Helpful Talks with Girls

Front matter

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Chapter I Possibilities

Education in the past. A limited sphere. The uneducated woman.

CHAPTER n

IMPROVED OPPOKTUNITIBS

Schools in the old days. Growth of common schools. Woman's ability. Fields of effort. The professions.

CHAPTER HI

Good health. Keeping health. Advice. How health is lost. Remember this.

CHAPTER IV

Farmers' wives and daughters. The profcssjona] man's family. Alone in tVie 'wotV^.

Vl CONTENTS

CHAPTER V

What can you best do? Preparation. E your best. Intellectual work. Specialization.

CHAPTER VI

Home work. A baby shop. How she su' ceeded. A growing business. She won.

CHAPTER VII

How to find exchanges. Employment agencie What applicants should know. What is nfenial? A contrast. Opportunities.

CHAPTER VIII

Teach cooking. The care of children. A caj in point. Creating work.

CHAPTER IX

RENTING APARTMENTS. BOARDING HOUSES

How to begin. The furnishings. The boarc ing house. A question of character. The hous< hold A bit of advice. The table.

CONTENTS vii

CHAPTER X

Photographing. A travelling milliner. A house hunter. Original hash.

CHAPTER XI

Preparing dainties. An example. Some farm products.

CHAPTER XII

ANOTHER NOVEL VENTURE

Ru3miiss. More advice.

CHAPTER Xin

About stores. Books and stationery. Sweets. Profit and loss. Collections.

CHAPTER XIV

The dressmaker. Two classes. The shoemaker. Artificial flowers. The decorator.

CHAPTER XV

Buyers for country customers. For c\t^ '^^.- irons. An in/ormation bureau.

viU CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVI

Education. Typewriting. Variety of work. How to get a place. A case in point. Doctors' secretaries.

CHAPTER XVn

National Civil Service. State, County, or Municipal. Women in Post Office.

CHAPTER XVni

The teacher's requisites. City teachers. Disposition. Love for the work. The teacher as a model. Personal appearance. Evenness of temper. Knowing parents. Accuracy.

CHAPTER XIX

TEA ROOMS AND RESTAURANTS

Tea rooms. Catering. Fairs and bazaars. Other avenues.

CHAPTER XX

Child training. Color. Observation. The teacher.

CHAPTER XXI

THE PRIVATE SCHOOL AND LIBRARY

Private schools. Libraries. Training Librar- /a/25. A growing field.

CONTENTS ix

CHAPTER XXII

WOMEN WRITERS

Journalists. Special work. General writers. Other publications.

CHAPTER XXIII

Spread of the work. Telegraph schools. The telephone. Methods of work. How to learn. Necessity for promptness.

CHAPTER XXIV

Flower culture. Growing violets. Other callings.

i

Introduction

This saying is trite, but none the less true: "'The best way to help those who need help is to help them to help themselves."

Women, young women too, are thrown on their own resources quite as often as are men.

The young woman, in such a case, calls out despairingly: "What shall I do?"

Our answer is: "What can you do?**

The giri says : " I don't know I "

In this little volume we have pointed out the ways in which women with training and women with no training, but with the gift of pluck and stick-to-it-iveness, have won.

Apart from the great value of the information given in these pages, the book is more interesting than a romance, for all its experiences are drawn from life, not from the imagination of the romancer.

Even if you don't want work, read it for the joy that comes from a record of brave effort.

xi

Helpful Talks With

Girls

CHAPTER I

POSSIBILITIES

Education in the Past — ^A Limited Sphere — The Uneducated Woman.

Nothing so marks the world's advance in civilization as the status of women to-day, as compared with that of the eighteenth century. We might go back beyond the days of, say our American Revolution, and find through each receding century that woman's position approached nearer and nearer to that of the serf. Indeed, under the common laws of England, up to the middle of the nineteenth century, woman, whether married or single, could only hold property through a guardian, she being considered incompetent to manage Tcvet ov^u ^ifairs.

d POSSIBILITIES

The girl of one hundred years ago was, to a great extent, a creature of circumstances, circumstances over which she had no more control than the slave girl born on the banks of the Congo. It is true that now and then a woman, innately great, burst the fetters of her environment, and rose superior to her sisters, superior indeed to her masters. Such women stand out like fixed stars through the murk of that dawn that was coming and bringing with it the bright sun of her enfranchisement.

It IS pleasant to note that with the gradual emancipation of woman, hospitals began to multiply, orphan asylums became public institutions, and those humane charities that distinguish the civilization of to-day were launched, and, we believe, are destined to move forward and to advance higher, as the field of opportunity for women broadens.

THE LIMITED SPHERE OF FORMER DAYS

In the sad days of which we are speaking, women became dependent and were thrown on their own resources exactly as they are to-day. It may be interesting to glance at her fitting to fight the life-battle, with the limited educational equipment she received from her guardians. If her training had been in t1ie ftixcvs^ ^^wy^xa?

POSSIBILITIES 3

pli§hments of which we have spoken, the only positions she could attempt to fill, with any certainty of making good, were those of nursery governess or lady's companion. Perhaps, she might do fancy needle work, but if she wrought at this as a means of livelihood, it would have been considered a degradation by her associates, who relegated all physical labor to what they regarded as the inferior class. Now. the demand for such work was necessarily less than the supply, for in an age of irresponsibility, tens of thousands of well-bred yoimg women, not to mention their mothers equally situated, were thrown on their own resources.

If the woman was accustomed to house work and, in addition, was fairly well educated, according to the standard of the times, there were three callings open to her, and these were more promising than in the case first referred to. She might teach school, and in that day it required but a slight knowledge of the three R's to fit her for this position. She might start a millinery shop, for the decoration of her more fortunate sisters; or she might become the mistress of an inn or a boarding house ; these three callings limited her possibilities as a self -supporter.

THE UNEDUCATED WOMAN

Strange though it may seem, tSa^ -wcyccv^Tv

4 POSSIBILITIES

Without school training, in those days, had a great advantage over her better educated sisters. Then, as now, the farm, the factory, the shop, and the household offered ample, if not always remunerative, opportunities for employment.

The Revolution that has changed all this was not sudden, no revolution ever is. AU the preceding centuries had been preparing the race for the great change that was to come. Truly, in this as in all things, " God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.'' It was not as if men suddenly realized that their mothers, their wives, their sisters, and their daughters, were capable of better thin^^s and fitted for a higher destiny. While it is true great men have worked for the elevation of women, it is to woman herself that we owe the wonderful advancement now in progress, and which is destined to continue till every field of effort for whidi she is physically fitted is thrown open to her; until, indeed, the world comes to realize that it is the character of the work that should be paid for and not the individual worker. When this day comes, women will receive the same compensation for the same work as do men, provided always that they can do it equally well and in an equal time; and that they can do this we feel absolutely confident.

Chapter II

Schools in the Old Days — Growth of Common Schools — ^Woman's Ability — Fields of Effort — ^The Professions.

It would be interesting to relate in detail (tie changes that have been wrought in woman's condition during a period within the memory of many still living. Our purpose, however, is not to give the history of woman's advancement, so much as to describe, as best we may, the fields of opportunities which have been opened up largely through her own efforts.

One hundred years ago, even in these favored United States, not fifty per cent of tiie women could read and write, and a larger percentage of her sisters in that olckr world from which our forefathers came, were in a denser state of illiteracy. The public schools, to be found to-day in every inhabited part of our vast country, have been a thing of slow growth. The early teachers of the backwoods school, and even the teachers of the city school, sustained by public funds, were mNwoiicfcj men. True, there were a few private schools managed by women, but they were regarded not so much as places for intellectual training, as for the acquiring of superficial accomplishments.

GROWTH OF COMMON SCHOOLS

It was not until the states took charge of the educatipn of their prospective citizens, that the public school became an all-important factor in training the young for the duties of citizenship. These public schools were not limited to the training of pupils of one sex. The world had come to realize, and particularly the American world, that the woman was quite as much a citizen as the man and quite as important a factor in the nation's development and progress.

It was natural that after this common school education began to spread among the girls of town and country, they should soon develop a capacity for teaching, and that in time they should come to supplant the old school master and to introduce newer and better methods for the training of the young.

woman's ability At first it was doubted whether wome were capable of such work. It was argued, by the old fogies and conservatives of the time, that women lacked the force of character, the power of discipline, if not, indeed, the intellectual ability properly to train the young placed in their care. But in this, as in every calling which she has assumed, woman soon demonstrated her ability to do the work, and to do it better than it ever had been done before. Normal schools were established for the training of teachers, and it was at first supposed that they would be resorted to only by young men, but, to the surprise of objectors, even the earliest of these training schools for teachers had their full share of women, and in the classes where the sexes were brought into direct contrast, if not into direct competition, it was found that, as a rule, the women students more than held their own with the men.

There are to-day in the United States, it is estimated, about 500,000 school teachers, and of these more than two-thirds are women, nor is their field limited to the common school. We find them teachers in the training schools, professors in the academies, and filling positions of educational responsibility, which the men of two generations ago imagined were beyond their capacity, as they surely were beyond their reach at that time.

OTHER FIELDS OF EFFORT

We have mentioned the entrance of women into educational work because there is, perhaps, no other field— certainly none so important — in which larger numbers of the sex are professionally employed. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that in the great advance which we have mentioned, other avenues equally promising, if not equally important, have been opened up for women.

We find her managing the farm successfully. As a shop or store keeper she has taken high rank with the men of that class, and the wholesale merchants freely assert that business women meet their obligations with more promptness than do men. In the trades she is taking a high rank. Next to eating, people, perhaps, spend more upon their clothes than in supplying any other personal want.

Not only are women now, as they have been in the past, the milliners and dressmakers, but they have also become the manufacturers of clothing for boys and men. Their artistic taste and their love for the home beautiful have induced them to become decorators and in all our large cities women can be found occupying foremost positions in this department of labor. There are- women pilots, women miners, women blacksmiths, women carpenters, and it is said, women masons. But we do not cite such examples for emulation, but rather to show what women can do if want requires and necessity compels.

THE PROFESSIONS

Two generations ago a woman lawyer or a woman doctor was undreamt of. True, a few ambitious women, up to the middle of the nineteenth century, had attempted to become doctors, but they found the doors of the medical colleges in the old and new worlds closed in their faces. They met with a like reception at the law schools, but they were not discouraged.

The old prejudices are vanishing with the old superstitions, but, the prejudices against women have been among the slowest to go. We cannot attempt to enumerate at this time the number of women lawyers in this country alone, but they certainly run into the thousands.

After persistent knocking at the doors of the medical schools of the old and new worlds, they were slowly opened to woman and she was quick to avail herself of their opportunities.

NURSES

Closely allied to the profession of medicine is that of the trained nurs^. ^^Vat^

IQ IMPROVED OPPORTUNITIES

the middle of the last century the trained nurse was unknown. True, there were nurses of the old-fashioned sort, such as Dickens describes in his character of Betsy Prigg; but where these were successful it was due to a natural aptitude for the work, rather than to acquired skill.

Up to the Crimean War, in 1855, women were unknown in the hospitals of the world, perhaps we might except the Sisters of Charity who made a specialty of visiting the sick and of hospital work.

Florence Nightingale, an English woman of good birth, superior education, and a heart that went out in sympathy to every form of human suffering, learned how the sick and wounded soldiers from Sebastopol were dying by thousands from wounds and disease in the Turkish hospitals at Scutari. She offered her services as a nurse to the British Government, and at first met with much opposition, but she persisted, and at length was permitted to go, at her own expense, to Turkey. There she found conditions so horrible that had her heart been less bold she might well have been deterred from the things that needed so much to be done. But she set to work with a will. Soon the fetid hospital, under her charge, was converted into a place wholesome and cleanly.

The wounded soldiers hitherto accustomed to the well-meant but rough treatment of their male nurses, came to look on the slender, sweet-faced, soft-voiced woman as an angel sent from above. The oath and the coarse speech died out in the hospital wards. Rude men became gentle, dying men took a new grip on life, and into the worn faces of the men who had faced death in the trenches, there came an expression of hope that was realized under her gentle administrations. .

Soon the world rang with stories of this heroic woman's efforts in behalf of the suffering. Poets sang her praises. Painters depicted her as the angel of the hospital, and writers and orators made the world ring with the glory of her exploits and the nobility of her character.

To the example of this splendid woman, more than anything else, we owe the origin of the trained nurse. Realizing her usefulness to-day, we wonder how the world got along before the coming of the trained nurse, and now that it has learned her great usefulness, it will never let her go

The doctors, as we have said, showed opposition to the coming of women rivals, but not so with the trained nurses. They were quick to see her usefulness, and with both hands they welcomed her as an ally and a friend. We have to-day in connection with many of our hosp\la\s ^xvA. rc\&^-

15 IMPBOVED OPPORTUNITIES

cal colleges, schools for the special training of nurses. The intellectual requirements are, perhaps, not so great as those for the high-school teacher, but, like the true teacher, the true nurse must have a natural aptitude for her work. A good common school education, a sympathetic heart, a keen intelligence, great self-command, where the sympathies are excited, are the requisites of the bom nurse.

In this most useful field, thousands of young women are to-day not only earning a living commensurate with their work, but they are also doing a vast amount of good where such services are sorely needed.

. CHAPTER III

Good Health — Keeping Health — ^Advice — How Health is Lost — ^Remember This.

If we were asked, "What is the first great requisite for fighting successfully the battle of life?" we should unhesitatingly say, HEALTH.

GOOD HEALTH

When a man is enlisted for the army, the navy, or the police force, he is examined as to his intellectual qualifications, but this examination is not very strict, for the requirements are not great. The severe examination, however, is as to the man's physical fitness for the duties he is about to assume. His height is taken, as is his weight. These, however, are not of so much importance as the measurement of his chest and the trunk, in which are contained what are called the vital organs. If a man's lung capacity does not measure up to the required average, he is at once rejected, no matter how well developed he may be in other respects. TVv^ tt^vtt^ ment for the duties just named is not so much mere temporary strength, the power to lift a great weight, or to strike a hard blow, as the capacity for endurance, the vitality and the ability to maintain this en*- durance through a sound digestion and a lung capacity that insures a proper oxidation of the blood.

We do not expect all our readers to measure up to the army and navy standard as to physical fitness, yet, though it is very certain that they will not take to either of these callings, it would be better for them if they were able to stand such a physical test.

The ancients summed up the requirement, in the maxim, "a sound mind in a sound body." Without the sound body, no matter what the natural brain power may be, it is impossible that the mind should work at its best The man or woman who starts out in life handicapped by ill-health or a constitution naturally weak, cannot expect to €xcel. Now this may sound discouraging, for, unfortunately, perfect health is not the rule, it is the exception. It might be thought that this incapacity is entirely due to our ancestors or to our environment, or to both. In some respects this is true, but as a matter of fact, good health and great powers of endurance are largely within our own eotvttol, and in so far as they are in our own control, we are responsible for our own condition of health.

As a rule men have no more endurance, perhaps, not so much, as women, but they are naturally stronger and their method of life, particularly in the country, is more conducive to good health. The games of boys are largely played in the open. They exercise their lung power, continually, though not always pleasantly to the listener, but in doing it they are strengthening their throat and breast muscles and enlarging their capacity for oxygen. They run, they jump, play ball, row, swim, and skate, and so through their pleasures they develop their strength. It is true, girls to-day, more than in the past, indulge in outdoor sports and seek to rival their boy companions in some of them. This is all very well, but unfortunately it is not the rule.

HOW HEALTH MAY BE KEPT

In the country much more than in the city, the girl leads an outdoor life, and the result is shown in greater evidence of physical strength. The country girl requires fewer hours of sleep. She can work harder and longer, and unrestrained in her work by the garments of fashion, her body has a better chance to develop ti^lMt^Vcj.

Our educators are fast coming to see the all-importance of sound physical health. The construction of our school houses has changed completely in the last fifty years. The desks on which the children write, the backs of the seats, the ventilation, the proximity of school mates, and the need for open play-grounds are all considered now, not so much as means to intellectual improvement as to physical health, though these are so closely identified that perhaps we should not divide them.

TRAINING

Connected with all our colleges and high schools there are gymnasiums, under the control of physical directors, who examine the student on his entrance into the institution and after. They keep careful records of the character of his physical training and the development of those muscles or functions that may be naturally weak.

The trouble with most young men and women is, that in physical training, they do those things which afford them the most pleasure, because they can do them with the greatest ease, while they avoid the things which require effort. Now, it must be evident to all that where there is a physical act without effort, it is accomplished through developed and trained muscles, while the act that requires great effort, and perhaps pain, is performed by muscles that have not been developed. It stands to reason, therefore, that it is the unpleasant acts that should be persisted in untiUthe developed muscles make the act a pleasure and it becomes as natural and easy as the efforts to which one was first inclined.

ON ADVICE

Where it can be done, we should advise every girl to counsel with her doctor, no matter how assured she may be of her own health, and learn from him the best way to develop her body so as to retain health at its highest

We have all seen the thin-faced, roundshouldered little girl of twelve, wearing spectacles perhaps, and with a great pile of books under her arm for home study, going from school after a hard day's work. The bright eyes, the sensitive mouth, the broad forehead, all indicate intelligence and mental ambition. But to the sympathetic observer such a child is always a sad sight. What will avail all her intellectual acquirements within a few years? Already we see the death angel's hand reaching towards her. She can never reach the age of womanhood, or if she does, it will be to face the dreary years inevitable to the shattered sysltou ^cr«^ if that child were under proper control, her books would be cast aside. She would be taken from the enervating air of the tenement and the ceaseless noise of the streets, and made to run wild in the woods and fields till her face and form filled out and the flush of health came to her thin pale cheeks. Of course, this is not possible in all cases, but it is in many we know of, and where it can be done it is surely best to do it, for such a child is too valuable an acquisition to be lost without an effort. What if one, or two, or three years are spent in gaining this health? The child, with her natural endowments, will soon recover the time lost from school, and the rapidity of her mental advancement will be far greater than if she had not been subjected to the wholesome course which we have advised.

HOW HEALTH IS LOST

Up to a certain age, say 45, more women than men die. This is, no doubt, due to the cares of maternity and the fact that women lead their lives more indoors. After the age named, we find wpmen increasingly in the majority until the oldest years. It is a curious fact that the majority of those who live to a century are women, and that these have spent their lives in the country, usually at Vvatd 'wotVu We are not speaking of centenarians, but of the women who can live to the allotted age and retain health during that period.

The men most opposed to the advancement of woman sneeringly point out the fact that she is a slave of fashion and never can become her own master. Some one in London or Paris, or some other center of fashion, proclaims a head covering of a certain form and of certain material as the requisite for women who are abreast of the times. At once, and without regard to age, condition or the ability to afford this head covering which may be very becoming or absurdly grotesque, she buys it and wears it.

But there is another garment worn by the women of civilized lands, which we are assured by doctors has had a more detrimental effect on her health and on the health of her offspring, than all other fashions combined, not excepting the high heel and narrow shoe. This is the corset. The finest types of the female form are shown in the statuary of the Greek goddesses. There is in these beautiful creations no evidence of constraint. The spider waist is lacking, but the development is rounded, complete and harmonious.

The wearing of an article to make the waist small might not be censured, if the result desired could be accompW^VveA. m^- so AN ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS

out injury to health. Unfortunately this cannot be done. Within the embrace of this article are all the vital organs, including the two essential to every minute of health — the heart and the lungs.

We laugh pityingly at the Chinese who place the feet of their infant female children in moulds and keep them there till maturity. The writer of this article has travelled through China and has noted with sorrow the limping forms of girls who otherwise might be graceful and even beautiful. But these Chinese women, thus hampered, may live to an old age, and many of them do, because the foot is not a vital organ, and the body in which is performed the essential functions of life, is clad in warm unrestraining garments. We are glad to see to-day in many of our colleges and in many of our families where good common sense is the rule, that mothers are permitting their girls to develop into womanhood without any constraining apparatus. More than this, we have learned, from original sources, that women themselves are coming to see that they can be quite as beautiful and attractive without these restraints, whil^ at the same time they are keeping the vital organs in a healthful condition.

Chapter IV

Farmers' Wives and Daughters — The Professional Man's Family — Alone in the World

All the world knows that women are often thrown on their awn resources, and in the United States quite as much as in any other country of which we have any knowledge. It has been our boast that this is the land of opportunity, and that the opportunities are open not only^ to the native-bom citizen but to the immigrant from all over the world who is admitted within our borders. If we are so ready to give these opportunities to the stranger who may become a citizen, surely they should be equally available for those born within our gates.

It is estimated that three-quarters of the wealth of the United States is owned by less than 200,000 people.^ This number is so small, as compared with the total 90,- 000,000 of population, as shown by the present census, as to be almost negligible. The conclusion must be that our po^ulation is practically self-dependent, that is, every man and woman, capable of doing so, must perform some kind of work, in order to sustain life and perform its duties.

Now, from the earliest period of which we have any record we learn with some accuracy about the callings that have been open to men, indeed men, until a century ago, it is said, monopolized all the breadwinning vocations, and women were their dependents.

But there has been a new Declaration of Independence quite as important to our country and to the world as that made one hundred and thirty-four years ago in the great council at Philadelphia, that is the Declaration of Woman's Independence. This does not mean independence to act for herself without regard to the rights of her associate brother man, but freedom to fight her own life battle with every given faculty she possesses.

Thanks to the spread of our common and technical schools, girls are being trained to be self-supporting, and are being made quite as efficient in this work as their brothers; still they are hampered by many restraints; still there are prejudices to be overcome, and they have not as yet a full and equal show in the struggle for existence.

WOMEN WHO MUST WOBK 33

farmers' wives and daughters.

The farmer's wife and daughters left dependent on themselves are, perhaps, better, qualified to win than their sisters, in equal dependence, in the cities. As a rule, all have had a common school education, but far more valuable than this is the higher education and the knowledge of work on the farm. We need not remind the reader that education is not simply a matter of books. Education is not only the training of the brain, it should include the training of the hand and of the heart. The average farmer's wife and daughters are often called on to help in the field, and if they do not perform this kind of work, they surely know how it should be done. They are weather wise, and know the needs of the seasons ; the seed time and the harvest. They are inured to hard work. They know the value of money. They are acquainted with the source of income. They not only know how the crops have been garnered through hard work, but how they are sold, and where the money goes that comes into the possession of the head of the family.