a true wife comes, home is always round her. The stars only may be
over her head, the glow-worm in the night-cold grass may be the only
fire at her foot; but home is yet wherever she is: and for a noble
woman it stretches far round her, better than ceiled with cedar, or
painted with vermilion, shedding its quiet light far, for those who
else were homeless." [Footnote: Ruskin.]
As a girl is bound to do what she honestly feels she can do best, she
should never question how her work may seem to another, if it does
not absolutely injure another. I should not ask is this man's work
or woman's work; but, rather, is it my work? But, in whatever I
attempted, I should repeatedly say to myself, Am I keeping my womanhood
strong and real, as God intended it? am I working womanly? In many
cases, much more good might be accomplished by girls and women, if,
instead of so much talk about lacking privileges, they took the places
they could fill. Sister Dora never questioned whether she ought to bind
up the wounds of her crushed workmen: she laid them on the beds of
her hospital, and calmly healed them. Caroline Herschel did not stop
to ask whether her telescope were privileged to find new stars, but
swept it across the heavens, and was the first discoverer of at least
five comets. A great obstacle in the way of advancement to girls comes
from the coarse mannerism of certain women who have worked in given
directions. Why is it that, when a woman begins to do the work a man
has been accustomed to perform, she cultivates a man's ways? It is
not the work which does it. Would that there might be less of this
unwomanliness! Because a woman is a doctor, why need she use slang
or profanity? Because she holds certain great, liberal truths in regard
to woman, why must she wear a stiff derby, swagger, and strike
attitudes? These expressions, extremes in dress, conspicuous actions,
deceive many, and turn the world bitterly against what it ought to
receive. Such peculiarities are wholly unnecessary. Some of the
loveliest women who walk the earth are found among doctors, among
professors, among book-makers, among farmers, even.
You think there is less chance for girls to work than for boys? Yes,
there is; but, on an examination of statistics, I find that in all
positions--professions, clerkships, manufactures, trades, industries--
where you find men working, you will find women also, though in smaller
numbers usually. Examine the reports of census takers, and you will
find my statement true. In Mr. Wright's valuable pamphlet on "The
Working Girls of Boston," you will be surprised to find so great a
variety of employments as he there enumerates. There are recorded
merchants, machinists, carpenters, plumbers, cabinet-makers, and
tanners, even.
Why is it so many of you girls try teaching? Is it because that seems
a genteel way to get a living, and does not seem so hard as other
callings? In 1880 there were 8,562 women engaged in teaching in
Massachusetts. Of these, a fourth would probably have done a better
work in some other way. Teaching is a noble profession: it has great
chances for self-culture and for helpfulness to others. In no profession
can one do more good, if one tries with all one's heart. It is one
of the highest callings even for this reason: a teacher utterly unable
to see any results of her labor, in black and white, at the end of
her pupil's course, as the book-maker may see in the number of printed
pages, is willing to trust that, because she has done what she could,
good will come to her pupil. A carpenter may see his house completed;
but the building of mind, of character, of manhood and womanhood, the
teacher never may see finished. It passes on into the hands of the
great Teacher of all. Although teaching is a very responsible work,
yet does one seldom reach fame in it. The truth is, fame does not stand
for so much work done, but for so much worldly opinion gained. Do not
enter this work of teaching to misunderstand or slight it, but to be
proud of it, and to ennoble it.
You feel the necessity of earning money, and so must take whatever
work you can get? Alas! I know you do, many of you, dear girls. But
do not think this so very unfortunate. Unless your very life is being
worn out; unless your wages are ground down to a pittance, and your
work is wholly disagreeable, be thankful. You are as well off as the
girls who are languishing with dissipation and _ennui_. The average
girl has the average amount of hardship and blessing in her life. I
know there are many girls who cannot be found among the average.
If there is no wish on a girl's part to follow a special work, if she
has no marked ability, let her ask the advice of friends; but, more
than that, let her seek, through her own personal efforts, some honest
work. Pluck, not luck; the Yankee, not the aristocrat, earn a living.
For a girl of average ability I think a mingling of manual and mental
labor preferable to purely manual or strictly mental work. There are
many authors, journalists, accountants, etc., who have achieved striking
success; but ordinarily this success has sprung from certain brilliant
or profound mental attributes. Hand labor that requires no thought
does not exercise our best faculties. I cannot specify just here what
occupations an average girl may undertake. I gladly refer to certain
books which contain statistics of work and its profits, or which suggest
occupations: "The Working Girls of Boston," by Carroll D. Wright; "Think
and Act, Men and Women, Work and Wages," by Virginia Penney; "What
Girls Can Do," by Phillis Brown.
My poor girls, who work so hard, so very hard, who seem daily to narrow
all enjoyment, and to give your very existence to factories and looms,
to dry-goods counters and ready-made clothing stores, who put your
eyes out earning twenty-five cents a day, and sometimes put your souls
out trying to keep breath in your bodies one short year more,--what
shall I say to you? I cannot find the words to tell you what I would
say. Your experience shall not be embittered by being told what to
do and what not to do. Bear your work as well as you can, try to find
something really good about it, do not slight it. Remember you make
the world noble; and, if you have an absorbing desire to work in some
other way, watch every little loop-hole of opportunity, and see if
you cannot make it large enough to jump through to a wider field. Let
us all avoid fickleness, however,--the doing a little of this and of
that: it is poor economy. To grow up to a work, to master it, we must
first be slaves to it. Girls, everywhere, make progress
slowly,--_grow_ in efficiency, and do not shoot up into it.
Now, I want to talk a little to the girls who have leisure,--so much
of it, sometimes, that it all turns crazy on their hands, and expends
itself in the last most fashionable excitement. Girls too often do
things just because other girls are doing them, never for a moment
considering fitness or ability; consequently they look back upon half-
accomplished bits of work--this or that insanity in worsted, card-board,
wood-carving, modelling, or darning--very much as they would upon
the broken fragments of an upset dinner-table. Away up in that
convenient attic lie the desecrated splendors of the past, scattered
in confusion by charitable mice,--blue and crimson wax-flowers melt
underneath the eaves, all destitute of petals that would not fit on;
patchwork quilts and cushions, in silk and satin distractions, just
fall short of harmony in the arrangement of their squares and colors;
vivid buttercups and daisies mingle with bulky cat-o'-nine-tails,--all
on canvas covered with paint; blacking-jugs adorned with pictures,
embossed and otherwise; moth-eaten Kensington, partly outlined in
conventional lilies and conventional stitches; forlorn-looking cats
and dogs on half-made rugs and slippers,--all, all are there to point
out certain very unpleasant morals, referring chiefly to inability
and lack of perseverance.
Understand, to excel in worsted, in painting, in any of the arts which
afford so much pleasure, even in amateur work, is highly commendable.
Perhaps to dip into these occupations to pass time might be considered
better than laziness. But to do them simply because others are following
them is wholly unwarrantable. I do not believe in crazes,--do you?
What is worth doing is worth pursuing.
Intense interest may be necessary to success; but extremes make us
very abrupt, inconsistent, and fickle in our occupations. Test the
quality of your last attempt to make a tree on canvas before you buy
a full set of colors, and before you put out your sign as an artist.
Much study, hard work, aptitude, are required by art;--and the
phenomenal _debut_ of a fully fledged artist "after ten lessons" ("the
whole art taught in six weeks") will never be witnessed. I should say,
before passing further, that even a slight acquaintance with the
decorative arts as practised at present appears to be quite improving to
one's taste, and cultivating to the perceptions.
Music--singing, playing--is a great accomplishment. Would that every
girl might know its precious helps,--its sources of amusement and
culture, and the divine mysteries of its art. But unless you can express
the musician's thought, and interpret harmonies by harmony, never be
afraid to say, "I cannot play."
If the crazes which now threaten to capture society, and to seriously
affect the speech, work, dress, and accomplishments of young ladies,
continue at their present rate, I think there will be a grand chance
for escape from them. It will suddenly become the fashion to be
tranquil, plain of speech, real and thorough in every work. Now we
strive our utmost to prevent monotony, and promote variety. The
dressmaker's trade we learn in 1885 will not be of much use in 1886.
Last winter we learned how to cook; and this, we are studying how to
cure by mental processes. Next year we shall go to the gymnasium and
tighten up our muscles. After that, we may open sewing-schools; and,
perhaps, later, turn our attention to literature classes.
There are so many things a girl can do, even when society claims her,--
more than ever, I should say! Make work, if you cannot get it, girls.
Encourage poor girls by joining the industrial unions instituted in
their behalf. Go into the hospitals, old ladies' homes, charity bureaus,
flower missions. Join a Chautauqua club, or one of the societies for
the encouragement of studies at home. That one founded in Boston for
home studies, and which now numbers many hundreds, affords excellent
instruction, particularly in literature and history. This educational
society has done a wonderful amount of good through correspondence,
books loaned, criticisms, examinations. Attend the numerous lectures,
exhibits, etc., which are provided free of expense in all large cities.
Do not be afraid of useful fancy work. One can rest delightfully while
making a row on an afghan, or knitting on a bed slipper. I always pity
a boy who never seems to have any way of occupying himself while he
rests. He whistles, puffs a cigarette, perhaps, or whittles away the
window-seat. Girls have no need of being lazy while they rest. They
certainly will not sit in lawless indifference if they know the blueness
of discontent. Cheerful people are workers; and, when they find any
tendency to go "mooning" over their tasks, they shake themselves into
broad daylight.
I have suggested but a few of the things girls can do with greatest
profit to themselves and to others. Form reading associations, hygiene
societies, relief clubs, emergency clubs, horticultural unions, charity
bureaus, science clubs, painting clubs. Why are they not just as
entertaining as progressive euchre clubs? You know a girl never does
as well when no incentive is placed before her; so I have hinted at
the value of organization for general improvement, for work, and for
larger usefulness in every sense. The modern sewing-circle, the
missionary associations, even the temperance organizations in churches,
have frequently been most efficient means of holding churches together.
Clubs for boys are not so strongly recommended as for girls, because
these associations for young men come to be their dependence for
entertainment, and consume the hours which ought to be spent at home,
or in the society of both girls and boys. Club-life in England,
particularly London, has taken the place of home-life. Now, the girls
need have no fear from their associations, because they are formed
principally to forward the interests of home.
Work, then, girls! Work for pleasure, work for profit! Work for the
health of your bodies, and the health of your souls! "You will find
that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help
other people, will, in the quickest and most delicate ways, improve
yourselves." "When men are rightly occupied their amusement grows out
of their work, as the color petals out of a fruitful flower; when they
are faithfully helpful and compassionate, all their emotions become
steady, deep, perpetual, and vivifying to the soul as the natural pulse
to the body." [Footnote: Ruskin.]
But whatever your work is, girls, do not be in too much of a hurry
for great results. If there is any thing in old countries that strongly
impresses the American mind, it is, probably, the great amount of labor,
the infinite patience, and the centuries of time, that were necessary
to construct their public edifices. We cannot understand such waits,
such slow progress. On the contrary, the fact that most impresses the
mind of a foreigner in our own streets is the hurry, impatience, rush
and scramble of American life. The people walk along the narrow streets
of Boston with such hurried steps, such deeply-seamed faces, such
infinite anxieties, as if they were about to adjust the foundations of
the earth, and had about two minutes to spare before applying the lever.
Go slowly, girls, and your work will last the longer.
Do not expect to complete your line of reading or study in one winter.
Do not await a large salary for the first year's work. Do not hope
to more than initiate a charitable society in one autumn. Then try
to remember the necessity of concentrating forces, and of bringing
your heaviest action to bear on one point: too many undertakings
dissipate strength and prostrate work. There is a great deal of poor
work done now; and it is said to have been somewhat mediocre so far
through the nineteenth century, because time enough has not been taken
to do thorough work. The strong desire is to get to the end of toil. We
have hardly time to think what to get for dinner or what to wear; but we
get something to eat when we are hungry, and go out into the cold
wearing a spring jacket.
Now, one good, strong word more for work. We are born to enjoy and
use it; civilization depends upon it, our womanhood is strengthened
by it, our talents increased, our chances of happiness multiplied,
and our service in every department of life is made worthier by the
doing with our might just what lies before us.
V.
WHAT TO STUDY.
How much girls think they will do when they get out of school! How
many books they think they will read!--histories of Greece and of Rome,
Grote and Curtius, of Plutarch and Gibbon; histories of France, Germany,
and England, Guizot, Ranke, Green and Freeman; biographies of Caesar,
Leo, Lorenzo, Frederick, Elizabeth, and Napoleon! How they will feed
on the literature of modern nations, from Chaucer through Tennyson;
from Luther through Goethe; from Rabelais through Victor Hugo; from
Bryant and Irving through Hawthorne and Longfellow! How much they will
translate from Homer and Virgil and Tacitus; from Schiller, Racine,
Fenelon, and Moliere! How much philosophy they will read from Darwin,
Spencer, Huxley! How they will trace the stars in the heavens, and
the marks of God's fingers on the rocks and sands! How they will
separate into their parts water and air, plants and animals! How they
will haunt the libraries, museums, laboratories, and lecture-rooms!--all
when they get out of school.
Oh, my dear girls, you will not do any of these things unless you have
much leisure, and an eager thirst for knowledge. Some new fascination--
society and pleasures--or special duties and pressing occupations will
drive the fervid desires of your school-days quite from your hearts,
or make it impossible for you to gratify them. At any rate, in
attempting to pursue all these studies, you will find that neither the
ordinary length of life, nor the average brain, will be sufficient for
the work. Your lists of books, like your lists of intentions, will serve
only to fill the waste-paper baskets.
But now let us see what you can do, girls, if you will. Almost every
one of you spends a few hours a week in reading, and some of you pour
away "oceans of time" over fashionable fiction. Why not give just two
or three little hours to study,--study so pleasant and so arranged
that you may call it reading, or recreating, or getting acquainted
with "the best of all good company"? After a while you will find these
hours precious and necessary. They will give you rest, and a greater
number of useful and pleasant subjects to think about; they will afford
you broader and readier information; and they will deepen within you
an interest in the highest and most helpful things this life affords.
What we get in the average school is largely rudimentary knowledge,
the object of which is to create a love for more knowledge, to bend
our inclinations towards what is true and right, to prepare our minds
for larger duties,--in a word, to fit us for a noble womanhood and
a useful citizenship.
Now, suppose you feel more kindly towards natural science than you
do towards mathematics; or suppose you have more fondness for language
than for philosophy: well, just at this period, since you are really
out of school, you ought to spend a few spare hours on the object of
your favor. You should branch off from the trunk of knowledge, and
flourish mainly in one direction, when you will find it will take all
the time you can give to grow into any size, and blossom into one kind
of fruitage.
There are so many things to learn in any department of knowledge, and
the amount increases so rapidly, year by year, that, after a certain
measure of general information has been acquired in the schools, it
is almost necessary to make rigid choice of what we shall study, or
of what we shall read. This may be narrowing, and even superficial,
in one sense, since it confines our information within one channel,
and prevents it from mingling with the ebb and flow of broader human
interests. It may make us too regardless of any pursuit aside from
our own, and bring us to the condition which many a foreigner finds
himself in,--that of holding a complete knowledge about his own trade,
but utter ignorance of every other. But I think not. If we are really
intelligent, and comprehend the difficulties of the department of
knowledge we are working in, I believe we have respect for the
department another fills, though we know nothing of it. Of course, we
are always to consider that the study we have chosen is best for us,
and, therefore, to be lovingly and jealously followed. I think the
method of choosing special studies is the only way of acquiring thorough
and accurate knowledge.
If you are devoting your odd hours to literature, it is unnecessary
to make pretensions to a knowledge of chemistry. Do not be afraid to
say, "I do not know." We all expect too much learning from one another,
especially elders from younger people. If John can tell his father
a great deal about surveying, and Mary cannot, no matter: she can tell
them both a good deal about physiology.
As far as possible, in your studying or reading, group those subjects
together which belong together. If you are inclined to the physical
sciences, bring into your work natural philosophy, general chemistry,
general physiology, biology, geology, and mineralogy. If you desire
to know more of one branch of natural science, as, for example, biology,
why not group zoology, conchology, anatomy, physiology, botany,
microscopy? I would always be careful not to make the group too large,
though learning from one science helps in another.
This grouping system is admirable. I believe that an honest observer
of the highest institutions for learning in our land, whether they
were founded for the interests of young men or young women, will remark
that there is too small a chance for grouping studies, and that the
opportunities for choosing electives are too few. The American idea
is, to get through the academy or college, and graduate with a diploma,
rather than to pursue a study till such time as those who know most
about that branch of learning shall deem a student ready for entrance
upon higher work. I must think the German universities superior to
ours in this respect. Life is short, and we can learn but little. I
do not understand why it is necessary to spend several years in the
preparation of certain studies for entrance to a college, when there
will be no special use made of them after matriculation. I do not see
how the imperative pursuit of science, for example, in school or
college, is going to help the girl who is determined to devote future
years to literature. Why, of course, it will not harm her; but why not
be more economical of time and strength?
I can see, and know from experience, that the elective system is not
wholly practical in high schools, nor for girls and boys who are not
yet eighteen years old: because boys and girls need a stated amount
of general knowledge, which they get in the high schools; because they
are not sufficiently decided in their own minds and feelings,--not
sufficiently developed, mentally, to really know what is best for them
to study; and because so many boys and girls will shirk the hardest
studies. I believe college presidents give these reasons sometimes
in regard to their own students. But it is to me incomprehensible that
men and women in college should not know what they are there for. If
they are working for the name of being college graduates, it is no
matter whether electives are presented to them or not. If they have
not any preferences in their studies, they never will have in life.
If they wish for a general broad education, which fits a student for
no special position, but makes him abler to fill any place in after
years, then only is a general, rather than a particular, course to
be recommended. In this last case, the counsel of teachers and friends
is indispensable; but, even here, choice is necessary.
But, girls, I am talking chiefly to those among you who have left the
high school or academy, and have reached an age when you have ideas
of your own. I shall be glad when it is possible, in the college or
the home, for every girl, who wishes, to follow, special or grouped
studies; and when she will no longer censure herself because, outside
of elementary knowledge of it, she is not acquainted with the study
her neighbor is pursuing.
In the programme of the new Bryn Mawr College, I have noted, with a
feeling of satisfaction, the strong recommendations to follow grouped
studies. If I understand the calendar of the University of Michigan,
and the register of Cornell University, I find in these institutions
a broad chance for taking electives and studies which properly belong
together. These should be high commendations.