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.