for such a life.
But she had to earn her living, and so far as she or her friends could
see there was no direction in which she could work without finding it
intolerable. And so it seems to me she did right to choose the best work
open to her and do it as well as she could, and I think if she had
forsaken the school-room for the restaurant she would not have done what
was best either for herself or for others.
I have known an ignorant woman who kept a lodging-house with such
devotion that it was like a work of art. Its purity and freshness, its
warmth and light had a charm beyond that of comfort. Such work is to be
done, and it is not often done well, because the woman who does it is
below rather than above her task. "Let the great soul incarnated in some
woman's form, poor and sad and single, in some Dolly or Joan, go out to
service, and sweep chambers and scour floors, and its effulgent day
beams cannot be muffled or hid, but to sweep and scour will instantly
appear supreme and beautiful actions, the top and radiance of human
life, and all people will get mops and brooms; until lo, suddenly the
great soul has enshrined itself in some other form and done some other
deed, and that is now the flower and head of all living nature."
The lower work must be done, and often by the highest natures. It must
then be done willingly and with a recognition that it can be made a work
of art. But it should be deliberately chosen only by those to whom it is
the highest work. I have in mind a young man who might have been a
musician, but he would not practice, so he became a shoemaker. He had to
work harder as a shoemaker than he would have done as a musician, but it
was from hand to mouth. He did not have to work steadily towards a
future good. He had no gift but that of music, so that even if he had
been a musician he would have ranked far lower in the scale of manhood
than the shoemakers of the village; but he would have done the best he
could do, while as a shoemaker he was despicable.
I knew a good teacher, capable of taking responsibility, who hated it so
that she gave up work the moment she had acquired a miserable pittance.
She lived ever after a pinched life, whose chief source of happiness to
herself was the negative satisfaction of escaping responsibility; for
she was too poor to gratify any of her many beautiful tastes. She had
the power to lead a large, full life, but she had not the will and
courage to meet the obstacles in her way. She chose instead to stunt
herself and be a drudge. She swept her poor rooms clean, and she was
willing to sweep them, but I do not think she "swept them as to God's
law," for though she often made them "fine," I do not think she made
"the action fine."
But such a case is rare. More people choose work too high for them. We
all like to think we have some touch of genius, though we may be
discreet enough not to say so. But few of us have talents at all equal
to our tastes, and we must beware of trying to get our livelihood in the
direction of our tastes rather than of our talents.
One girl in ten thousand has the voice of a _prima donna_. Ten other
girls in ten thousand have voices so good that they believe them to be
like that of a _prima donna_. The first will succeed beyond her wildest
dreams. She will have fame and fortune. The other ten will have some
success, success which will seem great to the lookers on, but they will
have heart-breaking disappointments within their own breasts. A hundred
girls in the ten thousand have more talent for music than for most other
things, and if they are well educated, they may perhaps make a good
living as teachers, church singers, organists, or accompanists. This is
not what they hoped, but they do the work that belongs to them, and on
the whole may be counted successful. Another hundred like music, and can
learn enough to add to their enjoyment and to that of those about them.
They might even teach music, if the demand for teachers were not already
filled by those who have a greater gift. But now it is clear their bread
must depend on other work for which they have less taste. These are the
"betwixt and between" who are always fighting a battle between taste and
talent. They have a compensation,--they are less one-sidedly developed
than if all their talents were concentrated in one; but they hardly
realize this.
Now, how is the line to be drawn among the musical? Who are to earn
their living by music and who are to be amateurs? Especially as fifty of
our second hundred can with proper education easily excel fifty of the
first hundred who have less education. Who is to decide whether it is
prudent for a girl to spend all she has on a musical education with the
hope of making herself independent in the end? No one can decide
positively, but at least do not let any girl fancy that she is the one
of ten thousand or even one of the ten. And let her ask for the judgment
of more than one good musician before she is sure she belongs to the
first hundred. If she loves music supremely, it may be worth while for
her to spend everything on her education, even if she finally has to
support herself with her needle, for it will be its own reward, and
having tried to do what she believed to be her best, even her failure
will not be a failure of character.
If there is any occupation delightful in itself, there will always be
many people who will hope that they have talent enough to make it a
source of livelihood. We all wish to be musicians and artists and poets.
The most bitter disappointments come to those who try these paths and
fail. It has always seemed to me that where bread-winning is a
necessity, we ought first to secure the means of living in some humbler
way, and then there may be a chance to pursue these higher occupations
for their own sake, and not to degrade them by false methods which we
think will bring us money.
I have heard of a poor girl who had a genius for acting. She went out to
service while she was studying, she learned how to do housework well,
and she had that resource always left to her in case she should fail on
the stage. She succeeded, but she could not have succeeded if she had
insisted on acting at the outset.
I knew a girl who had ability as a story writer. Two positions were open
to her at the same time, one as a book-keeper, the other as writer for a
certain department in a third-rate magazine. She chose to be a
book-keeper, for she knew that if she took the magazine work she must
write whether in the spirit or not, and that the rank of the magazine
was such that she would have little encouragement to do her best. Of
course, as book-keeper she had very little leisure. Stories germinated
in her brain which she had no time to write; but when she was thoroughly
possessed by a story, she did find time to write it, and her work was
good. She chose to do the second best work for money, so that her best
work might not be degraded by the need of money.
Few persons have genius enough to undertake any artistic work if they
have a pressing need for the money they are to receive from it. With
ever so small an income from other sources, they may cheerfully try
their best and prove what they can do. But with no income at all, they
will be too greatly tempted to prostitute the talent they have. Yet "if
you cannot paint, you may grind the colors." Occasionally our cravings
for artistic work may partially be gratified by doing lower work in the
same line, and this may sometimes be a foundation for the higher work.
A young girl had an ardent desire to be an elocutionist. She had a good
voice, a flexible body, and some intelligence. She was willing to spend
every penny on her education. Fortunately she had an unusually fine
teacher, who told her the truth. He said, "You could easily learn the
little tricks of voice and gesture which bring applause from ignorant
people, and make one blush to be called an elocutionist, but you have
not the dramatic sense and can never be a great reader. What you need to
do is to study some literary masterpiece till you thoroughly appreciate
it, and then read it as simply and clearly as possible."
"But would anybody come to hear me read?" she asked.
"I am afraid not," he said; "but you could teach reading."
This had not been her ambition, but she had an earnest character and was
willing to read in the right way. She did take a place in a school and
became a power there. She taught her scholars how to use the breath, to
sit and stand easily and gracefully while reading, to enunciate
clearly, and pronounce correctly. Moreover, she taught them to read
noble poems instead of the flimsy showy jingles which had at first
attracted her. She never made any figure as a public reader, but she did
not regret serving the art she had learned to reverence on a lower
plane.
But, some one may say, suppose she had not been able to teach! She might
not have understood the art of controlling scholars even if she
understood what to teach them. In that case she might have been a
private reader to some elderly or infirm person. There is a demand for
private readers, but few can fill such a place, though we fancy
everybody can read. Even where there is intelligence so that one is a
pleasant reader, there are few who can manage the voice well enough to
read several hours in succession as is often desired.
A woman with artistic tastes will probably do better service in studying
ways of making beautiful homes or in lines of decorative work than by
striving to paint great pictures. Let her paint the pictures if she is
moved to do it and has time, and if they turn out to be great pictures
that will be well; but until her greatness has been proved, would it not
be better for her to depend for her support on the less ambitious
departments of her art, especially as a beautifully planned home gives a
higher artistic pleasure than second-rate painting?
It is strange that so few women are architects. Architecture is the
sublimest of arts, and yet it has room to employ humble talents. A
practical woman with a love of beauty, a mathematical mind, and a
knowledge of mechanical drawing would undoubtedly be a great help to an
architect in planning dwelling-houses. At any rate, as the matter stands
at present, very few interiors are either convenient or beautiful in
proportion to the money spent on them. A woman might not plan a public
building well, but her help is needed in all our homes, and especially
in tenement houses.
I once knew a woman who was a poet. Her songs were full of beauty and
helpfulness, but poetry is not lucrative. She took a position as teacher
of literature in a girls' school. There never had been such teaching as
hers in the school before. She showed the girls the poetic meaning of
the great writers, and gave them a moral and intellectual impulse which
lasted through life. Sometimes in an hour of inspiration she still wrote
poems. Her teaching was so excellent that she was sought after in other
schools. But she found that when she undertook too much her spirit
flagged. She could still teach, but she could not write. So she went
back to her first plan. Of course it was hard work. The girls were often
dull and unsympathetic. Yet her study of literature helped her in her
own great purpose of life, and the contact with youth was sometimes an
inspiration in itself. Usually, however, teaching is an injury to a
writer, because of the need of constantly adapting one's self to
inferior minds.
There are few women who can devote themselves to pure literature, and
few of these can earn a living by it; so, delightful as it is, it can
hardly be counted among the bread-winning occupations. But if a woman
thinks she can be satisfied to work regularly on a newspaper or a
magazine she may often earn a large income. If money or fame is her
object she must always sign her own name to everything she writes, as it
takes genius to coerce the public into admiration of anonymous work.
A great many women have found it well to be teachers, and most of their
work is conscientiously done, though few have the highest ideal so
constantly before them as to find pleasure in the work when their own
faults are of such a nature that success depends on overcoming them. A
firm, quick-witted woman, with sufficient self-reliance to relish
responsibility, is the only one who can be happy in a large school or at
the head of a small one. Now, those are the lucrative positions for
teachers, and, indeed, the positions in which the largest results can be
accomplished, and they ought to be filled by the finest women. But the
finest women must have certain other qualities. They need to be
thoughtful even more than quick witted; they must be able to balance
conflicting interests, and that is hard to reconcile with firmness; and
if they are modest and conscientious they rarely have the self-reliance
which makes responsibility anything but a grievous burden. Yet there are
teachers who have enough of all these contradictory qualities to succeed
in doing the difficult and admirable work if they are only willing to be
unhappy for the sake of doing something noble.
But some can never be disciplinarians, however determined their
character may be, principally, I think, because the true student must
usually be occupied with a train of thought which cannot be interrupted
from moment to moment to detect the petty tricks of insubordinate
pupils. So if you mean to be a teacher, think first whether you have
quick observation; then, are you firm, and are you willing to give your
whole heart to your work? If you can answer these questions favorably,
you may persevere in your attempt to make your way to the head of a
school, even if your first trial does not succeed. If you have not the
executive ability, then turn all your energy in other directions. There
are positions as assistants in grammar schools where any woman of good
education who is conscientious and persevering may in time work to
advantage, and though such positions are probably more mechanical than
any others, yet they often leave the teacher considerable freedom to
pursue her own tastes outside of school.