Plate XXX.
Fig. 37.—Country school girls learning the rudiments of cooking. In no distant future such work will be required along with the traditional subjects.
What is the outlook
So, if the country father having a young family were here before us, we should ask him: What is the outlook in regard to a happy future for your growing daughter? Do you want her to take her place among the men and be forced to do some sort of man’s work in order to obtain her bread? or, do you earnestly desire that she find some sort of worthy woman’s work? And if the latter be your choice, what helpful agencies are you bringing to bear upon the situation? In the midst of all your consideration of these matters touching your daughter, we should have you most earnestly and prayerfully consider at least one thing; namely, with few possible exceptions, the healthy, growing girl looks forward instinctively to the time when she is to become mistress of a household of her own. And in every case, if the girl fails to become such a mistress, there is only one reasonable alternative to be thought of and that is to provide that she engage in some sort of work which will give expression in the largest possible measure to that which is best and truest in her feminine nature.
Ordinarily, in planning for the future of their daughter, parents might as well consider the problem as having a two-fold aspect. Assuming first of all that the girl instinctively desires to preside over a home of her own, how can she best be prepared for that place? Second, in case that, by some miscarriage of plans, she fails to reach this most worthy ambition, what may she safely fall back upon as an adequate means of self-support? Now, if this statement of the matter be a correct one, it seems that the general scope of the problem of preparing a girl for her vocation ought to be fairly clear. Still another way of putting the situation is this: The girl must be carefully prepared, not only for her first choice of an occupation, but also for her second choice, because of grave danger of the failure of her first choice to be realized.
There is a perplexing aspect of the whole question implied here, and every parent who has a daughter should become aware of it and also prepared to confront it. That is to say, almost any ordinary man may go out into the open market and push his quest for a life companion and be able to return in the course of a very short period with one at his side. But with the girl it is radically different. Practically her only stock-in-trade consists of her personal charm and her pecuniary advantages. And many a young woman with both of these qualities very strongly in her favor fails, by some chance or other, to receive an acceptable offer of marriage. Statistics widely gathered will show that age is also a very positive factor in this matter, and that the ratio of probability of marriage of a single woman begins to fall very rapidly before she reaches thirty.
Desirable occupations for women
While there is abundant evidence to prove that the great majority of normal young women desire instinctively and above all things else a happy marriage, including a contented home life and children to care for, some alternatives must be now pointed out in case of failure to realize the highest ambition.