student, so that you could fill the place of assistant in some advanced
school, then give yourself to special studies. I would not say study
history exclusively for ten years, even if you have a taste for history,
because there are few schools where a teacher can be employed for
history alone. But suppose you spent half your time for twenty years on
history, and the other half on literature, languages, etc., you would
probably find some place open to you all the time, and at the end of
twenty years you might be fit for a college position, and much more fit
than if you had narrowed yourself to one study. In most cases the bent
in one direction is not so strong that the student cannot do many things
fairly well. The half dozen best scholars in most secondary schools are
usually the best in mathematics, in the sciences, in literature, and in
language. It is a good plan for such scholars to "level up" in every
direction. Two years' study in each line after leaving school will carry
them beyond the requirements of most schools,--though of course no
teacher can hope to succeed who does not study daily the branches she
teaches, to keep abreast of the times, and to make her teaching
fresh,--and if she is able to teach a variety of subjects she is pretty
sure to find an engagement in some of the many schools where only a few
assistants can be employed. And it is no small additional advantage that
her own mind is more evenly developed than that of a specialist.
Just now the demand for women to teach the sciences seems to be greater
in proportion to the supply than in any other direction. If a girl has a
natural taste for chemistry, zoölogy, or mineralogy, and cultivates it,
she is very sure to "put money in her purse." But the supply is
increasing, so this state of things may not last long.
No one thinks sewing an attractive means of livelihood, but where a girl
has a decided taste for the needle there are openings for her gifts. I
know a mother and daughter who support themselves in comfort by
embroidering dresses for the stage, and by giving lessons in the making
of fine laces. And I heard the other day of a farmer's daughter who came
to the city to work as a dressmaker, and who showed such taste and skill
that she soon commanded a salary of two thousand dollars for overseeing
an establishment. It is pleasant to add that she married a rich man of
refined tastes, and that she made a beautiful home for him, a centre for
all lovers of the fine arts.
A thousand occupations are now open to women. You can be a type-writer,
or a stenographer, or a private secretary, or saleswoman. You can keep a
bakery, or do city shopping for country ladies. But whatever you do,
keep these principles in mind:--
1. Do not drift into any work. Circumstances may force you to do
something unsuited to you, and then you must do your best; but where
even a narrow choice is left, try to weigh your own tastes and talents
truly, and choose something to which you are willing to give your
energies, and in which, if you work hard, there is reasonable hope you
will succeed.
2. Whether you like your work or not, make it something more than a
means of self-support. We all want "a broad margin to our lives," and we
may do our great life-work entirely outside of our work for bread. But
most of us necessarily put so much of our strength as well as our time
into earning our livelihood, that, if we are the women we ought to be,
that too must express our nobleness. We may not like our work, but we
can make it worth doing, even if we never gain a penny from it. Milton
was no doubt sorry to receive only £15 for "Paradise Lost," but we
should all be willing to starve in a garret to do work like that. It
ought to be the same with the humblest occupation. We should like to
earn something by it, but first we wish to have it worth more than
money, and it will be so if we work in the right spirit.
VI.
OCCUPATIONS FOR THE RICH.
In one of George Eliot's letters she says that her chief hope from the
higher education of women is that they will do much unproductive labor
which at present is either badly done or not done at all. But she
thought it would be unbecoming in her to say much publicly on that
subject, for she could not fail to know that her own genius set her
apart from other women and gave her a definite work to do.
For those who have simply many good powers without any dominating one
the case is different. The poor must use their gifts to gain bread; but
if they do not make their occupation the medium of higher work, they are
no better than the idle rich. The rich, instead of being excused from
work by circumstances, are the more bound to work, because they can
choose what is best in itself.
Where a girl has many equal gifts it may be well sometimes to have
several occupations; but it is usually best to choose some one form of
daily employment as the nucleus of her life, and to persevere with that
till she accomplishes something.
Most girls would choose to devote themselves to some charity. I will
speak of that in another chapter. Here I wish to say something of
occupations which can be followed only by those who are rich enough to
dispose of their own time, and which, though at first they may not seem
to be of much use to others, are indirectly among the most powerful
factors in the progress of the world.
In New England, at least, girls often stay in school till they are
twenty, and by that time they have learned the elements of chemistry,
physics, botany, zoölogy, physiology, geology, and astronomy. If they
have learned these thoroughly, the variety of studies is an advantage,
as one science throws light on all the rest. Yet of course they have
learned only the rudiments of any of these subjects, and if they try to
carry them all on after leaving school they can hardly do very good work
in any.
Suppose a girl decides that chemistry is the most fascinating of the
group. Then let her make a special study of that. She will know enough
of the other sciences to use them when she needs their help, or she may
wish to study minerals or plants or animals chemically. If she is rich,
she ought to carry on her study with special teachers till she reaches a
point where she can do original work. Then, let her have her own little
laboratory, and give some hours every day regularly to experiments.
"Original work" sounds terrifying to most girls; they think it requires
genius. It does take genius to gather the results of experiments into
laws. But as I have elsewhere suggested, the experiments must all be
first tried; and many a girl is neat and skillful and accurate enough to
do all the drudgery necessary, leaving the man,--or woman,--of genius
free for the higher work. True, it takes genius to know what experiments
to try. But a girl who has had special teachers is sure to know one
among them who is doing original work, and who wishes the days were
twice as long that he might try more experiments. Let her ask him to
trust some work to her. She may make some discoveries herself, but at
any rate she will do work which is needed.
I call to mind a case in point. A young lady had a great taste for
drawing, as well as a good scientific mind. She became acquainted with a
physician who was making original studies in the microscopic germs of
disease. They worked side by side. The physician detected the
animalcules and plants and crystals with the microscope, and explained
to her how he wanted them represented. She was intelligent enough to
understand his explanations and skillful enough to make the drawings.
His own drawings were too clumsy to convey his idea, but with her help
his observations were made available for others.
Suppose a girl enjoys botany. I know a woman who has made lichens the
study of a life-time. This has been a source of high culture as well as
of pleasure to herself, for, as she says, this is the most intellectual
family of plants, and no one can study their structure without being
brought face to face with profound questions. Moreover, this study has
opened her eyes and those of her friends to much beauty; for until we
begin to look at lichens we are often conscious of hardly more than a
dull wall of rock or the dead gray wood of old buildings, when in truth
every inch of their surface is decorated with rich forms and delicate
colors. She won a certain measure of fame by the discovery of a new
lichen, but she did better than that, she made one of the finest
collections in the United States for a local city museum, so that the
fruits of her labor were thus accessible to future lichenists; and she
gave much needed help to geologists in investigating fossil lichens.
Local collections of any kind are valuable. A young lady who
superintends the making of one in the town or village where she lives
will learn much herself, and she will attract many other young people to
pursue an innocent and healthful pleasure, so becoming a power in the
community. There are few such collections now in existence, and any girl
living in a small place who has a taste for science may act as a
pioneer. She can begin modestly with a single case at her own house, or,
better still, at the public library, and she will be surprised to see
how fast the museum will grow, and how useful and delightful it will
be.
If a woman likes to experiment with plants, let her study botany at the
Harvard Annex. There she will learn how many questions in vegetable
physiology are awaiting investigation. Darwin studied one twining plant
after another till he discovered the rate of motion for each. Dr.
Goodale tells us how to trace the motion of ordinary growth. But think
of the myriads of plants which have not yet been examined, any one of
which is likely to yield suggestive results.
If a woman loves flowers and does not care for botany, she has the whole
beautiful domain of horticulture open to her. Naturally she will have a
garden of her own and be connected with some flower mission. But she
might do more. A rich woman in the country who determined to make that
her principal work could easily interest every child in the community in
a garden, and by perseverance she might make the whole village blossom
with new beauty. In the city she might be the means of making the
balconies in whole streets lovely with growth.
I heard of a young lady not long ago who was raising spiders for the
purpose of studying their habits. If she is in earnest, and has the
intelligence to try experiments, she may some day contribute something
substantial to scientific knowledge. I have heard of another who is
raising snails, and of still another who makes a specialty of
caddis-flies. Most people consider such work innocent and amusing, but
it may easily be made more. Take the question of the antennas of
insects. It took the combined experiments of a German and an American to
discover that the plumed antennæ of the male mosquito vibrated
differently to different parts of the female's song, thus representing
an outward ear. Now, of the two hundred thousand known species of
insects, all of which have antennæ, probably less than fifty have been
examined with anything like patience. These organs apparently serve in
some cases for touch, and sometimes for smell. It will take years of
study by hundreds of people to make the experiments necessary to decide
on their relations to the senses and the brains of insects. When they
are thoroughly understood, some light may be thrown on our own brain and
senses.
Who but the rich can have leisure for such important experiments? Yet
any girl with a school knowledge of zoölogy could begin to work with
some common insect, and be all the better for spending several hours
every day in such a pursuit.
I know a lady devoted to zoölogy who has many opportunities to travel.
She comes home laden with rare specimens which she distributes to all
the people she knows who can appreciate them; and another who has given
several years past to the study of geology. She has now become so
accomplished as to have made an excellent geological map of the town she
lives in. Such a map is greatly needed in any town, but how few are to
be found!
Another lady who has a taste for mineralogy has unconsciously done good
in her own village by means of it. All the boys and girls in town are
ready to help her and have learned something from her. Her collection is
open to everybody. She has formed a club of ladies for the study of the
science in the winter evenings. There is a higher intellectual and moral
tone in the place because of this new interest.
Goethe makes one of his heroines a lover of astronomy; he represents her
as living quietly with her telescope, and passing night after night in
close study of the stars. There is something ideally beautiful in his
description of her.
One of my friends chose to give most of her time to music. Without being
a genius, she played remarkably well, and she made her work available
for others by playing the organ in a church which was rich, in
everything but money. I knew another fine pianist who gave lessons to
children who could not otherwise have had them. In both these cases the
ladies were as much bound by their self-imposed tasks as if they had
been earning their living, and their characters received almost as
great benefit; but it would not have been well that they should be paid
for their work. Why should they compete with those who needed the money?
Harriet Martineau was not rich, but when she settled down in her own
little country-house she had a competence. She made her study useful to
the people around her, as well as to the world. She was skilled in
political economy, and she took pains to present its knotty problems in
a clear and simple form to the untrained minds of her poor neighbors.
All women are not born to lecture even in this small way. But the study
of history, and still more of philosophy, does something more than to
broaden the mind of the student. A woman with a clear mind looks at
every subject more wisely than if she were half educated. Her judgment
has weight with every one she comes into contact with; but however
little her influence may be, it is likely to be on the right side. What
we are is so much more than what we do! Girls who are longing to do some
great thing are impatient when they are told this. It is so much easier
to measure what we do than what we are. I know a girl with a fine
intellect who loves to study, but who cannot quite give herself up to
study because she is haunted by the feeling that in this way she is
concentrating her life on herself. It is true there are learned women
who are very selfish, but it is not true that their learning makes them
so, certainly it is not, if they think and judge as well as learn. This
girl believes she ought to visit the poor, and some time she may do some
good in that way; but her natural aptitude is in another direction. If
she ever succeeds in so disciplining her intellect that she has just
views of life, she will have it in her power to exert a wide influence.
If she could, for instance, convince her imperious father and brothers
that there was something to be said on the side of their striking
workmen, she would indirectly do the poor more good than she could ever
do directly. Perhaps she could convince them. One reason that her father
is so eager to grind men down is because her mother is frivolous and
extravagant.
I call to mind a girl who has been studying art abroad for some years.
She has talent enough to earn her living by her work, if that were
necessary. As it is not, she has chosen to do a fine thing. She has made
copies of many of the great paintings of the world, and she has given
these to the quiet boarding-school where she was educated. The copies
are good enough to be a factor in the education of the girls who have
not yet seen the originals. She has also used her skill and taste in
selecting almost a thousand unmounted photographs from the great masters
for the same school. These she has arranged herself, mounting them and
writing out plainly on each card the name of the picture with that of
the artist and a few words referring to the time and place of the
painting. As arranged, these photographs form an illustrated history of
art.
Another girl perhaps chooses to study languages. When this leads to the
foreign literatures, it is one of the highest intellectual occupations
possible. But there are ways of making languages outwardly available. I
remember a friend at a custom-house who successively helped three
steerage passengers out of unknown troubles by speaking French, German,
and Italian with them, and interpreting to the officers, one of whom at
last turned with a laugh, saying, "I wonder if there are not any Chinese
about. This lady would be sure to help them."
Translation, as everybody knows, does not pay. A few very famous books
are brought out by the half dozen leading translators, and all others
must either lie unread or be translated by those who do not need any
money for their work. Yet there are books which ought to be translated,
though they will not pay. And how rare it is to translate well! Even
rarer than to write English well. If a woman is aware that she has grace
in expressing herself, and a delicate perception of the meaning of
words, and the power to comprehend the thought of a writer, then can she
do better with time and money than to perfect her knowledge of a
language so that she can make a good translation of some fine book which
would otherwise be neglected? If she should also have some poetic gift,
she might even translate poems which ought to be known. Probably no poem
was ever poetically translated for money.
There is another occupation for rich women more exclusively womanly--the
care of children. I remember a rich mother who did this work well. She
had a nurse, indeed, to relieve her of some of the drudgery, though she
did not shrink from this, too, when it was needed; but the greater part
of the day was passed with her children. She knew what words they heard
and what actions they saw. She identified herself thoroughly with them.
I will not say that she knew all their thoughts, but I think she knew
all they were willing to express to any one. She entered into their
games and taught them to play. But though she was so much with them she
did not let them feel that she had no other uses for her time. She read
or wrote or sewed at one end of the long nursery, while they played at
the other. She tried to develop their independence, and she trusted them
little by little, more and more, as she saw they had strength to take
care of themselves. She studied their characters, and gave much thought
to the way to correct their faults. Sometimes a single word of reproof
or command was the result of hours of thought, but they could not know
that. At last they seemed to be thoroughly self-governing. They did the
right thing instinctively, whether she was there to see them or not. If
they were in doubt they came of their own accord to ask her advice, not
requiring her command.
By degrees she separated herself from them for most of the day simply to
teach them self-reliance, not because she was tired of her task. The
hours of separation were still given to them. She thought of them and
studied for them, and planned ways of making herself most charming to
them when they were together again. In the end they were free strong men
and women, able to stand alone, and yet enthusiastically attached to
their mother, so that every pleasure was the dearer if she shared it.
If a woman has no children of her own, it often happens that she may do
this good work for her little brothers and sisters, or for her nieces
and nephews. Or, if there is no one among her kindred who needs her
care, there are always the orphan children.
If a woman of wealth and leisure adopts a child the experiment usually
fails. I have often wondered why, and I think I can see the reason. A
rich and cultivated woman who has also the large heart which leads her
to take a child belongs to the very highest development of the race.
The destitute waif is often from the dregs of the people. The distance
between them is too wide for sympathy. She trains this child as she
would train her own, and the child feels oppressed. Its faults are so
different from those of her own childhood, that she is overwhelmed by
them and quite at a loss how to meet them. And yet, it would be a pity
for her to repress the generous wish to help a child. I think such a
woman may sometimes find the child of educated parents, perhaps from
among her own circle of friends whom she can naturally help; and if she
will take two children instead of one, her task will be lightened for
they will help each other.
But if she finds it best to adopt one of the lowest class, she may still
succeed by remembering several things. 1. It is too much to expect to
train such a child to be a real companion, though in some rare cases
this may follow. Her main effort should be to awaken and guide the moral
nature, and to do this she must learn to look at the child from another
standpoint than her own prejudices. 2. She must give the child an
abundance of simple physical pleasures, and, if possible, companions of
about its own intellectual grade. 3. She must enter heartily into all
the child does, and endeavor to understand the workings of its mind.
Many young women who would hesitate to take the whole responsibility of
one child may find useful and pleasant employment for themselves by
teaching a class of children of the poor. They can teach them to sew or
to read, they can provide simple pleasures for them, and supplement the
work of the public schools in a hundred ways necessary in cases where
there is no adequate home life.
There is another great work to be done by rich women--that of giving a
higher tone to society. I knew a delicate woman who went to live in a
large and rapidly growing Western city. On account of her wealth and
connections all the leading people in the place called upon her at once,
and her house became a centre of society. She used her good taste in
making her home really beautiful--not showy or fashionable. Then she
opened it freely to congenial friends. Some of her visitors were society
people, but many were not. There were thoughtful teachers, clever young
collegians who had gone West to seek a fortune and had found drudgery
awaiting them instead, half a dozen unknown musicians and artists, and a
few educated Germans and Swedes whom fate had stranded far from home.
These people were welcome every day and at all hours. For this lady, who
had intellectual tastes, had been forced by the weakness of her eyes to
get her education from people rather than from books. So a perpetual
_salon_ was a pleasant thing to her. All who were invited to her home
had some moral or intellectual gift which made their company desirable,
not only to the hostess but to the other guests. The rich and poor met
together there, but not the cultivated rich and the uncultivated poor,
or the uncultivated rich and the cultivated poor. Consequently, the
conversation was real. A young professor would come in with the
"Atlantic Monthly," begging leave to read an article to her, and the
reading would begin without any superfluous remarks about the weather.
Others would come in, but the reading would go on and the discussion it
suggested. An artist would bring a new picture, and the conversation
would turn in a new direction. A musician would sing an air, and a quiet
German would be led to speak of his life in the Fatherland.
But with all her leisure, my friend found it a burden to keep up the
round of merely formal calls required of her. She did not wish to hurt
the feelings of any one, so she persevered for a while. She set apart
one day in a fortnight for a reception day. (You may be sure none of her
bright and interesting friends came then.) And once a fortnight she took
her card-case in hand and drove rapidly about the city, returning calls.
But she seldom called formally on anybody who had once been asked to her
_salon_. These were the people, she said to herself, who could
_understand_.