In most cases, a woman"s work and place are in her own home. "Wherever a true wife comes, home is always round her. The stars only may be over her head, the glow-worm in the night-cold gra.s.s may be the only fire at her foot; but home is yet wherever she is: and for a n.o.ble 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 G.o.d 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 coa.r.s.e 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 att.i.tudes? 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 Ma.s.sachusetts. Of these, a fourth would probably have done a better work in some other way. Teaching is a n.o.ble 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 pa.s.ses 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 enn.o.ble 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 n.o.ble; 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 dest.i.tute 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 b.u.t.tercups 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 st.i.tches; 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 pa.s.s 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, apt.i.tude, 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 pa.s.sing 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 cla.s.ses.
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 inst.i.tuted 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 a.s.sociations, 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 a.s.sociations, 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 a.s.sociations 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 a.s.sociations, because they are formed princ.i.p.ally 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 amus.e.m.e.nt grows out of their work, as the color petals out of a fruitful flower; when they are faithfully helpful and compa.s.sionate, 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 G.o.d"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 n.o.ble 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 inst.i.tutions 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 inst.i.tutions a broad chance for taking electives and studies which properly belong together. These should be high commendations.
There is as much to be said on how to study as on what to study, yet I believe the question may be briefly answered. Study so that the ideas of authors may become your own, though remoulded into such forms as your own character, reason, experience and highest thoughts allow.
Suppose you are studying English literature. Be watchful, first, for the writer"s ideas: be sure you get _his_ thoughts, not such as some one else says are his, according to some one"s else interpretation; then observe the manner in which those ideas are expressed. The merits of a literary work lie quite as much in style as in the thoughts which it contains. The cause or purpose of a book, the thoughts it holds, its suggestiveness, its style, seem to me important points to bear in mind when reading or studying a work.
You may be reading George Eliot"s "Romola." Be sure, when the book ends, that you see somewhat the purpose for which it was written. Be impressed with its story: follow its wonderful descriptions, its a.n.a.lysis of character; remark the knowledge which was brought to bear in representing that great historical character Savonarola, the Florentine republic, and the rule of the De Medicis; be moved by the pathos of the story, its dignity and beauty; but remember most, that she who begins with virtue grows, though through fiery furnaces of tribulation, into a radiant, clear, crystal womanhood.
Perhaps you are reading Dowden"s "Life of Southey." Be delighted with the ease, the charm, of Dowden"s style: dwell upon it. Consider his fine powers as a biographer, but be impressed with the unsurpa.s.sed diligence of Southey"s life.
Are you reading Emerson"s shorter essay on "Nature"? So peruse it that, when you go out among the trees and gra.s.s and flowers, you will feel the same kinship with them as did he.
History and biography, the sketch and criticism even, have been made truly charming of late years by the vividness in which actions have been depicted and characters portrayed, as well as by clearness and beauty in expression. We turn to an historical work with as much zest as to a romance, and find in it, now, that enthusiasm, that liveliness, that interest in human affairs which old historians allowed to be obscured by dates and names. If you are studying Roman history, be never so particular about when each battle was fought as about the great causes of the rise of Rome,--energy, pride, deprivation, hardihood, union of citizens, st.u.r.diness, ferocious perseverance, courage, abstinence, valor: remark the results attained by these qualities,-- Rome, the mistress of the world, with an empire stretching to the ends of the earth. Then note the causes of her fall,--greediness, wealth, luxury, effeminacy, satiety, corrupt morals,--and bring the lesson home to your own nation, and to your own selves. Says Mr. Ruskin, "It is of little consequence how many positions of cities a woman knows, or how many dates of events, or how many names of celebrated persons--it is not the object of education to turn a woman into a dictionary. But it is deeply necessary that she should be taught to enter with her whole personality into the history she reads,--to picture the pa.s.sages of it vitally in her own bright imagination; to apprehend, with her fine instincts, the pathetic circ.u.mstances and dramatic relations which the historian too often only eclipses by his reasoning, and disconnects by his arrangement. It is for her to trace the hidden equities of divine reward, and catch sight, through the darkness, of the fateful threads of woven fire that connect error with its retribution."
If you are studying the natural sciences, so follow them that you may see more clearly the rocks, the sea, the sky, the verdure of the earth, the mountains and the valleys, the rivers and the lakes,--all the creations upon the earth, as far as you have studied them,--so that a new heaven and a new earth shall be spread before you, and you shall learn to appreciate more fully the beneficence of G.o.d.
Are mathematics your choice? Then learn from them the value of stability, fixedness; the worth of accuracy in all studies and in all callings; the power of durability, especially as it refers to the durableness of right against wrong; the perfections of forms and symbols; the truths of reasoning; the necessity of discipline.
Are you translating from this or that author? Be sure that you are first accurate; then, that you have entered into the spirit of the writer and the work, that your own language is being made more copious, and fluency of speech or written discourse acquired. The discipline of translating accurately is next in value to that obtained from the study of numbers. The difficulty of turning this accurate translation into the idiom of one"s own language is most stubborn.
It would be very pleasant for us to talk about the choice of books we ought to make in our reading, and I think it would be quite profitable to hunt up those authorities who have given most attention to the subject of reading. There are many such authorities.