BANKING. LAW. MEDICINE. DENTISTRY. PHARMACY.
CHEMICAL INDUSTRY. CIVIL SERVICE. SOCIAL WORK
Among girls at work and at school are those whose mental capacity is
developed strongly. They enjoy thinking out problems. They analyze
situations, because they want to understand why some particular fact
happens to be true. These girls may be executive and practical, but they
are always thinkers. If possible, they should remain at school in order to
continue their studies. But although a girl who is intellectual may have
to go into paid employment early, there is no reason why she should not
eventually find her way into work for which she is better fitted.
Employment for the intellectual girl is varied, just as the intellectual
girl herself, according to her individual capacity, is fitted for a number
of different occupations. Banks have long employed girls as stenographers
and a number of young women have held junior clerkships. But now the work
of a ledger-keeper or teller is sometimes given to a woman, and there is
a prospect for the intelligent girl with capacity for financial affairs to
find a position in a bank, suited to her gifts. There are a few women in
accountants' offices. The number of women who act as insurance agents is
increasing, and it is considered that they have special advantages in
insuring other women. A small movement, therefore, has already begun to
introduce women into the higher branches of business and finance. In order
to be successful in financial work, a girl will need to prepare herself as
carefully as possible. She should understand something of business law and
should be familiar with the machinery of banking and credit. The study of
economics and popular government are part of her preparation. Women who
have taken a university degree in economics are already influencing the
fields of work which may be entered by the girl with a good intellectual
endowment.
Women lawyers are doing good work in many of the larger cities, especially
in the United States. The training required is long and somewhat expensive.
There is no reason why a woman lawyer who has training and the legal
instinct should not be a useful and successful worker. After graduating,
she may find herself confined to office work altogether. If she has greater
capacities, she may have difficulty in making opportunities for using them.
Occasionally she may find employment in government service in connection
with laws regarding children and factory work. Work in social service has
attracted the attention of some young women to the study of law. In dealing
with family difficulties through a "settlement," the social worker becomes
impressed with the importance of understanding what legal redress may be
obtained for some just grievance, and applies herself to legal study. Work
among immigrants and foreigners unable to speak English is also encouraging
the study of law by young women who are social helpers. This field of
employment for women is not likely to be large, but it is growing.
The woman physician is an important social force in modern life. Some
medical colleges require for admission a university degree, so that the
course of training may cover seven or eight years. As a rule only girls
who are strongly attracted to medical work and who are specially gifted
for it, undertake the study of medicine. In addition to university work
and medical school training, the young woman doctor if possible should
spend some time on the staff of a hospital and should take postgraduate
study either before beginning private practice or shortly after. For the
first few years she may hardly be able to meet her living expenses. She
may, however, obtain a position as a school physician or with an insurance
company. The woman physician needs strength, health, a fine nervous system,
idealism, self-control, unselfishness, and knowledge of human nature.
Every fine quality which she possesses will be of service in her work.
Her ideals cannot be too high, but they must be balanced with common sense.
She needs also to be gifted with intellectual force. Her patients should
have confidence in her skill and also in her character.
Dentistry offers to women a good although restricted field of employment,
and so also does pharmacy. The woman dentist needs scientific accuracy,
mechanical skill and good nerves. Her training is shorter than that
required by a physician and will cost less. Her first employment may be in
schools. Work with children offers the woman dentist special inducements;
she may find employment doing children's work for another dentist.
When she opens an office of her own, she will need a thousand, fifteen
hundred or two thousand dollars in order to make a successful beginning.
The woman pharmacist requires to attend a college for two years and to have
had experience in a drug store before she can obtain a certificate.
Accuracy, skill and carefulness should make her a successful druggist.
If she has business ability, she should be able in time to manage
a business of her own.
Young women who have graduated in science from universities are finding
openings for chemical work in a number of industries. One girl who has
specialized in botany recently discovered "a growth" which was injuring
the quality of paper turned out by the mills of a paper company; she
was able to tell the manufacturer how he could solve his difficulty.
The chemical expert is constantly increasing in industrial importance.
Teaching and laboratory work, therefore, are not the only employments
open to the girl with an aptitude for scientific work.
A number of able women find employment in the Civil Service. They are
required to pass a Civil Service examination. College graduates hold
positions in the higher grades, while many women clerks are employed as
stenographers and in minor positions. The statistical office, forestry,
trade and commerce and the labour department, all need expert assistants.
While few of the higher offices are held by women, still women with
special knowledge and ability are being employed in increasing numbers by
the government.
The income earned by professional women is likely to be comparatively small
at first. These occupations are all full time employments and require the
undivided attention of the worker. After some years of steady application,
the professional woman is fairly certain to receive a reasonable, even a
good, income. Two, three, and four thousand dollars may be regarded as
incomes which may be obtained with reasonable certainty by women who are
successful in their professions.
The intellectual girl should choose her work wisely. She is a good student
and while she is in training it may seem to her that she will have no
special difficulties of any kind to face.
When she comes to follow her occupation in everyday life, she will find
that personal initiative, judgment, and executive energy in affairs are as
valuable as the ability to master a problem in her study or in the
laboratory. If her studies have left her isolated from human nature, she
will find this want of understanding and sympathy a heavy handicap in
whatever occupation she may enter. Scholarship cannot be made fruitful
in everyday life unless it is used in the service of humanity.
One of the modern employments for young women of education which is
increasing rapidly in its scope is to be found in social work. A broad
general training and a special interest in humanitarian work are required
by those who enter this occupation. The missionary and the deaconess may
be regarded as forerunners in some sense to the modern social worker.
Many Canadian women of the finest aspiration have become missionaries in
distant lands; women physicians have accomplished work of great value as
medical missionaries. The deaconess of to-day may be a graduate of such
training schools for social workers as the Departments of Social Service
and Social Science in the University of Toronto and McGill University.
The special training of the social worker includes lectures in economics
and sociology and the history of philanthropy, discussion of social
problems in classes, and "field work" under the guidance of experienced
workers. Positions for those who take training in social service are found
in "settlements," and in connection with "Big Sister" associations, and
Charity Organization Societies. Welfare departments in stores and
factories indicate the growing importance in modern industry of work which
has to do with social factors in employment. The trained social worker may
find a position as secretary, statistician, visitor, investigator,
lecturer, dietitian, nurse, or as a clerk or executive officer, in child
welfare, civic improvement, or family relief work. Young women who mean to
undertake such work should have, not only training, but common sense and
idealism. Salaries are sometimes low, and much valuable work is contributed
to social betterment enterprises by young women who live at home and are
able to give their time and work free or for small remuneration. There are,
however, a number of well-paid positions in connection with social service
work.