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The whole of life and destiny is bound by these two interrogations, and the mistake of the world has been that it did not put both queries to the boy and girl alike, for when we fail to look upon the boy as a son and the girl as a daughter of God, whose birthright involves the full development of each one's powers of brain, heart and hand, we do them an injustice that can only be forgiven on account of our ignorance, prejudice and hopeless conventionality of thought and action. Each one of us would like to be developed to the utmost in the power to think clearly, to feel nobly, and to act and react helpfully upon the world about us. Not one of us would be willing to have this development diminished because of possible or probable relations that the future might bring as the outcome of the marriage tie. Most of us have made the

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discovery that the man or woman who is the most of a person in and of himself and herself is the one who is of all others most likely to make a good companion, whether as a relative or an acquaintance, a friend or the permanent partner in that most sacred of all compacts out of which blossoms a human home. If, then, we each desire the best development as the only intelligent and adequate welcome that the human family can give us on our arrival within its circle, we shall, if we are ourselves "real folks," desire to help as many others as we can to this same drawing out of the capacities enfolded in them at birth, and I have always felt that the honest desire and effort put forth by any person to develop every other person is the true measure of his good will toward those about him.

There are plenty of people who desire their own development, and seek it as persistently as a well-aimed bullet seeks the target's centre, but are so utterly absorbed in this one purpose that they do not try to help others to attain success. In short they trample the Golden Rule under their feet, and dance about on it, never dreaming what a spectacle they present to the moral universe. Surely it is not unjust to say that any human being who would shut away any other from the best possibilities of that other as to education and opportunity is a monster, whether he knows it or not. He may not be guilty of sin; I don't suppose that a crocodile is guilty when it snaps off the head of a drowning sailor, but it gets in its work just as effectually as if it were, and people who by nature and practice make a business of keeping other people down, whether through law or custom, or personal power, are among the world's monstrosities, and "sometime, somewhere, they will find this out and "shame them of the part they play."

The whole struggle of Christianity is to help every one who comes into the world to feel the only true welcome that a new comer finds adequate — the welcome of whole-hearted preparation, not only by the parents and in

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the home, but in the larger home of universal manhood and womanhood, to give the little one that all-round development which makes up the completed human being, the son and the daughter of God, the brother and sister of humanity.

This little lay-sermon of mine is jotted down to introduce a book which, from cover to cover, is meant to encourage and help that half of the "Family" which in the past has not had one-half the chances to be and to become all that it might.

Some day such a book will be wholly and happily superfluous, for it will be taken as a matter of course that every human being shall do any and every good thing that he or she desires to do. But in this day, when an act of the legislature is required, even in our most enlightened States, before a woman can help to choose the officers who make and administer the laws to which she is subject, when the custody of her child rests with the husband, when she cannot practice law without a special enabling act of the legislature, when most occupations and professions have been closed to her until the present generation, this book, which shows what women have done and are doing for their own development, and what really Christian men and women are helping them to do, will come to ten thousand eager and capable girls with a sense of good cheer and earliest counsel that may enter as a large factor into the women's work of years to come.

To each new-comer the world is unknown, and her estimate of what can be accomplished in it, depends almost wholly on what she sees accomplished by those of her own guild. To my mind the highest merit of "Occupations for Women" is that it does not deal in theories, but shows how things can be done and helps inspire girls and young women to try to "go and do like wise." From the beginning my correspondence, which includes tens of thousands of letters each year, has revealed the painful fact that in a girl's

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thought the favorite method of travel is to fly rather than to climb. My young correspondents wish for salaried positions at once; they desire an outlook and an environment that it has taken me a lifetime to achieve, nor do they seem to think that it would be at all strange that such sugar plums as these should drop into their mouths as if from the hand of some kind-hearted godmother. I wish I knew how many times I have had letters containing the declaration "I should like to be your secretary;" "I should like a position in the Temple, in Chicago;" "I should like to be associated with Lady Henry Somerset." These have come to me from young women "far out upon the prairies," or up somewhere in the woods, or in a frontier village, or the overcrowded district of some city. My reply has invariably been to this effect:

Dear Younger Sister: You must begin as I began; you must work your way little by little; you must be tested by adversity; you must live on little, and dress not as you would, but as you honorably can. What we older women wish to see in you is, first of all, a deadly earnestness and an indomitable purpose to excel. We think that the very best way to make a woman of you is that you should begin just where you are to work for the Cause. Who are you that you should pass over all the primary and intermediate grades of opportunity and honest hard work in the local white ribbon movement, and spring at once to a salaried position, and the environment that you desire? If you will investigate of the history and method of our society, and begin to carry out some of its lines of work in a practical way in the local union at your own home, the leaders in county, district or State will hear of you in the only way in which any human being has a right to be heard of, viz, by the results you have achieved. They will then be as eager to confide a larger work to your care as you are desirous that they should. There is no royal road to any real success. All that we can

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do is to think out plans and methods as the result of experience, and you must carry out these plans in a small way, letting your actual power of thought and action determine whether you ever carry them out in a large way or not.

A letter like this would have little meaning except for a young woman who had a gift of writing, speaking or organizing, for these three lines make up the triangle of our white ribbon work.

In the world of philanthropy one must first "Make proof of her ministry," but I do not believe there is another field so wide and beautiful for woman's work as the religious, reformatory and philanthropic fields now "white unto the harvest."

"Nothing makes life dreary but lack of motive." This book of ours aims to impart a definite purpose in life to those who are so unfortunate as not to have formed one already, and to help direct into congenial channels the capacities with which young women are endowed.

Having long been a teacher, it is my observation that boys and young men are no whit better fitted out for a good and helpful life than are their sisters; indeed, with the handicap of the drinking and tobacco habits and the temptation to an impure life, our young men start out at a positive disadvantage. It is of this that temperance women complain, and in the interest of the homes that are to be, we are trying to raise the standard of personal habits so that it shall be the same for our young men and women.

It is fortunate for those who read this book that upon its pages have been converged the ability and experience of two of the most capable women journalists who have been developed in our time, and that it has had the careful supervision of our American Samuel Smiles, Dr. O. S. Marden, of Boston, author of "Pushing to the Front," "Rising in the World," etc., while the angle of vision supplied by an every day worker for "Woman and

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Temperance," helps to round out the unique circle of authorship that has made this a many sided volume and one that is certain, we think, to win the attention of working women because worthy to be regarded by them as a "guide, philosopher and friend." This much I feel free to say, because if the book is not "made up of every creature's best," it is made up of several creatures' level best.

A paper called Success, edited by Dr. Orison Swett Marden, has been started in New York, and this book has already grown up out of it. I hope the paper may be taken by all who read "Occupations for Women," for I am confident that it will prove the best sort of a mental tonic, transforming many a visionary young woman into a whole-hearted worker, and transferring many an idle young woman from the passive into the active voice.

I am putting in this reference to Success without permission because I believe it will do good and strongly supplement the work of the book we have prepared. If, in the days when I was looking out with wonder on the world, a voice so steady had welcomed me to wider paths of opportunity, its tones would have been the sweetest music to my listening ears; but we did not have such papers then. It was my mother who inspired me; it was she who said, "My child, make up your mind as to what you will take the most pains for, because that you will have. Do not expect everything, but do expect that the thing you take most pains for will be yours. Never forget that your in other always taught you it was best worth while to set a truthful and kindly character before you as the highest aim; along with that may come to you love, riches, fame, but they must be secondary if you would gain the only treasure that you can take with you from this world to the next. Never forget that the only indestructible material in destiny's fierce crucible is character; try for it; pray for it devoutly and then hammer away stoutly; say to yourself over and over again as you toil onward,

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utter it early, repeat it often, ‘Fail me not, Thou.’" And so I pass along the word given me a generation back by her whom I best loved. She has been gone for years, but wherever by voice or pen. I have put forth a word of help or kindness, she has as truly spoken as if it were her word not mine. Let it be understood then that no woman living is more loyal than I am to that supreme occupation, the training by its mother of a little child for the life that now is and the life that is to come. There is no "Occupation for Women" that approaches in sacredness and value the vocation of motherhood. Some day the world will treat its mothers differently from what it ever has done or has vet learned to do; they will be the central figures of the highest circles of power; and to their holy vocation the most gifted and cultured women will be called while the ignorant and vicious will not be suffered to attain its solemn dignity. But in the transition of which we are victims in these days, there is nothing for it but that every true woman should firmly grasp in her steady hand an honorable bread-winning weapon with which she may hold her own in this world of relentless competition. We are helping to forge a link in the long chain of evolution; let us do our best to be gentle while we are strong, tender while we are brave.

With all my heart I commend to you the motto that my mother gave me: "Womanliness first — afterward what you will."

Chicago, Thanksgiving Day, 1897.

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OCCUPATIONS FOR WOMEN

I. What Is Life For?

GIRLS, what are you going to do with life? Develop it, make the most of the talents God has given you and accomplish something for the world, or sit calmly down and wait for the impossible to happen, or dream idly of what you would like to be if your surroundings were only different?

Madame Ristori stated once in answer to a question asked by a young girl, that "having too many talents is as bad as not having any." Not but what it is a thing to be thankful for if one is blessed with many talents, but that one should develop the single talent in which perfection may be reached, and which may perhaps bring the success of a lifetime. I once heard an old farmer say of his son:

"I'm kind o' puzzled what to make o' my Bedford. Sometimes I think he'll make a minister, and then ag'in his gift o' gab sort o' recommends him for a lawyer. So I d' no' what to make of such a smart boy."

"Well," answered a neighbor, "if I were in your place I'd try, first of all, to make a man of him. Sometimes I think we need good men more than we need ministers and lawyers."

The remark impressed me very much at the time, especially as this same Bedford had not seemed to his young companions as a very promising youth.

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When he grew up to be a man he went into a bucket factory, where he has since been working at day wages, although I am told he is a good man, if not a great one.

Do we not need good women to-day more than we need brilliant women? But the world needs us more than ever before in some line of effort which shall really count toward the sum of human happiness and real accomplishment. Did you ever stop to think what fortunate girls you are to have been born just when you were and to be girls just now? Fifty years ago a girl could do nothing beyond teaching a dame school, and was not even allowed to attend a high school, or to study anything beyond the primary branches. If she failed in school teaching, possibly she might be allowed to keep a small thread and needle shop — although this was hardly deemed respectable — and a girl could only depend on her nearest male relative for a living.

To-day girls in almost every position in life are wondering what they shall do for a living. Shall a girl go into business, study for a profession, go on the stage, take up art, or strike out on some new line into paths hitherto untrod? Like their brothers, the girls of to-day want to be something, do something, accomplish something. Now, then, how shall they go to work to do this? Not by dreaming all day long, although as long as girls are girls, doubtless some dreaming will be done. Dreaming is the poorest of all grindstones on which to sharpen the wits. There is only one thing to do: have a fixed purpose and stick to it. Around this you will soon find your dormant ideas, hopes and possibilities anchored. You will find in your cranium that a resolute aim takes the place of an aimless reverie.

No man has ever yet succeeded who did not have a definite aim in life. From the dawn of thought in his sturdy young brain he has been taught that, if he ever meant to be a living power in the world, he must settle on a definite purpose and stick to that one thing if he would reach the pinnacle of success. In the past, girls who are quicker of wit, swifter in mental process, less unwieldy in judgment, and every bit as active in mind, have not been taught the power of concentration. They have been allowed to sit down and wait for the handsome prince to descend upon them, lay all his fortunes at their feet, and carry them off in a golden chariot to some castle in Spain. To-day this is all nonsense. In fact, it always was, only to-day we are finding it out. "Paddle your own canoe," has come to be just as much the motto of th girls as of the boys, only you want to be sure that you are paddling it into the swift current of your strongest and noblest inclination.

First of all, remember one thing: that a "jack of all trades" is good at none. I would rather see a girl of mine possessed by a steady purpose and a plodding, thorough disposition, than to have her one of those brilliant creatures who can paint passable pictures, sing fairly well, write a poem or an occasional story, talk readily on any subject that is offered, do a bit of artistic fancy work, and yet excel

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in nothing. Of the two, give me the girl with one talent and the patience to cultivate it to its utmost possibilities, and I will back her at the age of thirty-five against any of your brilliant girls with a smattering of every possible gift except a gift of plodding, patient application.

Select your specialty, then, and cultivate it. The world wants your best and needs it. You can make for yourself a place which shall command the respect and honor of the world, and possibly may shine in the galaxy by whose light centuries take their places in the firmament of history. There is no more practical form of philanthropy than this because every girl who makes herself a high place in the world's roll of workers leaves a place lower down for some woman who, but for this chance, might be tempted into wrong paths, or to let go her hold on right endeavor. Whoever fits herself for some employment involving good pay and higher social recognition, graduates from the lower grades and leaves them to those who cannot advance, and so helps the world of women in a substantial way.

"Be not simply good; be good for something;" said Henry D. Thoreau. Remember, when going forth from the garden of your early dreams into some avenue of honest hard work, that "the world is all before you where to choose." Will you select an aesthetic calling like drawing, engraving, designing? Will you be an editor, an architect, an artist? Will you be a lawyer, a minister, a physician? Have a real searching talk with yourself before you decide. Don't take the advice of admiring friends alone, who will be sure to tell you that you can do anything and do it well without a preliminary course of preparation. Decide seriously which gift you will cultivate; and then stick to the development of that one. If you choose the ministry or the bar, plan all your studies to that end just the same as your brother would. If you are to be a musician, study music, particularly that of the best masters, and don't stop when you can entertain your friends, but only when you can so charm the public that they will pay and pay well for your music. Remember that for any profession it; takes a long course of study before any real and substantial success can be looked for. It is not what comes to you, but what you come to that determines whether you are to be a winner in the great race of life.

If you decide on chemistry or mathematics or stenography or farming, make up your mind that you will be the best chemist or professor or stenograph or farmer that it is possible to be. Nowadays a girl may be anything, from a college president down to a seamstress or a cash girl. It depends only upon the girl what rank she shall take in her chosen calling. Set the goal of your ambitions, and then climb to it by steady, earnest steps. In this way you cannot help accomplishing something in the end, and instead of dreaming and hoping and longing indefinitely for a life of romance wherein impossible heroes shall give all

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and demand nothing, you will become a strong factor for good in the sum of human happiness. Even when this impossible hero does appear in the background of your dreams he will resemble the actual man; and when you marry — for surely girls will go right on marrying and becoming good wives and mothers in the real old-fashioned way which the Lord designs for girls — you will marry not an impossible man, not the hero of the silly girl's dream, but a man whom you will love and respect, and who will cherish you all the more because you have a practical knowledge of the world's needs and have not been afraid to demonstrate it by earnest endeavor.

I believe that each one of you has a "call" to some specific work which is indicated by God's gift of heart or hand or brain to you.

"The world owes me a living," is a common expression. You owe the world much more than a living; you owe it a duty. You owe it the best part of your life either in one way or another. In the evolution of your powers do not think of yourself alone. If you acquire, let it be that you may share your talents with others; if you achieve, let it be that others may enjoy the glow of your prosperity. The soul, like the sun, should radiate every particle of light it contains. We are human spirit lamps designed by Providence to light up other lives by our own unceasing purpose. Do not forget that there is one indestructible material which nothing in the way of adversity or discouragement can ever overcome, and that is character.

Have that good searching talk with yourself; decide what you will be; then say to yourself — say it early, say it often — Fail me not, Thou.

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II. What Your Hand Finds To Do.

THE girl just from school and standing on the threshold of womanhood with life stretching out before her is apt, in her ambition, to pass by the duty nearest to her and look far afield for her life work. Jennie June says, "Distance lends enchantment to work, as to other things; and the girl who sits idly at home or has to face the problem of having no home to sit in, idly or otherwise, feels most of all the necessity of flying from her present surroundings and making a new departure elsewhere away from existing scenes and circumstances. The unwisdom of the step she will not consider. It presents itself to her as a necessity. She does not realize how much of the seemingly imperative nature of the case is born of desire for change."

I want just here to say a word to girls outside the large cities who think the career for which they so ardently long may be seized at a grasp within the boundaries of the town. There can be no fallacy more fatal than this. The city is no place to come, expecting to find employment, unless one has friends who can use influence in her behalf, and befriend her when she comes, friendless and strange, into the midst of a new life.

Workers are plenty in the cities. To find this out one has only to go into the office of some merchant who has advertised for extra help. If fifty are wanted, five hundred will come. Four hundred and fifty have to be disappointed, of course. All these applicants are from the city or its near suburbs, and with all this army to choose from, what chance does the girl stand who is unused to city ways?

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I have heard country girls talk of coming to the city for employment, giving as one reason that they wanted more social life. They will not get it, for the woman of business is not the woman of leisure and she has no time for society. She will find more social life in her own home than she ever could have in the city, and there is no lonesomeness more absolute than the lonesomeness of the stranger in a crowd. Salaries are not large enough to permit much relaxation in the way of entertainment, and after an absorbing day's work, one is too worn out to go in search of enjoyment. In the country home in these days the daily paper and magazine keep one in touch with the world, even if it be far away from the bustle and confusion of city life. The fashion articles tell the girl how to dress her hair and make her gown and give her the latest notion in small toilet details. No town is so small that it has not its public library where the new books come, and the lecture and concert are not infrequent in visits. Railways and telegraphs have brought the corners of the earth together so that one is never very far away from the centre of things. There are plenty of occupations for the girls who stay at home if they will only seek for them.

I can see the impatient frown which will come upon many faces as this is read, but all that I say is absolutely true.

Of course, if a girl has a special talent in any one direction, if she feels it so borne in upon her that only in the exercise of this talent can she find happiness and reward, then by all means let her cultivate it. That is her duty. She has no right to neglect any God given heritage. But it is not to this girl that I am talking. She will find her way and make it if, besides her talent, she has perseverance and a belief in the possibility of her own success.

The girl I mean is the average girl; she who has no special predilection for any branch of work, but feels that she must do something. She is not content to be an idler, but as yet has no definite idea of the sort of worker she would like to be. And unless she has definite purpose, it will be worse than useless for her to under-take to do battle with the world and expect to be victor.

This girl should look about her, find the needs of the community in which she lives, and endeavor to fill one of these by her own work. Most of these needs are apt to be homely ones, but none of them unpleasant; they bring the girl into kindly, helpful contact with her neighbors, and she not only enjoys the social intercourse which she thus obtains, but in addition, she earns for herself an income sufficient to meet all her modest needs and possibly, leave something over for the little luxuries which every girl covets and which it is natural that she should desire.

A clever newspaper woman has made some very bright suggestions for this very class of girls. In every community there are mothers of children who are always needing patterns of little garments. These patterns are expensive and

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many a mother is compelled to hesitate before buying a pattern which costs twenty-five cents and which, perhaps, will be used but a single time. Let one of my girls come to the aid of these perplexed mothers. Begin by securing a number of large sheets of wrapping paper and a few simple patterns of children's clothing. Many of these you can borrow from obliging friends, or, if you are a clever girl and have made clothes for your own dolls, you may make the patterns for yourself. You will find that you can design more original, more artistic and more becoming things than you can buy, and you will thus have an opportunity of exercising whatever gifts you may have in this direction. Cut patterns of boys' short trousers; blouse waists and jackets; of girls' underclothing, dresses and aprons, and all sorts of dainty baby clothes. Then put a short advertisement in your local newspaper, stating that you are prepared to sell these home-made patterns, or to cut the garments themselves for ten cents each; and you will soon find many a silver dime coming in from this source as soon as mothers find out the convenience and economy of this arrangement.

Can you make a pretty bow? Twist the brim of a hat into all sorts of impossible shapes? Make the most impossible bonnet becoming to its wearer? Then you've got an income right at your fingers' ends. Become a home milliner. If you have a knack of doing this sort of thing all your friends know it and they will be glad to employ you, especially if with the knack you have originality in design and sufficient artistic taste to know what will suit each taste. I know a family of girls all but one of whom owns her inability even to tie a bow; they can do all sorts of other things, but a bit of ribbon is a poser to them all. The one exception, however, makes up for the lack of the others, and she can do anything with a piece of ribbon, a bit of lace and a bunch of posies. She makes all the family bonnets and so pretty are they that she is often begged by friends outside of the family to trim a hat or bonnet for them. At first she did this with only thanks for pay, but she found her time so taken up that she felt she could not afford it; so she began by telling her friends that while she was willing to give them the benefit of her artistic taste and her clever fingers, she must have some pay for her time. Now she makes enough money to at least buy her own materials and many coveted articles for her wardrobe.

The value of the home milliner to her patrons is, that she doesn't disdain to make use of the materials at hand. The professional milliner would disdain even to use them, to say nothing of suggesting any use for them. It is because the home milliner is willing to be economical, because she is interested and anxious to help out, that she becomes valuable to her patrons. In place of having them come to her, she goes to them; she looks over the contents of their boxes and sees the possibilities; she will steam and brush the matted velvet until its pile is restored and it looks almost as fresh as new. She knows how laces can be restored

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and how ribbons can be cleansed; she can curl straightened feathers and do all such little, but important things, and is interested to do it. She saves her patrons many a dollar and in this way proves herself invaluable.

The girl who can cook well can easily form a cooking class among her friends, or even among older women, which shall meet once a week in the kitchens of the different members; have a course of six or twelve lectures, comprising the making and baking of bread, muffins, rolls, the preparation of soups, salads, oysters, and above all, the making of rechauffes, as the French call the delicious dishes made from the left overs of some meal, which American housekeepers are likely to throw away or to waste by not understanding the appetizing way of preparing them. The teacher may, if she likes, add a supplementary course which shall include elaborate desserts, fancy ices, and many of the decorative dishes which all women like to know how to prepare and which they take great pride in using on special company occasions. In making the price of your course of lessons, you will have to take into consideration the cost of materials which you use, as well as the value of your time. If your class numbers eight or more you can well afford to give the lessons at $2.00 a course for the simpler dishes, and at $3.00 for the more elaborate ones. This is assuming that you have twelve lessons in the course. If you wish, you may at the conclusion of each course, give an exhibition and food sale, which will add to your profit and increase the interest of your pupils.

I don't know whether the girl in the country is still taught to do up fine laces and muslins as a part of a gentlewoman's accomplishment, but if she is, many a girl can make a good income by washing fine laces, muslin embroideries, as well as flannel and bed blankets. If you were near a large town yon would be almost overwhelmed with work of this kind, particularly during the spring and autumn months during house-cleaning time, for every housekeeper is unhappy in sending these things to the laundry or trusting them to the tender mercies of the washerwoman.

Delicate home-made candies are always in demand. Children are fond of sweets, and doctors have decided that confectionery made from pure sugar is not harmful when taken in small quantities, and may be in certain cases really beneficial. The girl who can make these candies will find a ready sale for them in any community, but especially in one in which there are school girls or shop girls. She must take care to put them up daintily so as to make them attractive, and she can easily sell them for twenty-five cents for a half-pound box. During the holiday season she will find it profitable to solicit orders for special candies which may be used in decorating Christmas trees, in putting up in bags for Sunday-school festivals, or in dainty boxes as holiday gifts.

I know a young woman who paid her way through college by the preparation of meat for mince pies, and also by furnishing a specified number of pies for one

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of the college houses each week during the cold months. In summer she made fruit pies to take the place of the mince.

The girl who is fond of her needle may find occupation by making pretty things to sell for Christmas, birthday or wedding gifts. Hemstitched linen or lawn handkerchiefs with lace edges, embroidered doylies, tray cloths, centrepieces, and five o'clock tea cloths will always find buyers. By studying the fashion and the taste of the hour she will know what to add to her list of articles, which should always be perfectly fresh and quite up to date.

It is possible that in some small communities a girl could start a little business for herself by keeping for sale, or obtaining on order, things not usually found in a country store, but which all women Buy more or less according to their means: embroidery silks and linens, crochet threads, fine perfumeries and soap, the newest but not the most expensive materials for art needlework; standard qualities of stationery in the newest colors and designs; pins for the hair and the toilet; in fact, all the things coming under the head of "trifles," that are nevertheless absolutely necessary to the cultivated, refined woman, but which she is usually compelled to send to the city in order to obtain. This would not require a large capital; what is most needed is an intelligent perception of other women's wants, judgment in furnishing them, and quickness in filling orders. You would not need a large stock of articles; indeed, your success would largely lie in the fact that your small stock was choice and constantly replenished with the best novelties which the market could afford. This little business could be carried on in your own home so that it would not involve large expense, nor would it place you in the class of merchant. You would be a medium of supply between the shopper and the shop. A business like this would occasionally take you outside the limit of your own town and give you in the pleasantest possible way, as a business woman, that contact with the world which you so much desire.

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III. This One Thing I Do.

A YOUNG woman was unexpectedly left in a position where self-support became imperative. For a time she was bewildered. She could play the piano, she could paint, both somewhat better than well; she was a graceful letter writer, with a pleasing knack of expression which some of her friends took for talent. But she could make none of these accomplishments available. She could not obtain pupils enough to pay her either for her time or her trouble. The editors of magazines and newspapers did not find the peculiar charm about her work which her friends declared that she had. She was almost at her wits' end and was really beginning to think there was no place in the world for her, when she suddenly found her vocation.

And what do you think it was? Simply this: frying potatoes. Humble enough, wasn't it? And evidently unpromising, but a good deal came of it. She could fry potatoes in a special fashion, called "Saratoga chips," deliciously, and among her friends her fried potatoes were even more famous than her letters. One day it occurred to her to take orders for them and see what she could do. Her friends were glad enough to avail themselves of her willingness, to serve them, and she had very soon a small but paying business. Then her fame went out into the large city near by, and she

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supplied families there. The business increased so that she was obliged to take in an assistant, and she is now on the high road to prosperity, just because she could do one thing, though a very simple one, better than her neighbors.

In one of the large Western cities is a young woman who goes to eight different houses and writes letters. She is paid a dollar for each visit. To some of the houses she goes once a week, to others twice a week, and there are two houses where she goes a very day. She writes plainly, spells and punctuates correctly, and is past mistress in the art of letter writing. One has but to give her an idea of what is wanted and in a few moments a charming letter or note is written. In these busy days many women who have innumerable social duties to perform and are, besides, engaged in charitable or philanthropic work, require the services of a young woman who acts as private secretary. There is one requirement above all others that this young woman must meet. She must be a good letter writer. Girls, those of you who have talent in this direction, cultivate it, for you don't know of how much use and profit it may become to you.

A young girl who chanced to know a great deal about a certain country in Europe decided last winter that she would try at an entertainment given for a charitable purpose to tell her friends what she knew, and see how they enjoyed it. The experiment was a success; such a success that after a while she was asked to repeat it oftener than she could afford to, so she decided to ask a fee for her evening's talk, and she got it without any difficulty. Her profits during the season were enough to enable her to go to Europe and have a number of photographs of the country taken to be used in her lectures. There has already been a demand for her lectures for the coming season, and it has been great enough to justify her in doubling her fee, and even at that rate she already has many engagements — enough to make her feel that her success for the winter is assured. She is a pleasing girl, with an engaging manner and a sweet voice, and her lecture consists in reality of nothing more than a series of anecdotes agreeably told. She began the work as an experiment, and her success shows how unexpectedly a woman may find employment of an agreeable and profitable kind.

There is in Philadelphia a young woman who has found a way to help herself, and at the same time to be useful to other people. She offers her services to hunt houses, receiving for such service a commission from the real estate man in case of securing a tenant, from whom she also receives a small fee for looking after his interests and saving him much wear and tear of mind and body.

"Women make just as expert carvers as men," declared the head carver in a Chicago hotel, "when they will give their mind seriously to it. I know a woman in a restaurant in Paris who does nothing but carve, and for this she draws a salary equivalent to two thousand dollars a year. She is the swiftest, cleanest, most economical carver I have ever seen."

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A young woman in New Haven, Connecticut, makes a handsome income by hunting up Revolutionary ancestors for women who are anxious to become members of the Revolutionary and Colonial Societies, and who have not the patience to do this for themselves. She is an expert genealogist, and has assisted many families in tracing their pedigree.

Miss Clara Millard, an English woman, has the enviable reputation of having created a new work for women, and of demonstrating that by persistent effort the business may be made successful. She calls herself a book hunter, and whatever the volume is that may be needed to complete some portion of the library, she will find it, and she has shown marvelous aptitude and skill in tracing out rare volumes. In one instance she secured for a New York banker a copy of Browning's "Pauline," of which before her discovery only seven copies were known to be in existence. It is true that the work can by no possibility become one in which many may engage, for it requires some qualifications, such as acquaintance with literature and libraries, which cannot be picked up in a moment; but the fact that she has made her special business so successful is evidence that women do not need confine themselves to stereotyped methods of support, but can find business for themselves if they will have patience and persistence.

There is always a market for good work. People will pay for what they want. Fill a want, and you have a market. The story is told of a fanner's wife who wanted to give her daughter unusual musical advantages, but times were hard and money scarce. She said to her daughter, "There's no one in this part of the country who can make sausage like mine; I wish I could sell some and get money to pay for your music lessons." Now, this girl was so earnest in her desire to study music that she said; "If you will make the sausage I will try to sell it." They put the sausage in little pound packages; the girl took it to town and sold it. People who once tasted that sausage were always anxious to buy it again. Today the name of that farm on a package would sell almost anything, As a special recommendation for her sausage the mother proudly shows a letter from her daughter, written in Boston, where the girl is now studying music at the Conservatory. It reads like this: "Dear Mother — I am living on the sale of your sausage, but oh, how I wish I could have one nice little sausage to eat!"

There is a woman in a New England city who has raised and educated a family by making doughnuts. She makes them fresh every day, and she sells wagon-loads of them. Everybody in the city wants Mrs. Hoffman's doughnuts, because they are the best that are made.

Not one of these girls or women would have accomplished anything in life if they had sat waiting until the time came when they could do the thing they wanted to do. They were wise enough to see opportunity and to realize that it comes oftenest in the humblest, quietest and most unexpected manner. Perhaps

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that is the reason why so many fail to recognize it. They are looking for something so much larger, more imposing, and more exacting, that they are apt to scorn the thing that presents itself in a perfectly natural and rather matter-of-fact fashion.

If, instead of sighing for the thing beyond reach, our girls would cheerfully take up the task lying nearest their hands, they would find success crowning present endeavor, and a possible way opening to the larger thing beyond. It is quite true that larger and more important duties are never offered until one has shown her fitness to do the smaller ones which lie close at hand.

Nearly every person in the world excels in some one thing; it may be the very humblest; but whatever it is, she may find some way of making it profitable. Supposing the woman who could fry potatoes had refused to recognize this industry as one which she might make a means of support because it wasn't genteel or artistic, or something else equally nonsensical, wouldn't you have called her an exceedingly stupid and foolish person? Take care that in slighting some homely, but useful occupation in which you may be of service to others and bring remuneration to yourself, you do not write yourself down as one of the stupid and foolish ones of the world.

"My pride would not let me," says some silly girl, when a friend ventures to suggest that she shall enter upon some avocation which does not seem to her desirable. "It is all very well to do this in one's family, or for one's self, but for money and for other people, I should die of mortification at the very thought."

Yet possibly that very thing is the only thing which that girl can do well. It is her only point of excellence. Instead of being too proud to make this a means of money making, she should be proud that she excels even in this. Girls, and particularly young ones, have very mistaken ideas oftentimes of what genuine womanly pride indicates. Instead of revolting at any labor which makes her independent of another, it should revolt at the idea of dependence. Any laboror any task undertaken with the true womanly spirit does not degrade the worker; on the contrary, it is the worker who lifts the labor up to her own level. So long as a woman keeps her self-respect, and the respect of those about her, labor cannot humiliate her.

Of course we all recognize the fact that certain avocations are pleasanter and more agreeable than others, but not every one has aptitude or opportunity to enter these vocations; so to the girl who has her way to make, and to whose knock the gates opening into the broader world refuse to open, I would say, study your attainment, find out the one thing you can do and do well; then do it; not secretly, as if ashamed, for then you will never succeed; but with honest endeavor and womanly purpose, letting the world about you know of your intention so that it

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may come to your help, and when you have made success and have shown yourself ready for the wider duty — if then you still desire it — you may be sure that the duty will present itself. You have served your apprenticeship, have proven your faithfulness and ability, and you will be let beyond the limitations by which you have been held, to meet the larger opportunity because you have proven your ability to grasp and to hold it.

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IV. The Spiritual Side.

NO WOMAN can really win in the world's thickening battle who is not, first of all, obedient to the decalogue of natural law, "written in our members." There is no mistaking its utterances as they sound from the ever-radiant Sinai of physiology and hygiene.

1. Let the dress be such as will impose no ligature upon any part of the body, nor in anywise restrict the freedom, naturalness and perfect equilibrium of all its members. Let it be equally distributed over the entire figure, without excrescences or furbelows, and carefully adapted to the season.

2. Let the functions of digestion be normally preserved by the use of the simplest foods, into which enter the elements of nutrition suited to the season, and by a careful, physiological study of the conditions of their healthful maintenance.

3. Let the only drink be water, hot or cold, and milk. Never drink at meals, and never drink ice-water at all.

4. Let the sponge-bath be a daily means of grace.

5. Let God's pure, fresh air have full access to your room, especially at night.

6. Let exercise in the open air be your daily habit, and cultivate athletic sports.

7. Let brain work be dispensed with after tea, and insist on eight hours' sleep in twenty-four.

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8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep if holy. In the six days thou shalt labor, but in them do all thy work. If the Sabbath is necessarily a day of brain work — as to public speakers, Christian workers, etc. — take one day in seven for rest or recreation, as the surest means to a useful life and hale old age.

9. Give your soul up to faith. Believe in God, in immortality, in human brotherhood, in the sure triumph of everything pure and good.

10. Habituate yourself to prayer. Let it be the pulse of your whole life; so natural to you that your spirit turns to the Star of Bethlehem as steadily as turns the needle to the polar star.

I am not gifted in divination and will not attempt to cast your horoscope, brave girls of the new America, but I do not fear to predict an absolutely happy, a most winning, and a thoroughly successful life to whomsoever will obey these ten commandments. To write of them severally is not my purpose. But to lay down some simple rules relative to the daily conduct of life, is a part of my scheme in talking to you of "How to Win." For we must build our strong foundations on the solid bed rock of natural law. Though our foreheads are lifted toward the sky, our feet are firmly planted on the earth. This body is, in a sense, the universe to us. We get no light save that which comes through this strange skylight of the brain. The "man wonderful" lives in a. "house beautiful," and it is all in all to him. It was meant to be his perfect instrument and not his prison. Perfect obedience to its laws would make him the true microcosm — the mirror of the universe — nay, of its Creator. The blessed word "health" once literally meant "hollness," and that means simply "wholeness." This body of ours was meant to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, but enemies have taken possession of it and dimmed or well nigh extinguished the shekinah. A sound mind cannot exist except in a sound body. The Saxons had a saying that "every man has lain on his own trencher," and it is not only true that "the man who drinks beer thinks beer," but " he who eats swine thinks swine," bristles and all. Good old Dr. Peter Akers — of the Peter Cartwright school of preachers, a saint still lingering with us, I believe — says he would like to offer as a fitting oblation to the devil, "a hog stuffed with tobacco in an alcohol gravy." For my own part I have formed a settled conviction that the world is fed too much. Pastries, cakes, hot bread, rich gravies, pickles, pepper-sauces, salads, tea and coffee are discarded from my bill of fare, and I firmly believe they will be from the recipes of the twentieth century. Entire wheat flour bread, vegetables, fruit, fowl, fish, with a little beef and mutton, and water as the chief drink, will distill, in the alembic of the digestive organs, into pure, rich, feverless blood, electric, but steady nerves, and brains whose chief delight will be to think God's thoughts after Him.

May the high thinking that consorts best with plain living be a well-known "way to win" among the maidens of America.

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Again, without beauty it is impossible to win. The plain-faced girl who has a pretty sister commands my inmost sympathy; for just there I have been, and in a soul most sensitive and timid have hidden away the pathos of that evermore difficult and unspoken situation. To have beside you, nearer than any other human being, a sister fair and winsome, whose ribbons always "match," whose hair takes kindly to the latest style, whose gloves invariably fit, and whose bonnet cannot be unbecoming; to know yourself for a creature awkward and unadorned, upon whom this gracious, loving comrade at your side vainly expends all the skill of fingers deft and delicate — this is not what a girl's heart would choose. But the "ripe, round, mellow years" have given me glimpses of that open secret, most ineffable and blessed, "How to be Beautiful." It is not in paints and powders, not in ruffles, ribbons, or false ringlets, and not in the use of any soap, or "Balm of a Thousand Flowers." For one learns, after a while, that this face and form we wear about are but a mask, a thin, almost transparent veil, through which the spirit looks, coyly at first, but later on, with calm and steady gaze. Every seven years the veil must be renewed; with time come wrinkles, where the soul breaks through, and our whole history is written in them for those who have learned to read. What is behind this changeful face, moulding and making it forever new? It is one's own true self. Nay, more, the face itself is as clay in the hands of the potter to the spirit that lies back of it.

There are scientists who teach that it is possible to modify the outline of an eyebrow, the bulge of a forehead, the protuberances of a cranium, by the slow processes of an education which shall develop memory at the expense of perception, or conventionality at the expense of reason. For myself, I believe the day is not distant when the schools shall teach these principles, and in that day the physical basis of character, the expression given by outward form to inward grace or gracelessness, how to overcome the one and cultivate the other, shall replace much of what the schoolmen of our time are serving up under the name of "Knowledge."

Perfect unity with God's laws written in our members, obedience to the decalogue of natural law, and the ritual of this body which was meant to be the temple of the Holy Ghost, would have made us all beautiful to Start with; would have endowed us by inheritance with the fascinating graces of Hebe and Apollo. But generations of pinched waists and feet, of the cerebellum overheated by its wad of hair, the vital organs cramped, the free step impeded, and the gracious human form bandaged and dwarfed, all these exact from every new-born child the penalty of law inexorable, law outraged and trampled under foot through long and painful years.

The desire to be beautiful is instinctive, because we were all meant to be so, and may all claim our heritage upon this spiritual plane, even though so ruthlessly defrauded of it, on the material plane, by the ignorant excesses of our

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ancestors and the follies of our own untaught years. But while I would beg American girls to make a special study of the sacred laws of health, I would still more urgently impress the importance of the spiritual law of beauty upon their sensitive young hearts.

Aside from all that I have said about the insanity of fashion, about hygiene, and outward adorning, about the possibility of modifying both "bumps" and features, let me emphasize the highest method of acquiring that beauty which is the result of one's own inner life. Behind everything there is a thought. As a man thinketh so is he. Expression is the loftiest and the final charm in every human face. While it is right, indeed a heavenly intuition, to desire beauty, and while attention to the laws of hygiene, good taste and good behavior mightily conduce to it, heavenly thoughts are the only sure recipe for a countenance of heavenly expression. St. Cecilia heard the music of the upper courts, and hence her face mirrors its ethereal loveliness. It is not only true that prayer will cause a man to cease from sinning, even as sin will cause a man to cease from prayer; but it is also true that no heart can be lifted up toward God, as a lily lifts its chalice to the sun, without the face beaming with a light which never shone on sea or shore, but which reflects the shekinah of the upper sanctuary. The ever welcome, ugly face of a beautiful soul is vastly more endearing and endeared to wistful human eyes than the classic brow of Eugenie, the sparkling eyes of Patti, or the statuesque pose of Mary Anderson. Their beauty is on the material plane, and evanescent, but this is on the spiritual plane, and beauty of expression shall endure and grow forever if we but keep on thinking thoughts of peace, purity and tenderness.

Be true to the dream of your youth. Hold fast to the highest ideals that flash upon your vision in hours of exaltation. But no guest can ever keep you company, so rare and radiant as the Holy Ghost (miscalled a "Ghost" in theological nomenclature), and He comes to us as the present Christ, the only antecedent of a present Heaven.

None but the beautiful can win, since beauty is the normal condition of us all, and whatever is abnormal is in so far a failure. But let us not forget that while this law of physical beauty holds in full force, its application is no less exact when we emerge upon the broader consideration of our theme. For there are so many kinds of beauty after which one may strive that we are bewildered by the bare attempt to number them. There is beauty of manner, of utterance, of achievement, of reputation, of character, any one of which outweighs beauty of person, even in the scales of society, to say nothing of celestial values.

Cultivate most the kind that lasts longest. The beautiful face with nothing back of it lacks the "staying qualities" that are necessary to those who would be winners in the race of life. It is not the first mile-post, but the last, that tells the

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story; not the outward bound steed, but the one on the "home stretch," that we note as victor. The loom of life turns out many different fabrics. Is the beauty that you seek the gossamer of a day or the royal purple of a century? Beauty of manner, tender considerateness, reverence and equipoise, will make it impossible for you ever to be desolate, and will insure your always being loved. No physical defect, however irremediable, bars you from this choicest of all exterior attractions. Beauty of utterance has a fadeless charm; opens all hearts whose key it is worth while to wish for; and makes those once obscure, the favorites of fortune, the heroes of society, the peers of kings.

Beauty of reputation is a mantle of spotless ermine in which if you are but enwrapped you shall receive the homage of those about you, as real, as ready and as spontaneous as any ever paid to personal beauty in its most entrancing hour. Some sort of reputation you must have, whether you will or no. In school, in church, at home, at work, or in society, you carry ever with you the wings of a good or the ball and chain of a bad reputation. Resolve to make it beautiful, clear, shining, gracious. This is within your power, though the color of your eyes and hair is not. But reputation, after all, is but the shadow cast by character; and beauty, in this best and highest sense, commands all forces worth the having, in all worlds. Every form of attractiveness confesses the primacy of this.

Beauty of character includes every good of which a human heart can know, and makes the women who possesses it a princess in Israel, whose home is everybody's heart, and whose heaven is everywhere. The dullest eyes may reflect this beauty; the palest cheek bloom with it; the most unclassic lips may be enwreathed with its smile of ineffable good-will and heavenly joy. For beauty of character comes only from loving obedience to every known law of God in nature and in grace. Lovingly to learn and dutifully to obey these laws of our beneficent Father is to live. Anything less is but to vegetate.

Dear younger sisters, "let us keep our Heavenly Father in the midst," let us be beautiful, for we were meant to be; let us not only desire but determine to be winners, but most of all let us remember that "the King's daughter must be all glorious within."

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V. Preserve Making And Pickling.

WHAT can I do to earn money? Where is my chance?" There is scarcely a day passes that one does not come face to face with this question asked by a woman. It is not always the young woman with health and strength at her command who asks this the most earnestly. There is always enough for her who is young and unburdened to do. Avenue after avenue opens to her imperious knock, and her summons to be let in to the mysteries beyond is hardly ever denied her.

The most that one can do for the girl is what this book is trying to accomplish; you can see that she is set in the right way — the way that is best for her — and that she has the right ideas regarding the work she is going to take, and her own attitude toward the world while she does it. Usually unencumbered and having only herself to care for, she is comparatively independent and may go wherever the way opens.

But when the necessity of bread-winning comes, as it so often does, to the woman who has a family of her own, or some relative depending upon her who is bound to some locality by ties that she cannot break, thus having opportunity circumscribed, the outlook is sad indeed; and who shall wonder if at times it seems utterly hopeless? What can such a woman do? It is quite evident that she must do pretty much what she can with all her limitations, regardless of her own desires or her own tastes. Money earning with her is not a pastime in which she indulges simply to add some luxuries to the comforts she already possesses; it is a stern and inexorable necessity before which everything else goes down utterly.

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She cannot go out into the world to do her work, for duty holds her where she is, and there she must stay. Consequently her choice of occupation is circumscribed; she can only do what comes to her to be done.

The suggestion made to her in this chapter is embodied in the personal experience of one woman. Many may draw counsel and help from the story. But I want to say just this, first: look over your stock of accomplishment and see what you can do best, and try to turn that to your advantage; see if you cannot make it pay you something.

You will take notice that I say accomplishment and not accomplishments. This means literally the something that you have done and done well, no matter how small or humble it may be, not the showy veneer that passes current under the name of "the accomplishments." No; the literal definition of the word must be insisted upon in this case.

The great trouble underlying the whole system of wage earning is that, as a rule, many girls, as well as women, are not willing to do what they can. Their ambitions have a fashion of outrunning their abilities, and then follows a series of mortifying failures, that make the workers feel that they are not appreciated, and they grow bitter and discouraged and complain that they are not well treated and that the hand of the world is raised persistently against them. This is nonsense. There is something they can do in the line of useful art and you know it is quite impossible that the whole world shall be purely decorative, or even the entire feminine half of it. It is better to set a patch nicely than to paint a china cup badly, or to make a good loaf of bread than to do inartistic "art needlework."

This especial story is for the young woman who lives in the country, and who has an opportunity to get berries and small fruits; perhaps lives on a farm where they are raised, or may be with work and care. The woman in the story lives on a pretty little home farm of a few acres, just outside the busy city of Pawtucket in Rhode Island and not far from the still busier city of Providence. She had been a bookkeeper in one of the Pawtucket mills at a large salary and had married and settled down on the home farm. Accustomed as she was to a busy life, and, above all, to being the mistress of a pocketbook of her own, she soon found herself missing both and wishing she had something to do. Like another woman whose story will be told by and by, she found her vocation quite by accident.

Her mother had been a notable New England housewife, whose cooking, and, above all, whose pickle and preserve making were famous in the neighborhood. Her daughter had inherited this peculiar ability and was as proud of her store closet as her mother before her had been of hers. It happened one autumn day as she was making a special kind of pickle which was liked by all her friends who had the good fortune to taste it, one of her neighbors ran in for an informal

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call. The new-comer commented on the pickles, bewailing her own ill luck in making them, and ended by saying how she did wish it was possible for her to obtain some. It was at this instant the money making idea came into Mrs. Thornton's head.

"I will make some for you," she said.

"You!" replied her friend.

"Yes; why not? You want pickles, I want occupation."

And so the thing was settled, and so soon as others heard that she was willing to undertake the work they came to her with orders, and she found plenty of pickling to do. Then came requests for catsups, sauces and relishes, and she filled these orders.

Her neighborhood success set her to thinking seriously, and during the winter she laid further plans. She interviewed friends in Providence and took personal orders for jellies, preserves, pickles, and things of alike nature, and she made arrangements with the Woman's Exchange to send her any orders they might get, and also to take what she might have to spare on sale at their rooms. As soon as the spring opened she began her work; she looked after her strawberry beds and her raspberry and blackberry vines; she was careful to see that her fruit trees were in condition; she personally tended her cucumber vines and tomato plants. Her garden had come to mean something more than merely an appendage for family comfort, it was to be the basis of supplies for the new business.

All summer she worked; as the fruit ripened she "put it up." The strawberries, most frail and delicate of all fruits, she picked herself, allowing no other hands to touch them, hulling as she picked, so they need be handled but the once, and taking care that they should not be crushed. She also picked her own raspberries; she says, and truly, that much handling spoils the flavor of the fruit and that it injures both the taste and the appearance of the preserve. Currants she allowed others to pick for her, and so with the hardier fruit which would not be harmed by the handling. She used the greatest care in making her jellies and preserves, and the results were most satisfactory. From the time the first fruit ripened until the last pickles were made in the autumn she was constantly employed. It proved, too, to be a remunerative employment. The second year her business almost doubled and now she has all she can do. She might enlarge it, but she doesn't care to undertake to do more than she can do herself, as she fears that if any one undertook it with her the results would be less satisfactory than they are at present. Like a sensible woman, she concludes that enough is as good as more, and she makes sufficient money during the busy months to last her all the year through, to let her do what she likes in the way of improvement of her place, of journeying about in her leisure season, and of being able to help others who have not been so fortunate. She has a room fitted up in the cellar of her house well

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lighted and cool opening out on to the garden, and here she does her work. The boiling of syrup and jelly is done over an oil stove because she can get a perfectly steady heat from beginning to end of the process in that way, and such absolute evenness of temperature is not possible even with the steadiest coal fire.

There is many a woman living in the country who, although not the owner of a farm, has a "garden spot" which she might devote to the growth of small fruits and turn these into money by making preserves and jellies that will find a ready market at good prices. Of course not every one who lives in the country, even, can do this. One must have patience and the natural aptitude for cooking, to be successful in this business. It never follows that any one can do a thing well simply by wishing to do it, but there are enough who can do just this thing well to make it worth their trying. It is not very difficult to find customers; the women who are never successful in putting up fruit will gladly avail themselves of the skill of those who are. Nearly every one has friends in town or city who will be glad of the genuine country fruit well prepared, the fruit fresh, the sugar good, and with the whole care that makes the difference between the work well done with good results, or carelessly done with indifferent results. Then, too, the business does not last all the year through and there is well-earned leisure for study and other work. It is absorbing while it does last and it takes the time in the summer, the pleasant part of the year, when one feels the least like exertion. But one is willing to work to reap such results. It is a good plan if one lives near a large town to make an arrangement with some store to keep the goods on sale, if one has more than enough to fill private orders. People in cities buy preserves and canned fruit in quantities from the stores; would they not prefer, if they knew it was obtainable, the carefully prepared home preserve rather than that prepared in bulk at some factory and put up wholesale in haphazard fashion? Of course they would.

The girl who undertakes this must not be afraid of small beginnings. One girl started out with an order for one dozen glasses of quince jelly. This was followed by an order for half a dozen bottles of tomato pickle. That was the whole of her first year's work. But the two friends who were her first patrons took special pains, when jellies and pickles were served, to mention the name of the maker, and in a casual way, remarked that she was ready to take orders for other sweetmeats. Not a person who was recommended to her failed to respond with an order for the next season, and how she makes yearly a sufficient income to pay her way through the art school where she is a pupil during the winter. She sometimes wonders which will pay better in the end, making pictures or preserves.

If any girl who reads this is impelled to undertake such work for herself, there are some things which she must not fail to remember. It is better to attempt

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small quantities even after she has become an expert, since if by any accident her preserve should be spoiled or fall short of the mark so that she would not wish to deliver it to the customer, the loss to her would be small.

"Do you never fail?" asked a curious visitor of Mrs. Thornton one day. "Sometimes I do, for success is never certain, especially in jelly making. I would rather do a thing several times and have it right every time than to make a failure with a large quantity of fruit and sugar, trying to do more than I can manage."

Buy only the best of sugar, see that your fruit is fresh, keep your patience and don't hurry, and be satisfied if your beginnings are small. When your reputation is once made, you will find you will have all you can do.

Here is a practical way in which money can be earned, and that it is a possible way is shown by the fact that many women are already making a living by it. It is a pleasant way, a quiet way, and certainly a sheltered way, since one need not go beyond the home walls to do it. Perhaps it is not the ideal career you have marked out for yourself, but if you want to become a world worker, you must learn the first lesson, which is, to do with a thankful heart and cheerful mien the work that the world brings you to do.

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VI. The Way It Happened.

VERY little while the newspapers chronicle the story of some woman who is engaged in an occupation so foreign to any heretofore undertaken by her sex that one wonders how she came to undertake it. When at last curiosity is satisfied it proves that the undertaking was the most natural thing in the world, and that in place of seeking the position which she occupies, it was, by some stress of circumstance, forced upon her. For instance, when one hears that Miss Clara M. Stimson, of Houlton, Maine, runs a saw-mill, she wonders whether it was the fascination of the occupation that induced her to venture into it, or what the reason is that she devotes herself to making boards, planks and shingles.

It comes to her as a natural heritage. Her father was a lumber manufacturer. When he died some years ago his daughter took up the business where he left off, and since then has handled it, along with other speculative operations, with such energy and rare good judgment that she is now reckoned with the solid manufacturers of Aroostook County. Her lumber and shingles have earned a reputation in the markets now, but the plucky little woman found many discouragements at first. When she went away a few years ago to sell the products of her mill, dealers seemed afraid of her; they couldn't understand the situation. The idea of a woman operating a shingle-making establishment inspired them with apprehension. But she had samples, and she knew how to talk plainly, directly and in an eminently business-like fashion. She said, "No, you don't know me and I don't know you, either; but you're buying shingles and I'm selling them. I back my shingles. I live in Houlton, Maine, but I haven't any

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references. I won't ask anybody for references, and I don't believe they amount to much, either. But my shingles are just what I say they are, and I warrant them to be soon the word of a woman with a desire to develop a business and make an honest dollar. Do you want to purchase?"

The dealer to whom she talked looked at her and said he believed he did. He bought, and has been a patron ever since. Her market now comes to her.

Occasionally she makes a trip to the big cities when prices don't suit her, and she never fails to stir the dealers up to an appreciation of the quality of her goods.

How do men like to work for the new woman? There are regularly five men around her for every job that she has to offer. She insists on capability and honesty, but she pays well, is punctiliously honorable, and if the man is compeent the situation is his as long as he behaves.

"Now, I couldn't make a living at dress making," she said to a visitor the other day. "I know that the hats I trimmed wouldn't have any sale, and as an artist, I should have to go without either butter or bread. But when we come to shingles and handling a crew of men, I claim, without egotism, I trust, that I know my business. If I didn't; I should have left the trade."

Miss Stimson pays her men on the fifteenth of each month, and makes special trips to Masardis, the town in which her mill is situated, for that purpose. Her

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order blanks are of her own design, not transferable, and a man receiving his money on them signs away all recourse for damages or injuries he may have suffered or claimed to suffer in the mill. Few business enterprises of Aroostook County are conducted more systematically than this mill, operated by a woman who, in spite of her continual active life among men as one of the business world, is yet very womanly. She can trade horses with any man in Houltou who is proud of his shrewdness, yet she can talk on books and chatter on womanly topics with, as much gusto as the matron of a household. Besides her various personal ventures, she is bookkeeper for the local beef concern, handling all their cash and business.

Towing rafts of saw-logs on the Mississippi is the unique occupation of an Iowa woman. She lives at Clinton, owns and operates the steamer "Robert Dodds," and does all the sawing for two big saw-mills. This woman is Mrs. Ida Moore Lachmund. She has been in the business for ten years, and is one of the best examples of what a woman with energy and pluck can do to make any calling a success if she only wills it. Mrs. Lachmund is an Eastern woman, well educated, and comes of the best Pennsylvania stock. She was born in Philadelphia, where she lived until her marriage. After her marriage she came West with her husband, whose business required him to spend much of his time on the river, and he became much interested in rafting steamers. Mrs. Lachmund many times accompanied her husband on the trips, and gradually became deeply fascinated with the work. She closely examined every detail of a trip down stream with a million-foot raft, and soon no man on board was more familiar with them than was this educated young woman of Ouakerdom. She has owned interests in half a dozen boats. Some of them went to the bottom, but the mistress of the "Dodds" knew as well how to raise them and put them on the ways as her captain. When the "Robert Dodds" was placed in the rafting trade, Mrs. Lachmund personally inspected hull, boiler and machinery. She, with the assistance of her officers, plans all repairs. She buys all her stores and fuels. She makes her own contracts with the mills and adjusts her losses and differences. In a cosy upper room of the Lachmund home in Clinton is her office. Much of her correspondence is dictated from here. On the down trip Mrs. Lachmund's custom is to leave the boat at some point near home and run in ahead on the railroad. In the interval between the arrival and departure, she gives any needed attention to her home, writes up her business and gets her orders for the next trip. Her friends say of her that she is an accomplished housewife and keeps one of the tidiest homes in Clinton. She has performed her whole part in morally training and educationally fitting her sons for as active lives as her own, and during the trips up stream she finds time to keep herself informed as to what is going on in the busy world in which she is a figure.

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Mrs. Annie Shanivan, of Tulare, Cal. claims to be the only woman engineer in the world, and is proud of the distinction. She has been running the engine for the planing mill at Mountain Home in Tulare County for over a year, and she likes the work, although a great deal of it is of the roughest kind. Mountain Home is a hamlet that exists more on account of the planing mill than for any other reason, and the people there are of the rough, sturdy sort. It is more than three years since Mrs. Shanivan and her husband arrived at Mountain Home. They were from the East, where the husband had charge of the motive power of a big flour mill, with a handsome salary. But his health broke down and so they went to Mountain Home, where he was to take charge of the engine in the planing mill. For a time his health improved in the grateful air of the California hills, but finally he had to give up and let his wife undertake the work. There was nothing else to do, for money was scarce and sickness expensive, and the woman has done the work satisfactorily ever since. She does everything about the engine, from shoveling the fuel under the boiler to making the repairs, and keeps everything in the best order.

Philadelphia enjoys the distinction of having a woman shoemaker. When asked how she happened to adopt a business that men have always monopolized hitherto, she said, "I never liked to have men either measure my feet for shoes or fit them on, and I concluded that there must be other women who felt the same way. I was convinced that all such would prefer to patronize one of their own sex, so I learned the trade and went into the business of shoemaking. I am glad I did, for I have made myself independent." This shoemaker is a most practical worker. She does the measuring, draws the diagrams and gives detailed instructions to the journeymen in her employ: She formerly did the cutting up of the leather and can do so still, if necessary. She began in a small way, but has prospered abundantly and now has an establishment that is patronized largely by women of the most exclusive social set.

Another Pennsylvania woman, Mrs. Pollock, of Pittston, mends shoes. Her husband was a cobbler and she frequently assisted him through a rush. When he died and she was left upon her own resources, she bravely picked up the last and awl, and continued in her husband's business. This new departure — a woman cobbler — created much consternation in the neighborhood, which resulted in a decided decrease in patronage. But Mrs. Pollock knew the way into a woman's heart and offered to mend shoes at a "bargain" rates. When she thus cut down the prices fixed by her husband the women ventured to try her. She turned out such good work and the orders were so promptly filled that she soon had a large trade. She now employs a man to assist her and earns from $20.00 to $25.00 a week.

Whether it is because Pennsylvania is more advanced than any other state or

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whether she boasts of the brightest women, the fact remains that she furnishes the majority of shining examples of what women do in new fields. For instance, in Bellefonte, Miss Catherine Humes Jones, a girl not yet out of her teens, has been regularly elected collector for the Edison Illuminating Company of that place. She won the position over the applications of half a dozen or more men, and although she succeeded her father, who had been, up to his death in June, the collector of the company for years, her selection was made purely from a business standpoint and on her own merits. The wisdom of the choice is exemplified in the fact that never before have the bills been collected so promptly; since Miss Jones has acted in that capacity there is not a dead bill on the list. In addition, she has succeeded in collecting several hundred dollars of old accounts, and effecting settlements that even the officials of the company were unable to make satisfactorily. The business of the company aggregates many hundred dollars a month, and in all her work this young girl collector has never made the mistake of a penny.

In addition to her collecting, she has taken the agency for a number of houses in Bellefonte, and in this way her monthly salary as collector is added to until her income is even greater than that received by the average clerk in any mercantile house.

An anthracite coal mine that is almost entirely operated by American female labor is the unusual spectacle that can be seen in the Mahanoy valley, several

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miles south of Shamokin, also in Pennsylvania. The owner and operator of this mine is Joseph Mans, and his four grown daughters and three younger girls assist him in operating the colliery in a manner that would make many mine owners and slate-pickers envious. In the opinion of their father, these women and girls are the best colliery employes in the anthracite region. As he says, they are prompt, willing and expert in the arduous duties assigned to them, and have never yet gone on a strike for either real or fancied grievances. Mr. Mans adds, that were it not for the valuable assistance his daughters have rendered him ever since they have been old enough to work, he would have been compelled to retire from the mining of coal many years ago, as he started in with a very limited cash capital, and consequently pay days were few and far between. The women mine workers are splendid specimens of womanhood, averaging six feet in height, straight as arrows, stronger than the average man, none of them knowing what it is to be sick, and each of them weighing in the neighborhood of two hundred pounds. They labor hard six days every week, but seem to be perfectly contented with their lot, as do also their younger sisters and brothers who assist in the colliery. These young women are expert farmers and, in addition to knowing how to run a coal mine, are perfectly at home performing the household duties that are indispensable to all well regulated homes.

A successful stationery store in Yonkers, N, Y., is run by the widow of the late proprietor. In the same city the widow of an undertaker carries on his business more successfully than he did. When he died a little oven two years ago, he was on the verge of bankruptcy; she took charge and has since then not only paid all that he owed, but put the business on a good basis and is making money.

There is a woman bridge tender in Chicago. Her husband tended the bridge until he died, when she was left without means of support. The appointment was secured by a charitable man for himself. He paid his own bond, then turned over the work, the salary and the fees to her. There has been no complaint about the way in which she performs her duties.

From Maine to San Francisco is a far cry; and yet, from each point comes the story of a woman who, on her husband's death, assumed his business and brought it to new success. The San Francisco woman is a bill-poster; the one in Maine is a stone-cutter. It is only fair to say that these women do not, any more than their husbands did, attend to the practical part, posting up bills and chipping stone with their own hands, but they have a crew of men, well trained laborers, who work for these women as they did for their husbands.

The wife of a physician in a country village found after his death that, when all the bills were collected and the funeral expenses paid, she had less than a hundred dollars between herself and absolute want. Her two young daughters

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were unable, on account of their youth, to assist her, and she knew of nothing to which she could turn for a livelihood. In the meantime there was the mourning to buy. She was only able to purchase the material for one best gown for each. To supply the others she dyed all the colored clothes black, using the packages of dye which could be bought at the store for ten cents. She had such success in this that all her friends commented upon the freshness and beauty of the dyed material. One neighbor said she had a faded cashmere which she would like to have colored, only it cost so much at the establishment. The woman astonished her by telling her that she had done them herself, and offered to dye the cashmere for her neighbor, if she would trust it to her, at a much less price than would be charged at the regular dye-house. The offer was accepted, and this gave the widow an idea. She acted upon it at once. She advertised in the home paper that she would dye garments at reasonable rates, and she also went from door to door soliciting patronage. What work she obtained she did so well that it brought her still more, and she soon acquired a good business. Now she is at the head of quite a little establishment, employing one assistant constantly, and more during her very busy times.

I wonder if in any of these cases the result was one of mere "happening." Was it not, rather, a direct leading into the way in which success would be found?

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VII. Professional Menders.

MISS JOSEPHINE JENKINS, one of the cleverest and brightest newspaper women in Boston, who comes through heritage to her recognized literary ability, since she is the niece of N. P. Willis and Fanny Fern, and granddaughter of the Rev. Mr. Willis who established the Youth's Companion, said not long ago in the Boston Herald:

"With all the wish in the world to earn money, girls let many ways of doing so escape their notice simply because they are lacking in practical application. Here, for instance, is one means by which an honest penny, if not an entire support, could be obtained: It is to become a visiting mender. And what does that signify? asks the impecunious seeker of fortune. What is the visiting mender? Nothing more or less than an angel with a thimble, and who is skillful with the needle, who goes from house to house to mend the family stockings, sew on buttons and repair whatever needs repairing in the week's wash. This is the visiting mender, and a much-needed individual in hundreds of households, where the mother would rather pay fifty cents for a quick morning's work than to waste her own precious time taking stitches. A regular seamstress is, perhaps, too expensive, but the visiting mender, deft of hand, comes within the possibility of the average household. Any girl who understands the art of darning and mending would soon find this sort of business paid. Such a vocation may be humble, for it does not demand a ‘higher education,’ but it is one to command respect, and would certainly be appreciated by many women whose own employments give them no chance to apply the stitch in time is that is believed to save nine. Young

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mothers who would like to keep up with the procession, but find the mending-basket an obstruction, and the gayer butterflies who have no taste for replacing missing buttons on their boots and gloves, are some of the people who would bless such a visitor as the professional mender."

Now Miss Jenkins knew what she was talking about; she knew it by experience, just as all women do, who lead busy lives and have to let some things go because they can't possibly attend to everything in the world. You and I both know that bright women may do a good deal, may, in fact, almost achieve the impossible, but there is, after all, a point at which even they must stop.

Another clever woman who is the art critic on one of the leading city dailies was looking over all her gowns to find one to put on; something was the matter with every one, and the situation finally resolved itself into the puzzle, which could be made ready to put on with the least outlay of time; as her despair deepened her feeling found expression in words:

"I would give a good slice out of my salary, and so would you," she said, "to find a woman who would come with scissors and thimble once a week and put us in order; who wouldn't ask a single question, but would go through closets and drawers and stocking-bags and shoe-bags and mend the hose and sew on the missing strings and buttons, replace the bit of frayed, braid, sew up the rip in the pocket, brush things, and make them all ready to put on. I have suggested this to half a dozen or more women who have come to me wanting something to do and such a sniff of contempt as I received! They all want to be companions or copyists or something genteel, until I'm so tired of their mock pretensions that I don't know what to do. They must have something to do; they appeal to my sympathy, and then when I take the time and show them the work that lies right at their hand they refuse to see it and make me feel as though I had insulted them by the mere suggestion."

Now here is a suggestion for a clever girl with quick fingers and common sense enough not to be ashamed to become a sort of common-place ministering angel to other women who need just such ministrations as she can give. This may mean absence from home for a few hours at a time, but so much may be done at one point that the other hours don't really count; the work may be a homely one, but it is extremely useful and is in the interest of economy. The stock in trade is a capacious work-basket with scissors, thimble, thread, silk and cotton tape, buttons of all kinds and sizes, and all the other little appliances that naturally belong to such an outfit. With this and an unlimited stock of patience, you may set your-self up as a professional mender, and if you manage properly you will soon have a large class of customers and plenty to do.

The occupation, rightly managed, need not be an unpleasant one; to one who loves her needle, it may be even delightful. The art of mending in our day is,

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much neglected, but it was one of which our grandmothers were very proud. Fine mending was a species of exquisite needlework and ranked with embroidery in nicety of detail. The old time gentlewoman could mend anything, from household linen to lace; she darned stockings until it was a delight to see the fine stitches, and she set a patch absolutely by the thread. Did the least bit of wear show itself in the table linen, it was taken in hand at once and darned to a new strength. Did body linen wear, a patch was set in so neatly that the garment never had the appearance of being an old one. To mend well was an accomplishment of which every woman was proud. The advent of the sewing machine, while it was undoubtedly a great saving of time to women, lessened the respect for hand sewing. Still a few old-fashioned people have always insisted that certain parts of sewing should be done by hand, so that some have kept up the practice. In the cities, the teaching of sewing in the public schools has made good needlewomen of the growing girls, and with the knowledge of the detail of the work has come a revival of respect for it that is one of the most hopeful signs of the times. The girls in the schools of all the large cities are taught to mend and repair as well as to make garments, and many of these young needlewomen may find way to a pleasant support through the medium of her shining implement of industry. The mending is recommended as something well worth thinking of.

It is annoying to a busy woman to have to stop to sew on the missing button and fasten the ripped braid when she is in great haste and her work of the utmost importance. It is aggravating beyond measure, when she is so tired after a hard day's mental labor that she can hardly hold up her head, when every nerve is quivering under the lash of stimulation, to make a long day with the needle in repairing something that must be made ready for the next day's wearing. There is a disinclination to manual exertion that becomes positive physical pain after a day that has been so wearing to brain and nerve. Oh, if the other woman could but be found to meet this woman's needs! And it is the help that should come in ways like this that one is so ready to pay for if she could only get it; that would make the real rest.

There are families who need such work done, as well as women. Many a tired, overworked mother dreads the sight of the weekly mending-basket and would be much relieved if she could get a few hours' help each week from somebody. You and I have heard many a woman say this, but she always ends by declaring she can find no one who will do it. She can get any number of dressmakers and seamstresses by the day, but she can't afford to pay day prices for the work that she wants. If she could only find somebody who would come to her by the hour and who would go away when her work was done and go willingly because some body else was waiting for her, it would be the greatest possible comfort in the world.

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And there are men who feel this need quite as much as the family mother and the woman worker; young men who live in boarding-houses and have no one to look after their clothing and make needed repairs; they would make a good and willing class of customers; it could be easily arranged that the work for this class could be taken to one's home and returned when it was finished.

One or two women have told me that they tried to do this work, but couldn't get it.

"How did you try?" I asked them.

"Oh, I put an advertisement in the paper, but nobody answered it."

Well, that isn't so very strange, after all; an advertisement of that sort gets easily lost to sight in the midst of all the wants in the daily papers. Personal endeavor is what is needed, and that was what won success for one or two girls of whom I would like to tell you. Last winter a bright young girl found herself wanting some new and expensive books. The family pocketbook was strained to its utmost to meet material needs, and there was nothing left for the "would likes" after the "must haves" had been secured; but did the girl give up her desire for her books? Not a bit of it; she wasn't that kind of a girl. She went to a friend of her mother's, a woman of large wealth, and asked to be allowed to do her fine mending. The friend to whom she applied knew her abilities in needlework and gladly gave her that for which she asked. "I consider it exceedingly kind of you, my dear," she said; "my maid cobbles my silk stockings until it is a disgrace to wear them." So all winter the girl kept at her labor, spending many a pleasant hour with the friend for whom she was working, and at the end of the season she found herself not only the owner of the coveted books, but with a tidy little sum in her pocketbook to meet the next need as it arose.

A young woman in New York who evidently took a sensible view of things, has a very good and paying business among the young business men of the city. Perhaps you would like to know just what she did to establish her business and how she did it. You know, in this world we all build our own endeavors upon the line of some one else's success. It is perfectly natural. Life is, after all, a sort of serious game of "Follow my leader," and what is already done or achieved, it is quite a matter of course that some one else will try. And now for the way in which the girl I have told you of went about her work. She had some cards printed with her name, address and business on them. These she took to the large stores and gave them herself to the clerks, at the same time explaining her project. She then said she would call at a stated time for any work they might be willing to give her. Of course it was an experiment, but she felt it was worth the trying. Her prices were small, from five to ten cents a pair for stockings according to the amount to be done; two cents apiece for sewing on buttons; and prices in proportion for other mending. She came for the bundle at the promised time and

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the very first day she had her large shopping bag much more than full, so that she had to have a separate parcel made. These she returned at the time she had agreed upon, and the next week her patronage had increased to such an extent that she was obliged to have the bundles sent by a messenger boy. Now she has a boy constantly employed to get and return the parcels, and has two assistant menders. What one girl has done, another may if she will only go to work in the right way and with the same spirit of determination.

"I know just what I want to do," a woman once said to me, after detailing a plan of work, "and I also know that there is somebody in the world who wants done just what I can do; now, why won't some person set us toward each other so we may meet?"

My dear girls, I dare say many of you are asking that same question. It is a hard one to answer, but personally I believe that the only "setting toward" is done by the worker, and it must be confessed that even with trying, the result may not come at once. But when once success has crowned effort, you may be said fairly to have won, for, when one gets the first chance, others are sure to follow. So, in beginning your work as professional mender, recognize the value of your first patron, but do not let endeavor cease because you have the first sign of success, for you will find that it requires quite as much endeavor to retain as it does to attain.

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VIII. Co-Operating For A Home.

I WONDER how these girls live?" was the thoughtless remark of a young woman, as she wandered through one of the large department stores of a busy city. Her careless words had been overheard by one of the girls behind the counter, and the hot blood surged to her face at this uncalled-for insult. "Quite as well as you do," she muttered under her breath, not daring to speak aloud lest she should be reported for impertinence. And yet there was no thought of unkindness in the first girl's careless utterance. But her own sheltered life had nothing in it to indicate the quality of life of the girls who occupied what seemed to her so public a position. It never occurred to her that in many, indeed in most, ways the other girl was cared for just as lovingly and carefully as she was, but that necessity compelled her to take her part in the actual bread-winning of the family; that while in the store she was the woman of business, occupied by the details of trade, yet in the home she was the bright, clever girl, the graceful hostess, the charming entertainer, with a social influence in her own little circle that was as strongly felt as was that of the young woman who had wondered about her as though she were a sort of curiosity.

This girl was one of many who have recently been trying the plan of making homes for themselves on the principle of cooperation. They have learned its value, and by combining forces, have made comfortable and pretty homes for themselves, where they are quite independent and live in a. most common sense fashion.

In most cases, one will have a mother, an aunt or an elder sister who is so situated that she can keep house for them and give her labor in return for the

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home and small stipend. Little households like this are constantly growing up in modest apartment houses in all the cities, and in the pretty cottages in the suburbs, and the girls constituting them are not merely contented, but supremely happy in having solved the question of how to have a home.

One girl, in describing the way she lives now and contrasting it with the dull, dreary life in a boarding-house, such a boarding house as her small salary would allow her to patronize, said, "If I only had bread to eat, it would taste sweeter under my own roof than the most elaborate dinner in a boarding house."

This girl voiced the opinion of all others who have tried both ways of living. Two people joining interests can live better for less expense to each than she would have when living alone, and when the two became three, four, or even five, the cost of each is proportionately smaller. Every woman likes a home, a place that she can call her own, that represents her individuality and her interests; that gives her opportunity for freedom and lets her down from a constant sacrifice to the conventionalities of life. She likes a place, be it ever so small, that she can fit to suit herself, that she can make a. reflection of her ingenuity, an exponent of her taste. She cannot get this place in a boarding-house, and she can only approximate it in lodgings; but in a home all her taste finds expression, and in her freedom she is happy. It is economy of money and nerves alike and both these need to be saved, the nerves, perhaps, more than the other, since, if the nerves fail, the money will fail too, for the worker cannot go on with the vital forces exhausted. And that is why the sensible working girls are becoming disciples of the doctrine of cooperation.

One may tell all day long how desirable this cooperative work is, but if places are not shown where it has succeeded it is but an idle tale. In one of the suburbs of Boston is a pleasant home where three sisters live together on the cooperative plan. There were four, but one married and went away a short time ago, leaving three to carry on the home. One of these girls is a magazine editor and a writer of fine capacity whose work is growing to be better appreciated every day; another is a teacher, and the third is a stenographer for a large manufacturing firm. The home which these girls make is nearly ideal in its prettiness and coziness. They are artistic in their tastes, and are accomplished; one is a tine pianist, all play better than well, and one of them paints and decorates. It is too great a temptation not to tell how they manage with their furniture. A chamber has to be fitted up. Now, girls who work can't afford to buy chamber sets, much as they would like to, and heavy furniture would be quite out of place in a little French roof semi detached cottage. The artist girl made an excursion to a furniture shop — not a warehouse, but a manufactory — and bought some pieces that had not passed through the painter's hands. Then she went to work on them and the result was delightful. The color is the soft blue of the summer sky

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just where the fleecy clouds are blowing across it, and each piece is decorated with field flowers in different designs; one shows a mass of wind-blown daisies, another has pink and white clovers with waving grasses, another shows the golden buttercups; no two are alike in design or arrangement, but the result is exquisite. Not all girls who cooperate can paint posies on their bedroom furniture, but that is no reason in the world why they may not buy the unpainted pieces as this girl did, and finish it in plain colors with the enamel paint, and so get furniture at very little expense. In this family the magazine girl is the housekeeper and she administers affairs very happily. If you were to eat her bread or partake of a dinner she had cooked you would never set her down as "a literary person," though why bad bread and good poetry should always be supposed to go together is an enigma that is not yet solved. It really doesn't, you know, and one makes a great mistake when he believes that a woman who can turn a graceful point to a newspaper paragraph can't make a salad or cook a steak. At any rate, this girl demonstrates every day that she can do all these things. She makes the homiest kind of a home for her sisters, and these girls, accomplished and bright, draw a very pleasant circle of friends about them.

"But," you say, "these are sisters and it is perfectly natural that they should make a family home, but what of the hundreds of girls who are alone, who have no sisters to work with them?"

Still it may be done. Find some congenial friend or friends who want a home as much as you do, and do the very thing these girls are doing. Here is a case: A young girl employed in one of the large stores was anxious to make a home. She and her mother had been left alone in the world, with nothing in their pockets, so both must work. They owned a small house, but they had nothing to keep it with, so they rented it; the mother took a position as housekeeper and the girl went into a store. Boarding was distasteful to her, for she had always been accustomed to the freedom of a home. She found other girls who had known what it meant to live in a home and who were drearily existing in the dull houses which they could afford to patronize.

One clay an idea struck the girl; there was the house, there was the mother; here was she, here were the other girls, homesick and lonely. Why not bring here, and there together, and make a result that should be pleasant and comfortable for all? She talked with the girls, they were delighted with the idea; she consulted with her mother and found that she, too, was longing for the home again. So the tenants were given notice, and as soon as possible the newly organized family took possession. That family exists today as harmonious and as happy as any you will find. The mother heart is open to take all the girls in and they go to her with their confidences and take her advice. They are pretty, bright girls, and great favorites. They have a church connection and that

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brings them into social contact with pleasant, helpful people. They belong to the King's Daughters; they have pretty much what the home girls have, and they work for it all. And in spite of the work, perhaps because of it, and the fine independence which it gives them, they have remained genuine gentlewomen through every stress of circumstance. They are not of the class which call themselves "salesladies;" they are too well educated, too well bred, and understand the use of language too thoroughly to permit themselves to commit such a solecism. But they are glad to be good saleswomen during business hours, and gentlewomen all the time.

Some years ago, two young girls went to Boston from a country town in Massachusetts. They were fair specimens of genuine New England girls, and both of them bore names that had been familiar in the old Bay State almost since its first settlement. They were well educated, both had been through the public schools of their native town, and had then taken a course at the Academy, from which they had been graduated with honors. They had been designed as teachers by their families, but unfortunately for the plans of these worthy people, they had neither inclination, or temperament for the vocation. Fortunately, they recognized this fact, and rather than invite failure in a profession for which they knew they were not suited, they packed their trunks, counted the money in their slender purses, and brimful of courage and hope, they turned their faces Bostonward.

They both found positions, one as a bookkeeper, the other as a saleswoman, in an establishment where she was virtually forewoman, each one earning about ten dollars a week. At first they boarded, but they soon tired of that; then they hired rooms, and took their meals at a restaurant; that was worse than the first plan. Finally one of them suggested housekeeping. They took a day off, and went house hunting. In a retired street in the old portion of Boston, they found just what they wanted — a tenement of four rooms with the added luxury of a bathroom, for this was before the era of apartment houses. They sent home for pieces of furniture and bedding that they knew could be spared; a relative hearing of the new determination gave them a carpet for parlor and bedroom, and they set to work furnishing; they had a kitchen which they used also for a dining room; it had an old fashioned rag carpet on the floor; the tiny range was bright as polish could make it. The table standing between the two windows was covered with a pretty cloth when it wasn't in use as a dining table; a bird in his gilt cage hung in the window, and plants blossomed on the window-sill. The parlor and bedroom were furnished simply, but prettily, the carpet was new and cheerful, an old fashioned sofa was recovered, and with big pillows made a most comfortable lounging place. There were comfortable rocking chairs, a table to hold the magazines and papers and books from the public library, for the girls kept up

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their habit of reading; the bedroom was jointly occupied by them, and they had still another room which they called their guest chamber.

The fun they had in housekeeping! It was no trouble to get up in the morning and get the simple breakfast. The baker left fresh rolls, the milkman left milk, and with the rolls, a nice cup of coffee and boiled eggs, or an omelet, or a chop, the breakfast was pronounced better than any they could get at a boarding house. After a while word came to them of another girl who under the strain of work had broken down nervously, and her eyes had failed her; she had no home, and want stared her in the face. The guest-chamber was set in order and she was invited to visit them in their new home. She came as guest and remained as a permanent member of the family. Her physical health was unimpaired; she was one of the girls who have a rare faculty for housekeeping, and she fitted into the place which was evidently intended for her. Restaurant lunches wrere given up, and in their place were the delightful home lunches, always made more delightful by some little surprise.

When the first year was over the girls took account of stock; apart from the money spent for furnishing, it had not cost them so much to live in this way as it had to board; they had lived better, had been in better health, had added many artistic things to the house, entertained many of their working girl friends at their home, and, above all, had wrested another girl from suffering and given her a home where she felt she was helpful and was needed — the best tonic she could have to restore her to health. And with all this, there was money over to deposit in the bank. They had not denied themselves some legitimate pleasures, either.

It was in the days of lectures, and there had always been three tickets for the lecture course, occasionally a theatre ticket when there was something exceptionally fine to be seen, and at least two evenings at the opera. To be sure, the seats for the latter were in the family circle, but that did not matter. Nobody enjoyed the music more than the three happy girls, to whom the occasion was a real treat, enjoyed the more because their own money procured it

I might go on citing instances, but these will do to show you how the home idea has developed among the girls who are wage earners; how quickly they adapt themselves to it, how fondly they cherish it.

The need of a home is a vital one to every woman. Especially is this true of the woman who works, and above all, of the young woman who, more than her elder sister, needs the shelter and protection of a home roof during a most trying and critical period of her life, when she first faces the world as a wage earner, and before she has learned its ways and found out its rough places. So I would have the girls who are taking their lives in their hands and going out to meet the world, have a home life that shall be so pleasant and restful that it will help make the other life more profitable and more pleasant. You may not be able to

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accomplish all you desire at the very first, but there is one thing you can do, and that is, to bring the home atmosphere into the humblest room. Make it as pretty as you can; put out your photographs and your books and your writing utensils. Whatever speaks to you of home, let it be in evidence.

But keep in mind that this room is only your beginning. As you come to know other girls — those whom you meet in the store or the office or the shop, or in church, you will be drawn to those who are the most congenial, and if they, like yourself, are far from the real home, you can unfold your plan to them and see what they think of a cooperative home. Select those who have tastes similar to your own, and, above all, only those with fixed, firm principles. You must exercise this care that your family life may be a happy and harmonious one.

There should be an elder one, who will take the position as head, and who will give propriety and dignity to the family. Find what your united income is, then settle yourself in accordance with it. You won't appreciate half how nice it is until your friends who are still existing in boarding houses, begin to visit you.

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IX. Books And Reading.

IT IS almost indispensable that the modern girl, in whatever position she finds herself, whether one of the world's workers or the girl of leisure, should give a portion of her time to reading. In this way only can she keep abreast of the time, sharing its best thoughts, understanding its important movements, and learning her own attitude toward the world and her duty toward it She must read her daily paper, selecting with the utmost care the one that she should read regularly, and choosing only the one of clean, pure tone, that makes little of the social sensations, gives small space to the chronicling of crime, but that deals with the living questions of the day, honestly and fearlessly, and stands for what is sweet and good and strong .in life. She must not omit her own weekly religious paper. These, with a good standard magazine that will be both entertaining and helpful and give her the best literary thought of the present time, and a few well chosen books, should constitute her mental bill of fare. She must remember that being a "great reader" is not, by any means, the same as being a "good reader."

The greater part of books that flood the market at the present tune is trash of the trashiest sort; and because one can devour such a vast amount of the stuff in an incredibly short space of time, she fancies that she is doing extraordinary things in the way of self culture and mental discipline. Quantity, not quality, seems to be the standard by which intellectual abilities are measured; as somebody whom I have seen counts every page that he reads, makes a record of it, then exhibits this record to his friends to show what a great reader he is.

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Thank goodness, girls, he isn't one of you, but after all, I fear he is not so very unlike some of you in certain points, either as you are now or as you have been at some period of your existence. For, though you don't count pages, many of you get through with almost as great an amount of nonsense, and then make an ostentatious parade over your extensive acquaintance with books and their authors; oftener than not, just the kind that it might be quite as well to refrain from acknowledging.

I heard a conversation between two school girls the other day that I cannot refrain from quoting, it was so very characteristic, and reminded me so forcibly of the manner in which, some years ago, the girls who are women now used to discuss their favorite authors and go into raptures over their productions. And I wondered if we who were girls then could have the opportunity of talking together in the old familiar way, how much our opinions would have changed, how much more elevated would be our standard of taste. We know from experience what a fashion girls have of admiring one another — their abilities and attainments — and that a school girl friendship is, after all, a sort of mutual admiration society, the first ideal worship that by and by finds other outlets, but in the meantime demanding an object on which to lavish itself, selects one girl from all the rest, who is for the time the Alpha and Omega of the worshiper's existence.

This was evidently the relation between these two girls; one the adorer, the other receiving the homage offered at her shrine quite as a matter of course and accepting it with an air of gracious condescension that was amusing to watch.

Number one rolls up her eyes in an ecstacy of admiration and rapturously exclaims: "Oh, Lillie! I never saw anybody like you — always with a book; you must have read everything. I wish I knew as much as you do."

Number two looks conscious, and modestly, But very faintly disclaims the universality of knowledge ascribed to her by her friend, and goes on to say, "But I do read a great deal. I'm a real book worm. I don't do anything else morning or night, and I always carry a book to the table with me, so as to lose no time. I get two books out of the library every day. I just dote on intellect; and my greatest ambition is to be called intellectual. Mother says she expects me to turn into a book some day."

Number one grew more rapturous and the eyes rolled more alarmingly. "Well, but if you don't turn into a book, you'll be sure to write — and that's the same thing — and wouldn't it be just perfectly elegant? I should think you'd try; I know you could write a story just as good as ‘The Stolen Bride,’ just splendid and real exciting."

There's where it comes, and there's where the mischief lies — "something real exciting." The constantly increasing demand for something unnatural and exaggerated, to which most modern novels pander to an alarming extent. I

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didn't bear any more of their conversation, but I had heard enough to change amusement into regret; and I was glad to find myself beyond the reach of their voices.

Do you think this is exaggerated? Not at all. I have quoted the conversation word for word as I heard it, and it has been food for serious thought ever since.

I remember once at school two or three girls and myself, fired by an ambition similar to that expressed by the young woman who wished to be literary, formed a club and passed an hour or two of our recreation time daily in reading. We did this quite without direction or advice from some one older and wiser, and we made a sad mistake. We fancied we were doing wonderful things, and gloried amazingly over our more frivolously disposed schoolmates, who sensibly preferred romping in the open air to romance in a stifled room. Had we remembered that discipline means strength, and gone to work accordingly, we would, no doubt, have obtained a modicum, at least, of the good sought.

But we forgot, of remembering, chose to ignore that important fact, and began a desultory course of reading that amused and excited, but did not strengthen any more than any stimulant which exhilarates for the time one is under its immediate influence, but whose after effects are weakness and prostration. And so, what was intended for a benefit became, through our thoughtlessness and our lack of wisdom, a source of serious ill whose after effects were long felt. We lived entirely in a realm of romance of the most unhealthy kind. Nothing pleased us unless it was sensational, or, as that phrase was little used by us then, "very exciting." We received distorted and unnatural views of life, and were in no way prepared for the reality of living, as we have since found living to be. The men and women we have met in our actual lives were not the people of our books; and there is a grandeur and strength in true living far beyond what we ever found in the ideal world of our romances. And what was true of us then is true of girls now. Indiscriminate reading enervates the mind and lowers the mental powers, although we do not see this until much mischief has been done; yet it may not be always too late to remedy the evil in a measure, at least, if we are interested enough in our own self-advancement to care to apply the remedy.

I scarcely know which time is to be the most decried — the time when novels and all light reading were strictly tabooed from all God fearing families, or these days when scarcely anything which is not a novel will be tolerated, when even our histories and books of travel must be tinged with romance and sprinkled with poetic dew to make them palatable to the modern taste.

Fault may justly be found with both conditions; but perhaps one is only the cause of the other. When once the strong, unyielding cords of puritanism were broken, there was a rebound to the farthest extreme of latitude, and we have not swung ourselves yet into our proper poise. Much as we find to condemn in the

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stern severity of the old time, it gave us strong, rugged men, and grandly enduring women; just the men and women needed to do the heroic work of the age in which they lived. There was too much hard reality in their lives for romance to have even the smallest part, and they would have scorned the sentimentalities of their successors. Not but that one likes a certain amount of grace and softness mingling with and tempering the strength, smoothing rough places, rounding sharp corners of character, and so making a life beautiful and gracious, as well as strong and enduring. But I fear we are tending too much toward the smoothness and ease, and leaving strength quite out of the question. We certainly can gain no mental discipline from the majority of the popular books of the day. There is no use saying "We read what is given us; if the books were not written we should not read them." It is a cowardly plea. There is no use in trying to put off one's shortcomings upon the shoulders of some one else. The fault is the reader's, and the reader's alone. One is not obliged to take arsenic or prussic acid because they are marketable articles; neither need one read undesirable books unless she chooses. Besides, your own argument may hold good against you. If you did not read the books they would not be written. Just so long as authors meet encouragement in any particular branch of writing, just so long they will continue in it; and just so long as you read trash, just so long somebody will write it.

But do not for a moment imagine, girls, that I advise you to give up all your light reading and devote yourselves expressly to solids. You must have a certain amount of literary recreation. I do not want you to steer from the Scylla of extreme silliness straight into the Charybdis of disagreeable pedantry. There must be a happy medium somewhere, and there is no reason why you should not find it.

Throw aside novels? No, indeed! Not while there is an edition of "The Waverlys" extant, giving you such insight into Scotch and English history as these wonderful books give. Not while Thackeray, sharp and clear as a keen north wind, shows you his views of life from his ever fresh pages; nor while Dickens, the inimitable, brings before you in their quaint reality the people who make up his world; nor while MacDonald, the man with the deepest sympathies and broadest humanities, reaching down deep into the hearts of men and setting them face to face with nature and nature's God, makes us better for his writing. Not while you have Jane Austen's sweet and simple stories, nor Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and Helen Hunt's "Ramona" — the gospels of two downtrodden races.

While you have these and others like them, which cannot be mentioned here for lack of space, you need fear no harm from novel reading. But when you get beyond, into the field of sensational literature, the harm begins. You can go on as you are, growing lower in the mental scale; or you can elevate your taste, and

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come out upon higher planes of living than you ever have known before, and it is your books that will help you; they are to be your educators. Look at what lies before you — poetry, essay, history, biography, science. Will you call history stupid when Motley and Prescott invest every word they write with a new interest and enchain you to their pages by their exquisite imagery and elegant diction? When John Fiske writes American history so that you feel glad and proud of the achievement of your forefathers, and are made to realize how the story of America, its achievement and development, is but a carrying on of the story of the world, the Christian world, which was begun almost twenty centuries ago?

Will you vote essay dull when you have Charles Lamb — dear, gentle, quizzical Charles Lamb — to take into your heart of hearts? Where no one else penetrates, he enters with his queer drollery that overlies the deepest pathos, drawing smiles and tears simultaneously from lips and eyes, just as sunshine and shower struggle for mastery on an April day.

There, too, is Macaulay, with his somewhat confident self-assertion, but no less fascinating style and keen discrimination now and then blunted by prejudice; our own American Whipple, Curtis and Higginson, names well known in the pages of literature.

You never liked biography? Then you know nothing about it. Take the lives of some of the men and women who have lived and labored for humanity, who have struggled and won, who have left names behind them that are beacon lights on the path of endeavor and achievement, and who have made the world better because they lived and worked and attained. See then, after you have finished reading of these rare souls, that you can say any longer, that you don't like biography.

Do you say you can't endure poetry? What! not while you have the grand, heroic songs of Homer, the deep grandeur of Dante, the sublime majesty of Milton, the subtle, sympathetic humanity of Shakespeare, together with the sweet singing of America's Longfellow, Whittier and Bryant?

I have left until the last the one book which comprehends for you the whole world of literature; in it you find history, essay, biography and poetry, all the highest and the best. I mean, the book that you must make your daily guide, your closest companion, your best beloved teacher; the book which must be "the guide to your feet and the lamp to your path — your Bible. Following its guidance and its light, you can never go for astray; it will be your helper and comforter through every stress of circumstance, pointing you the way to the broader life beyond. It gives you mental and spiritual strength. It feeds brain and heart, so if it chances that this book combines your entire library you will, if you peruse it properly and study it diligently; be both a great and a good reader.

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X. Guides, Shoppers And Chaperons.

THE women who came home from Europe about half a dozen years ago had a great deal to say on their return about the lady guides of London. In fact, they spoke of them with enthusiasm. It seems that some of the clever, educated, independent women of England, feeling the need of earning money, conceived the idea of forming an association of lady guides whose business it should be to show strangers, particularly ladies, about London and its suburbs, extending their duties to remoter points, even to the continent, if desired; although the field which they especially undertook to cover was the city itself. In connection with its guides it established a bureau of information for boarding and lodging houses, suitable for women who were traveling without men protectors. The idea proved a most happy one, and the women connected with it speedily had all they could do, and their office became one of the most popular points in the city of London, especially for women. In these days of telegraph and cable it takes an idea but a short time to travel, and so eager are women for the new employments that are open to them that they no sooner hear of any experiment in an industrial line than they go ahead and try it for themselves.

The work in London was reported in New York, when straightway it was taken up and an association formed which is called "The New York Ladies' Guide and Chaperon Bureau." With the establishment of this association, the time has passed when the unprotected woman may look forward to a visit to New York with trepidation. It has issued a circular which it is sending about, and a few quotations are given from it so that the girls who read may have some notion of the work. It is even more far reaching than the one in London, and has added

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quite a number of new features. The circular informs the public that their guides have a practical knowledge of the history of all important places of interest, and, being armed with the association's badge and credentials, receive a more cordial recognition than the mere stranger. From these advantages and from the varied experience among shops of all kinds, the benefit to be derived is self evident.

The chaperons, selected with the utmost care, place at the disposal of the young ladies whose mothers or guardians are unable to accompany them, the facilities so often required of going to the theatre or concert. Young ladies are escorted from and to their homes; and school children to and from school. Choice seats are furnished for all places of amusement, carriages are sent whenever desired, direction given to permanent or transient guests for the best hotels and boarding houses, rooms are engaged in advance, railway and steamboat tickets and berths are engaged, strangers coming to the city are met at the station if desired, and all arrangements made for their comfort during their stay.

The association also sends out home or foreign excursion parties of ladies under the care of experienced chaperons who attend to all ordinary and necessary details. The circular goes on to say: "The bureau can be used to great advantage by those living in the suburbs, expecting friends whom it is desired they should meet; by telephoning to the bureau a chaperon can be sent who will conduct the visitor from one station to another and save time and money for the patron without discourtesy to her friend. A new and important feature of our work is to provide lady experts to assist in or take full charge of the interior decoration of a house, furnishing it throughout, selecting books for libraries, etc. Elocutionists, pianists and singers supplied for entertainments. In short, there is no aid or service that one woman may be able or required to render or perform for another, that will not be cheerfully undertaken and the best efforts made to give satisfaction."

In order that the bureau might be really of service, the charges were made quite moderate, the following being the schedule adopted by the association:

Guides for shopping and sight seeing, according to competency, $3.00 , $3.50 and $4.00 a day.

Those who act as interpreters, 50 cents to$1.00 a day additional. Deductions are made for weekly engagements. Chaperonage to the theatre $1.00 . Chaperonage of children to and from school $2.50 a week.

Directing to boarding house 25 cents. Securing room and board 75 cents. Securing seats for the theatre for one or more 50 cents. Physicians and lawyers recommended 50 cents. Use of the room for changing toilet, meeting parties on business, etc. 50 cents.

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Typewriting 5 cents per folio.

Meeting ladies at station, accompanying young ladies and children, or any brief service, 40 cents an hour.

Shopping orders executed for 5 per cent on the amount purchased.

This circular is issued by an association, but the rules and the scope of work may give a hint to some young woman of what she herself may do. Great success has followed the innovation of the woman guide. It is the latest addition to the forces of a New York hotel. The services of this woman guide are daily in demand. Women of means, who have come to the city with their husbands to see the lions, have generally had a stupid time and have often gone home without the glimpse of even one lion. Business has kept the husband away all day and the lonely wife has spent her time looking out of the hotel window. Now she pays this young woman guide to show her all over the city. The business is a good one, if it is tiring. One guide said, "A tour of the picture galleries and other points of interest about the city, including a spin through the park with a description of the obelisk and the various statues and pictures in the Art Museum and on the drives, cost $5.00 ; while a day at the shops cost my patron $10.00 ." But women with money are willing to pay it.

Not every young woman can undertake the task of entertaining people — for this is practically what a guide must do. There are certain indispensable requisites. In the first place, one must be well educated, able to talk well, and understand all the history of places which she is to show. She must be well bred and courteous, possess kindliness and tact, and have some knowledge of human nature. Meeting many different kinds of people, as she must, she will need all these qualifications. In the large cities she must know what is going on at the various theatres and places of amusement, so as to know just where to take her party. She must know the picture galleries, keep the run of the art exhibitions, and know the best shops for bargains. All this a bright, quick woman may easily learn, and she may keep her knowledge at her tongue's end and her finger tips.

Having these requisites, with a fund of cheerfulness and good temper, and being sure that she is ready to meet any emergencies that may arise, she may start on her work. Of course, she must find a way to gain patronage. She would do well to make friends with the leading hotel people and the best of the shop keepers. She should have cards prepared, stating what she is ready to do, giving as references the name of her clergyman and one or two well known men or women whose names will carry weight with whoever may see them. She should leave these cards at the hotels and see personally every day that they are distributed to the newly arrived women guests. She should also insert an advertisement in the leading papers, not only of her own city, but in the papers of cities at a distance from her home. She should be at the various hotels at certain appointed

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hours every day to see if anyone needs her services. All this time friends are speaking for her, distributing her cards, and if she has any acquaintances in outlying cities, she asks them to recommend their friends to her care while in town.

In this way it will not take her long to work up a good business. It should not need to be said — but alas, the necessity does exist for saying it — a guide must take care to be well and quietly dressed. She must look and be the refined, gracious woman, who for the time is acting the part of hostess, and she must bear in mind that to be anything less than refined in her outward appearance would be an insult to her guest, or to the person who for the time occupies the position of guest. A dark cloth tailor made gown, with wrap and bonnet to suit, immaculate linen, nice gloves and boots — and your are ready. Wear a bonnet rather than a hat, for a bonnet is always ladylike, while there is an informality about a hat that is not appropriate to the occasion.

You can make your prices from the circular that I have quoted to you, varying them as it seems to you best, although this is a fair list. Of course it is understood that your patron pays your expenses, the car fores, lunches, carriage rates, etc. That is, she may allow you to do it, but you must keep the account and settle the expense at the end of each day.

If you are to meet a woman who is a stranger to you at one of the stations, you may wear the badge which has been adopted by the New York Woman Guides — a knot of blue and white ribbon on the left shoulder. She cannot then mistake you.

Although this chaperon system has been some time in vogue in London, it is comparatively new in New York, and there are many cities in which it does not exist at all. Consequently, this new field is anything but crowded, and there is room for ladylike, educated women who thoroughly understand themselves and the city in which they live. They must be able to see about hacks, plain baggage, find expressmen, and settle all the preliminaries of hotel or boarding house. In short, they are supposed to be able to do everything for the healthy stranger within the gates that a man could do, and much more besides. This gives you possibly a fair idea of what the duties of the guide and chaperon must be.

As these duties will not probably fill all your time, those of you who undertake them may add those of shopping on commission. In this friends living outside the city will be of great service to you. They may influence people to send to you, and thus enlarge your business constantly. When once you are well established, you will probably be able to make such terms with the leading mercantile houses as will induce them to give you a commission on sales in addition to the commission you receive from shoppers, and in this way you may make your income from both sides. You could not attempt such an arrangement in the beginning, for the houses would not enter into it until they found that your

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business was a valuable one and that it paid them to induce you to bring it to them.

You will understand that the successful shopper must be a person of taste, must know the very latest fashions as well as the most recent fads and notions; she must possess good judgment in selection, an artistic eye in matching, and understand the values of materials. I know one woman who makes a good income by shopping on commission and doing nothing else. She not only shops for out of town patrons, but she has a set of families in town whose principal purchases she makes. She goes every morning to their houses, receives her commissions, and goes out to fill them. In this case she is paid a certain salary instead of commission on her purchases, because she must report for duty every morning, whether there is anything to be done or not. Each family pays a small stated sum — $2.00 or $2.50 a week and car fares — and with several families, this serves to make a good income. She supports herself well and is educating a daughter at the best schools by her business as a family shopper.

While hardly coming under the head of chaperon, there will perhaps be no better place in which to refer to the scheme which one young woman has of earning an income. She is very fond of children and, in return, they are very fond of her. She has a fund of entertainment for the little ones, is a clever little story teller, knows all sorts of games, has all the nursery rhymes and children's songs at her tongue's end, and she goes out by the hour as children's entertainer. She is in demand for children's parties, and many mothers put the planning and entire carrying out of these little entertainments into her hand. She writes the invitations, orders the refreshments, lays out the games, and when the time comes, is on hand to assist the youngsters at their merrymaking. In the houses where she is an habitual visitor, no sort of a time is considered good by the children unless she is in it. She amuses the little convalescents, reading and singing to them and lulling them to sleep by her quiet, sweet ways. She advises mothers about the dressing of the little ones, for she has the most exquisite taste. In short, one of her patrons summed up her list of attainments by naming her "The mothers' universal helper." Only the girl who loves children can make a success in this special line, but every neighborhood must have at least one among its young women who can take a place among the mothers of the community in which she lives similar to the one held by the girl just mentioned.

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XI. A Chapter On Dressmaking.

IN ALMOST every town and village are young women and girls who are anxiously asking what they can do in their own community to earn a livelihood. The big outside world has no attraction for them. They want to keep in the shelter of the home which they love so well and which seems a part of their very life, or there is somebody in that home for whom they must be the homekeepers. Circumstance rather than desire or ambition must be the governing power of their lives. If you would know how large is this army of waiting women you should pass a day at any of the women's exchanges or industrial unions in the large cities and get the superintendent to tell you of the appeals that come daily from Maine to Oregon, from Wisconsin to Florida; and the burden of all the appeals is the same:

"Tell me what I can do at home to earn some money!"

I would like just here to tell you how the Boston Union came to be so besieged with applicants. The story will interest you and I am sure some will find a word of needed warning and advice in it. A few years ago the newspapers in city and country, daily and weekly, were filled with advertisements headed "Work at Home," and promising that if women would send either one dollar or two, as the case might be, they would receive instruction for art work which was to be done at home, as well as the outfit for doing it, and that after they had learned they would be supplied with steady work at good prices. You can have no idea how the replies came. Dollars literally poured into the hands of the advertisers. In return, a piece of very coarse velveteen stamped with a pattern and a few needlefuls of silk would be sent, with the directions for working. When this piece of embroidery was finished it was to be returned to the supply company with another dollar, and if it proved satisfactory, permanent work would be furnished.

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In nearly every case there was no return for the last dollar. In hundreds of instances the dollar or two could not be spared, and meant such sacrifices as few of you can understand. Presently this matter came to the notice of the Women's Union in Boston and it set to work to stop the business. It obtained all the evidence it needed and then sent its lawyers to the address given in the advertisement. In most cases no responsible persons could be found, so nothing could be done by law. It then interviewed the proprietors of all the leading newspapers, with the result that such advertisements were refused place in the columns. It couldn't get back the money for the poor women who had already been duped, but it might prevent others from becoming victims. In this way the work of the Union began to be known all over the country and women began to write there for work. Of course the Union could not supply them; it could only point out to them what to avoid.

There was something shown by the flood of answers that came to this fraudulent advertising. Not only were there hundreds, yes, thousands of women wanting work, but the majority were anxious to do "art" work of some kind. Honest work that was genuinely practical found little favor in the eyes of the multitude. They seemed to have an idea that anything that was "art," no matter how bad art it was, hadn't the flavor of labor about it. Even if it was work, it was "genteel" work and "ladies" could do it. Now, girls, honestly, isn't that silly and stupid? If one finds it necessary to do anything for money, why not stand up squarely and face the fact and do the work that comes to be done, whatever it may be, in a straightforward fashion instead of dodging about under all sorts of make believes?

I have already referred to the misuse of the term "ladies," and just here I want to emphasize it. It is incorrect, a mistake in language, to speak of yourself or of any other person as "ladies" in connection with work of any kind. The term "lady" presupposes leisure. In the same way the word "gentleman" carries a like significance. Now you know very well that the term "gentleman of business" is never used, and you certainly never heard of a "salesgentleman." Aren't the very sounds ridiculous? And yet your man of business is more often than not the polished, well bred man of society with a position which no one can dispute. You can be well bred women, even if you are work women. You may be ladies at your leisure. But insisting on the term won't make you so. On the contrary, the very use of the word in connection with work stamps you at once as ignorant, if not ill bred.

And now, if you are prepared to take up your work in true dignified workwoman fashion, I have a suggestion to make to those of you who have quick eyes, deft fingers and a true taste. I might, also add "an artistic instinct," but I'm getting to be a bit afraid of expressions of that kind. They're too apt to make

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mischief. Still, there is an art side to the occupation I am about to suggest, but it must be taken sensibly and not to the sacrifice of anything else. I know you were expecting something delightfully new, and I imagine I hear a murmur of deep disappointment when I say — dressmaking.

But you must understand that there is dressmaking and dressmaking. It is not the old fashioned kind that I am about to commend to you, but the new, which has originality, idea and principles about it. The principles are beauty and comfort; the idea is becomingness and health; and all of it combined constitute originality.

I dare say you have all read about dress reform, and have grown to have a horror of the term because in the past it has stood for ugliness pure and simple, and for crankiness unadulterated. Well, we won't talk about dress reform any more, but in its place we will substitute the term, "artistic and hygienic dressing;" that describes the new phase of it. This began with Cynthia Bates, when she invented the waist that should take the place of corsets; it was to be adapted to the figure rather than force the figure to be adapted to it. Miss Bates was a wise woman; she saw that invalidism for women was rapidly going out of fashion, and that to be healthful was to be correct. She foresaw the generation of golf playing, canoe paddling, horseback riding, bicycling, mountain climbing girls, devoted to athletics of all kinds, and she wisely made ready for them. Room to develop, room to grow, was the principle upon which she built her waist. She started no crusade against beauty — wise Miss Bates. "Have everything as pretty as you like," she said, "but above all, be true to nature." Indeed, through all her business Miss Bates has preached the true gospel of beauty. At first women eyed the waists askance; they were suspicious of innovation, but by degrees they became convinced; and the best proof of Miss Bates success is the large number of patent health waists that have been put upon the market since Miss Bates introduced hers, and the numbers that are sold.

But that was only the beginning, and it was left to another woman to make a rounding out of the idea of proper dress. If there anybody in the world that does not believe that a healthful dress can be a pretty one, I only wish that she could see some of the delicious gowns that Mrs. Annie Jenness Miller evolved from that keen brain of hers. They keep close enough to the line of the fashion not to seem queer, but each gown is original and picturesque, having in it the very spirit of graceful and becoming dressing, at the same time it is on strictly hygienic principles. Now there are hundreds of women who would like to adopt this dress plan, but their own dressmakers turn up their noses at it, and it is, as a rule, impossible to get such dresses made.

I venture to say the reason why so few dressmakers take it up is because it does require originality and artistic instinct to make it successful, but the girl or

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woman who is artistic in her feelings and who has a gift of expressing these feelings has here a field open before her that she will find very remunerative. It requires more skill to make dresses in this way than in the stereotyped fashion because so much depends on individual expression.

Here is an open field that is, as yet, practically unexploited. So many others are overburdened with workers, but this invites the workers to come into it. You see I was right when I told you there was dressmaking and dressmaking. One must understand the principles of fitting, be a good needlewoman have an eye for color combination, and be able to adapt styles to different individuals. The girl with originality may design for her different customers. If she have the ability to do this she could be much more valuable than one who is able only to follow other people's models, and she may command a large price for her work.

There is hardly a town of any size that will not support at least one dressmaker of this kind, and she may either go to her own customers by the day, or she may have them come to her house. Good dressmakers who go out get all the way from $3.00 to $4.00 a day, according to their ability and their originality. These are city prices, of course; but I suppose there is no place where a stylish, competent dressmaker with original ideas and a talent for making her customer look her very best, would have less than the first named price. A girl could thus have a good income and make herself invaluable to her employers. At the same time, she is doing something eminently satisfactory and is exercising her love for the beautiful and refined. With right governing ideas of what is beautiful, it must be a delight to work on the pretty stuff that is used nowadays.

There are other branches of dressmaking to which a clever girl may turn her attention — making over dresses is one. There is a knack in making an old dress look like a new one; and this knack once acquired is worth money to the woman who will take pains to learn it thoroughly. There are plenty of women who are willing to pay to have their old garments utilized. It is an economy which the majority are compelled to practice; the only trouble, so far, has been in having it satisfactorily done. As a rule, the average dressmaker turns up her nose at the very idea of remodeling, and refuses to take the pains with a gown which she is putting into new shape from old material, that she gives to that one made from an entirely new fabric. Then again, not every dressmaker who is willing to make over is successful in her attempt. It is really a profession by itself — this renovating and making over. Any young woman who will take up this branch alone is sure to do well in any community of size.

A girl went to a town where she was unknown and hung out the regulation sign "Fashionable Dressmaking." It didn't attract one customer. Not a single soul even called to ask her prices. She didn't raise a ripple of curiosity on the surface of that community's life. But that state of things couldn't last. When

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she stopped counting the dollars in her purse because only pennies remained, a thought struck her; it was the inspiration born of despair. She had always been successful in making over her old dresses, so that her friends used laughingly to tell her that her remade old dresses looked better than their new ones. So she took half her remaining money and had another sign painted — "Dresses made over." The old sign was taken down — this was hung in its place. It hadn't been up half a day before a customer came. In time others came and it was not long before she had built up a good paying business of making dresses over. She learned the most improved process of cleaning, and even brightening old dresses. Somehow everything that came out from under her hand took on new beauty, new freshness and new grace. It was just as her girl friends had said — her made over dresses did look better than many new ones. She added to her business that of remodeling a mother's old dresses for a young daughter; many was the new Sunday dress for the little girl — that had not even been considered fit to wear even on Saturday before — that went out of her room, which had been worn by the mother for a long time.

And that suggests still another phase for the home dressmaker, one that requires special taste and ability, that of making dresses for growing girls in the awkward age that comes between childhood and womanhood. Many mothers are at their writs' end to know how to dress a girl becomingly, and the dressmaker who makes stylish women's clothes almost always fails when she tries to turn out something suitable for the woman's daughter. It would seem an easy tiling to do, but any mother would tell you that in nothing did she find so much difficulty as in securing a tasteful and competent dressmaker for her little girls.

This should be a happy suggestion to some young woman, for nothing can be more delightful than working on the pretty fabrics of which girls' dresses are made, and exercising the taste in devising something new and dainty to form them into. There is such latitude allowed in the planning of these little gowns. Fortunately for the dressmaker, fashion forgets to be arbitrary in her laws regarding the dress of children. There is everything that shall suggest originality and picturesqueness, from the portraits of the children which Sir Joshua Reynolds painted, to the quaint little figures which have immortalized the name of Kate Greenaway. The one thing that the child's dressmaker must not be, is conventional; she may give free play to her fancy, and the quainter and more picturesque she makes the little girl look whose gown she is fashioning, the more successful she may account herself. She will have steady patronage and an assured income, won, certainly, in a most pleasant fashion.

Was I not right when I told yon, girls, that there was dressmaking and dressmaking? Hasn't one of you gleaned an idea that you may use and make valuable from all that I have said?

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XII. What Career?

LET no girl dream that this question will ever be adequately and conscientiously answered except by her own heart. No time is ever more uselessly employed than in listening to advice on this subject. "The soul's emphasis is always right," declares Emerson. He might as truthfully have added that the emphasis of any soul, the decision of any mind, except one's own is far more likely to work disaster than to bring satisfaction or success.

And satisfaction and success are twin gods which walk together like a man and his shadow.

Every girl wants a career which will bring success. And what is success? To scarcely two people in the world would it be represented by the same thing. "Would you exchange places with that woman, performing her duties and receiving her income?" I asked of a poorly remunerated literary toiler, with whom I was speaking of one of the buyers in a large dry goods establishment, who received as salary several thousand dollars a. year. "Never!" was the quick reply. "I should rather write for three dollars a. week than to bargain for fabrics and faces at a hundred."

No amount of money, on the one hand, or of literary creation, however largely rewarded, on the other, would have made the work of one of these women truly a success for the other.

The shivering, starving, disappointed life of Millet, whose hardships continued till nearly the end of his days, was to the painter of the Angelus a greater success than would have been represented by the Vanderbilt millions, had he been obliged to employ Vanderbilt methods to secure them.

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Think you that to Audubon, to whom to know every bird of the forest by the shade of its feathers or the fibre of its notes was knowledge of utmost importance, the splendid triumphs of Edison would have meant success? And to the master of the lightning what could have seemed less like success than to become accurately acquainted with the habits of birds?

Success is ever an individual thing. What career shall you choose? The career which has chosen you. The work which means success to you. In this choice lies your only safety, since there is no real dynamic power outside of one's soul.

Most of us have seen a disabled locomotive propelled along the track. It took a dozen men to move it, and then the progress was exceedingly slow, and ineffective. How different were its movements from those of an engine whose motive power came from the boiler!

"The talent is the call," — a call which can remain unheeded only with the direst results.

Supposing the literary worker, tempted by visions of gain, had attempted a commercial life? or the buyer of fabrics, instigated by thoughts of fame, had undertaken to become a writer? What if Millet had essayed a mercantile career? Audubon to master the secrets of electricity? Edison to become a naturalist? The chances are a million to one that each would have met with complete financial failure, and missed satisfaction as well, because she or he was attempting work which was not born hers or his.

Did you ever try to care for a stranger's child? In two hours probably you were irritated, exhausted, and too impatient to take the measures which might have most effectively assisted in your assumed task. To the mother of the child even the labor of caring for it was dear, and her endeavors to develop it a work of love. It was not born yours; it was born hers.

No one can effectively handle that which does not belong to him. Pythagoras the learned had no wiser rule than this: "That which concerns me I will attend to. That which concerns me not I will let alone."

"Well," said a character in one of Sophie May's books, "I have done what I could." "Ah, no," replied her sister, "you have done what you couldn't." This girl had turned away from the thing's she really could do to advantage, and had written a book, not because she had a talent for writing or anything to say, but because she considered writing "genteel."

Don't let your career be wrecked, girls, as so many careers have been, on the rock of gentility. Remember that work to be really genteel must be genteelly done; that it is not the occupation itself, but the manner of handling it which makes it fine or unfine work. The book which the born milliner writes will not be a fine book. The bonnet which the appointed poet trims will not rank among

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works of art. Many a girl can handle cooking utensils genteelly whose picture would be a bungle. Many a splendid stenographer would distract the neighborhood by her music.

The first rule of life should be, Work according to your ideals.

One day two women, who were driving in a New Hampshire town, rode up to the door of a farmhouse to ask for information about routes. While the lady of the house stood by the carriage, a man was seen approaching whose costume bore but a faint resemblance to anything usually worn by mortals. There was a decided discrepancy in the size of the trousers legs, the shape of the coat sleeves was like nothing in particular, the vest was like no other vest the beholders had ever seen.

"Where," asked one of the ladies respectfully, "does your husband get his clothes?"

"I make 'em," was the reply.

"And where do you get your patterns?" was the next question.

"Oh," answered the wife, "I don't bother with patterns. I just glance at Johnson once in a while, and cut."

"Life is all a misfit," said a young woman to me one day; a remark which was but the repetition of the same complaint uttered or written in many different phrases by many different people — people who were simply seeking relief by the outpouring of their doubts and fears, or asking comfort and counsel.

After the girl whose life was a misfit had taken her departure, I gave my mind up to the possible solution of the riddle why so many were finding existence inadequate, ineffective, unsatisfactory; and the conviction was forced upon me that the disaster was, in many cases, due to the same cause which clothed Johnson so uncouthly — want of patterns.

Did one of you ever know of anybody accomplishing a satisfactory piece of work without a pattern? Everything, from the largest to the least, that grows under the hand of the sculptor .or painter, is formed from a model, which is either actualized or in the mind. The story, the play, the essay, exist in outline before they are written. You could not fashion the simplest gown nor cut the plainest apron without either a material or a mental pattern. If you tried to do this you would inevitably produce a shapeless, and partially or wholly useless thing. The entire world owes its strength, its utility, its beauty, its "every good and perfect gift," to patterns, or ideals.

What is a pattern? Something to fashion after and compare with, is it not? As the sculptor chips the marble he keeps his model constantly in sight. No stroke of the painter's brush is made without reference to his sketch. The author's every sentence is written with his outline in mind. If one of you were cutting a garment you would pin your cloth to the pattern, and be very careful

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that your shears did not go here and there aimlessly, or cut a piece too wide or too narrow, or cut out of proportion or relation to the whole.

And yet many a girl is trying to fashion that most stupendous thing, a character, that most marvelous thing, an effective and noble life, without a pattern. Her shears are running everywhere and nowhere, her chisel is gouging and defacing, or is idle; her picture has no central figure, or no consistency.

Is it not as clear as possible that such a girl should begin at once to possess herself of a pattern? That she should stop her aimless and defacing hacking, and begin to chisel by rule?

And don't hesitate, girls, to set your standard at perfection point. If you never reach it you will get much higher than those whose aims are lower. And write this sentence in your minds in letters of fire that they may brand themselves in, and become a part of your inmost consciousness: You will never be larger than your thought. Little patterns make little productions; uncertain patterns bring forth uncertain results; half patterns give half realizations. A perfect thing must have a perfect pattern.

Imagination is nearly always spoken of by the unthinking as a misty and unimportant thing, or is regarded as reprehensible. "Don't let your imagination run away with you," is a sentence which has chilled, if not checked, the enthusiasm of most of us. But imagination is really the master builder of one's most satisfactory life structure, and when it "runs away with" one, becomes the most powerful dynamic in the world. What does imagination mean? Imaging; building a thought pattern, a mental model, an ideal. "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm," asserts Emerson. Imagination is enthusiasm's vital principle, its inward life, its kindling fire. Imagination "ran away with" Peter the Hermit, and across a continent tramped, with great loss and terrible suffering, thousands of people, following an illiterate and hitherto unknown man who had magnetized himself and his followers by the thought pattern of the Christ tomb free from Moslem possession. Carthage fell and Rome became supreme because imagination "ran away with" Cato in picturing the destruction of the African metropolis, and kept zeal at white heat till the rival of the Eternal City was demolished. We have the electric telegraph and the submarine cable because imagination took the bits in her teeth and gave Samuel Morse and Cyrus Field no rest till the world revolutionizing messages were clicked and flashed out in intelligible signs. We ride, and cook our food, and light our homes by electricity because imagination got on so unstoppable a canter with Moses Farmer and Edison. The Red Cross and the White Cross movements, and many other things of world wide worth, came into existence because in the minds and souls of such women as Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale and Jennie Collins imagination refused to be bridled.

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Never be afraid of imagination!

The second rule of life should be, Focus your energies. I believe it is an entirely demonstratable fact that more failures in life have been caused by want of direct aim and concentration than by lack of ability or opportunity.

Through many lands, broad as a lake, majestic as an ocean, flows the Mississippi River, bearing on its bosom many crafts for human transportation and the carriage of freight. What if its volume was dissipated by flowing into smaller rivers, by emptying into lakes, by draining into creeks? It would soon lose its majesty, and become a comparatively useless and entirely inadequate body of water. Its might and power lie in concentration of volume and a straight onward flow.

In every life which is to be a success the less must always be sacrificed to the greater. No one can have a Mississippi and all the little lakes and rivers and creeks beside.

It may be urged that there are professions, such as those of the author, the painter, the musician, which can be attained to in a measure which will yield a livelihood only after years of toil, and that in the meantime the poor girl's power must flow out into side streams, that she may earn daily bread. True! But if she keeps her main object steadily in view, keeps working toward it in spare hours by the occasional story or sketch, the sometimes picture, the interspersed hour of music, and by the conscientious performance of her enforced, bread winning duties, learns consecration, and absorbs whatever knowledge comes by her touch with a side of life different from that which she has chosen as the life — if she does this, she will find these side occupations not streams flowing from but toward her Mississippi, increasing its volume and augmenting its might.

In no life can any kind of knowledge come amiss. She who writes in the deepest and most comprehensive vein, she who paints the things nearest to reality, she who most potently touches the human heart by her voice or touch on the instrument, is she who has seen most of life, mingled most with the people, felt most the throbbing of human heart beats. There must be something to write about, something to put on canvas, something to inspirit the music. One must live worthily and widely before her pen or brush or bow can speak intelligently and worthily of worthy and wide things.

Do you say, girls, that I have suggested a hard and strenuous life? Yes, but the work one loves, and which is born hers, hard and strenuous though it may be, is the most satisfying thing which will ever come to her. The world over those who have chosen the careers which have chosen them will bear testimony to this truth. True living and real achieving can never be anything but earnest work, but it may be very far removed from unpleasantness. And if you watch other lives you will learn, as every careful observer must, that one bears far less

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hardship in living the life of soul whiteness and effective accomplishment than in trailing out a careless, heart spotted existence, which leads to no desirable goal. The way of the transgressor of any law of holiness, of constancy, of courtesy, is hard. Life everywhere proves this.

The man who seeks for diamonds digs no deeper, fares no harder, waits no later, than he who delves after common stones, but in the end he holds in his hand nothing less than a diamond!

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XIII. Occupations That Kill.

I SHOULD think you would die!" exclaimed a woman to a friend who for months had dragged along under a terrible burden of work and care.

"I'm dead already," was the reply, "only no one can stop to burry me."

There was more truth than the speaker knew in this answer. There was certainly nothing which could be called essentially life in this woman's existence, unless a sluggish flow of blood in the veins could be thus designated. For several years she had been the bread winner for herself and a number of others, always working in a forlorn and blackened old kitchen furnished with few conveniences; cooking, everlastingly cooking, in the same order the same things, each day of the week having its appointed and never varied bill of fare; fare for factory operatives, whose purses could not command, even if their appetites craved, the delicate combinations and dainty frostings which might have interspersed a little poetry even into this lavish prose of cookery. At night she sank early and heavily into bed, to dream, perchance, of pudding pots and stacks of pies, or the oft repeated "boiled dish."

The remark has often been made by those who have never come to think of anything but food, drink and raiment as essential to life, that "It makes but little difference how one's living is earned." Never was there less truth in an assertion! It makes all the difference between happiness and misery, between sanity and insanity, between life and death.

This is not mere theory, but scientific fact. The conclusions of the past have been drawn far too largely from material, or outside appearances, without relation to mental attitudes. We are fast coming, with science and psychology as

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authority, to take mental fitness and feeling as the only reliable basis from which to make reckoning and decisions.

The saying that "One's meat is another's poison" is as true of occupations as of food. A thing to be guarded against, even when one's chosen work is her proper "meat," is of partaking too lavishly or exclusively of this meat. Utter sameness of pursuit, long continued and with its induced tension unrelieved by frequent relaxation and change of sensation, means some degree of insanity; for that which is called morbidness, melancholia and hysteria is often an unrecognized form of insanity. Statistics show that more women have been taken to insane asylums from remote farms than from any other place. The reason is obvious. The long, monotonous hours, filled with every day repeated tasks, the few interludes for rest or reading, the scarcity of books, and nothing stimulating to enjoy in the evening's, are conditions literally maddening.

Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz speaks in her able and comprehensive Talks, of employes, who, by being always engaged in performing just a little part of the manufacturing of articles, become that which they are called — simply hands. Brain, imagination, intellect, are in no way called into play, and day by day become more dormant. I have heard of one man thus employed who after a comparatively short time was taken to an insane asylum.

"When I have been obliged to make a large number of duplicate copies of a paper," declared a young woman, "it has been such a relief to my brain to have even one word changed, and when I have been engaged for a long time directing envelopes, to have those of a different color from the ones I had been handling come to me, has often saved me from a nervous headache."

The story is told of a destitute man who asked a philanthropist, for work. The philanthropist, having no employment to give, improvised a task by setting the man to removing some bricks from one side of a yard and piling them on the opposite side, and then reversing the process, and so on ad libitum. After a day the man abandoned the work, though he was sorely in need of money. Its monotony and meaninglessness drove him distracted.

"I should think she would go mad, she has so many things to think of," is a remark we often hear regarding one with a many branched occupation. But it is never the person with many things, but the one with little or nothing to think of, who is in danger of madness.

The social management of which Bellamy speaks so eloquently in "Equality" would work a wondrous benefit to mankind in that it would, by short hours and the constant transference of each kind of manual labor from one to another, do away with this brain benumbing, insanity breeding sameness which pertains to so many kinds of manufacturing.

Another pernicious idea which largely obtains is that one's surroundings

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while engaged in work, so that they be without actual discomfort, are all that can be reasonably desired. The truth is, we shall be a more effective as well as a more sunny and agreeable people when we come to recognize beauty as a health giver, color as a real factor in our lives. One who is obliged by circumstances to lead a monotonous life should take especial pains to render her working place as beautiful as possible. Fresh paint and a prettily colored wall paper will do wonders for a kitchen and the cook's mind, and a few bright prints will heighten the effect.

It is gravitation in the right direction when we grow toward a recognition of things as character formers, of adjustments as teachers, of colors as instructors. In a course of valuable and interesting lectures, the Hindu scholar, Mr. Virchard Gandhi, teaches that seeing, or even calling before one's vision in imagination, a blue shade produces calmness and coolness; red enriches and warms the blood; yellow stimulates mentally and physically. One feels a double assurance that this is true when he remembers that without being aware of any occult law which accounted for his feelings, he has often exclaimed: "Blue is beautiful in summer, but is too cold looking for winter!" or in winter: "How nice and warm looking red is!" or in summer: "How hot this red looks!" And did you ever pause before a garden bed where yellow flowers were growing, or stand near a florist's window where they were displayed, without experiencing an added exhilaration? No wonder Wordsworth wrote:

"And then my heart with rapture fills,
And dances with the daffodils."

We need only the dictum of common sense to decide that the things which soothe us, entertain us, satisfy our hearts, are helpful things. Have you not been in rooms where every individual piece of furniture was, in shape and shade, at war with every other piece, and gone away weary, disgusted, belligerent, without perhaps knowing what had caused your soul-ferment? Have you not entered, tired, heated, irritated, into an apartment where every article of furniture was in entire relation of form, and in perfect harmony of tint with every other article, and gone out calmed and refreshed and strengthened? Some years ago a gentleman whose usual taste was so perfect that a departure from it seemed to denote a temporary aberration of the mind, made a visit of several days to some ladies, wearing a suit of a glaring plaid pattern. Those ladies, even after the lapse of two years' time, cannot think of that suit without a shudder. In spite of all the philosophy and reason which they brought to bear upon the case, their friend's unfortunate apparel made his visit far less pleasant to them than it would otherwise have been. Some months ago a lady costumed in dainty fashion spent the afternoon with a friend. The work with which she occupied herself during the

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visit was a heavy colored woolen shirt, of coarse material. In vain her hostess mentally protested that her visitor's work made no difference. It remained a fact that it not only spoiled the afternoon for her, but the remembrance of it made her uncomfortable for months afterward. Very foolish in both the hostesses of the man in the plaid suit and the woman with the coarse work? No; very wise, only they did not recognize the wisdom, and blamed themselves for it. The human mind is always crying out for fitness, clamoring for harmony, and is nervous and irritated when these things are wanting. The glaring plaid suit did not fit the character or position of the man who wore it, or the home or tastes of the ladies whom he visited. The coarse woolen work was not in harmony with a hot summer afternoon, a daintily clothed lady who was making an afternoon visit to a cultivated and scholarly woman.

The fact is that we shall not get perfect understanding until we come to realize that beauty and fitness and harmony are not merely things which we like, but which we can do well enough without, but are necessary to health and happiness, since it is being more and more clearly proven that spirit jar and mind irritation and brain disturbance are fruitful sources of nervous diseases, and lead to the shattering of the physical system. Pleasure helps to digest the food, to send the blood properly through the veins, and to keep the brain in equilibrium.

Some hour of the day or evening is usually free to every one. That hour should be given to something which relaxes and stimulates. Entertainment is sometimes spoken of as "childish." That it is childish, that it is something which, for the time being, brushes care aside, and relieves the mind of stress and strain, renders it for the entire mentality that which its name indicates: re creation.

Avoid monotony, girls, as you would mortal sin. If it does not lead you into mortal sin it leaves you in devastating sadness. "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine."

There are occupations which actually kill the body in a very short time. Were we writing for both sexes we should mention sugar refineries, iron puddling, and many others. For women there are less, but still too many, of these occupations.

The sweat shops have been too widely spoken and written of to need extensive mention here. An occupation which soon dispatches those who engage in it is the preparation of any form of tobacco. The constant absorption of the nicotine through the nostrils and the pores of the skin has the inevitable effect of accumulated poison.

A second fatal employment is working in paint manufactories, where women are largely engaged to solder cans and paste on labels. One who visits a paint factor will note the stifling atmosphere, thick with the odor of chemicals, the slimy lower floors, the faces of the workmen, humid and green with arsenic. The

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choking, lung destroying odor permeates the whole building, and is breathed in from the open cans which the girls constantly handle.

Paper mills are, also, places where a multitude of women are found, and which are extremely detrimental to health. Many germs of disease lurk in the rags which are brought in, and the glue and other materials used give out a most clogging and disagreeable odor.

Wool sorting is an occupation which requires that the mouth and nose shall be covered by a bandage, the girls who handle the fleeces being obliged to draw in the air necessary to actual life under the cloth wound around their faces.

I have never, thank God! known of but one woman saloon-keeper in America. She was what might have been expected, dying in body, and in soul already "dead in trespasses and sin."

Many of the department stores are killing places; killing not only by reason of the work, which keeps a girl for almost the entire time on her feet, but because of for the most part sightless corners in which clerks are confined, the inhumanly small wages which afford only mean lodgings, poor food and tawdry clothing; killing because there is in the positions of their cheap employes nothing to give dignity of feeling or stimulation of thought. Cheap surroundings and cheap remuneration always tend to cheapen character. An occupation which does not give a sense of importance, or of something important connected .with it, is an occupation in which lies the indifference which is the soul's demoralization.

Broadly speaking, those occupations which do not give employment to both body and mind, which tail to yield any considerable outlook upon life, which afford no reasonable hope for advancement, which seldom touch with healthy action and allow few opportunities for air and sunshine are the occupations which tend toward bodily and mental death.

"Tis life whereof our nerves are scant,
More life, and fuller, that we want."

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XIV. What Physical Culture Can Do.

NOT by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but by abandonment and childlike mirthfulness. If you would know aught, be gay before it. Thus runs the gospel according to Thorean. A severe like is a dangerous life. A colorless life is a killing life. Monotony is an enemy to morality. Everything must have life, movement, change, or it clogs and congests.

The only place in which this clogging and congestion are not recognized as things which must be carefully guarded against is among humanity. Day after day during many years, if, in spite of their vitiating conditions, they manage to live so long, thousands of women in hundreds of cities clean, brush and oil thousands of sewing machines. They know that if this cleaning is neglected the machines will become unfit for nice work, ere long unfit for any work at all. Every day thousands of mill laborers clear thousands of cogs and levers and wheels that smooth and rapid action may not be retarded or rendered impossible. At frequent intervals numerous operators look to the parts of their typewriters or telegraph relays and keys to make sure that nothing congests or clogs them.

And yet in every country there are millions of clogged and congested lives which are never thought of, as such, and with a view to cleansing and clearing, not at all. They are clogged by want of happiness, by the absence of outlook, by the dearth of change and color. Natural depravity may have slain its thousands,

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though I strongly doubt it. That misery of mind and drabness of life have slain their tens of thousands could, I imagine, be easily demonstrated. The insanity which incites to murder, theft, suicide, anarchy, to every evil thing, is, in a vast majority of cases, bred by unhappiness. He who generates happiness to any degree is a public benefactor. I say public because no life is so isolated that it does not, at some point, touch some other life, and impart to it something of its atmosphere and vibrations, and this atmosphere, these vibrations, are in turn passed on to others. Whether it will or no, the race is a human house that Jack built.

Change, color and progression are the trinity which, perhaps, more than anything else make for happiness. Health of body and mind usually comes by the three things, and health is the right hand of accomplishment and the left hand of content.

How, under our present cramping and benumbing social system, shall change and color, as the forerunners of progression and health, be introduced into the lives of the thousands whose bent bodies, misshapen by sewing machines and type machines, by desk work and factory work and farm work, have resulted in bent souls?

It seems patent that physical culture has here a most beneficent field of action. First, its initial requirements necessitate things which are beneficial. It takes one who is waary with seams or with sentences, with the weaving of webs or the watching of dots and clashes, into a lighted room to meet people who will send out to meet her a new magnetism, and whose picturesque garments will, at the outset — for it is now an established scientific tact that color has a decided effect on the nerves — impart to her a fresh set of sensations, and begin the replacement of sluggishness. Again, the feeling of freedom and gracefulness which the gymnasium garments assure are a most welcome change from the generally begirting and in many cases unbecoming costumes worn by women.

Then follows that which to many souls which have been strait-jacketed by circumstances, environment and atmosphere, seems mere play, but which is to the older person what the kindergarten is to a child — play with far reaching meaning and results.

So here is answered one eternal and not to be overlooked need of the soul; entertainment and recreation. This recreation, intelligently directed as it is, serves several purposes. In many cases by keeping young women thus happily engaged, it shuts them in from outside entertainment whose insanity and excess might seem for the time being like happiness, but which would resemble the real thing as the flush of fever resembles the glow of health, and whose after effects upon character and life would be like unto the ravages and the lassitude which follow fever in the system.

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And with this picturesqueness, and freedom of limbs, this posing and posturing there will come, without striving or strenuousness, gracefulness and grace.

A lady told me about a visit she made to a colored man and his wife who lived in the South, and who were formerly her devoted servants. The wife was asked by her former mistress how things were going with her and her husband.

"Eberyting is mighty fine," was the reply. "Wes got along scrumptious. We own de place, 'n de hoss 'n pigs, an' de craps are dat big all de time, an' I jest reckon de Lord done sent you 'long, honey, fer Sambo an' me we jest tink it's time we sperienced 'ligion, an' we donno how to do it, an' dat's a fac'. You c'n tell us, suah."

The lady learned by a series of questions that the two people had been from their childhood in the habit of praying, that they had been honest since leaving her employ, as they were while with her, that they were humane, and loving, and at peace with all men. She assured the wife that they undoubtedly already had religion. That through all the years of right living it had been coming to them.

"Well, 'fore de Lord!" chuckled the delighted. "mammy," "to tink we wus gittin' pious all de time, an' got 'ligion an' nebber knowed it!"

It; is much after the method of these two in getting religion that the physical culture student gets gracefulness and grace. It is an untortured, agreeable and unconscious unfoldment into better things. Before she realizes their existence the results are obtained.

There is a wonderful sympathy between the body and the soul. A slouching body and a slouching character nearly always go together, and whatever lends uprightness in the one is apt to have a corresponding effect upon the other. The girl who stoops, and shuffles and drags, is, almost invariabty, from sin or sadness, or both, mentally stooping, and shuffling and dragging.

Emerson declares that "A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face." By a judicious use of physical culture one is almost certain to secure both. By its exercise the unshapely form may surely be changed, and by the drill which sends the blood equally all over the body, purifying the complexion, recoloring the cheeks and lips, bringing brightness to the eyes, supplemented by the helpful and ennobling ideas which every concientious teacher suggests, the face is provided with new beauty and expression.

It may be said that surely women who sew, or run sewing machines, or manage typewriters, or do housework, have, at least, sufficient arm exercise. Emily Bishop, whose work at Chautauqua has been so notable, and whose admirable book, "Self Expression and Health," I wish could be owned by every woman, young and old, shall answer this observation. Miss Bishop says:

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"It has been observed that washerwomen, a class which use their arms much, are often corpulent, and otherwise shapeless. Washerwomen do have much arm exercise, but not in reaching upward.

"Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon the fact that indiscriminate exercise is not sufficient to keep our bodies symmetrical, healthy or harmonious in movement. In truth, housework and manual labor in general, as well as brain work, increase rather than diminish the necessity for systematic, nerve soothing exercise. The restricted mechanical movements that are made day after day in any ordinary labor or occupation, make the body either dull and heavy, or nervous and angular in movement. Labor necessitating mechanical motions forms a large portion of the occupations of mankind, but the deteriorating effect of such work can be counteracted by the freeing and the rhythmical movements of Health and Expression culture.

"Women are not responsible for their features, but they are, in a large degree responsible for their figures. All cannot, of course, have the height or the size they most admire, but neither of these constitutes a good figure. Proportion, not height nor size, is the characteristic of a beautiful figure, and nearly every one can have a well proportioned body by paying the price for it; namely, exercise.

"When we grow to an appreciation of the beautiful lines of the normal human figure, we shall earnestly seek to exemplify ‘the good, the true, the beautiful’ in our bodies; then, full, well developed chests, delicately poised heads, firm, young muscles will be the rule, and protruding, heavy abdomens the exception."

The close application and sedentary habits of most American women have the effect of aging them rapidly. On this subject, also, Miss Bishop speaks words of wisdom:

"What," She says, "is old age? Not the lines of expression on the face, which are the carvings of thought and emotion: not the soft, white hair that is like a halo of purity about the face. It is rather, as relates to the body, loss of elasticity, or vigor, of the power to do certain physical acts that were once as spontaneous as play.

"Can a person avoid growing old? To a great extent, yes. Of course, a person cannot always remain only twenty yeans old, or avoid being sixty years old ultimately, but he can prevent the marked difference in the physical condition between these two ages. The years will roll ceaselessly by, unheeding individuals, but each individual has the power to determine in a large degree what the effect of those years shall be upon himself. Experience furnishes many proofs in point: a noted danseuse of seventy five had all the lightness and flexibility of a young girl; a tight rope walker was expert at eighty; a dancing master was lithe and graceful at seventy eight. Such illustrations of youth retained by exercise suggest approximate possibilities for all. Years should bring a ripening, enriching

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influence to the mind, but not infirmity to the body. That they often fail to bring the former and do result in the latter is due to pernicious habits, mental and physical.

There is no point in years when a vigorous, young feeling and young acting person must be called old; while others are old long before they reach fifty years. As a man thinketh in his heart so is he, is true regarding the physical as well as the spiritual man. We expect old age and we are not disappointed; we believe that the years must bring decrepitude, and they do; moreover, we hasten the condition that we expect by allowing bad physical habits to enchain us.

"How can we keep our bodies young? As Bancroft did, as Gladstone has — by systematic exercise."

One great and not to be overlooked benefit to be derived from physical culture is that by it a person learns how to breathe property. It is a fact that exceedingly few know how to breathe effectively. If from an open window in one end of a house the entering air should zigzag into a side passage, and thence down cellar, and then return to the house by a window opposite to that by which it first entered, its movements would resemble the manner in which the breath circulates through the ordinary pair of lungs. This misdirected air would cleanse only a small part of the house, whereas if sent in a straight, strong, regular draught through the rooms it would displace bad atmosphere, and cleanse and purify. The properly guided breath will go straight through the vital parts of the system, removing foulness, and strengthening and purifying the whole being, physical and mental. Breath is nothing less than life, and if it is not spirit it is closely allied to it. All the expressions that relate to the word breathing and the word spirit come from the same Latin root: spiritus. It was taught by the Greeks, that full, deep inspirations cleansed the soul as water does the body.

Dr. Lennox Brown says:

"Exercise in moderation, regularly and conscientiously repeated, will increase the breathing capacity, improve the voice, and .make speaking easy. It may change, as it has changed, the falsetto of a grown man into a full, somorous man's voice; it may restore, and has restored, a lost voice. It will certainly turn a greater quantity of dark blue blood into bright red blood; the appetite will increase; sounder sleep will be enjoyed; the flabby, pallid skin will fill out, and get a healthy, rosy color. All this, and more, may be, and often has been, the result of lung gymnastics carried on in moderation and perseverance."

A word of warning just here. There are a number of books on the market which give rules fot breathing; among them one entitled "Nature's Finer Forces," but it is usually dangerous for the uninstructed reader to attempt to follow rules for this exercise without a teacher. Breathing, like electricity and other powerful forces, is very beneficent when rightly governed, but its excessive

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or ignorant use may result, indeed, has resulted, in dire harm. Learn to breathe under a good teacher.

The point of securing an efficient instructor is an important one. If you do not live where you can attend a gymnasium or college, or if your means will not admit of your doing this, go or write to some well and favorably known institution, and ask to be informed concerning a capable and conscientious teacher who will come to you at stated intervals, and teach a class at a moderate rate. Of course, you should first be sure of getting your class.

It will richly pay you to attend to this matter. In the business world, in the social world, the world of art and of letters, the things which physical culture gives, self poise, dignity, the magnetism of an illuminated face, clear eyes, and a pleasing personality, count for much. To find favor in the eyes of the multitude will be a long stride in the way of progression.

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XV. Women As Farmers.

ONE both smiles and sighs when she hears a woman who toils from fourteen to sixteen hours a day with her needle, earning, perhaps, from seven to nine dollars a week, or a clerk who every day stands from eight to six o'clock in a stuffy corner of a stuffy store retailing various cheap articles, with a salary of from three to five dollars a week, speaking of farm work as "drudgery."

"Americans do everything but think," some one remarked not long since; an extreme assertion, for surely many Americans think to splendid purpose, but when one realizes how much multitudes bear for want of a few hours' thought and a modicum of energy and decision, the remark does not seem wholly unjustifiable. Most needlewomen and store employes could hardly work under more distressing conditions, and through a lull in their employment might starve or become paupers. As farmers, starvation and pauperism would be impossible.

If it is objected that many girls are too delicate for outdoor employment, it may be answered that in numerous cases these girls are too delicate for anything else. Sunshine, air and exercise are three of their most vital needs. Many a consumptively inclined person has become healthy and happy by close daily contact with the soil, the facing of free winds, and plenty of outdoor employment.

Of course the rule holds good here as it does regarding other kinds of employment. No one should adopt farming as an occupation who does not love outdoor pursuits and farm belongings. To any other it would surely mean drudgery, and

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slavery, as well. But there are thousands who love "all outdoors," and any occupation which had to do with country wideness, and green, growing things would be their delight. If these could be weeded out from the city workers much sorely needed relief would be afforded to thousands of other workers as well as to themselves.

The woman farmer is no longer sufficiently unique to be wondered at, sneered at, or smiled at. She is found in many parts of the country, and is, if one may judge from the facts brought to light, as successful in her chosen work as is her brother tiller of the soil.

It will seem surprising if in the near future we do not see communities of girl farmers located near enough together to be helpers and companions to each other. Cooperation would lighten the heaviest toil, and the recreation and relaxation which such a neighborhood would make possible would do away with that which is usually a farm's most objectionable feature — its loneliness.

One can begin her agricultural pursuits with very little land if necessary. A writer on this subject say:

"Americans are only beginning to understand that a small patch of land may be cultivated with great profit. The Japanese immigrants who have settled in California within the last few years have aroused the interests of horticulturists to their method of tillage which has prevailed for ages in Japan. They understand the art of getting a bountiful supply from every inch of soil. With three or four acres the Japanese farmer satisfies his every want, keeps clear of debt, and lays up money. With one acre in vegetables he is independent.

"Many a woman has a home with a bit of ground attached, which hardly pays the taxes. She is fretting and struggling to make a little money to live on. The only way she can think of is to sew or teach or find something to do for which she will be paid, however small a sum. Her bit of ground can be made to pay like a bank, if she goes at it right. Let her buy a good book on Market Gardening, study it, and set to work to get the most out of her bit of ground. ‘Onions for Profit,’ published by a Philadelphia publisher, will give her instructions on that profitable specialty. ‘Market Gardening and Farm Notes,’ by Burnet Landreth, one of the foremost practical and scientific horticulturists in the United States, will be as good an education in gardening as can be had from a book."

A Chicago paper is responsible for the following story concerning an Illinois widow:

Her capital consisted of a comfortable house located in a large barren village lot, a stable and one cow. She had three dependent children, and no income. After due consideration and preparation, she had the lot plowed in early spring, and converted it into one large strawberry bed, while around its sides were planted black cap raspberries. She selected standard reliable varieties, and gave her plants

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good and thorough cultivation. The next spring her plants were strong and thrifty, and in good bearing condition. A compact was made with her grocer, who undertook the sale of the entire crop. When the season was over and settlements made, the widow felt well repaid for all her work and anxiety, for her berries had returned sufficient over expenses to provide for all the needs of herself and children till the next spring. Then she secured an adjacent vacant lot on a long lease, at a low rent, and filled it with the increase of plants from her original patch. The question of support was settled. There was no need for her to leave her home to labor, and last but by no means least, she was able to interest and employ her children, to teach them the lesson of self help and mutual help, and to keep them under her care. In tilling the soil on a large scale women seem to be as successful as in the berry patch."

The success of Kate Sanborn as a farmer has been too widely and interestingly heralded to need more than passing mention here.

About seven years ago there moved about the town of Uxbridge, Mass., a young girl named Sarah A. Taft, to whom life had offered no occupation which was at all congenial to her tastes. Her friends, noting her slim figure, pale face, and the tiny hands which mated feet which number two shoes covered, shook their heads and smiled when she declared that site wanted a farm. After a time she managed to gain her heart's desire in a farm located two or three miles from the

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town of Uxbridge. It was pretty discouraging for the first two years, but knowledge and experience were being gained, and the third year some profit, was realized. Then came numerous evils to the young farmer. Her barn, hay and entire stock were burned, she broke her arm, money was stolen from her desk, and her hired help seemed determined to give her all the trouble they possibly could. But she went straight on, rebuilding, reconstructing, learning by every present failure how to make a future success. One who is so fortunate as to visit "Beech wood" today is driven from the station by a healthy looking young woman whose small, strong hands guide a pair of handsome grays which are harnessed to a luxuriously upholstered double carriage. After drinking a glass of milk which makes one wish that her hostess might become her milk provider, the visitor is shown over a neat farm now mostly given up to hay, small fruits and poultry. Miss Taft has just built a poultry shed 144 feet long, and expects, with her experience with hens, to reap a good profit from poultry culture. She has done well with small fruits and milk, all her wares being disposed of in the town. Each succeeding year, since she recovered from the effects of her disasters, has brought her more gain, and considering the time of her trial, she may be considered one of the most successful farmers "in all the region round about."

A newspaper correspondent tells the story of a Southern woman who found sheep raising profitable. "If," he says, "one has decided to try the sheep venture, as did a Southern woman on the same line, let any priestess of an abandoned New England farm, or a Virginia plantation, or an old Pennsylvania homestead, buy her live stock from some reputable farmer or drover, and pay not more than $3.00 apiece for her ewes. If a small flock of sturdy animals are purchased in September, and turned to grass at once, they will feed themselves and ask no care till the stress of winter comes. Somewhere on the bookshelf should be kept a volume of common sense advice on sheep raising, and when in doubt as to what is best to be done counsel should be taken with the author. Under fairly good conditions, the drove of eight or ten ewes between January and March ought to be increased to a respectable flock of fifteen or eighteen lambs, and lambs born in January sell in the spring for $7.00 and $10.00 apiece in good markets.

"Because her pasture was not large enough, and because she taught school for a living, and so had no great amount of time to give to her flock, the Southern woman did not let her number increase beyond sixty ewes, but some years she drew as much as $500 from her sheep."

At Greenwich, Conn., Miss Churchill owns and manages a large daily farm, making a good profit by sending her milk and cream into the country to supply customers.

The three daughters of the late J. D. Gillett, of Logan County, Illinois, manage three farms whose acres aggregate over four thousand acres. These three

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young women, who are finely educated, speak French, and have a taste for art, literature and music, are enthusiastic over farming as a profession for women. The farms now yield four times as much, as they did when managed by Mr. Gillett. They are divided into small sections which are tilled by tenants with whom the crops are divided. A lake on this land was drained by digging a ditch a mile and a half long. These women often ride thirty or forty miles a day on their tours of inspection.

Mrs. Taber Willett, the woman who so successfully manages a farm of two hundred and fifty acres at Roslyn, L. I., is described as a small, lithe person, with winning manners, a sweet face, and fine mind.

"I was born a farmer," she declares. "Fanners are born, not made." "You speak of a new woman farmer, a new woman this, and a new woman that," said Mrs. Willett to a newspaperwoman. "There are no new women, but there are new men; for they are beginning to recognize the worth of women, and to acknowledge it. Women are the same as they always have been, only the sudden opening of the world's eyes to their power has given them courage to strike out and conquer new fields. These are my fanner friends," she continued, as she tapped on the glass doors of an immense bookcase, assuring her caller that every reliable work on fanning was there, as being acquainted with scientific methods was the only way to farm with profit. On being asked if there was really any profit in farming, she replied emphatically:

"There is just as much profit in farming as ever, and even more, for modern machinery and implements have reduced the work to a minimum. The farm of today is just like a great factory, and instead of requiring competent hands to turn out hard work, in many cases it only requires raw hands to see that the wheels go round. About a year ago I had about the largest yard of thoroughbred Guernsey cattle in the State, and I used to make all the butter, and attend to a large share of the milking. There were over fifty of them."

In reply to the inquiry if she believed that women were as capable of managing farms as were men, Mrs. Willett replied: "Indeed, I do. Sex makes no difference. Women who work on forms become as healthy and rugged as men. Then they have more patience, and the power to adapt themselves more readily, and their dispositions are such that they grow to love their work in the fields because it brings them nearer to nature, and their work is a constant reminder of the goodness of their Maker. I have done everything that can be done upon a farm, from hoeing potatoes to stacking hay, and there was no task, however heavy, but was lightened by the thought of His touch having been there before.

"Of course, there are plenty of women who could not be successful farmers, as there are plenty of men. If a woman loves farming well enough to make a success of it, she'll manage to get a farm somehow, and when she does get it you may be sure she'll make it; pay."

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XVI. Bee Culture, Poultry Culture. And Silk Culture.

THERE we have a trio of occupations in which women have shown themselves experts. The first two are, when well managed, very remunerative. The third will probably become more remunerative when the silk manufactories of the United States are increased.

W. L. Hutchinson, in an article published a few months ago in the Washington (D. C.) Home Magazine, says:

"Of the minor rural industries none appeal more strongly to women than that of bee keeping. In one sense bees may be made pets in something the same way as may be done with fowls; in fact, they need the constant care and attention that a woman can give with such deftness to any object in whose welfare she is interested, be it a house plant, a chicken, a baby or a colony of bees. Then, too, bee keeping has its aesthetical side. It has very appropriately been called the poetry of agriculture. The busy little workers leaving their hives to gather nectar from the beautiful flowers, the dainty white combs that they build, the exhilaration of swarming, all appeal to woman's poetical nature. Not only this, but bees take their owner out into the sunshine where heaven's own breezes put color in faded cheeks. Of course a woman cannot care for so large a number of colonies as can be taken care of by a man, but for what she can do the remuneration is fully as great as that which could be secured by the same strength put into some other industry. There is one branch of the industry that is particularly adapted to

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women — that is, the rearing and sale of queen bees. This requires almost constant attention to a great many details, but none of the work is laborious. Quite a number of women have been wonderfully successful in this line of beekeeping.

"Fear of stings probably keeps a great many women out of bee keeping; but this fear is almost wholly groundless, as a thorough knowledge of the disposition of bees, and of methods of protecting the person, will almost wholly prevent the getting of stings. If sufficient care is exercised the operator need never be stung. In the first place, bees sting only in defence of their lives. There may be an occasional exception to this, but it is the rule. Bees out in the field gathering honey are as harmless as so many bluebirds. It is only near the hive that an attack is ever volunteered, and need not be expected there if the bees are pure Italians of a peaceable strain.

"The first step is to procure some literature upon the subject and ‘read up.’ I will give the addresses of the leading periodicals in this country devoted to bee culture. Gleanings in Bee Culture, Medina, Ohio; America Bee Journal, Chicago, Ill. American Bee Keeper, Jamestown, N. Y.; Bee Keeper s Review, Flint, Mich.; and The Progressive Bee Keeper, Higginsville, Mo. The editors of any of these publications will gladly send sample copies, and in the columns of these journals will be found the advertisements of text books upon bee keeping. After having read one or two books devoted to bees and their care, it is an excellent thing to visit the apiary of some successful bee keeper, and to subscribe to one or more of the magazines devoted to bee culture. It is difficult for a beginner to understand much that is in the magazines until he has read some of the text books. After getting a fair theoretical knowledge of bee keeping from reading and visiting bee keepers, a few colonies of bees should be purchased; just how many is difficult to say. Probably a dozen colonies would be as large a number as a beginner ought to commence with, and it is possible to begin with only one colony. The point is just here; it is likely that some mistake will be made at first, and it is better that the mistake be made with only a few colonies, letting bees and the knowledge increase hand in hand.

"Buy Italian bees in movable comb hives of the nearest reliable bee keeper, unless the bees would have to be sent a long distance by express, when if bees in box hives can be bought near at home and at low prices, it may be better to get them and to transfer them than to pay enormous express charges. All in all, Italian bees are the most desirable, at least for a beginner. They are the most gentle, the best of workers, and a beautiful golden color, while with the modern methods and fixtures most excellent results can be obtained from them."

A woman in Santa Ana, California, who sells thousands of jars of honey every season, gave the following statement to the author of "Women in the Business

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World": "Neatness and order are essential, and energy is necessary. There should be no human drones about an apiary. Any of the standard works on bees can be relied upon. Much can be learned from the bee journals.

"Five hundred dollars will start any one with fifty colonies of bees and all necessary appurtenances to operate the business. An income can be expected within a year, or less time. It is a business which gives quicker returns for the capital invested than any I know of. Should a woman have a liking for this occupation, and not the capital, she can begin with a few swarms and soon build up and increase her colonies, and in a few years have a large apiary. As the bees would only require a small portion of her time, she could be employed in some other employment besides. The average yield of a colony in California is one hundred pounds of honey, besides the increase."

A Maine woman declares that when the price of box honey is good that she averages fifty dollars from each swarm of bees.

Bee keeping in cities has been tried in recent years with surprising success. Roofs have been found to be good places for the hives. Bees range a long distance for their food, and parks and gardens furnish the city bee with fine banquets and his owner with much honey.

"Poultry raising," declares Samuel Cushman, for seven years president of the Rhode Island Agricultural College, "is one of the best paying occupations in which anybody can engage. Women, as a general thing, do better with poultry than men, their tendency to look after small details being much to the advantage of the business. The most successful poultry raisers I have known have been women. One should read up well before he engages in this pursuit, and although the business can be started on small capital, it is better if the one who engages in it has considerable money to put into it at the start."

Land which is too barren and sterile for anything else serves every purpose of poultry raising.

In a comprehensive article in the Cosmopolitan John B. Walker, Jr. says: "As the problem of living becomes more complicated from the competition resulting from increasing population, attention is being given to many industries which in former times were held as of little consequence. How to live comfortably off the product of twenty acres is an interesting question to the man or woman who seeks escape from the confinement of the town or city; and one direction, which is attracting not a few, is poultry farming. The incubators on the market today do not require the care of an expert of long standing. There are two classes of apparatus — one heated by hot water, the other by hot air. Some are regulated by thermostatic bars made of brass, iron, rubber and aluminum; others by alcohol, ether, electricity and the expansion of water. The eggs are placed in trays and the trays put in the incubators directly under the tank that supplies the

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heat to the egg chamber — the incubators being built double walled and the air space packed with asbestos to prevent sudden changes of temperature from affecting the egg chamber. In size the smaller incubators range from twenty five to six hundred eggs capacity, and can be operated the year round, although the results are less successful during the hot summer months than in the spring or fall, or even in the winter.

"On the larger poultry farms the incubators have an underground room specially constructed to secure the eggs from sudden changes of temperature.

"There are poultry plants that, if kept steadily at work, and every egg put in the incubators were hatched, would be able to turn out three hundred thousand chickens each year, and there have recently been built some large incubators with a capacity of sixty thousand hen eggs, which would give a capacity of more than half a million a year.

"The chickens are easily hatched; but it requires the closest watching and much experience to bring them to marketable age. The incubator does not merely do away with the hen as a hatcher, but supplies a demand for broilers at a time of the year when it would be impossible to persuade the hen to set, and is of unlimited capacity, economically considered. Where formerly we were able to hatch one chicken we can now hatch a thousand.

"In order to give some idea of the profit to be derived from chicken farming, a computation has been made which supposes that each hen averages two hundred eggs per year, and that she is kept for two years and then sold. The estimate regards her as laying thirty three, dozen eggs, for which a fair price would be twenty five cents per dozen — rather low for fresh eggs. This would amount to eight dollars and eighty five cents. If it cost two dollars to raise and feed the chicken for two years, there would remain a net profit of three dollars and forty two cents a year; and the profit derived from ducks and broilers is estimated to be even larger. In New York City and vicinity the poultry and eggs consumed in one year amount to forty five million dollars — while that of the entire United States probably does not fall below seven hundred million dollars. An estimate published in a leading poultry journal puts the number used in this country last year by calico print works, wine clarifiers and photographic establishments at fifty four million dozens, and many additional millions by book binders, kid glove manufacturers and for finishers of fine leather.

"Year by year the agriculturist sees more clearly the advantage of the small, well cultivated farm, and to this class poultry raising offers special inducements. The season when most farmers are idle is that during which the poultry man is busiest.

"Plum or pear trees can be made to bear wonderfully well when planted in the chicken yard. They not only afford the birds a desirable and efficient shade,

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but the chickens keep the trees free of insects. In fact, on some of the large poultry farms, the fruit obtained from the trees in the chicken yard, when placed on the market, amounts to a very large item every season."

"A traveler," says the writer of "Women in the Business World," tells of a farmer's daughter in California, who, on her return from college, gave, her attention to raising chickens, and netted a thousand dollars a year from her work. She had a number of small enclosures, each with capacity for forty chickens, with a little house in the centre. The cost of all the enclosures and tiny houses was less than two hundred dollars."

The same author is authority for the following:

"A chicken farm in New Jersey which has buildings that cost $5000, all made out of the business, was started three years ago with only $25.00 in money. The proprietor is a man who has been engaged in business in New York all the time, and could give it his personal attention only nights and mornings. His farm is devoted exclusively to the production of eggs. As he has 1000 laying hens, which he manages to keep laying almost the year round, it is easy to see that his income is very respectable. "Some start with a capital of $100, and others have put as high, as $40,000 into the business in the beginning."

Eternal vigilance, and very deft and delicate vigilance, is the price of successful silk culture. The want of near markets and the coldness of the American climate render it difficult to derive any large benefits from this fascinating employment. The business should have a special building or room to meet the requirements for hatching the eggs. Artificial heat must always be employed during hatching time. The process of hatching is facilitated by washing the eggs in clear water, thus removing a kind of gumminess which adheres to them when they are laid. As the eggs are about the size of a pinhead this washing is a decidedly delicate affair.

The natural food of the worm is the white mulberry leaf. It will also eat the leaf of, the black mulberry, and lettuce leaves, but the black mulberry leaves so late in the season it is practically useless as food for the insects. To keep the worms from crowding together, the food must be carefully distributed on their trays. Many cultivators chop the leaves fine and strew them about.

Great care must be taken not to allow the worms of one hatch to mix with those of the other hatches unless exactly of the same age, as the stronger insects deprive the weaker of food.

The eggs are laid at the beginning of one summer, and hatched at the beginning of the next. The caterpillar changes his skin four or five times during his growth, and when near one of these changes is apt to die. The eggs cost about $5.00 an ounce. The green cocoons are sold from fifty to seventy five cents a pound. The price of the reeled silk varies from $5.00 to $8.00 a pound.

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An experienced worker in this field, who is quoted in "Women in the Business World," says:

"It is very hard work, and no let up. During the season of six weeks the food must be always fresh, and the worms breakfast between five and six in the morning, and want a full meal about ten at night. Perfect cleanliness is essential, and that means constant attention. They must have plenty of fresh air, but no direct current, with a uniform temperature of seventy five degrees.

"Other leaves mixed with mulberry may prove fatal — peach leaf, for instance. Tobacco in any shape is poison. Their enemies are legion. Birds, ants, insects, rats, mice, are all anxious to get at them. And so on, to say nothing of a dozen different diseases. Besides all this, the cocoons are to be ‘gathered,’ ‘stifled’ and ‘reeled,’ and the mulberry to be cultivated."

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XVII. Caring For Pets.

THERE is one field for women's work that is not yet crowded. The woman, young or old, who lives near a city, may easily support herself by keeping a boarding house for domestic pets.

There is one little woman in Boston who makes a good living, simply by taking in canaries and other birds, that are the pets of rich women who go traveling in Europe, or who do not want the care of them at their summer homes. In one little room she has twenty five or thirty cages, and she personally sees that they are kept warm and well fed and that they have plenty of water for drinking and bathing. Another old lady in South Boston keeps a boarding house for pet cats. "A boarding house for cats! What next?" I hear some one say.

Well, why not? Nothing is more heartless or unchristian than the way some rich women have of keeping pet cats on delicacies all winter, letting them sleep on silk cushions and in cosy corners, and then in the spring, when the time comes for migrating to the country or to Europe, to turn out these pets on the deserted streets to starve. They would not do it, if along in March or April they were to receive a neat little circular, or a personal letter to the effect that Miss Mary Smith, of some near suburb, was prepared to board pet cats at $1.50 or $2.00 a week, and would guarantee excellent care; for rich women are not heartless women.

You would need to have a comfortable yard, which could be enclosed in wire netting, so the pets could not run away; one with a tree or two would be best, as

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cats love to climb trees. Then, opening into this yard there should be a warm out building, or perhaps a back room in the house, where comfortable beds could be provided and the pets could have their meals. Plenty of oatmeal and milk should be given them, with one meal a day of cooked meat: or some of the reliable prepared cat foods may be substituted for meat. Spinach, string beans, asparagus, any cooked vegetable, also, should be given now and then to keep them in health. And don't forget, as an occasional treat, a bunch of catnip!

Up at Newburgh, on the Hudson River, Mrs. E. A. Barker started such a place a few years ago. She advertised, not in the papers, but by private circulars, among New York women. Today her "Sparrow's Roost" is famous everywhere among cat lovers, not only as a care taker for city pets, but as having the finest cat kennels in the country. She imported two or three very fine Persian cats and began to breed them! Her "King Humbert" and "Jasper" are cats whose money value runs into the hundreds, and she sells kittens for large sums every season.

Of course one must understand this business, but it is easily learned if one starts with a real love for cats and a real purpose to build up a successful business. Says Mrs. Barker:

"My knowledge of the special traits of my Persians has been, perforce, self gained, as there are comparatively few in America who have these cats, while all the books upon the subject are English. I fear the long haired cat has been grossly slandered in regard to amiability and disposition. I find they are not unlike ourselves and our children — they will follow a good example or the reverse. With an affectionate, well bred mistress, pussy's manners are confidence, self control and a devotion personified. Such animals will never need to be handled with a pair of leather gloves. A well bred cat requiring to be thus managed cries ‘shame!’ upon its master or mistress. In my large kennel of long haired cats, I have never had one a stranger might not pick up with impunity, meeting with politeness from the most reserved, while from a few there would be no end of insinuating advances, not to say downright love making, from two or three distracting little flirts I have in the kennel. ‘King Humbert,’ ‘the head of the herd,’ will, if allowed, put his plushy paws quite around one's neck, rubbing his head up and down one's face and purring one the most fascinating Persian compliments in the most courtly manner. And ‘Prince Charming,’ son of the famous champion ‘Abdul Zaphir,’ will flutter his silver brush, fix his golden eyes upon a stranger, study the physiognomy like a Lavater, when, if the result be satisfying, he will make one bound upon the visitor's shoulder and forthwith express his opinion in the most enjoyable, if slightly personal manner. As a rule, cats are more subtle judges of character than the dog, and infinitely more reticent and exclusive.

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"If a cat loves a place more than a person, that person does not deserve that cat's devotion. My cats delight to take strolls with me, and I often wander over the fields and far away with thirty or more of them, and we do enjoy it so. If the grass is high or the underbrush rough, and if they fancy themselves tired, they come to be taken up. I carry them a little while, when off they go again, as brisk as ever. Cats are not gregarious animals, which makes a difficulty in rearing many together. They often form friendships for each other, which are very close, and when broken, are seldom replaced by another."

Mrs. Barker speaks from experience and gives advice which other women may well lay to heart in saying: "Don't attempt to make cat raising a business without true love for the beautiful animals, and courage and capacity for plenty of work; as of all the fancies this is the most intricate. They should be well bred drawing room pets you are rearing, so the kennel must be such that their education can begin there. It must be comfortably large for winter, and must be well warmed and immaculately clean, and for long haired cats, what is still more important — their daily toilet. Ailments must be attended to and studied, manners-must be first taught and unceasingly enforced, and kittens trained. Lines of breeding are to be followed, types determined and persevered with, color blending and experiments therewith, lending a constant fresh interest and making an entrancing occupation, and more than worth all expended care and devotion. The mere winning of prizes in the show pen should be looked upon as a secondary consideration, and only as means of showing others the perfected results of skill, care and love, that we may all enjoy the fruits of labor and combine to give Pussy her proper place and raise her to her just station as one of the most perfect household pets."

Her remarks are of value because there is a rapidly growing demand in this country for fancy cats, and this gives women a fine opportunity to establish a profitable and congenial business.

Another woman who has established such a business is Mrs. Percy West, of Geauga Lake, Ohio. Being obliged to undertake some form of livelihood, and having always been a lover of cats, she decided to start a cat farm — not for their fur, as some more heartless people have been known to do, but for the production of thoroughbreds for cat lovers.

On the borders of this Ohio lake she has built a number of neat, well kept, Queen Anne houses, in which cat families are born, reared and allowed to grow up into stately and beautiful animals. At this place the owner spends most of her time, at certain seasons of the year, giving her personal supervision to the work.

Mrs. West says, "My venture was the result of a bequest of two fine Angoras from a friend going abroad. As I became greatly attached to them, and as I

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found that kittens of this species were often in demand, I resolved to go into the business. When my husband was living he was greatly interested in dogs, and as I only had to add my cat kennels the labor was a light one, and profitable as a means of subsistence for my family.

"But with all my knowledge of animals I soon learned that although cats are not troublesome creatures, yet in the rearing of Angoras for the first eight months great care should be taken not to expose them to wet or chill. They cannot live without fresh air or exercise. Each mother is provided with a clean, cosy kennel, and cannot be let out only on the days that are sunny and warm. But the main point is clear weather, exercise, and plenty of liberty until they grow to be fine large cats. Cats of high degree, such as these, are not expected to have the nine lives allotted to the ordinary feline, and therefore must be guarded. They are clean, dainty and loving, and when once their affections are given it is hard to part with them at any price."

When Mrs. West turns her steps eastward she is pretty sure to bring with her from two to six Angoras or Maltese to replace those which are sold when vacancies occur. She affirms that, "Take them all in all, they are charming companions, and in many respects are as human as men and women, and that the Maltese sell as well as the Angoras, often better."

Mrs. West declares that cat raising is a healthful occupation, and for delicate women who are dependent upon themselves, if a method is persisted in, it will surely prove a success. Now, surely, some enterprising young woman will take a hint from the experience of these two, and start a business for herself.

Dogs, too, may be made the specialty, in the same way. But I still believe that the boarding house for pets is a much needed institution, and that the woman who opens one is sure of a comfortable income from it.

Love of dogs is an almost inherent element in the human make up, and there is certainty money to be made in supplying special breeds, and catering to fashionable fancies. One brave woman, at least, has turned the fact to good account, and has established large kennels at Germantown, Pa. Like most enterprises of the sort, it had its beginning in a small way, and one St. Bernard puppy was the whole stock in trade. That, however, netted a profit of fifty dollars, and so became a nucleus of a more extended business. Today the kennels are known far and wide, and their owner has won prizes and medals without end. "You must watch the market closely," she says, "but if you are at ail careful there is really little risk. The greatest danger comes from within; for one is apt to grow so fond of the creatures it is a wrench to part with them even when a good sale is to be made."

And so with animals, as with inanimate things, it is the fitness that tells — the special adaptability that means success. If one has no business, so to speak,

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general business affords many opportunities, provided there is quickness to learn and mental grasp. But in the sphere of bread winning, as elsewhere in this world of many tastes and much freedom, it is always the novelty that attracts, and it is wiser by far to search diligently, and to consider well if there be not something peculiarly one's own to be found.

Then, whether it be slightly eccentric or not, it is almost certain to succeed, if only originality, enthusiasm and fidelity be called into play.

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XVIII. Lunch And Tea Rooms.

IF I were to lose my position or in any way become incapacitated for continuing professional work, I should open a tea room," said one of Boston's brightest newspaper writers.

A group of women had been discussing the chances of occupation, lamenting that the fields had become so overcrowded that it was difficult to gain entrance to most of those already occupied, when the woman who had kept silent through the discussion made the above announcement. It was a sensible thought and one that might be undertaken by some woman or girl in any community and carried to successful results. There are plenty of restaurants, such as there are in every place, but a daintily appointed room in the quieter part of the town — and yet not so far from the shopping portion as to be inaccessible — where women might drop in and find a dainty lunch served in a quiet apartment which had the atmosphere of home, is too infrequent.

There are one or two in New York, and one has recently been opened in Boston which was a success from its very beginning. The young woman who undertook it was educated and refined, and knew by experience just what the better class of women wanted and needed to refresh themselves in the hours after shopping or on returning from the matinee. So she took parlors on one of the best streets just on the edge of the shopping district, fitted them up prettily and artistically, and opened them as afternoon tea rooms. At first she only served afternoon tea from 4 until 6 o'clock, but she has since undertaken to give French

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breakfasts from 8 until 10, and delicate luncheons from 12 until 3. In connection with her tea room she opened what she quaintly calls "a gift shop," and this name defines itself. She keeps on sale all sorts of dainty, pretty novelties, suitable for birthday, wedding and holiday presents, many of them things that one cannot buy at the regular shops. These she sells at fair prices and adds largely to the revenue of her rooms.

It is quite the thing for Boston women of society to drop in at Miss Stearns' for luncheon or tea, and they rarely leave without either purchasing some exquisite bit which they see temptingly displayed, or marking it for future purchase. Everything his served in the most exquisite fashion on the daintiest of dishes and with all the accessories of the most finished home table. Her tea is delicately brewed, her chocolate and coffee are perfection. Everything that she serves is of the very best and is made as attractive as possible.

This woman knew her public and ministered to it exactly. Any other clever woman with a talent for managing could do just the same in any city of size. Indeed, the afternoon tea room could be made the popular rendezvous for the society women, where they could meet friends by appointment and have even a quieter hour than they would be able to command in their own homes where they are so constantly liable to interruption of all kinds. It should be a lady's resort exclusively, no men being permitted to share its hospitality.

It requires both shrewd business management to start such an undertaking, and the most exquisite tact to carry it on successfully. But it nearly always happens that your successful business woman is a tactful woman as well. It is necessarily so, since tact is one of the first requirements for success in any line where one is brought into contact with either men or women.

The mistress of the lunch room may add to her revenue by taking orders for the tea, chocolate, cocoa and coffee which she serves, and supplying them to her customers. She may also take orders for bon bons, for confections, and for special kinds of biscuit or fancy cakes to be served at madame's 5 o'clock tea at home. She may also arrange with the large importing houses to sell special novelties on commission, and also take orders for embroideries and art work. There is almost no end to the limit of possibilities which occur naturally to one engaged in this enterprise.

Quite apart from this is the lunch room in the busy part of the city, where both men and women are served. This lunch room should be made totally distinct from the large restaurant which keeps open all day. It should be a well appointed, quiet place, where specialty is made of certain home dishes to be served between the hours of 12 and 3. There is no need of a large variety, but what there is should be of the best quality, beautifully cooked and temptingly served. It always helps a place of this sort very much to make a specialty of one or two

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dishes, and always serving these, but giving variety by changing other articles on the bill of fare daily.

There is in one of the large cities a lunch room of this kind, which has made itself famous by its coffee jelly. This is made in pretty moulds and served on delicate ornamented plates and piled high with whipped cream. Hundreds of people go there daily just for the sake of this jelly. This is not exaggeration, for I was curious enough to ask how many moulds were served daily, and I was told that the average number was six hundred.

In another city, away down in the business part of the wholesale district, where few women penetrate, is a lunch room kept by a country bred woman whose custard and squash pies have made the place famous. There is no ambitious attempt at display in this little room; it is rather dingy, although scrupulously clean; there are no tables, but the patrons sit on stools at the counter, and are served with little ceremony; but the making of good custard and squash pies has also been the making of that woman's fortune. Various attempts have been made to induce her to go up town into the more fashionable district and open a restaurant there; but she is a wise woman who lets well enough alone; she knows her own limitations and is perfectly well aware that while she is successful in this lunch room, where little style is required, and cleanliness and good cooking are respected, she would only challenge failure if she attempted anything on more elaborate lines.

There is a restaurant in New York, one of the very most prosperous, whose beginnings were so small that the result reads almost like a fairy tale. I wonder if Miss Avary will pardon me if I quote from her story in the New York Independent? This story is so simply and directly told and is in itself such a helpful suggestion and encouragement to many another woman, that I wish to reproduce it just as it was told for fear I might spoil it should I try to clothe it in new language:

"On the top floor of one of New York's great downtown buildings lived a janitor and his family. His wife — we will call her Mother Smith, as she came to be called by a very large family living all over Manhattan Island, Long Island, Staten Island and Jersey — was just a wholesome, simple body, with a generous heart and a thrifty hand. Her daughter — Mary Smith, we will say — had likewise the generous heart and thrifty hand. It may be observed, by the way, that the generous heart and thrifty hand work to much better profit when they work together than when either works alone.

"Mary was a telegraph operator in another great downtown building. One day Mary brought a sick companion to her mother. Mother Smith did not fret and say, ‘Look at all this extra trouble on my hands. It is none of my affair. What have I to do with it?’ Not even saying it in her heart, her look did not

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show it to the sick girl, whom we will call Laura. She simply mothered Laura; made her lie down on the sofa, wrapped her up, cuddled her, and brought her a cup of delicious tea.

"Several days later Laura's mother, who lived in Jersey, called on Mother Smith. She said Laura was delicate. Would Mother Smith take her under her wing, and give her a lunch every day on business principles? Because of that good masonry which exists between mothers, Mother Smith consented. And that was the beginning of Mother Smith's restaurant, one of the most prosperous today in New York City.

"Mary and Laura would bring a friend to lunch now and then. The friend invariably asked to be admitted to the charmed lunch circle on business principles. And the restaurant grew — grew until Mother Smith's room could not contain it, and until the elevator man complained that Mother Smith's girls crowded regular occupants of the building out of the elevator during midday hours. Mother Smith's girls declared that they could not give Mother Smith up, she that she could not give them up; neither were she nor they willing to inconvenience the business men who were tenants of the building. Accordingly, Mother Smith looked about her and did a great deal of planning and thinking, the result of which was that her full fledged restaurant was quickly established in a home of its own. This home was chosen on the second floor of a decent but very plain house — downtown, of course, not too far from Broadway, and yet not near enough to involve high rent. It was also close enough to Fulton Market for that to be a great advantage to one who meant to keep her prices down by paying low rent and being a close shopper.

"At her room in the house where her husband was janitor, she had managed to do all the work herself. Her girls coming at different hours made this possible: but with her increased space and custom, Mother Smith began to employ outside help; thus her enterprise took on another form of usefulness.

"Last year 150 girls sat down to her lunch tables six days in every week: sometimes there might be a few more, sometimes a few less, but this was the average. One dollar for six meals was the price charged; and the luncheons are substantial — a soup, a meat, a vegetable, tea, coffee or milk, all the bread and butter you want, and a dessert. Mother Smith has made money at it. Within the past few months she installed one of her trained assistants as manager at this place and went out herself to establish a branch institution for the benefit of gentlemen — this in response to demand for it. The restaurant whose history we have given is west of Broadway; it has been suggested to Mrs. Smith that she start a similar one east and further downtown.

"During this period of increasing success in business, Mother Smith has not left off her habit of mothering sick girls. The little sofa, the cup of tea, the

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timely medicine, are all within their reach. And if for any girlish pleasure an out of town hoarder wishes to stay in town over night, Mother Smith has ever been ready with any accommodation which it was in her power to render. It is not easy to estimate the good she has done to her charges apart from the very valuable one of feeding their bodies well for what they could afford to pay."

Could anything be more helpful or more interesting than this true story of the evolution of a cup of tea into a thriving business enterprise? Indeed, is it not a happy illustration of what this book is always insisting upon — that the improvement of small opportunities opens the door to large ones? You may, my dear girls, get tired of having this fact so constantly pressed in upon you, but it is such a valuable one, one upon which so much depends, that it cannot be too often repeated nor too well remembered. This story is also happy in showing — what a thousand unwritten things in life show every moment — that simple goodness and kindness unselfishly shown, pay; and that not only in the higher sense in which we delight to exercise it for its own sake, but in the lesser of bringing material recompense. One doesn't "be good" expecting to be paid for it, but when one is paid, the pleasure of doing is greatly enhanced.

There is another thing to be learned from the result of Mother Smith's experiment as well as from that of Miss Stearns — each catering to the wants of women, but at quite different ends of the social scale — and also from the woman who makes good custard and squash pies: whoever furnishes food at reasonable prices and of unexceptionable quality to men and women in any station of life, is conferring a public benefit and doing humanity a better service than any charity can possibly bestow. Here is the chance for some woman with a talent for catering. She must not rely alone upon the fact that she is a good woman, or that she is a good cook; she must combine both qualities. She must also possess judgment in making her purchases, and a knowledge of how much of each article will be required for daily use. None of the detail can be left to other persons. If she wishes to be successful and to make money, she must give her personal attention to even the smallest detail.

With the qualities mentioned and courage to work, she may undertake a business of this kind, feeling reasonably certain that in it she will find her way to self support.

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XIX. From The Successful Woman's Standpoint.

NO ONE has a better right to speak for the girls who are making careers for themselves than Mrs. J. C. Croly (Jenny June), the pioneer newspaper woman of New York. In a recent article she says:

"No finer answer could have been made to the objections raised in the beginning — that is to say, a few years ago — against young women taking positions as typewriters and stenographers in the offices of men than the rapid multiplication of them, and the universal satisfaction expressed at the admirable character of the girls and their work. Any one who has occasion to visit a lawyer's office, or the counting room of a business man downtown in New York City — or, indeed, in any other large city — must be struck with the number and quality of young women employed as corresponding clerks, as department bookkeepers, as cashiers, and in other capacities demanding trustworthiness as well as trained capacity. And this is particularly what has made them desirable — the quality of faithfulness, of freedom from temptation to speculate and peculate, a certain single mindedness and devotion to the employer's business and interest which the hardest headed of them appreciate.

"‘Yes,’ said a lawyer not long since in reply to a. question, ‘I am free to say I have changed my opinion. I opposed the introduction of women into business offices because I believed it to be impossible in the nature of things. But it proved itself quite possible. The first thing I knew they were there. The results I feared did not follow; the girls fell naturally into line, proved themselves business like, asked for no special consideration, and kept to their hours as well, if not

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better than men. They are now as much a part of the accepted order as the desk they work upon: and in fact, we should not know what to do without them. They make the most intelligent clerks, are quick to grasp an idea, and require few words to understand the special aspect of the case.’

The census of 1870 reported only seven women stenographers in the United States. Now the number of persons earning their living by stenography and typewriting is estimated as more than 175,000, of whom two thirds are women. In New York the 15,000 women out of the 25,000 stenographers employed is probably a low estimate.

This industrial competition of women with men upon their own ground, and their successful achievement of equal place and opportunity, is not the result of agitation, but of courage and persistent energy working against every natural and conventional obstacle. The result is exactly what the teachers have accomplished before them — that is, accepted position and numerical strength. The generally received statement that women work for less than men (other things being equal) is not nearly so true as it seems or as is believed; and the difference, which was to a certain extent inevitable in the beginning, is lessening all the time.

In some fields — notably that of medicine — the charges of the average woman physician are higher than those of men. In all professional occupations there are

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individuals, both men and women, who receive both higher and lower rates than the average; not always as the measure of their professional worth, but of their own modest, or otherwise, estimate of their own service.

There is a considerable difference between the professional and industrial aspect of a career for girls. In the first instance she is usually helped; in the latter case she is almost always opposed by her family. It is common to speak as if all difficulties had been smoothed away from the path of girls who wish to earn an independent livelihood; and certainly they have been helped by the measure of success some have attained. But women who have had to fight their own battles unaided, and women who have to guide the destinies of daughters, know well the lions that still stand in the way, and even hang round the doors that have been opened. The new opportunities do not come unattended. In their train are dangers that are a source of fear and anxiety, when they do not present an insurmountable obstacle. The reasons for this are twofold. One is, that: a girl, to obtain a career or even a livelihood nowadays, must go out into the world and separate herself from her family. The other is, that the life of the child and its preparation for the future have rarely any relation to or correspondence with the past of the parent, and is, therefore, neither helped nor guarded by it.

In the old days of hand labor, artisans and craftsmen had their own shops — generally a room in their house — and were their own masters. Sons and daughters grew up beneath the roof tree, and shared its occupations, and helped to make the record which was transmitted from father to son and from mother to daughter. It was a restricted life, but it had its beautiful side; and this was in the cultivation of home life, united family interests and the building up of personal character that became in itself an inheritance as well as an obligation. Today the majority of working men are insignificant parts of a machine. Their occupations hold out no opportunities, no future — at least, none commensurate with their ambition — for their children; they do not want their sons or their daughters to be parts of a machine. They want to put them on the high road to distinction, to honor, at least, to those pursuits which offer no barrier to social or individual success.

Education is the keynote to this success — for girls particularly — and therefore the doors of the free college and the high school are besieged by ambitious mothers, who work like gallery slaves at home to give their daughters the stepping stones to freedom and independence. When this, however, has been achieved at untold sacrifice, they find themselves confronted by the far more difficult problem, what use to make of it. Teaching? This is the one vocation for which competent schools are provided at the public expense, consequently it is crowded both by those who are fit and those who are unfit by nature to become teachers. The teacher is born. The schools furnish, the weapons, the technical instrumentalities, but not the insight, the sympathy, the patience, the personality which makes the teacher.

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The girl of today choosing a career finds herself still between two fires: one, the traditions of her sex; the other, that which guards the door to desire and achievement. The majority of those women who are deemed successful, who have been the successes of the past half century, have made their own way, have cut their own road through untried paths and have thus opened the way for others. But all are not made to be pioneers.

That there is still a problem not solvable by the vocation of the teacher, of the stenographer, of the trained nurse, or of the decorative artist, is known to many; and one of the most natural solutions appears to me to lie in treating boys and girls more alike, and from the human rather than the sex point of view. We make too much of the difference in sex. The .needs of both are the same. The best qualities of both are as necessary to one as the other, to make the well rounded human being.

Fathers should take their daughters into their own business, have them trained for business, and pay them or give them an interest in it as they do their sons. Girls have often a business capacity, and generally a degree of steadfastness and reliability in which boys are frequently lacking; but these qualities are left to fester and create discontent in the girl's heart, or she is reduced to a subordinate capacity in the service of a stranger simply because she is a girl. A year's training in a business college turns out practical bookkeepers and cashiers at good salaries. Many a man would have saved himself from failure if the bright daughter who was teaching or typewriting had been behind his own desk or counter. The puritan spirit has had much to do with the sex difficulties in this country. It put the iron heel upon the prostrate woman. It made her subjection a part of her religion. In removing the distinctions of class it created those of sex, and made the woman subject to the authority vested alone in the man. The man claimed this authority as a divine right, but tempered it with the theory of protection; and, like some other things, women have been almost protected to death.

When women arrived at this point they decided to look out and see how it was for themselves. They saw that the protection that was everybody's business was nobody's business. They saw that food and clothing and shelter and participation in the life about them were necessary to every human being, and that these did not come like manna in the wilderness, but had to be worked for and struggled for and held by persistent energy when once they were obtained.

This is what a career means. It means work, work, work — work with a purpose, and without stopping; for if you leave the ranks the surging crowd fills up the gap, and you lose that which you have gained. The difference up to this time between the careers of men and women has been mainly that men seek a career for its own sake, as a law of their life, of their manhood. Women from

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necessity, from some failure or incompetency on the part of men. This is not surprising. Women have had no help, no stimulus, no inducements in this direction; instead of these, all sorts of obstacles — the opposition, above all, of public opinion. Motherhood and the care of the household were demanded of her. Whatever her special aptitudes, they must be set aside; she must be wife and mother, without recognizing the fact that motherhood is a career in itself, the most comprehensive, many sided and exacting of all careers.

We read of the perfect motherhood of birds and animals. It is purely physical; it feeds and guards its young; but the human mother has always had to perform far higher duties and these also. In a primitive age she was the caretaker of the interests of the family, she acquired the property, she transmitted her name, she represented wealth and social status. If we have passed the matriarchal age, so also have we passed the patriarchal. Today the individual is king or queen; particularly the young man, the young woman. Today it is almost a crime to be old; it is the young who are called to the front; it is the young blood that is wanted, the daring of inexperience that is most prized. Society, public opinion, releases sons and daughters from obedience, but it cannot release the mother from her responsibility. If only makes it more difficult of fulfillment. She must, keep in touch with the activities of the universe. She must be an eternal reservoir never exhausted. She must know how to use nerves and vital forces without straining them; she must know what is good for the growing body and also for the growing soul. Finally, she must respect the newly acknowledged individual kingship and queenship in the children she has reared, and be willing to wait till the buds blossom and the fruit ripens, for reward for her labors.

It is not, however, so necessary today that every woman should many as it was two thousand years ago. Women are women, as men are men, whether they are wives or mothers or not. It is just as much their business to work out their own lives, to build character, as it is that of a man. Men and women are their own artists; they carve out of their own lives the man or the cur, the woman or the creature of instinct and appetite."

Another bright New York newspaper woman who masquerades in print under the non de plume of "Bab," says a wise word which is worth quoting for the girls who, like her, are interested in studying conditions both from personal interest and from a desire to keep abreast with what is going on in the world. "Bab" says;

"I have taken much interest in watching the women who succeed, and I have come to one conclusion — the woman who succeeds is the woman who does her work to the best of her ability, who is properly businesslike, but who never loses what might be called the arts of feminity. She never; becomes chummy with men. She is polite to them, but when business forces her to talk with them, she never lets them forget that she is a woman. Not because she whimpers to them; not

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because she tries to fascinate them; but simply because she is herself. Some newspapers and public speakers have an unpleasant way of telling us of the disagreeable things that happen when a woman is introduced in a business way into an office where men are. They forget the other side of the story. A man, who is no better than any other, probably, from a moral standpoint, worse than some, told me that he had never regretted taking a lady typewriter into his office. He said she had improved the whole tone of the place; that no man in his office ever used a profane word before her; that the men were more polite than before her arrival, and he believed it was entirety due — this change for the better — to the woman herself. And yet she had said nothing and done nothing. She had only taken it for granted that the men around her were gentlemen, and when she was not well posted about her work she hadn't hesitated to ask their help. And she had gotten it because she expected to. She wasn't young, and she wasn't beautiful, but she was a woman who had a peculiarty womanly power for influencing men for good."

Miss Irene Hartt, talking to girls just entering the world of labor, says: "A girl who sets out to earn her own living must bear two things in mind. The first is, that in every department of life, she requires a great deal of push. To succeed, she must be energetic and persevering: she mustn't allow herself ever to be discouraged; she will be knocked down time and again, as she fights her way up in the world for fame and bread. That is to make no difference. She must rise up every time fresher and stronger for another battle. If she takes reverses in this way, she cannot help grow stronger at each one. She must never forget that no man or woman ever rose to the top without fighting every inch of the way up. Victory is always at the end for the determined fighter through life.

"Secondly, a girl must always remember that there's room at the top. When you choose a profession, make up your mind that you will rise to the very highest point in it. Down on the level it's jammed. The higher you go, the more breathing space you can have. In other words, the better skilled you are, the better price and position you can demand."

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XX. Telegraph And Telephone Girls.

IT IS such a usual sight — that of a young woman presiding over the telegraph in offices and railway stations — that one has ceased to have even a feeling of surprise at seeing them there. Among the occupations that properly come under the head of professional, no employment is probably within the reach of so many young women as telegraphy.

Miss Edith Symonds recently gave the New York Independent a capital resume of women's work and its requirements in this profession, and, craving her indulgence, I am going to quote something of what she says on the subject. In regard to the requirements she says: "An ordinary common school education, with a special ability to spell well and write plainly, and more or less rapidly, either in common writing or on the typewriter, is all that is required in a pupil before she may begin to learn this business. It is an occupation attractive to women because it is office work with just enough bustle and activity about it to keep it from being dull, and with an occasional chance, in times of public excitement, of its being exceptionally interesting. Women can learn to become telegraph operators at any age; young girls at fifteen have successfully studied the art, and women as old as forty have mastered it; but the age recommended by expert teachers as being the best is between eighteen and twenty five. The time which it takes to become an efficient operator depends, of course, on the brightness of the pupil, her general intelligence, and quickness of apprehension. Some young women take, to the art very readily; others never become sufficiently proficient to take positions, no matter how long they may study. Telegraphy requires a certain knack, and

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demands that the student shall love the occupation if she expects to become skilled in it. The course of instruction in most institutions where telegraphy is taught covers a period of six months. Presuming that the student loves the art, if she gives her time to it for four or five hours a day for the period of six months she will master it; when it comes to attaining speed, however, that is a matter of practice. In this respect telegraphy is very much like stenography. A person may learn the principles of the latter science in comparatively a short space of time, but to avail herself really of its advantages, a great deal of practice is required. The principles of telegraphy are far simpler than those of stenography, but the necessity for practice is equally important."

Telegraphy is taught as a special branch in about fifty colleges in different parts of the union and in special schools to be found in every city. The Western Union Telegraph Company instructs some of its help, but they exercise considerable care in selecting their pupils. They will not encourage dull or inactive young women to learn the art. Quick, active minded young women generally turn out to be the best telegraphers.

In the general operating department of the Western Union Telegraph Company in New York, the company educates its own operators. Young girls are first employed as office messengers; the office consists of a large room, with a branch department in an adjoining building. These rooms are filled with operators sitting in a row, at long desks stretched across the apartment. The business is such that the operators are continually in need of messengers to send their despatches from one department to the other. Thirty young misses are employed in this service. They begin at this work with the idea of becoming telegraphers, and the company allows them a certain number of hours during the day to study and practice the art under the direction of competent instructors. For this messenger service, combined sometimes with clerical work, they receive from $3.50 to $6.00 a week.

The salaries of women telegraphers vary according to their ability. In the Western Union office in New York they range from $8.00 to $15.00 a week. The hours in the general operating department are from 8.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. In this department over 100,000 messages are received every day.

Brokers' offices supply the positions most sought after by telegraph operators. There are very few of these positions, however. They call for special ability, but the salaries paid vary from $75.00 to $90.00 a month. The hours of work are light, being from 9:30 a. m., to 3 p. m. A woman employed in such an office must not only be rapid, but accurate in her work. She must be a woman in whom the utmost confidence can be placed, and possessed of that rare womanly gift — the ability to keep a secret, for she is, in reality, a sort of confidential clerk.

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Still more responsible positions are those of chief operators in the main telegraph office of a large city; there they are paid as high as $23.00 a week.

What is called a good position may be either in a city or in the country. In fact, the word "good" used in this connection is purely a relative term. For instance: the salary paid may be larger in a city, but the expense of living will be greater and the work more arduous than it will be in some country town, where the wages will be lower. During the summer months positions at the various watering places are particularly sought after, the pay of the operator being $30.00 a month and her board. In the large city hotels, where the business is quite brisk and important, the salary is from $40.00 to $50.00 a month.

One authority states that if there is any reason why women are not as successful as men in this profession, it is the same old argument that is constantly used about nearly all the vocations they enter — that they do not make it a life profession; they look forward to marriage, and give more or less thought and attention to the stages which are preliminary to this important event. This being the case, women do not have the incentive or the opportunity to advance as men do. The few who are in receipt of high salaries are women who have taken up the profession as a life work and have been employed many years — some of them as long as twenty five years — before they were in receipt of such salaries.

Though women often make excellent operators and receive very good pay for this kind of work, they do not obtain the enviable positions that exist in the service. They do not seem to possess the ability, in the majority of cases, of grasping the various details of a large business and conducting it with system and regularity. In one large metropolitan telegraph office there are women who have been employed for the last twenty years; but they are receiving no more pay than they received ten years ago, and ten years from now their salary will be no higher than it is at the present time.

A prominent telegraph official says that telegraphy is a good occupation for a young woman. Provided she has no talent to do anything better, it will furnish her a reasonably pleasant, profitable and sure means of employment. Of course, this occupation, like every other, is affected by good or bad times.

Another reason why it is a good profession for women is because, after having left it, they can return to it, and if competent, be reasonably sure of obtaining work. Many women having married, have been made widows, or having left the service for some reason or other, have met with misfortune. They need the financial help that the work once gave them. When such women have been employed by the large telegraph companies, an effort is always made to reinstate them; in fact, other things being equal, they have the preference over the new comers.

Of late the typewriter has played a very important part in telegraph work, and it is doing so more and more every day. Young women who are correct and

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rapid typewriters have better chance of securing positions with the large telegraph companies than those who have no knowledge of these things. When the young woman learns how to receive messages over the wires, she finds her knowledge of typewriting to be of great advantage; she can take down a message on the machine as fast as it is received. In this way this branch of the work is made much easier, and many young women telegraphers have voluntarily learned how to use this instrument simply as a means of lightening their labors. A considerable number of women telegraphers can take down messages as they are received at the rate of seventy or eighty words a minute. No one, of course, could begin to write as fast as that in common writing, and, if such a feat could be performed the writing would not be legible. All telegraphic matter must at least be legible, and the typewriter style of copy is being favored more and more on this account alone.

The girl who seriously considers undertaking telegraphy as a profession should be extremely careful in selecting the institution where she will be taught. Before entering any one of them she should obtain the advice of some honest and disinterested man or woman already in the profession, who knows something of the character of the various institutions. It is hardly safe to trust to the advertisements which she will find in the various newspapers throughout the country of the firms who engage to teach telegraphy in a surprisingly short time, and at equally surprising high rates for tuition. Some of these may be good, but many cannot be recommended. Therefore she should take counsel before trusting herself in the hands of any teacher.

The Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston has rendered invaluable service to the young girls in New England by finding out and exposing the concerns who are not honest in their dealings with students. To the shame of men be it spoken, there are in various cities a number who make a living by preying upon young girls, promising them work if they will become students and pay them a certain amount of money. The training amounts to nothing at all, they are in no position to secure positions even if they could prepare the girl for them, but they unblushingly pocket the fee and leave the girl to, do the best she can for herself. Thanks to the Union, this number of men, in Boston, at least, has been largely decreased because, knowing the close espionage which is kept of all their movements, they have found it more profitable to seek other fields where there is no Union to expose them and protect their victim.

Of course, this does not refer to the standard schools, those in the accredited business colleges and those conducted by teachers of reputation. There are plenty of these where the girl may get the best possible training for a small sum, and to which she may be directed by any person conversant with the profession.

Since the perfection of the telephone and its almost universal use, there have been opportunities offered for a large number of women. This number is

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constantly increasing, for not only are they employed in private offices and on the day force in public offices, but recently there has been in one city at least — Boston — the substitution of women for men in the night force. This almost doubles the number of employes in the general office.

The duties of the telephone girl are not hard and the hours are about the same as the telegraph operator. The salaries paid vary according to the duties performed. The girls who attend the long distance telephones receive from $12.00 to $15.00 a week, while the girl in the local office averages about $7.00 , except the more expert, who command $9.00 or $10.00 a week. The girl who becomes a successful telephone operator must be quick and bright intellectually, keen to grasp an idea, and with command of language to enable her to carry on a conversation intelligently, a clear voice, and an utter absence of nerves. Indeed, this latter qualification is perhaps the most necessary of all; for the girl who is easily rattled, who gets a headache at the slightest provocation and flies to pieces under a pressure a little above the ordinary is worse than useless in the telephone office.

It is, perhaps, needless to say that one of the main requisites is patience; probably more exasperating things happen over the telephone than under any other conditions, but the well poised girl can meet all these successfully. Even personal dignity may make itself felt over a telephone wire, and the person at the other end very quickly learns whether it is sate, in masculine phrase, to attempt "to jolly the hello girl."

It does not take time to learn, as does the telegraph, and it is more a question of fitness than of special preparation. A girl who undertakes it very soon finds out whether she is in her proper place, and if she has the slightest doubt on the matter, she would better give up the position at once rather than wait for her employers to discover the unfitness which she already suspects. This applies more particularly to the work in general offices. The girl who gains a position as telephone operator in some hotel, railroad office, or exchange, finds the duties less arduous and nerve trying than she who has to stay at the switchboard for hours at a time, doing nothing but connecting different lines and attending to the wants of the subscribers. But, unfortunately, the places in the outside offices are much less in number than those in the general office, and consequently are more eagerly sought. In nearly every office, except the special ones just mentioned, the telephone call is answered by any employee who chances to be nearest to it and the need of a special attendant is not felt.

The girl with sound nerves, dignity of character, pleasant temper and calm temperament, will find pleasant occupation in this comparatively new field of labor.

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XXI. Stenograph And Typewritter.

ONE of the more recent avocations to be taken up by women is stenography, and incidental to this, typewriting. The latter is also adopted by some young women who do not make a profession of the first: but these are usually copyists who transcribe from manuscript, but do not undertake work from dictation. But by far the most successful typewriters are those who are stenographers as well. Of course the work of preparation for the latter branch is much more arduous and takes a longer time, besides being more expensive. A young woman who is ranked among the successful workers in her own profession and yet who knows by observation the other side of the story; gives a very good resume of the situation as it now appears.

"Tell you about the typewriter? Yes. What do you want to know? Oh, I see. Is it a good business for girls? That depends. It must be a good girl for the business in order to be a good business for the girl. What do I mean? Simply this: there must be natural qualifications, else the girl will not succeed. You can't expect every man to make a good minister or lawyer or newspaper man or merchant, can you? He must have the something in himself that compels the success. Every man cannot succeed as a stenographer or typewriter, neither can every woman. It. requires a good memory, an ability to spell, a generally good education, and by that, I mean understanding of affairs and knowledge of events, a quick eye and hand, and no nerves. You see the list of requirements is a long one, and the trouble is, each one is equally imperative. Many girls are attracted to do this

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work because they think it a pleasant way of earning bread and butter and it seems a step in advance of so many other things; a girl would rather say she was a typewriter than that she sewed in a shop. It is one of the class of intelligent professions that presupposes a certain amount of education. Not all who begin it carry it through — this refers especially to the study of stenography — and many who do get to the end of the course some way or other cannot make it available after they finish. The fault is not in the method by which they were taught, but in themselves; they haven't the requisites for success. When they come to be put to practical work they make dismal failures.

"Do I like it? Yes, very much. I get an insight into a great many things that wouldn't otherwise come to me; and let me say just here one thing that I neglected to mention when I was giving my list of requirements. A very important one is discretion. Naturally one hears a great deal about people and unavoidably learns much not only of their character, but of their private affairs, and an honorable girl understands that this knowledge is to be put out of mind as speedily as possible. Why, a stenographer could make no end of trouble for individuals if she wasn't guarded. Then some people have a way of regarding their confidential clerk as a sort of receptacle into which they may pour their real opinions about everybody with whom they are connected in a business way. I have had men stop in the midst of dictating a letter to tell me all about the person to whom I was writing, and before I finished I knew his family history, his financial standing and his moral character, although I wouldn't know his face if he were to come before me. So you can easily see how necessary discretion is. I'm not sure but I ought to have put it down after the ability to spell, in degree of importance.

"You musn't infer from this that the habit of talking about one's correspondents is general — not at all; it is only one of many phases of character which the stenographer finds among employers. I never knew two men who dictated alike; some are of the communicative: kind, as I have told you; others go to the other extreme; they give you what they desire you to write in the fewest words possible, with no side remarks by way of variety. They regard the amanuensis as a machine to grind out a setting for their ideas. Those are the people who pride themselves on their exactness, and who require everybody around them to keep up with their exactitude; I don't know but they are a trifle more exasperating than the other kind; they perpetually annoy us by their excess of all the virtues. It's wearing to flesh and depressing to spirit to be obliged constantly to regard such paragons. Other men shun dictation; they know what they want to say, but they don't want to be bothered with the detail of putting it into shape. They usually hand over to their amanuensis all correspondence, giving her the idea of replies to each one and these she is to make in her own language and submit them for approval."

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The great danger with this, as with so many other new avocations, is that it will become overcrowded, and as a consequence, salaries will be diminished. It is one of the laws of political as well as social economy, that if the supply is in excess of the demand the value of the work is lessened. You will all understand this without any difficulty, and you may feel that you know one of the underlying principles of political economy, the bugbear that you hear talked about so much.

Nothing indicates so plainly the number of women and girls who need to earn money because they must be bread winners, or who want to earn it in order to be independent, as the rush to take up any new industry that is offered. There is no thought of fitness for the work. The idea is simply that of getting employment which will pay. The consideration of special preparation does not enter the mind of the majority of young women who undertake work of any kind, except, of course, a profession, in which one cannot get on without work beforehand and careful study. And here is found one of the reasons why women are so seldom advanced in their position. They do not take up the work with the earnestness that men do; it is, more often than not, a temporary make-shift, a something which must be done to bridge over a certain time of waiting, usually the time that elapses between leaving school and "getting married." It is not regarded as a permanent thing and the girl very openly says that she accepts a position of the kind only until such time as the coveted position of wife is open to her.

Now, in one way, that is all right and natural. There is no one in the list of employments in all that come to a woman's hand to do, so important and so beautiful as that of making a home. But the work, meanwhile, must be just as faithfully done, as much brain and endeavor put into it as if one expected to do it forever. It makes the way easier for other women who have to follow in some footpath of toil, and it adds to the self respect of the worker as well as to her value to her employers. So, while I would not have you look lightly upon the most royal gift that can come to your life, neither would I have you stand in an attitude of waiting expectancy, but go on in a dignified fashion, rounding out your life on every side until the great glory of perfected womanhood comes to you; then take it, feeling it is yours by divine right.

Stenography is, in truth, a profession. It requires hard study and long practice to make one proficient. Experienced stenographers say that two years is a reasonable time in which one may expect to work fairly well after beginning the study. To be sure, there will be work that one may do in less time, particularly the stereotyped work of an office, while on the other hand it will take more than two years to become what is known as "an expert." Some persons learn more readily than others, but I am speaking now of the average learner. The cost for preparation varies according to the way in which one studies, whether with a

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private teacher or in a school, but it is safe to say that it will range from thirty five to a hundred dollars.

Now typewriting, which is a purely mechanical labor, can be learned in a few days, and it is only a question of practice when one may become an expert. As I have said, not all typewriters are stenographers. I know one young woman who can write from dictation on the typewriter as rapidly as any one can give it to her and not once in a hundred times miss a word or make a mistake. She works entirely from dictation and commands a salary of fifteen dollars a week. She considers this good pay. There are times during the year when if she were not steadily employed, but worked; by the piece, she could make much more money during the week, but when the unemployed weeks and the dull weeks are taken into consideration, she really would average no more a year than she does under the present arrangement, and possibly not so much. At any event, she is much better satisfied to know that she has a fixed sum upon which to depend than to feel the anxiety which one cannot help having whose employment and consequent income is more or less spasmodic; and really this salary is considered large.

A bright young woman who is an expert stenographer and typewriter says that the number of girls who get less than, ten dollars a week in this profession is larger than those who get even that sum. Eight, nine and ten dollars a week are the most frequent salaries for this kind of work, while the girl who gets steady occupation at twelve, fourteen and fifteen, feels that she is fortunate. This young woman herself gets fifteen dollars a week, but she has a very important position as confidential clerk in a large newspaper office.

Still another who is the head of an office of her own says that apart from the independence which she feels in managing her own affairs, she would prefer a settled position. She says:

"There's nothing so satisfactory as knowing exactly what your income is; you can regulate your affairs and expenses to meet it, even if it is a smaller one than you would like. You may be able to understand something of the fluctuations of the independent earner's income when I tell you that in my own experience my weekly receipts have varied from less than two dollars to over eighty, either extreme being an exception."

All the young women of whom I have spoken are more than ordinarily well educated; they are good French and German scholars, know something of the classics, and have a creditable knowledge of English literature and history. And, girls, those of you who have an idea of taking up either one or both of these branches as a means of livelihood, I wonder if you realize how necessary this knowledge of history and literature is to you? The better informed you are on these topics, the wider will be your opportunity. A gentleman who had been engaged on a special work of literature in which he employed a stenographer said

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that he had no idea of the difference in attainment of young women who did this work until he had this experience: he employed a young woman who had been recommended to him very highly; she was accurate in following him, but she was not a good speller and she never knew if her employer made a mistake in date or event, as will sometimes happen even to the most careful. Her work was subjected to the most careful revision; he was obliged to respell several of her words and to take out every allusion of which he was not altogether certain. During the progress of the work, she was taken ill and a substitute was sent him. He says the stenographer's illness was his salvation. The substitute went far ahead of her predecessor; she was quick and alert; not only did she write rapidly, but she was ready to challenge misstatements and she often made a suggestion that gave a needed point "It was a delight to work with her," said the gentleman; "and when the work was done I paid her more than she asked, for I felt if the first one had earned that sum of money surely this one had earned much more."

The reason why so many women fail is, that they have not acquired as a rule the habit of practical thought as men have. The whole plan of woman's education has been insufficient and superficial, while men have been trained in harder schools and more thorough method. As a consequence, the masculine thought habit is better developed and the qualities most needed in special work are more common in man than in woman. This is not the fault of women so much as it has been the misfortune of their training. That all of them have not suffered from this wrong method is proved by the good work done by so many.

One stenographer tells me that a knowledge of bookkeeping is of great advantage to the girl seeking a position as stenographer at the present time. Indeed, in watching the advertisements of the daily papers you will often see a stenographer called for "with some knowledge of bookkeeping." The same person says that the qualities most needed to make a successful stenographer are calmness, self poise, intelligence and confidence in one's ability.

The sensitive girl who possesses nerves and flies off at a tangent under the least stress of excitement need not waste her time in trying to become a stenographer. Even if she succeeds in mastering the mysteries of the profession, she would literally go to pieces under the first pressure. But the girl who has application, steadiness of purpose; and patience, who knows how to spell, can hold her tongue, keep her self respect and command the respect of others, who is intelligent and well mannered, has self confidence but not conceit, may undertake this profession with a reasonable certainty of making at least a modest livelihood.

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XXII. The Faithful Saleswoman.

"WHEN I was a girl," our noble lamented Lucy Stone once said, "I seemed to be shut out of everything I wanted to do. I might teach school — that is, if I would keep as good order and teach as well as a man, for considerable less money; I might go out dress making or tailoring, or trim bonnets, or I might work in a factory, or go out to domestic service; there the mights ended and the might nots began. A few years ago when my daughter left Boston University with her degree of B. A., she might do what she chose; all the professions were open to her; she could enter into any line of business."

Mrs. Stone did not say — although she might have done so with absolute truth — that it was because she, and others like her, had been persistent and courageous and true that the way had been made possible not only for her own daughter but for thousands of other daughters. Every woman in the world should say devoutly, "God bless her for the brave work she did!"

Today the young woman pauses to consider which of the many open roads she shall take. It has ceased to be a matter of obligation with her; it is largely a question of choice.

One of the first openings that came to women outside of the circumscribed list which was given by Mrs. Stone, was that of tending in stores. This opening was made at the time of the civil war when so many men went into the army, leaving occupations of every kind, that women must needs do the work. Those of you who have made a study of history from its philosophical, rather than its statistical side, understand that when an advanced step is made it is never retraced. There is no such thing as going back. So when in the history of the world's progress you read of the advancement made by women, you take the fact gladly

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because it is something done for all time. The women who have lived and worked any part of the time for the past thirty years have felt that they were living and working in one of the most important epochs in the history of the civilized world. A young girl, alive and alert as the girl of today is, said not long ago: "I am so glad that it has been given me to live just now. I come to all the good things of life as a heritage and yet not so late but that I catch the echoes of the struggle for their possession and kiss the hands of the women who have gained them for me."

And she was right. Being a girl of average ability and firm principle, it is a good time in which to live. The chances for success are good and opportunity is better than it ever has been.

Take mercantile life, for instance: I have often heard girls say that it was all nonsense to expect any preferment there; that only the men get advanced; and that only men become the head of the house. Now, there is no reason why a woman should not conduct a mercantile business if she wishes and if she has the capital. Probably one reason why women do not oftener do this, is because when they have money they prefer to invest it in some manner which shall bring them a steady income without exertion of their own. They let the money do the earning and they take the result. Another reason is, that when girls take a position, they do not, as boys do, take it with the idea of making it a life work. It is a temporary matter — something to bridge over the time of waiting between leaving school and settling down into homes of their own. With a boy, it is serious business; with the girl it is a makeshift. The success of any one in any line of work depends upon the spirit in which she takes it up. A young girl had tried for a long time for a position in one of the leading dry goods shops in Boston. Her persistency was rewarded by a trial. She was put at the handkerchief counter during a bargain sale. The very first morning she was there a gentleman came by and stopped at the handkerchief counter, looking carelessly at the goods and at the prices which were marked on each box. She did not wait for him to ask for anything special, but she immediately called his attention to some handkerchiefs which were really low priced when one considered their fine quality. He did not seem inclined to buy, but she was so interested to make the sale and talked so intelligently about them, that he took half a dozen of the handkerchiefs. When she was paid her salary at the end of the week, she received a sum much in advance of that which had been agreed upon. She took it at once to the head of her department, thinking there must have been some mistake; but she was assured that it was all right.

"Do you remember selling half a dozen handkerchiefs to one gentleman the first morning you were here?" he inquired.

"Why, yes, I remember," she replied; "but what has that to do with it?"

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"Simply this — that was the head of the firm; and he was so pleased that he asked about you and said that any girl who could sell his own goods to a proprietor was worth a good salary and a steady place. So he ordered you put in the pay roll at the wages I have just given you, with the promise of a rise as soon as it was possible."

A thing like this isn't likely to happen every day, perhaps; nor even once in a lifetime; but of one thing you may rest quite assured, my dear girls who are reading this — simple eye service is noted more frequently than you imagine, and so is the honest, hearty rendering of your duty.

Not long since a prominent business man in Boston said to me when we were talking over the reason why so few young men really succeed, some things that will bear repetition for the girls who think seriously of a business life. "The boys" — and he might have said, the girls too — "in the store whose watches are always on time at the dinner or closing hour are the ones who will not advance in business; while those who are asking for more to do, instead of making apologies for work not finished, are those who find room at the top of the ladder and who do not complain of the crowd at the foot."

Possibly another reason why women do not oftener attain a higher position in mercantile life is, because they do not learn the business as a man does. When a girl seeks a position in a store she expects a living salary at once; the immediate need of money is the force which impels her to work; she must be her own breadwinner. A boy expects to give a certain time to learning the detail of business, and takes a place at first with very small remuneration, working his way to the more profitable position.

In the city stores the rules governing the duties of the various employes are arbitrary. And they are strictly enforced. The law has taken the matter of child labor into its protecting hand, so that now, no boy or girl under fourteen may be permanently employed in any establishment. That, then, sets the date when the girls may begin to work. The cash girls in the large stores are, as a rule, fourteen and fifteen years of age; their duty is to run on errands, carry bundles from counter to counter for customers, and be at the beck and call of everybody else in the store. In the days before money was sent to the desk by machinery, the girls had to carry it and bring back change and parcel. But even with this duty taken from them in so many stores, the cash girls still find enough to do, and do not have many idle moments. They have to be at their post, ready to begin work when the store is opened. As most of the stores open at half past eight o'clock, this means being there certainly at quarter past eight. They must report to their superintendent, put away their street garments, and be at their places in front of the counters at the unlocking of the doors. The time of their arrival is marked against their names and if they are late they are fined a small sum. In some

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stores they are allowed to work out their fine by shortening their dinner hour as many minutes as they are late, but in others this chance is not given them, and the fine must stand. All day long they are on their feet, flying about here and there, and nobody is gladder when the big gong gives the signal to lock the door at half past five than are these young girls. For these long hours and all their work, they receive $2.50 or at most, $3.00 per week, and this is often times decreased by the fines. If a cash girl proves herself bright, clever and capable, she may look forward to being advanced into a position as stock girl or salesgirl, or given a place in the mail order department. The stock girl, as she is called, has the charge of the stock for a certain counter; she must see that this counter is kept well supplied and the goods in order; she must be watchful, quick, and have a pride in the attractive appearance of her goods. Her hours are the same as all the rest, and she has from $5.00 to $6.00 a week.

It is the ambition of every cash girl to become a saleswoman and it is a proud day when she is allowed for the first time to attend upon, a customer and supply her wants. In that trial she usually proves whether or not she has the stuff for success in her. Many eyes are upon her. The hours that the saleswoman has to keep are the same as those of the cash girl, and she is subject to the same rules, until she arrives at the head of a department, when a little more latitude is allowed. The same system of fines prevails that governs the cash girl. One would, think that when a girl had been given a position of dignity and "responsibility, there would be no need of anything like discipline; but it is found necessary — to the shame of the workers be it said.

In most of the large stores the proprietors know just how much each saleswoman sells every day, and in that way it is easy to keep track, of her value to the firm. When girls complain that their salaries are not raised when some other girl is advanced, they do not take into account that they have not made themselves of value to those who employ them.

Discipline varies in different establishments. In some it is almost military in its severity and its perfectness. The girls are not allowed to converse with each other, except upon topics connected with the business; at other stores they may chatter as much as they please. They are not supposed to neglect customers, but they sometimes do, or else betray such an utter indifference to the customer's wants that she goes away irritated, without making her purchase.

I had a funny little experience in a Boston store. I wanted to match some silk with ribbon, and I went with my pattern. As I entered I was met by one of the proprietors, who was known to me, and we walked along to the ribbon counter together. I handed my sample to a girl, who did not look up, but reaching it back to me, said rather curtly, "We've nothing like it."

"But you haven't looked," I persisted.

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She was about to persist also, when an odd expression, on the face of one of the other girls made her glance at me. As she saw the proprietor standing by my side, she turned very red, muttered a confused apology, and began looking for the ribbon, which she very soon found. I didn't pity her distress one bit. I think I was rather glad she was caught in that way; it will probably be a lesson to her and she will be more careful in the future.

Quite in contrast to this was something which occurred in another large establishment. A lady brought a little girl for whom she wished to purchase a cloak. The child was very large of her age, and most difficult to fit; but the saleswoman who was attending upon her did not lose her patience in the least: she tried on garment after garment; she was as interested as possible to please the customer; she made valuable suggestions, and did all in her power to help the mother out of the difficulty and give her exactly what she wanted. The result was that she made a good sale, and at the same time secured a constant customer. Do you suppose that that lady will ever go to that establishment again without asking the same girl to serve her? It is women like this one who make themselves valuable to their employers; and they are the ones, also, who are steadily advanced, and who come by and by to be the heads of departments. They are the women, too, who get the larger salaries; they are worth the most money to their employers; customers will wait for them if they are busy, and will not, if they can help it, purchase of any one else.

There is something very mean in the mere giving of eye service; it is a species of dishonesty. One of Boston's leading merchants used often to say, in speaking of his help, "I would rather one of my salesmen or women took money from my pocket than the time which belongs to me and for which I am paying. One is just as much stealing as the other, but the latter is the more dishonorable."

With an honorable employer, honest service cheerfully given is nearly sure to meet the reward of advancement. It is difficult to be always pleasant of voice, eye and bearing; it is not easy to feign an interest one does not feel — but the thing to do is to feel the interest. Make the customer see that you are as anxious that she should be pleased as she herself is. It will be much easier to please her. There is no reason why the purchaser and the one who serves her should regard each other as natural enemies, and each be constantly on the lookout for some fancied insult or slight. If both of them would exercise patience and charity, they would get on perfectly well together. The girl who takes a position in a store can't afford to proclaim a declaration of independence to every customer by insolence of her deportment. Courtesy, self respect and a genuine interest in her business are the conditions of ultimate success, and no girl need be a failure if she has these qualities, added to the natural abilities to do the work which she has

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undertaken. She will succeed, and she will also win for herself a multitude of friends who will both respect and admire her and make her, in their own thought, the pattern for other women of her class to model themselves upon.

So you see there are good chances for girls if they will only take them, as well as for boys; but they must be in earnest, must work as though it were a life work, even though they do lay it down after a while; must not despise the day of small things, but be ready to do every duty as it comes to them, remembering that it is only when the lesser duty is well done, that the larger duty is offered.

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XXIII. Women In Advertising.

A BUSINESS field which women are exploring with success is that of advertising. They are becoming advertising agents, taking the position in establishments in charge of the advertising department, and above all, are finding large remuneration in writing special advertisements for manufacturing firms. The last named is an especially attractive employment for the bright girl with a quick brain and a happy faculty of expression. So clever have women proven themselves in this special line, that hardly a manufacturer having goods toward which he wishes to attract attention, fails to avail himself of their ability. The story is told of two sisters left dependent upon their own exertions, without an idea what they should do. One was a skillful amateur artist, but there were so many just as clever as she that she failed to meet the recognition she desired. Her sister wrote verses which she sent to all the leading magazines; they came back to her with a despairing regularity. Almost at their wits' end, and too discouraged to attempt attracting the notice of publishers any more, they were almost giving up the battle, when one of them noticed an advertising card hanging in a railway car, on which some doggerel verses were printed.

"I could write much better verses than those," she said to her sister.
"And I could make a prettier picture," said the other.
"Let's try our luck at it," said the first one.

The result was eminently satisfactory to themselves, so they took picture and verses to a firm whose advertising cards they frequently noticed. The firm was pleased; they not only accepted the sample that was submitted to them, but they gave them large orders for other work. Elated by their success in this direction, they went to still other firms soliciting patronage, and now they have all they can

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do, and support themselves handsomely with a work which they find as pleasant as it is profitable.

"It may not be quite so fine as doing verses and pictures for Harper's and The Century, but what's the use of doing pictures and verses and sending them to these magazines when they won't take them, as long as we are sure of a well paying and always open market for our wares elsewhere?"

"But," said the sister, "they do get into Harper's and The Century after all, for if they are not in the body of the magazine, they are counted among the prettiest and most attractive of the advertising pages, and what is better than being the best in any place where you happen to be?"

It is by no means an uncommon thing to see articles inserted in periodicals of various kinds, with the name of some well known writer attached — articles calling attention to the virtues of some new food product, some novel invention to ease the housekeeper, some fabric which is being introduced into the market, some new toilet appliance, or some one of the hundred and one things which modern living counts as a necessity and which is invented to meet a newly discovered need. If any of you in the innocency of your heart have supposed for a moment that either the writer or the periodical was bringing this something new to public notice out of sheer kindness, please disabuse yourself of that notion at once. The writer was handsomely paid for the article in question, and the publisher of the newspaper even more handsomely rewarded for the use of his column. There is hardly a magazine writer of note who does not take this means to add to her income, and if the truth be told, this class of writing pays very much better than literature pure and simple.

The number of women engaged in this work is increasing all the time. The patent medicine proprietors are among the men who avail themselves most constantly of this sort of service. One clever woman does nothing but interview men and women who have taken a certain treatment, and writes up these interviews for her employers to use both in circulars and as advertising in the newspapers. This work does not take nearly all her time, for she is a housekeeper — one of the old fashioned kind, one who looks well to her household, and assuredly doesn't eat the bread of idleness — and she makes on an average $100 a month outside of her hotel and traveling expenses. She says it is a most delightful life, taking her about in various communities, bringing her in contact with pleasant people, and giving her a larger income than she could earn in any other way with the same amount of expenditure of physical and nervous force.

One of the largest houses in Milwaukee, Wis. employs a woman as advertiser. She has charge of all the advertising and catalogue work of the firm that employs her. Miss Annie M. Rose began her business career as stenographer for the largest dry goods house in Rochester, N. Y. It was the policy of the head of

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the firm to have every letter that went out of the house typewritten, and so the heads of all the departments dictated their correspondence to Miss Rose. In this way every order for their large business went through her hands, and as she was of an intelligent, progressive turn of mind, she familiarized herself with every detail of the business. In course of time she was made the head of the mail order department, which is one of the most extensive in that part of the country. On one occasion a branch house in the southern part of the State was to be started, and Miss Rose, who had been the "advertising man" in the Rochester house, and felt that her long and varied experience had made her just as capable of managing the concern as were any of her brother workers, said to the head of the firm:

"Why don't you send me to — to take charge of the store?" The answer was a laugh, and "Why, you're a woman." That settled the matter.

She saw that, no matter what her capabilities, "because she was a woman," she had reached the limit of her possibilities in that house, at least, and she determined to try her fortunes elsewhere.

Her next position was that of private secretary for Mr. Warner, the proprietor of patent medicines that bear that name. The knowledge that she had acquired made her determine to try her luck as an advertiser, and she took that position for a house in Chicago. This she retained until the opening of the World's Fair, when, with the doubt of a woman's capabilities, which still troubles some masculine minds, the firm felt they must have a man in charge of the work.

It gives one a bit of malicious pleasure to be able to say that Miss Rose's masculine successor is said not to have been a success.

She then became a newspaper woman on the staff of the Chicago Herald: after that she had the charge of the advertising department of the Chicago Inter Ocean. From there she went to Milwaukee to take the place that she now occupies. In regard to her own work she says: "I believe in truthful advertising. I don't believe in the brass band style of work, and I do not endorse prevarication in any degree. When those who read the announcement of a certain honest firm, that it has marked a particular line of goods to half price rather than carry those goods over to another season, they know they can depend on the word of that firm that those goods are worth the original price. That advertisement will pay. The public is not quite so easily fooled as some people imagine. An advertiser must also adopt the style that takes best in the town or city where she is working."

When asked if the work was remunerative, Miss Rose smiled and said, "It is, for men." Doubtless her modesty would prevent her making a personal matter of the question of salary, but one may be sure that she would not have gone from position to position if one better and higher than the one which preceded it, had not her compensation kept pace with her advance.

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The Woman's Journal, the paper founded by the lamented Lucy Stone and now carried on so ably by her talented daughter, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, was put on its feet financially by its woman advertising agent. The late Mrs. Susan C. Vogl occupied this position for many years, and she brought the paper into prosperity by her able endeavors. She kept in harness until her death. She made herself friends by her genial cordiality; she was true and honest and her every statement could be relied upon. Men used sometimes to say that they would give Mrs. Vogl advertisements when they would not give them to any one else. It was Mrs. Vogl's sunniness that won every time, and her genuine good will to everybody.

There are several advertising firms in the various cities of New England composed of women and they do very good business. They have a large number of patrons and control several newspapers. They are evidently making money, for everything about them bears the stamp of prosperity. One woman has undertaken railroad advertising, and she has done so well that her story is worth the telling. For some tune she controlled the advertising along the line of the New York & New England Railroad, and no one could advertise without making terms with her. She left this position to take a larger one, with headquarters in New York.

When the Chicago fire occurred she was a happy young wife, living in the midst of luxury, for she was the petted daughter of rich parents and the cherished

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wife of a still more wealthy man. This young couple had everything before them to make life bright and pleasant — riches, social position, youth, a lovely home, a dear little girl — it seemed as though nothing was wanting, but the fire came and swept away everything: the home, the property, all; and left them with little beside their youth, their baby and their willing hands. If that had been the end! But the husband fell ill from exposure at the time of the fire, and died, leaving the young wife and baby to face the world alone. They had something left, but not enough to live as the wife would like, and there would be the child to educate; so she came East and went to work. She had friends in plenty and those who were ready to give her a home and render labor unnecessary, but she was an independent body and proposed to work out her own destiny. She tried one or two things, going a step in advance every change she made, until the advertising opportunity came to her. It was a large undertaking, but it found a woman ready to meet it, and not only ready, but entirely able. She undertook the work and made a great success of it. She had an office in Boston where she made her contracts, attended personally to them, for she quickly found that her own judgment was better than that of any one she could obtain, and the terms were sure to be more satisfactory if she made them herself. From Boston she went to New York, where success still attended her.

She is a capital business woman and no man ever attempts taking unfair advantage of her simply because she is a woman. Throughout all, she has retained the same refined, charming personality that characterized her when she was a purely society woman; and she is so evidently the gentlewoman that men become more gracious when in her presence, recognizing the womanly element even in the most intricate of business problems. Her little daughter has grown to gracious, sweet womanhood under the careful mother's eye and is housekeeper and home companion in a dear little cosy apartment in a fashionable quarter of the city where she is surrounded by the friends who have stood by her all through her career.

It is the presence of women of this kind in the business world that makes it a desirable place for other women. It is the influence of women like this that makes it easier for others when they are in the world, and it is an example like hers that should be regarded by the women who are to become business women.

There is one thing this woman does not do that I would like to emphasize. She does not consider it necessary because she has her way to make in the world, and because she has to make it in the business world, to copy the dress and manners of the men whom she meets. She is essentially womanly in dress and manner; she is content to be a woman and to keep to a woman's ways. She wears as she should, simple tailor made gowns at her office and about her business, but there is no suggestion of mannishness about them. Her bonnets are becoming,

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and her hair prettily arranged. All the trifling accessories of the toilet are attended to and she is as fresh and as dainty in her office attire as she is in her pretty dresses at home.

If only every girl who is setting out to make her own way could be imbued with the idea that she would get on better and win more genuine respect from those she comes in contact with by keeping her refined femininity than by aping men in dress or manner, a valuable lesson would be learned. Boldness is not independence; self assertion is not success. Be content to be what you are, and assume nothing else. Gain respect for your sex by the respect that you win for yourself, by your honest, fearless, but sweet and true womanliness. You will find your influence will be more far reaching than if you try to be in manners and conversation like the men with whom you are associated. The world likes a womanly woman, and this you can be, no matter how far afield you go in the world of personal endeavor.

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XXIV. Women In Real Estate.

LOOKING back over a quarter of a century, it is not only interesting, but surprising to note the strides which woman has made in the world of work. It ought, indeed, to be a source of profound gratification that women generally have proven equal to all the demands made upon them in these new fields of endeavor, and are taking the departure from former habits and ideas with freedom and strength, while still maintaining the integrity and inherent traits of womanhood. They have shown themselves fully capable of wise action in emergencies and of holding their end of the line in all faithfulness and power. They have won golden opinions in positions of trust and are more and more sought for as their fitness is recognized. Men freely admit that they prefer women as clerks, as stenographers, and even as accountants.

"I am utterly lost," said a business man the other day; "I have lost my bookkeeper; she has been with me nearly six years, and during all that time I have never had any trouble with an account; she has had hardly a day's absence except during her regular vacation, and I have come to depend on her like my own right hand. She leaves me because she's going to be married; had it been a question of position or salary, I should never have let her go. I don't know how to look out for some one to take her place."

"Yes, it's got to be a woman; I don't want a young man; they are not so reliable nor so painstaking."

It is only the trained worker of whom all this can be said. Presumably, there are among women a class of incompetents who are not willing to take the

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trouble to learn thoroughly any line of business, but are satisfied with what money they can earn by doing things in a slipshod, half hearted fashion. This class is naturally growing smaller, however, and women are learning that, unless they are equipped, they do not get the places they seek, or having gotten them, they don't succeed in keeping them.

Now a young man would hardly venture in business without some idea of what he was going to do, and he would expect to spend some time at learning the profession which was to give him a livelihood. Why should a girl think to come at once into a position that it would take a boy some time and a good deal of hard work to attain.

The truth is, girls until recently have not taken the idea of business as seriously as boys do; it has not been considered the one great thing for them — the life work, which they are to carry on indefinitely. And yet it may be. No girl can tell when she begins, at what time she may leave off, and at any event, to make success sure for herself and the way easier for other girls to come after her, she should see to it that she does her work earnestly and thoughtfully. You and I are not doing our work alone for ourselves; there is something beyond individual interest even if we refuse to recognize it. Our success or our failure is not ours alone; it is that of every other woman who shall come after us, working along the lines in which we have worked. What we do makes it either more difficult or more easy for them. We cannot afford to be selfish in our way of regarding this question, and to think that it makes no difference how we do, since it is our loss and gain. If it were ours alone we might, but it is that of every other woman worker. Earnestness and determination are necessary to success, no matter in what line our work may be done.

But I started to make a suggestion, and in preaching my little bit of a sermon the thought has been almost overlooked. A business that women are taking up, and are succeeding well in, is that of real estate brokerage. There are several who have attained moderate wealth in its pursuit, while I have yet to hear of one who has met with failure. It certainly has no features that women would find difficult or unpleasant. The New York Real Estate Exchange has one woman member, Mrs. Agnes Murphy Mulligan, who has won distinguished success as a land appraiser and real estate agent. Mrs. Mulligan studied law in order to be better qualified to deal in real estate, and so expert is she regarded in her particular profession that she is often called upon to adjust values when the parties in an important deal fail to agree. She appraises land for many wide extending railroad corporations, and, to use her own phrase, is often kept "actually too busy to eat." Mrs. Mulligan has fifteen clerks in her office who also keep the wires working, and sometimes she is unable to give personal attention to her more important clients, among whom are many of the largest land owners of the

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metropolis. She is of Irish blood, but her people have been in this country for more than a century. She first went into business to attend to her father's affairs when he was stricken with illness. She is still a young woman, being only a little past thirty, and although possessed of wonderful acumen and sound knowledge of business values, she is proud of being a happy wife and happy mother.

One of the first women to take up real estate brokerage as a business was Mrs. Carrie LaCoste, of Maiden, Mass. She kept a fancy goods store, but her health failing, she was compelled to get some business which took her out of doors, and some friends gave her some houses to manage for them. She sold her own business and managed so successfully with the estates in her hands that others gave her opportunities, and she soon found all she could do. It was a saying in Maiden that none of Mrs. Lacoste's houses ever remained a long time unlet and that she had a faculty of securing most desirable tenants.

Still another to make a success in this business was Mrs. Woelper, of Boston. Mrs. Woelper was a Southern woman, born in New Orleans of Northern parents. Her husband was connected with one of the New Orleans newspapers, but he died very early in their married life and she found that she must look out for herself. Through the exertions of her husband's newspaper friends she was given a position in the post office in New Orleans as an expert in deciphering illegible writing — a position of great responsibility.

But she could not endure the office confinement and all the time her heart was going to New England, the birthplace of her ancestors, where she had passed many happy days during her girlhood. She had a small property in New Orleans and she managed it so wisely that it yielded her a good return. She liked the work of looking after it, too, and when finally she made up her mind that she would give up her position and go North she also made up her mind that she would go into the real estate business. To think and to act were simultaneous and she speedily found herself in Boston where she took an office and began to advertise. She had a few friends and they helped her what they could, but the greater part of her work was done by sheer and untiring: effort.

At first very few people knew that E. G. Woelper stood for a woman when they saw it signed to advertisements of estates that were to be let, and not long after she was established and was doing a good business, a business man who knew her happened into the office of another real estate agent. On asking casually about business, he was told that it was very brisk and that he — the real estate man — and that fellow Woelper," seemed to have the most of it.

"Do you know Woelper?" was the query of the amused visitor.

"No, I don't, but from all the indications I should say he was a hustler," was the reply.

"Well, you ought to see that fellow," said the friend.

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"Why, particularly?"

"Well, as a matter of interest to you, it happens that that fellow Woelper isn't a fellow at all, but a clever, bright woman, and a pretty one too."

To say the real estate man was surprised would be putting it very mildly; he was simply overcome.

From nearly every city comes the report of women who have formed corporations to deal in real estate, and we all know that more than ever women left with property on their hands are managing for themselves instead of placing the property in the hands of men to manage for them. This shows at least that a woman finds nothing in this business that she may not do with propriety and success. It is a hard work and carries a weight of responsibility with it, but it is pleasant, profitable and healthful. It compels the person who follows it to be a good deal in the air, and thus keeps her well in spite of herself. To be successful, a woman must have business ability; she must have that tact which shall enable her to meet people pleasantly and adapt herself to their situations and their moods. She must have a knowledge of the market values of buildings and of lands; she must understand the laws that relate to the government of real estate, of proving titles, of conveying mortgages, and all the other business technicalities. She must be well up in the science of drainage and ventilation, so that she may be able to judge of the sanitary conditions of a house; but this knowledge is not alone necessary for the woman who is to become a dealer in real estate; every woman in every community should understand thoroughly the laws of sanitation in order that she may protect herself and her family against the dangers that come from bad drainage and poor ventilation.

There is nothing in all this that any bright woman may not learn, and learn very readily. None of the women who have adopted this business have found any difficulty whatever in acquiring all the knowledge needed. They did not gain it all at once; it has come by degrees as the need of it has been felt. And it has come naturally without severe mental strain. In fact, as one of these women said in speaking of her experience, "It comes almost unconsciously; some way or other you find yourself knowing just the thing you ought to know without being quite sure when or where the knowledge was acquired."

Women are adaptable, very much more so than men, as a rule, and since this is true there is no reason why they should not succeed especially well as real estate brokers, as one of the greatest needs in the business is that of adapting themselves to the persons with whom they come in contact. They must be as deeply and as truly interested in the man or the woman who has a small place for sale, or who desires to purchase a cheap house, as they are in those who have the larger commissions for them. They must be as interested in finding the suitable, responsible tenant for the inexpensive cottage or flat, or the suitable abode for the family of

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limited means, as they are in looking up the tenant for the more pretentious estate, or finding a home for the man or woman of abundant means. It is the plan of the successful business woman that every customer shall bring another, and she works with this end constantly in view. And, girls, those of you who propose to go into business of any kind that is a good plan to go on.

Said the proprietor of one of Boston's largest stores to a friend after he had reproved a clerk for carelessness and inattention to a customer and had been met with the excuse that all the woman wanted was a paper of needles:

"It isn't the value of the sale; it's the fact of the sale. A woman comes here for a paper of needles, a paper of pins, or any small article; if she is made to feel that it is a pleasure to serve her, she's coming again; not only will she come herself, but she will send others. If I lose her custom because the needles or pins are given her as though she had insulted the store by making so petty a purchase, it's a pretty expensive paper of pins or needles for me; I don't care to pay the price."

That's true of all business transactions. If it is made pleasant the result is sensibly felt, and if unpleasant the result is even more apparent and not satisfactorily so. If this is borne in mind the girls who read this will have learned one good lesson in the economics of business, and a most important lesson which will stand them in stead all the way through. It is, indeed, the underlying principle of all business success.

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XXV. Women In Banking.

WHILE it cannot yet be claimed for women that they have in large numbers invaded what has been popularly supposed to be a province sacred to man — the banking house — nevertheless enough of them have within the last few years been called upon to occupy the positions of cashiers and tellers to make it quite proper to include this among the list of possibilities for the girl who has business talent and finds that she must win her own way in the world.

Most of the women who have occupied these stations in the past have come into them through accident or some stress of circumstance beyond their control. One of the first women to be chosen as a bank official was Miss Grace J. Alexander, of Winchester, New Hampshire. This pretty little town in the Ashuelot valley, like many another country town, finds that its young men as soon as they are fitted for business seek occupation in the cities or go West in search of the fortune which they feel sure awaits them. So it has been found difficult to obtain educated, ambitious young men for the home position. Miss Alexander was chosen to fill a vacancy in the National Bank as teller until such time as a man could be found who was fitted for the position. But as time went on Miss Alexander so fully demonstrated her own special fitness and so won the confidence of . all with whom she came in contact, that nothing more was ever said about looking for the man, and she has occupied the position ever since. A few years ago some of the leading business men of Cheshire County were desirous of establishing a savings bank at Winchester, and at a meeting of those interested it was unanimously voted that if, in addition to her duties as assistant cashier of the National Bank, Miss Alexander would undertake to act as treasurer of the proposed savings bank, it should be established.

"For," said one of the men, "if Grace Alexander undertakes it we won't have to bother our heads with the affairs of the bank. We just know we've got

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an honest official. I'd trust that woman before any man in the State of New Hampshire."

The savings bank became an established fact, and to this day Miss Alexander holds the two positions. She attained her position, not through accident nor special stress of circumstance, but because she simply demonstrated her eminent fitness for it.

The First National Bank of Indianapolis, Indiana, has a woman as cashier — Mrs. Sarah Frances Dick, who is also a director in the institution, and has demonstrated in every way her ability to fill with perfect satisfaction the important function. When she became assistant cashier she was then Miss Sarah McGrew, and she took the position to assist her father, who at that time was the cashier. This was in 1873. In 1881 the bank was reorganized, her father was promoted to the presidency and she became cashier. In the meanwhile she had been married to Mr. Julius Dick, one of the most influential merchants of Huntington, Indiana. She has since filled the position in a manner that is entirely satisfactory to the bank directory.

Mrs. Dick received her education in the common schools of Indianapolis, and afterward took a course in the business college at Dayton, Ohio. She is quick and accurate in her accounts, and writes a bold round hand. In the handling of money, both coin and paper, she is very expert and rarely makes a miscount. She disposes of a mass of business with a dispatch that puzzles her men associates. She writes all the notes, drafts and deposit certificates of the bank, counts up the interest on the collections, cashes checks, discounts paper, and attends to a lot of work that ordinarily requires the work of several persons. In one day recently she handled fifty four thousand dollars in small accounts, involving six hundred transactions in three hundred and sixty minutes, with an average of thirty five seconds to each transaction.

In California Mrs. Mary Costa has just taken the position of cashier in the bank at San Jose. Her husband is the principal owner in the bank, but that does not detract from the fact that she fills the position as well as any salaried employe.

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Bankers have been very materially assisted by the invention of Miss Jennie Wertheimer of Cincinnati, who has made a fortune by the introduction of this happy thought of hers: Three years ago she hit upon a scheme of commercial paper which would effectually exclude all possibility of raising amounts on checks, forging names, or otherwise tampering with its face value. The persevering little woman spent many days, as well as long night vigils, to perfect her system. She patented a private check system for the benefit of bankers, and a plan of commercial paper to make attempts at forgery futile. The principal feature of her invention lies in the form and composition of the draft. From the top of the note to the name in favor of whom the amount is made out the paper material has the usual thickness. But from that point it becomes as thin and transparent as tissue paper. At the same time the paper preserves its strength and durability. If the note has been tampered with in any way it will be shown by holding the paper up to the light. Miss Wertheimer sent to thirty paper manufacturers throughout the United States before she could get one able to work out her idea. She has been offered the interest on eighty thousand dollars for the period of twenty years, and at the expiration of that time the property is to be turned over to her. Possibly Miss Wertheimer should be classified among the inventors, but her work has been so directly a help to those in the banking business, and was so evidently the out growth of some experience in banking affairs, that it has seemed better to include her in the list of women whose interests and labors are in banking.

Not all girls can be successful as these women have been in a line of business which calls for so much judgment in financial affairs, but then, neither can every man. There must, for success, be a general business talent, and with this, inflexible honesty, absolute accuracy, quickness and correctness at figures, and a knowledge of the money and stock market. Unless one possesses a natural business gift it will be worse than useless to attempt to enter this business. But, having the talent, it is worth while to fit one's self to enter a banking house by first taking a thorough course in some good business college. Even then, the opportunity for which you long will not come to yon so readily as it would were you a young man. This is one of the cases in which sex militates not against success — for in almost every case the woman banker or banker's assistant has proven successful — but against the opportunity. Whether it is because men engaged in banking business are more conservative than other classes of men who employ skilled clerical labor, or because they have been so long in the habit of considering young men as the only possible candidates for positions, one cannot judge; but whatever may be the reason, the fact remains that very few women are called to such positions. It may be the fault of the girls themselves. The possibility of the banker's career may not have presented itself. It wouldn't be strange if that were the case, for women have been so accustomed to hear themselves set up as

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examples of bad financiering and have so often been told that they knew nothing about the value of money, that they really have come to believe this; and that, in spite of the fact that in household affairs and in the handling of their own modest income, they have proven their ability to make their expenses come within the limit of their income — an economic achievement which is the dominating principle of all business success.

And now, since the way is open, it only remains for the brave, ambitious girl to set her daring feet within it. As yet, the path is not very well trodden, but enough have gone before her, blazing their way through the forests of prejudice and tradition, to make it safe for her to follow.

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XXVI. Women In Insurance.

THE soliciting of insurance and the management of insurance business, as a legitimate and practical work for women, has recently come to attract widespread attention. At first this work was almost wholly restricted to life insurance, but following the successful work done in that direction, the women agents are extending their lines to embrace fire risks also. Nearly all the prominent life insurance companies now have a woman's department, efficiently directed by a woman manager. Such positions as these, demanding unusual executive ability, and commanding more than generous salaries, must of course be comparatively few in number; but the field now opening to women for soliciting life insurance and placing fire risks, and for managing local agencies, is almost unlimited.

Miss Carrie Kirtley, the manager of the woman's department of the Mutual Life at Louisville, Ky. at the Business Woman's Congress in Nashville, Tenn. in 1897, read a paper on "Life Insurance as an Investment and Field of Work for Women," in which she said:

"Taking the insurance field as a place of work for women, or insurance as a real business, I believe that it is the coming work for the intelligent, energetic women of the South as it is of the North, East and West. Some time ago a periodical published a list of the best income earning women in the United States. Among those named were two Vassar graduates who are soliciting insurance. A woman's department is now a feature of nearly all the State agencies — intelligent women are sought and offered good pay, if successful. All the better classes of women are solicited. The teacher saves a part of her salary to take care of her

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when her duties grow too arduous. A ten year policy gives her an annuity, which takes the place of her salary. The clerk, bookkeeper and stenographer buy policies that are to mature during their lifetime. The businesswoman insures that her business may not suffer a shrinkage at her death, and that her credit may be better. She holds no stronger collateral than a policy in a good company. The wealthy woman protects her estate and buys investments in life insurance where there is little fluctuation in steady earnings, or she buys a policy such that a certain sum be paid to her heirs, or to her estate, during a certain number of years."

While it is true that many of the women who are entering upon the insurance business today do so from choice, it is probably equally true that the majority of those who began the work in years past were influenced to take it up by force of circumstances. It has often happened that the sudden death of a husband and father, leaving his wife to provide for the family, has led her to seek, in the insurance agencies which he had managed, the means to furnish that support. If she has acquired some knowledge of her husband's business and shows promise of ability, the companies often appoint her to succeed him as their agent. In many other cases a bright daughter, fresh from school and anxious to do something, has gone into the office "to help father." As time passed she has mastered details and developed ability until when her father died, or became too old to continue the business, the companies which he represented have been glad to make his daughter his successor. Such cases are growing more numerous every year.

Successful women insurance agents have been at work longer than most people are aware. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company recently published an article of considerable length, speaking in the highest terms of the efficient work done by three women in its employ, and showing by comparisons with the work of men, how well the women held their own in industrial insurance. These women were Mrs. Louisa Wood, of New York, who has been in the employ of the company for twelve years, taking up the work upon the death of her husband; Mrs. Hattie M. Gifford, of Syracuse, N. Y., who has been at work for the company for fifteen years; and Mrs. Edith McGregor, who seventeen years ago, when her husband's health failed, began to do his work, and after his death continued it. Of these three women the company's article goes on to say: "The spirit of resolute determination which has actuated them in their work, the pluck with which they have removed the barriers to their progress, the courage and fortitude with which they have met every difficulty and overcome every discouragement, furnish an object lesson from which a moral may be drawn with profit by many of the so called sterner sex."

Mrs. Louisa A. Starkweather, the superintendent of women's agencies at St. Louis, for the Mutual Life of New York, is perhaps as well known and as successful

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as any woman in the business, but every insurance register now gives the names of scores of women fire and life agents. The widow of Mr. Emil Fischer, of Indianapolis, is successfully carrying on his business. Miss Georgia Todd, of Kansas City, Mo. has recently been appointed agent for the Royal Insurance Company. Miss Clara Goodspeed, of Joliet, Ill. has just succeeded to a profitable business which her sister, recently deceased, had built up. Mabel M. Hobart, of Hingham, Mass. since her father's death, has managed the agencies which he represented. Mrs. F. W. Cheney, of Manchester, N. H., is the manager of the woman's department of the Mutual Life agency there for New Hampshire and Vermont. When Mr. C. G. Stevens, of Clinton, Mass. retired from business at an advanced age, his daughter, Miss E. K. Stevens, took charge of the several agencies which he had managed. These are only a few of many. The Insurance Register, of Boston, for instance, shows the names of a large number of women insurance brokers doing business all over the city and suburbs.

Among women workers in the insurance journalistic field Miss Emily A. Ransom, of Boston, holds a unique position, being associated with her father, Mr. C. M. Ransom, in editing and publishing, the Standard, a weekly insurance newspaper. While of the sixty or so insurance publications in the United States there are several owned by women, as a part of estates left by their husbands, the Standard is, so far as the writer has been able to learn, the only insurance paper actively managed by a woman, and containing a special woman's department. Miss Ransom is an authority upon questions pertaining to her work, and by invitation read a paper on "Life Insurance for Women" at the Women's Congress of the Atlanta Exposition. Writing at that time Miss Ransom said:

"According to the best information obtainable, the American life insurance companies have today about $50,000,000 of insurance on the lives of women. Allowing $2000 per policy, it follows that about 25,000 of the women in these United States have made provisions for their own future need or that of others. When it is remembered that there are in this country about 4,000,000 women of insurable age, it will readily be seen that the solicitors who shall undertake to place before them the benefits of life insurance will find a plenteous harvest ready to be gathered. In this connection I would suggest that while the proper study of mankind is man, the proper solicitors of life insurance among women, are women, and today we find many of our sex adopting this business and working most acceptably side by side with the male solicitors. Twenty one women carry insurance to the amount of $100,000, several are carrying $75,000, and some fifty are insured for $50,000 each. One woman carries $300,000, one $150,000, and another $135,000, while four carry insurance to the amount of $125,000 each. While these amounts may seem enormous, they sink into insignificance when compared with the insurance carried by men, as, for instance, Mr. John

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Wanamaker, of Philadelphia, who, if he should die tomorrow, would leave insurance to the amount of nearly $2,000,000."

In this connection it is interesting to know what some prominent women in various lines of work think of life insurance for women. The Insurance Press, of New York, recently collected and published in pamphlet form the opinions on this subject of a number of well known and successful women, from which some extracts are here made.

Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin, president General Federation of Women's Clubs, says:

"It is just as necessary for a woman to have her life insured as it is for a man, and how any other idea could prevail it is difficult to understand. It is a great mistake to suppose that the mother does not contribute as much to the finance of the home as the father.

"A great deal has been written about the feeling of security of a man in dying to know that his life was insured, and women would be equally comforted in reflecting, as they leave the scene of their active labors, that their children were provided for. In fact, the same arguments which apply to render it necessary to insure the life of a man apply to that of a woman, with a few others added. I regard it no less the duty of a woman to insure her life than a man, and think in the near future many will do so."

Mrs. Mary Lowe Dickinson, president of the National Council of Women, general secretary of the International Order of the King's Daughters and Sons, says:

"Women the world over must, it seems to me, welcome better facilities and better conditions for life assurance for women, as a new factor in the agencies that protect and further her welfare. The reasons why woman should not benefit by these provisions are difficult to understand, while the reasons why she should benefit thereby are so plain that ‘he who runs may read.’"

Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford says:

"I believe heartily in life insurance as a safeguard of the family, and the friend and protector of women."

Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, attorney and solicitor, and secretary of the American Branch of the International Peace Bureau, says:

"Life insurance for women is desirable for widows and spinsters. To such a good life insurance might provide a burial fund, opportunity to create a worthy charity, a fund for their own old age, or one to provide for children or relatives in a manner that could not be otherwise obtained. To them it is worth considering."

From Octave Thanet, the well known writer:

"Life insurance is as valuable to women who have families to support as it is to men in the same case. It is, in fact, more valuable, since the wage earning and

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money accumulating capacities of women do not equal those of men. Many a mother of little children, whose husband is dead, has less sleep than she needs because of the black thoughts that come of her little ones' future, should she die. To such a woman I can imagine no greater boon than a sure dependence in the shape of life insurance for enough to take care of her children until the older ones shall be able to take care of the others."

Miss Laura S. Watson, principal Abbot Academy, Andover, Mass. says;

"In these days when hundreds of thousands of women are supporting not only themselves, but parents, children, and even husbands, what wiser means for providing against the day of misfortune than that which most men deem wise for themselves — life insurance?"

Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, M. D., says:

"I consider that life insurance is alike a protection against ill health and a prolonger of life itself. When the care of children and others devolves upon a woman, the consciousness that if she were taken away the dependent ones would still be cared for, or (in case of her own old age) that her endowment policy or annuity would provide for her, would give her freedom from that anxiety and worry which is often the cause of sickness and premature death."

Dr. Phebe J. B. Wait, A. M., dean of the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women, says:

"My advice to women, married or single, is: Insure, and then hold fast to the policy, even though sometimes other things have to be gone without thereby."

Mrs. Annie Jenness Miller says:

"I firmly believe in life insurance for women, and I prove my faith by carrying policies of considerable size. As an investment for women, the plan is as good as for men, and it is particularly good for the working woman who has others dependent on her. The knowledge that a yearly investment in the shape of premiums, which she can arrange to meet by judicious management, will insure beloved ones against suffering, in case of accident to her, will remove a great haunting fear from her daily life."

Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller, dean of Woman's College, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. says:

"I shall be glad if any word of mine can add weight to the arguments in favor of life insurance as a protective investment for women, and induce them to avail themselves of its opportunities instead of risking their earnings in doubtful speculations."

"Mrs. Ruth McEnery Stuart says:

"It goes without saying, does it not? — that life insurance is quite as important for women who have families dependent upon them, as it is for men in like

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circumstances. When the removal of a mother would mean the withdrawal of a family's living, manifestly that mother would do well to insure."

With all this accumulation of evidence in favor of insurance for women, is it not fair to argue that they would prefer to deal with women both as medical experts in their examinations for insurance and as writers of their policies? Since so many are already in the field, there is no reason why others should not follow and why it should not be made one of the regular avocations which girls may take up in order to win a livelihood.

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XXVII. A Chapter Of Facts.

POSSIBLY some of you girls who prefer romance to reality may feel inclined to turn up your noses at this chapter, but I assure you will find very much of interest and profit in it, and will be paid by a careful study of the statistics which it contains. Figures aren't always interesting, to be sure, but a study of them is almost certain to be helpful, and this is submitted to you that you may know for a fact what women already are doing in the world of labor, and the many opportunities there are for you in whatever field you may think you will excel.

The detailed table of occupations just issued from the Census Office gives many interesting facts in relation to the entrance of the American woman into various branches of trade and industry, and also throws light upon her advent into the professions.

The totals of the occupation tables were published a year or two ago, and from them it was learned that the number of women engaged in the gainful occupations increased between 1880 and 1890 nearly 48 per cent, while the number of men engaged increased about 28 per cent. During this period professional women increased 75 per cent, and those engaged in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits nearly 63 per cent, while in trade and transportation the increase was 263 per cent and over — two and a half times as great as in 1880. These were figures to make one think and they naturally a wakened curiosity as to what particular professions, trades and industries women had selected as a means of earning a livelihood.

To satisfy this curiosity and reply to the inquiries the Census Bureau made a comprehensive inquiry as to the occupations in which women find a means of

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To satisfy this curiosity and reply to the inquiries the Census Bureau made a comprehensive inquiry as to the occupations in which women find a means of

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support and usefulness. The inquiry included also the comparative work and wages of men, women and children. The information elicited is just given to the public.

Broadly speaking, it would appear that the American woman, like her British kin beyond the sea, has taken a dip into every occupation. The advance of woman has been complete, and, with the exception of the United States army and navy, there are no blanks. She labors in the field and dairy, and thrives as a farmer, planter and overseer. She goes forth in a boat and braves the wind and sea in fishing, and drags the bed of the ocean for oysters. She may be found in lumber camps, doing duty as wood chopper and lumberman, and even as a raftsman woman has tried her hand, and is not afraid to own up to the census man. With pick and dynamite she quarries stone and delves into the earth in search of the common minerals and the precious metals.

In the professional world woman has made here appearance in every occupation save that of marshaling armies and conducting war. Her progress in professional life has been as marked as in trade and industry. Here we have it with all the authority of the government official:

	1870.	1890.
Actors,	692	3,949
Architects,	1	22
Artists and teachers of art,	412	10,815
Authors and literary,	159	2,725
Chemists, assayists and metallurgists,		39
Clergymen,		1,143
Dentists, draughtsmen and inventors,	13	305
Engineers (civil, mechanical, electrical and mining)		124
Journalists,	35	888
Lawyers,	5	208
Musicians and teachers of music,	5,753	34,518
Officials (government)	414	4,875
Physicians and surgeons,	527	4,557
Professors and teachers,	84,047	246,066
Theatrical managers, showmen, etc.,	100	634
Veterinary surgeons,		2
Other professional service,	8	479
Totals,	92,257	311,687

Isn't that an interesting story told in figures? A story of advance, of endeavor, of actual accomplishment. It is full of suggestion to the bright girl who needs only a hint to set her in the way in which success will be found.

Beside all the old occupations, we find women planning houses and decorating them; in the chemical laboratory; administering gas and pulling teeth; designing

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and inventing; and grappling with the difficult problems of civil engineering. They are on the road as theatrical agents and managers, and in the roll of veterinary surgeons, administering to the ailments of dumb animals. Notice, if you please, the increase of newspaper women — that is so much better term than journalists — from 35 in 1870 to 888 in 1890, and as authors, from 159 to 2725. There are six times as many women on the stage in 1890 as in 1870; three times as many professors and teachers; ten times as many women government officials; nine times as many women physicians and surgeons; more than forty times as many women lawyers; six times as many women musicians and teachers of music; twenty five times as many artists and teachers of art; while the number occupying the pulpit has increased from 67 in 1870 to 1143 eleven years later. Summed up, we find an army of over 300,000, or about one third of all persons engaged in professional services in the United States, to be women. This is not only a large actual increase, but, relatively to the men, the number of women is greater than in 1870.

Turning from this brilliant advent into professional life, we will follow woman's progress in what the dry tables of the census office generally term "domestic and professional service." Beside the old stand by occupations — lodging house keepers, laundresses, nurses and servants — we find the nineteenth century woman pushing into heretofore unheard of avocations; as a barber, her dexterous fingers lightly remove man's grizzly beard; 1.9 women brave the wilds of forest and mountain as hunters, trappers, guides and scouts; while, more singular still, perhaps, 28 evince no fear of ghosts and spirits in the somewhat mournful occupation of sexton. There are three times as many women hotel keepers as in 1870; nearly twenty times as many janitors; while entirely new occupations have been discovered for women as engineers, watchmen and detectives, under which last head 279 are returned.

It is in trade and transportation that woman has made her most tremendous record in these years. Over 200,000 intelligent, industrious, capable women have found a sure and honest way of making a living. As bookkeepers, clerks, typewriters, stenographers, cashiers, telegraph operators, women have found a profitable field of labor and occupation for which they are as well fitted as men, if not better. In the largest class — bookkeepers, clerks and saleswomen — the increase has been phenomenal. As agents and collectors, the number of women has increased from 97 to 4875. There are five times as many women returned as merchants and dealers, and over thirty times as many under the head of "packers and shippers" — aggregating in 1890, 6520 women. From 355 operators in 1870, women telegraph and telephone operators increased to 8474 in 1890, and probably number over 10,000 now. Women seem to flourish and increase and multiply in trade, transportation, as bankers and brokers, commercial travelers, dairymen,

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peddlers, weighers and gangers, as bank officials; yet as sailors, undertakers, auctioneers, boatmen and pilots, they have met with no success.

In manufacturing and mechanical pursuits women have found new and important industries and have not been slow in availing themselves of the opportunity thus offered for bread winning. The census shows five times as many women bookkeepers, nearly four hundred times as many engaged in making boots and shoes, seven times as many employed in box making, as there were in 1870. In 1890 clock and watch making gave employment to nearly 5,000 women, and in 1870 to only 75. The increased demand for confectionery of all kinds brought the number of women employed in that industry from 612 to 5674. About one third was added to our cotton operatives. The tremendous increase in dressing the women and children of our country may be studied in the fact that our army of dressmakers, milliners and seamstresses multiplied more than five times in the period mentioned. Pottery, photography, lithography — all now give employment to nearly 10,000 women. The printing office, the rope and rubber factories, the shirt, collar and cuff manufactories, the silk mills, are employing more than 50,000 women.

In the industries American women are literally taking a hand in all branches. As blacksmiths they ply the hammer on the anvil and make the sparks fly. They bind books, and make bottles; as contractors, they build houses. They work in all the metals, including gold and silver. They cut stone, lay brick and plaster walls. And one woman has returned herself to the census man as a well digger.

A study of the figures given above not only suggests the intense fight for existence which has been going on for the last quarter of a century and has made it necessary for the women of the family to do something for themselves, but it likewise brings out the fact that they have not been slow in taking advantage of opportunities afforded them for a wider range of employment. While they have taken up some peculiar occupations, the satisfactory feature of the inquiry lies in the fact that they have made greatest headway in the occupations which are best fitted tor them, namely, the professions and trades and many branches of manufacture. Upon the whole, the 4,000,000 women bread winners of the United States may be congratulated on the headway they have made on the road to independence, and still more are they to be congratulated at the reputations they have won for themselves as workers. In almost every case those who employ women speak of their honesty; their sobriety, and above all their extreme faithfulness. They obey not only the letter, but the spirit of the unwritten rules that are set for the guidance of every employe. With these qualities, it is no wonder that women have come so well to the front and that the positions which they occupy are constantly increasing in importance.

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XXVIII. In Temperance Work.

AFTER all, this is the vital question: With what sort of a weapon will you ward off the attacks of the blood hound. Poverty, which Dame Fortune is pretty sure to set on everybody's track sooner or later, that she may try his mettle, and learn what manner of spirit he is of? In times like these, when men's hearts are failing them for fear, when riches are saved the trouble of "taking to themselves wings" buy the faithless cashiers and bookkeepers who are adepts at furnishing these flying implements, and , above all, when labor is coming to be king, the question "What will you do?" has fresh significance. After all, it doesn't so much signify what you do as that you do it well, whatever it may be. Think a moment. Will you be led to say, "The good old ways are good enough for me," and so drop into the swollen ranks of teacherdom, or rattle away on a martyrized piano, and then set up for a musician, though you have not a particle of music in throat or finger tips? Or will you stay at home and let papa support you until you grow tired of doing nothing and expecting nothing, and proceed to marry some man whom you endure rather than love, just to get decently out of your dilemma?

Nay, I do you injustice. Few girls who breathe the free air our Eastern mountains and Western prairies will be so cowardly. I will venture — that when you marry, you will seek not a name behind which to cover up the significance of your own: not a "good provider," to feed and clothe one who has learned how to feed and clothe herself: not a "natural protector," to shield you in his plaidie, the gallant, gallant laddie, from the cauld, cauld blast; but you will seek that rarest, choicest, most elusive prize of man's existence, as a woman's — namely a mate.

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In less enlightened days;, your ideal woman composed the single, grand class for which public prejudice set itself to provide. She was to be the wife and mother, and she was carefully enshrined at home. But, happily, this is the world's way no longer. The exceptions are so many, that not to provide for those exceptions would be a monstrous meanness, if not a crime. And the provision made in this instance is the most rational — indeed, the only rational one which it is in the power of society or government to make for any save the utterly incapable — namely, a fair chance for self help. Clearly, to all of you I am declaring a true and blessed gospel, in this good news concerning honest independence and brave self help! Clearly, also, no one is wise enough to tell who, in future years, shall need a bread winning weapon with which to defend herself and perchance also the helpless ones between whom and the world there may be no arm but hers. But it is a principle in public as well as private economy, that the wisest foresight provides for the remotest contingency, and thus, in its full force, all that I have been saying applies to every woman who may read these pages. Suppose that many of you, dear girls, are destined to a downy nest, instead of a strong winged flight — what then? Will the years spent in making the most of the best powers with which God has endowed you be worse employed than if you had given them to fashion and frivolity?

Thus far I have been trying to impress upon you the reasons why you should cultivate individuality and independence in word and deed. I have claimed that each one of you has a "call" to some specific work, indicated by God's gifts to you of brain, or heart, or hand. But if you acquire, let it be that you may dispense; if you achieve, that Others may sun themselves in the kind glow of your prosperity. People who spend their strength in absorbing are failures and parasites. It is alike the business of the sun and of the soul to radiate every particle of light that they contain. And so, having made sure of your light, strength and discipline, strike out from the warm and radiant centre of a self poised brain and heart, into the lives about you, and you will find that "What is good for the hive is good also for the bee." "Self culture" is much in vogue nowadays, and has for its high priests some of the most incisive minds of this or any age.

But self culture stops in the middle of the sentence I would fain help you to utter. It says, "Make the most of your powers;" it does not say "for others' sake as well as for your own." It claims that if we set the candle of our gifts upon the candlestick of modern society, its life will inevitably radiate according to its power of shining, and thus; while brightening ourselves we shall have done out utmost toward lighting up the general gloom. But self culture forgets that a candle us no type of you and me. We are human spirit lamps, whose rays should be directed and intensified by the blow pipe if an unceasing

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purpose; for we are all so made that unless we will to light up other lives, we can never do so to the limit of our power.

Now, then, young women who are ready for work, the memory of my own early aspirations leads me to add: I desired financial independence — that is, to bear my own weight. I said, "Grant me a place to stand," and sought a lever by which I might help to move the world. If this describes your mental outlook, let us confer together concerning your vocation.

There is none nobler than that of a teacher or a professor in an institution for the higher education. But these ranks are overcrowded, and without decided talent, some experience or rare influence, you risk much in making choice of teaching as your field of labor.

Journalism is difficult. Literature, without the highest order of talent, is hopeless. Lyceum lecturing has passed its prime and the most gifted and famous alone can win in that arduous field. Public reading as an avocation for women is as much overcrowded as the legal profession is for men. In music, vocal and instrumental, there is an absolute glut of the market, save for the highly endowed. Moreover, in all these lines the standard is rising so steadily and to such a height that mediocrity, once endurable, is now hopelessly condemned. To be a fourth or even a third rate musician is to have failed outright. To paint daubs and call them pictures is a positive sin. To murder the modern languages by false accent and atrocious grammar hath not forgiveness in this world. But behold, all these things are done daily by droves of young persons who are blindly or ignorantly resolved upon the unattainable.

This inventory includes most of the higher occupations save one, and that is the well nigh boundless field of practical philanthropy. There is a welcome from the best, for women, on the moral battlefields bf this busy age. Soldiers are needed; new recruits eagerly sought. No class of workers outrank women in opportunity, dignity, or the rewards that a sincere heart prizes most. To be sure, wealth cannot be won here, but a moderate income, sufficient for current needs, is certain to all faithful and efficent workers. A noisy fame is not to be attained, but a thousand homes will be your own and ten thousand hearts will bless and shelter you.

Growth of brain, heart and conscience; is nowhere more certainly assured. There is no one sided development, as in purely intellectual work, but thought and sympathy go hand in hand. It is a home like place for a woman's soul to dwell in, this golden harvest field of Christian work.

I might enumerate the societies for Home and Foreign Missions, Indian Reform, Associated Charities, and many other attractive lines, of work, but my present object is to win your attention to the Woman's Christian. Temperance Union as the most promising field of labor and reward that can be named for

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women, young or middle aged or old. Let me tell you something of its history and aims as I gave it in "How to Win:"

The National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, with its fifty auxiliary State and eight Territorial Unions, besides that of the District of Columbia, is the largest society ever composed exclusively of women, and conducted entirely by them. It is now organized in every State and territory of the nation, and locally in all important towns and cities. Great Britain, Canada and Australia are also organized, and we have organized a World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

This society was founded through the agency of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the United States in 1883, The National Union was organized in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1874, and is the sober second thought of the great Woman's Temperance Crusade which swept over the country during the previous winter, and whose influence extended to lands beyond the sea. Scarcely was the organization of the National Society completed when the question arose, Why not have an International Woman's Christian Temperance Union? At the Detroit Convention, held in 1883, the president urged, and the Plan of Work Committee recommended the appointment by the Executive Committee of a commission on a Plan of Organization of a World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and in the same year Mrs. Mary Clement Leavitt received her appointment as pioneer missionary for the proposed organization. Through her untiring labors during the intervening years, supplemented by those of other missionaries who followed her later, and of individual workers in various nations, unions have been organized in more than forty countries and provinces. Mrs. Margaret Bright Lucas, of England, the first president, was elected in 1886.

The chief National Auxiliaries are those of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, South Africa, Japan and the Hawaiian Islands.

The first delegated Convention of the World's Union, held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, Mass. U. S. A. in 1891, adopted the following Declaration of Principles and form of Constitution and By laws:

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES OF THE WORLD'S W. C. T. U.

We believe in the coming of His Kingdom whose service is the highest liberty because His laws, written in our members as well as in nature and in grace, "are perfect, converting the soul."

We believe in the gospel of the Golden Rule and that each man's habits of life should be an example safe and beneficent for every other man.

We therefore formulate, and for ourselves adopt, the following pledge, asking our brothers of a common danger and a common hope to make common cause with us, in working its reasonable and helpful precepts into the practice of every day life:

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PLEDGE.

"I hereby solemnly promise, God helping me, to abstain from all Alcoholic Liquors, as beverages, whether distilled, fermented or malted; from opium in all its forms, and to employ all proper means to discourage the use of and traffic in the same."

To confirm and enforce the rationale of the pledge, we declare our purpose to educate the young; to form a better public sentiment; to reform, so far as possible, by religious, ethical and scientific means, the drinking classes; to seek the transforming power of divine grace for ourselves and all for whom we work, that they and we may wilfully transcend no law of pure and wholesome living; and finally we pledge ourselves to labor and pray that all these principles, founded upon the Gospel of Christ, may be worked out into the Customs of Society and the Laws of the Land.

To this end we plead with all good women throughout Christendom to join with us heart and hand in the holy endeavor to protect and sanctity the Home as that temple of the Holy Spirit which, next to the human body itself, is dearest of all to our Creator; that womanhood and manhood iti equal purity, equal personal liberty and peace, may climb to those blest heights where there shall be no more curse.

We ask all women like minded with us in this sacred cause to wear the white ribbon as the badge of loyalty; to lift up their hearts with us to God at the noontide hour of prayer; to take as their motto, "For God and Home and Every Land," and to unite with us in allegiance to the foregoing Declaration of Principles and to the summary of our plans and purposes, as embodied in the Preamble of our Constitution adopted in Faueuil Hall, Boston, U. S. A. November 11, 1891.

THE POLYGLOT PETITION.

A great petition has been circulated in all parts of the world against legalizing the sale of opium and alcohol, and in favor of an equal standard of personal purity for both sexes. This petition has been called "The Polyglot," because translated into and signed in so many different languages. Over seven millions of names, either by signature or endorsement, have been secured to it. The length of the petition is 7000 yards. It is the largest petition ever presented on behalf of any object, and is the most international in its proposed reforms. Every prominent nation has had a share in signing it, and in due time it will be presented to all the leading governments. The Polyglot has recently been photographed, and it is hoped all White Ribboners will! order copies from the W. W. C. T. U. Secretary. Catholic and Protestant, Gentile, Jew, Hindoo and Mohammedan have found in the Polyglot Petition a common ground of faith and works.

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At the Women's Temple, Chicago, is located the Woman's Temperance Publishing Association, a stock company, whose directors, stockholders and business manager are all women. This house sends out about 135,000,000 pages annually. The Union Signal, the official organ of the Union, has a large circulation in all parts of the world.

The Woman's Temperance Hospital, located at 1619 Diversey avenue, Chicago, demonstrates the value of non alcoholic medication.

The general officers of the World's W. C. T. U. for 1897-98 are as follows: president, Miss Frances E. Willard; vice president at large, Lady Henry Somerset; secretary, Miss Agnes E. Slack; assistant secretary, Miss Anna A. Gordon; treasurer, Mrs. Mary E. Sanderson.

The first round the world missionary was Mrs. Mary Clement Leavitt, of Boston. The second Miss Jessie A. Ackermann, of California.

As a general estimate (the returns being altogether incomplete), we think the number of local unions in the United States about ten thousand, with a paid membership of one hundred and fifty thousand or more, and a following of three hundred thousand, besides numerous juvenile organizations. This society is the lineal descendant of the great Temperance Crusade of 1873-74, and is a union of Christian women of all churches, for the purpose of educating the young, forming a better public sentiment, reforming the drinking classes, transforming, by the power of divine grace, those who are enslaved by alcohol, and removing the dram shop from our streets by law.

In the order of evolution, the departments of work are embraced under the following general classification: (1) Organizing; (2) Preventive; (3) Educational; (4) Evangelistic; (5) Social; (6) Legal.

Twenty three years of constant study and experience have enabled us to reduce to a science the methods by which these departments have been made successful. These can be learned by active, co operation with the local society in your own town; by reading our weekly paper. The Union Signal (Chicago); "Do Everything" (our handbook); and by studying our national minutes and other practical helps, to be had by addressing Mrs. Kate L. Stevenson, Headquarters National W. C. T. U. Chicago. For a history of the origin and growth of this great movement, and some knowledge of its leaders, I refer you to my own book entitled "Woman and Temperance." (Same address.)

Hundreds of women have already become experts in this branch of social science and religious activity. As organizers, national, State, district and country, they are kept constantly busy, and their income is provided by those for whom they labor. As local and State officers, salaries are often paid, but not as a rule, and in but one office of the national society. Nearly all these workers have learned to speak acceptably in public without manuscript or notes. They are

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quiet, well mannered, sensible women, who would compare favorably with the same number of teachers, artists, or musicians.

Among the noted speakers and workers of the W. C. T. U. in the last twenty three years since the Crusade have been Mrs. Mary T. Lathrap, Mrs. Mary A. Woodbridge, Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, Rev. Anna Shaw, Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, Mrs. Katharine Lente Stevenson, Mrs. Sallie F. Chapin, Mrs. Clara C. Hoffman, Mrs. Frances J. Barnes, Mrs. Helen M. Barker, Mrs. Louise S. Rounds, Mrs. Frances E. Beauchamp, Miss Belle Kearney, Mrs. S. M. I. Henry, Mrs. Helen L. Bullock, Mrs. Ella A. Boole, Mrs. Jennie F. Willing, Miss Anna A. Gordon, Mrs. Helen G. Rice, Mrs. J. K. Barney, Mrs. Addie Northam Fields, Mrs. Lucy Thurman, Miss Elizabeth W. Greenwood, Mrs. M. B. Ellis, Mrs. Caroline F. Grow and other women who devote their etitire time and talent to building up this greatest of all women's societies.

The White Ribbon Women have founded a publishing house and a hospital, the latter for the purpose of demonstrating the advantage of non alcoholic medication. The Women's Temple in Chicago is universally known as the headquarters of the Association, Mrs. Matilda B. Carse is its founder.

Indeed, the majority of our leaders have, at some time, been teachers, but found the profession of Gospel temperance workers broader, just as independent, and no less beneficent. By the efforts of our societies the teaching of physiology and hygiene, with special reference to the effects of alcoholic stimulants and narcotics, has already been introduced by law into the public schools of almost every State, and by the action of Congress into all the territories and the District of Columbia. Kindergarten (with temperance adaptations) is one of our departments, also kitchen garden, both departments, helping to prepare those who teach in them for the home cares, which later on, will come to most of our young workers. As corresponding secretaries of local unions, as private secretaries, clerks and accountants, many are supporting themselves and helping the greatest of reforms; others, as organizers of Young Women's Christian Temperance Unions and Juvenile Societies. In our delightful "Flower Mission" there is great promise for willing hands, while our temperance, literature and press departments offer the widest field for cultured brain and skillful pen. As lecturers in our departments of heredity and hygiene many a young lady physician has added to her power, while girls who would gladly have studied for the ministry have found the door wide open in our Gospel temperance meeting; and credentials furnished by our department of evangelistic work.

The White Ribbon movement throughout the world stands pronounced for the ballot for women. This has been chiefly brought about through the influence and work of its president, who began the agitation in 1876. In 1886 she urged the adoption of the department of purity and was made its superintendent. This

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has now developed into a great movement attached to the W. C. T. U. Dr. Mary Wood Alien, of Ann Arbor, Mich. is the present superintendent.

Dear younger sisters, think about these things. They are "true, pure, lovely, and of good report." Talk them over in your literary society, your Chautanqua Literary and Scientific Circle, your quiet hour with loved ones at home. We want you, and perhaps you have need of us. Before long we shall establish a training school with model Woman's Christian Temperance Union, model juvenile society, kindergarten, kitchen garden, etc. If you should apply in sufficiently large numbers I am confident some wealthy temperance friend would help us to a "local habitation" for this use, but we have already begun with summer training schools at several pleasant summer resorts. Lake Bluff is one of these, near Chicago, on the shore of Lake Michigan. Having been so many years a teacher, before enlisting in this grand Woman's Christian Temperance Union work, I have long meditated sending out this invitation to "sweet girl graduates" and any others to whom it might be like a friend's hand pointing to a safe and helpful avocation.

May our blessed Master lead you wisely to decide the question of your work "for God and home and native land."

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XXIX. The Day Of Small Things.

I BELIEVE — indeed, this is one of the chief articles of my creed of living — that no one was sent into this world without a work to do; there is nothing without its mission in the whole catalogue of created things, and it is not likely that we, "made in the image of God," and "only a little lower than the angels," will be exempt from our share of usefulness. What the special life work of each may be, depends entirely on surroundings and opportunities. Each one must decide for herself what her duties are, and in what manner she can perform them to the best advantage.

Golden opportunities present themselves every day to all, if they only would use them, but either they do not see them, or in their careless indolence they pass them by, not attaching the proper importance to them. The trouble is, girls, nearly every one is inclined to "despise the day of small things," and wants, if she is to work at all, to do something grand and startling, out of the common course, that will astonish the world; and in her lookout for the grand opportunities that so seldom come, she may lose many ways of doing real good. Not all can be representative women or do grand, heroic deeds, but each one can work quietly and unostentatiously, carrying the deeds of kindness into every day life and making herself better and every one around her happier by the influence of a consistent, lovely, unselfish life.

But because you have a work to do and life is earnest and you are to be in earnest with it, you need not go through it with knit brows, as though you were puzzling over some perplexing question in mathematics. Not a bit of it! You should carry so much sunshine in your hearts that it will shine throughout eyes and brighten your faces. The world needs all the sunshine it can get and you

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have got to help make it. Clouds will come sometimes, as a matter of course, but they need not come as frequently as they do if you would not let them; you often make your own clouds, let trifles annoy you, grow impatient and fretful at small troubles and render yourself and everybody else uncomfortable by your unhappy mood. Clear away the clouds — you can do it by a little patient endeavor and some consideration for the comfort of others.

Less of self and more for others, and your work is well begun; after that, once fairly started on the upward way, your progress will be easier; you will find your field of labor extending before you are aware that you have begun your task, and with each day's duties will come new love and interest in your work.

You must have aims, each one of you, not clearly defined, perhaps, vague and but half realized, it may be, yet there notwithstanding, latent in your mind and only waiting opportunities to form .themselves into some tangible shape and show you clearly in what particular channel your life work lies. Even to the most aimless of you there comes a time when you recognize the fact that there is something beyond your every day life with its petty annoyances and wearying trials, and you long to do some act that shall raise you above the present level of your life. No life is perfected without some grand motive power, some definite end which you wish to attain. Otherwise it would not be living, but mere existence — something which animals have in common with you, but which is in no whit beyond animal life; nay, it is rather below it; for they use to their best the powers that are given them, while you willfully let run to waste the energies and talents that belong to you, either through indifference, or because you are too lazy to exert yourselves, and do not care to do more than you are at present accomplishing, which is nothing at all; worse than nothing; for you cannot stand still — you must either advance or recede, grow or dwarf.

There are girls — I hope you who read are not among them — who have every gift that one could ask bestowed upon them, yet treat them as indifferently as if they were things to be thrown carelessly one side, and who live on as if life held nothing beyond the present moment, their tomorrow nothing grander or greater than their today. One looks at such girls and wonders; they are anomalies. One feels sorry for them and grieves over their wasted lives; they must sometimes have a longing for something that is more satisfactory, a perception that there is a height that they have not yet attained, a possibility that by and by may become a living reality, and they may glow with a desire to attain this in their better moments. But this desire is only a flash; it goes out again when blown upon by the cold breath of their social surroundings, and it may be a long, wasted time before it is rekindled.

But while there is this class of girls, there is another at the other extreme — girls who want a career, who long to become bright lights in the world, to do

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something that shall make them famous forever — who cannot comprehend what a vast amount of good can be done in a quiet, unostentatious way, but think every attempted work of philanthropy or reform must be begun and carried on with a blowing of trumpets and beating of drums, a sort of advertisement of their work just as the side shows at the country fair draw their spectators in numbers proportioned to the noise they make at the entrance. These girls are in advance of the others, for a thing is better overdone than not done at all, though they too are sadly at fault. The danger is, that these girls finding themselves falling far short of their mark, and seeing others succeed quietly where they fail noisily, get disgusted, and fall out of the ranks of the workers, crying out that they are not appreciated! The simple truth is, they were working for the world's approval, entirely ignoring the fact that the truest reward was the approval of their own consciences and the trusting, restful belief in the approval of that Higher Power, for whom their work should be done.

It is satisfactory to do something grand enough and brilliant enough to win the applause of the world and make it acknowledge you and your achievement, but as I have told you already, you cannot all be representative women; yet none the less can your lives be filled or your influence felt. What you are, more than what you do or say, gives others their ideas of you, and. when they see a life full to the brim of charity, good will and gentleness, recognize a soul whose aspirations are pure and noble, they feel that they are the better and the happier for coming so in contact with that beautiful life. It may be the name is never breathed beyond the little circle of home and friends. To those who do not know the wearer, it would signify nothing; yet there are those to whom it is a perpetual song of praise, a never ending hymn of thanksgiving. It is never seen in the list of the reformers, yet none the less does she who bears it do her own quiet work of rescue, reformation and redemption. To stranger eyes there may be no glory of sainthood throwing a halo around the beloved head, but those who know her best see the aureole shining there. Is not her work as complete, her life as grand a success, as though her name were trumpeted to all the world?

To you all a life like this is a possibility, something to which yon may attain. It cannot be reached at once, but you might get a long way toward it while you are folding your hands and lamenting your inability to do what some one else has done before you, whose life work lay in quite a different direction from your own. Girls, you whose brains have turned with all sorts of impracticable, quixotic schemes, stop dreaming of impossibilities, and instead of being mere castle builders, become actual workers and do not think because yon cannot be Joan of Arc, Madame Roland or Florence Nightingale, that there is nothing for you to do. There maybe a moral heroism in overcoming yourself, greater than any you have ever read in the pages of history. It may be known only to God and yourself;

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yet whose approval would you rather have than His? Is there anything beyond that to care for? Can the world's praise heighten your pleasure or give more depth to your satisfaction?

And you who do not care, please give the matter a little thought. Your lives do not satisfy you. There is a longing for something better than has yet been brought you. Mere existence is not sufficient. You cannot feel that you are fulfilling the grand plan of your being. How shall you do it? First of all, let every one try to make her own life so sweet and sunny that her influence will be felt an all around, and after that, the other opportunities will come as fast as you can use them. They may not be large, ones, but whatever they are take them up and do them faithfully, because being set to your hand, it is for your hand to do them.

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XXX. Women In Medicine.

THE first of the professions to be invaded by women was the medical. Now the name of a woman physician is to be seen in almost every city block in any of what are known as "physicians' districts," and almost every town of size has at least one woman on its list of medical practitioners.

The first woman to graduate from a medical school was Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. Her sister, Dr. Emily Blackwell, dean of the Medical College of the New York Infirmary, was the second. The story of the difficulty of gaining a proper medical education is well told by the latter of the Blackwell sisters. She says that to appreciate the advance which women have made in the medical profession one must go back forty years, to the time when not only had no woman in America written "M. D." after her name, but women graduates in any department of study were almost unheard of. Diplomas, advanced courses of instruction, were then things entirely outside of the ordinary life of woman. It is difficult lor students of the present day to realize the narrowness of the then existing opportunities for intellectual cultivation, not only in the absence of college courses, but in the comparative slightness in the scope and quality of instruction in the girls' schools of that time.

But aspirations for a higher life were in the air. Miss Lyon, Mrs. Willard, Catherine Beecher, and other pioneers in the education of women, had begun their work, and less conspicuous women all over the country were beginning to give expression to the coming demands. The entrance of women into the medical profession must be reckoned from the time when a woman first obtained admission to a medical college to pursue the course of study required by law as preparation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine, with the legal authority to practice and the

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professional recognition as a physician which the degree confers. This dates from the admission of Elizabeth Blackwell to the Geneva Medical College in 1848.

When, a few years earlier, she began to make inquiries, and asked advice of physicians as to how to accomplish her purpose, she was met on all sides by incredulous and contemptuous amazement and discouragement. In 1848 she addressed letters to several medical colleges asking permission to matriculate as a student. By most of them no notice of the application was taken. Others simply declined. From one only, the Geneva Medical College of New York, a favorable answer was received.

How this answer came to be given was told Miss Emily Blackwell by Mr. Stephen Smith, of New York, and it shows how quixotic an undertaking it was then regarded. Mr. Smith said:

"The first course of medical lectures which I attended was in a medical college in the interior of the State. The class numbering about 150 students, was composed largely of young men from the neighboring towns. They were rude, boisterous, and riotous beyond comparison. On several occasions the residents of the neighborhood sent written protests to the faculty, threatening to have the college indicted as a nuisance if the disturbance did not cease. During lectures it was often almost impossible to hear the professors, owing to the confusion.

"Some weeks after the course began, the dean appeared before the class with a letter in his hand, which he craved the indulgence of the students to be allowed to read. Anticipation was extreme when he announced that it contained the most extraordinary request which had ever been made to the faculty, The letter was written by a physician of Philadelphia, who requested the faculty to admit as a student a lady who was studying medicine in his office. He stated that she had been refused admission by several medical colleges, but as this institution was in the country, he thought it more likely to be free from prejudice against a woman medical student. The dean stated that the faculty had taken action on the communication, and directed him to report their conclusion to the class. They decided to leave the matter in the hands of the class, with this understanding, that if any single pupil objected to her, a negative reply would be returned. It subsequently appeared that the faculty did not intend to admit her, but wished to escape giving a direct refusal by referring the question to the class.

"But the whole affair assumed the most ridiculous aspect to the class, and the announcement was received with the most uproarious demonstrations of favor. A meeting was called for the evening, which was attended by every member. The resolution approving the admission of the lady was sustained by a number of most extravagant speeches, which were enthusiastically cheered. The vote was taken, with what seemed to be one unanimous yell, ‘yes.’ When the negative was called, a single voice was heard uttering a timid ‘no.’ The scene that followed

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passes description. A general rush was made for the corner of the room which emitted the voice, and the recalcitrant member was only too glad to acknowledge his error and record his vote in the affirmative. The faculty received the decision of the class with evident disfavor, but returned an answer admitting the woman student. Two weeks or more elapsed, and as she did not appear, the incident of her application was quite forgotten, and the class continued in its riotous career.

"One morning, all unexpectedly, a lady entered the lecture room with the professor. She was quite small of stature, plainly dressed, appeared diffident and retiring, but had a firm and determined expression of face. Her entrance into that Bedlam of confusion acted like magic upon every student. Each hurriedly sought his seat, and the most absolute silence prevailed. For the first time a lecture was given without the slightest interruption, and every word could be heard as distinctly as if there had been but a single person in the room. The sudden transformation of this class from a band of lawless desperadoes to gentlemen, by the mere presence of a woman, proved to be permanent in its effects. A more orderly class of medical students was never seen than this, and it continued to be till the close of the term.

"Our woman student came up for examination for graduation at the close of the term, and took rank with the best students of the class. As this was the first instance of the granting of a medical diploma to a woman in this country, so far as the faculty had information, there was at first some hesitation about conferring the degree. But it was finally decided to take the novel step, and in the honor list of the roll of graduates for that year appears the name, Elizabeth Blackwell."

Notwithstanding the amusement the application seemed to have caused, the letter of the faculty admitting the woman student was accompanied by a handsome letter from the class assuring her that there should be nothing on their part to make her position difficult. And they kept their word. Any annoyance she experienced came from outside. The ladies at her boarding house ignored her presence. Those passing her in the street not infrequently testified their disapprobation by manner, even by remarks. She often felt when the college doors closed behind her, that she had entered a refuge.

When the degree of Doctor was taken, the first phase only of a medical education was completed. The hospitals in which the student must acquire familiarity with the practical part of the profession were absolutely closed to the young woman doctor. Her only chance to seek such opportunities was in the great medical centres of Europe, and again she was discouraged on all hands by assertions of the impossibility of a woman studying without insult among the crowds of foreign students. But she was not to be diverted, and true to her intention, she went abroad, and after three years of successful studies in Europe,

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Dr. Blackwell returned and established herself in practice in New York. The new departure was made.

Immediately after her graduation a few women were admitted to other medical colleges. Invariably so much pressure was put by the medical societies upon any college admitting a woman, that the doors of that particular college were henceforth closed. Exclusion from all medical institutions became the settled policy. Separate colleges for women were promptly established, Boston taking the lead in 1850, and Philadelphia following in the same year. And yet, not all men were opposed to this new departure. As early as 1845 Dr. Samuel Gregory, in connection with his brother, Mr. George Gregory, published pamphlets advocating the education and employment of women physicians. In 1847 he delivered a series of public lectures upon the subject, and proposed the opening of a school for the purpose. In 1848 a class of twelve women was formed, under the instruction of Dr. Enoch C. Rolfe and Dr. William M. Cornell. An association styled the "American Female Medical Education Society" was organized the same year, and afterward merged in the New England Female Medical College, chartered in 1856, which still owns valuable property and has many facilities for its work.

In 1854 the doctors, Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, obtained a certificate of incorporation for the New York Infirmary, the first, and for many years the only, beginning of a woman's hospital.

Now followed the period of the greatest depression for the new effort. The first women students had, to a certain extent, the advantage of the great system of instruction organized for men. Their immediate successors were restricted to the facilities afforded them by the small women's schools. The adverse sentiment which closed the college influenced unfavorably the growth of the schools. Some of the medical societies declared that physicians teaching in these schools should be excluded from their ranks. The unfriendly tone of the profession was that of the general public. Social and professional ostracism was the rule in regard to both students and teachers. When Dr. Blackwell established herself in New York she was obliged to purchase a house, because she found it impossible to rent reputable rooms. When, in 1857, the indoor department of the infirmary was opened, under the charge of Dr. Zakrewska as resident physician, many of the friends feared that the little hospital would come to grief. Some of the trustees were remonstrated with by their friends for allowing their names to be connected with an institution that would cause scandal and trouble.

That opinions have changed since those early days and that, after all, the correctness or propriety of anything depends upon our own standpoint toward it, is shown by the following little incident which happened at the Boston home of this same Dr. Zakrewska after she had left Dr. Blackwell's hospital and started

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into practice for herself. Her home was the centre of attraction for all the women medical students of Boston, and they were always welcome there. Living with Dr. Zakrewska, as housekeeper, was her widowed sister who had a little daughter about six years of age. This little one was a pet among the girl meds. as the students were familiarly called. It happened that her mother took her one day to see her dentist. At dinner the little girl seemed much absorbed and neglected to eat. Dr. Zakrewska said to her, "What's the matter, little one? Why don't you eat your soup?"

"Oh, Auntie," was the child's reply, "what do you think? I went with mamma to see Dr. — and that doctor was a man!"

The idea that a doctor could be anything but a woman was as strange to this child, brought up among women physicians, as it was to the men physicians of fifty years ago that a doctor could be anything but a man. So you see, after all, it is only a question of standpoint.

Mrs. Clemence S. Lozier was one of the first women to study medicine. She was a native of Plainfield, N. J., her mother was a Quaker, a woman who had a. natural love for tending the sick and good qualifications for doing so. Her elder brother was a doctor of repute in New York. In 1830 she married Mr. A. W. Lozier. His health soon felling, she opened a select school in West Tenth Street. She continued here for eleven years, introducing into her school the study of physiology, anatomy and hygiene. She was the first to teach these branches to girls. During this time she read medical works under her brother's direction. When her scholars were ill, she would generally be called before the physician, and in ordinary cases she was the sole reliance. She also prescribed for many poor. Her husband died in 1837, but it was not until she was thirty five years old, in 1849, that she regularly attended medical lectures. She graduated at Syracuse Eclectic College, having been refused by all others, on the ground that no woman student could be received. Returning to New York, she entered at once into regular and successful practice.

Struggles such as those of the Doctors Blackwell and Dr. Lozier are over. The girl has now no trouble to gain admission into the best medical colleges. They are open to her all the country over. It is only to will to study, and to do it.

Hundreds of women physicians have a large and lucrative practice. Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, the wife of an equally renowned physician, has her office thronged with patients. It is said there are as many in her waiting room as in her husband's. Dr. Ella Mark, of Baltimore, one of the younger women in the profession, is earning fame and reputation by her skill. These are only a few of the hundreds of successful women practitioners in this country alone.

Women are now becoming specialists. A few have taken a step in the right direction, in becoming oculists. The Emperor of Austria has lately authorized

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Madam Reba Kershbaumer to practice as an oculist. In Strasburg the Princess Hohenlohe and her daughter Elizabeth have taken a practical course in military hospital nursing, assisting at operations, amputations, cleansing and bandaging wounds.

In Buffalo, N. Y., Dr. Lilian Craig Randall, with a corps of woman assistants, has opened a surgical hospital for women. Dr. Randall is possessed of great firmness and decision of character, together with a gentle and most womanly heart. She believed that such a hospital as she proposed could obviate many of the distressing features connected with surgery, where sensitive women are the patients. As soon as it was made clear that her enterprise was in no way an aggressive attempt on the part of women to usurp the place and work of man, but merely the result of an earnest desire to fill a long felt want where women were so often the sufferers, the new enterprise received the hearty good will and co operation of all. It has had a steady growth and been from the first entirely self supporting.

It has taken courage and faith and self devotion in the pioneer workers to struggle through the long day of small things, but the result of their labors is shown in the stable and influential institutions into which these small beginnings have grown and the right of way which is given to women in this profession as though her choosing it always had been a matter of course.

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XXXI. Women In Politics.

THE last presidential election showed a remarkable increase over other elections in the number of women who did active work in the political field. This was so noticeable that not a few persons have commented on the fact as one of the most significant proofs during the last few years of the rapidly widening scope of woman's influence. Each of the several parties had its feminine advocates. Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, of Washington, was at the head of the Woman's National Republican Association of America. In the various States the same organization had active and able leaders, Miss Helen Varick Boswell being State President for New York. In the West women have been particularly prominent in political work. In New England several prominent women actively championed the gold cause, while Mrs. Elizabeth Sheldon Tillinghast, the daughter of Judge Sheldon, of New Haven, Conn. proved herself an eloquent speaker in behalf of free silver. The Prohibition party has for years counted many noble women among its most earnest workers, and has repeatedly inserted a plank in its platform stating that it believes educational qualifications, and not sex, should regulate the elective franchise. The labor and socialistic movements have devoted and able women among their speakers and leaders.

All this is of comparatively recent origin, though. Mrs. Lucy Stone, speaking ot this in Boston not many years ago, reviewed the developments of forty years. In speaking of the first National Woman's Rights Convention, which had met just forty years before, some of the things Mrs. Stone said were:

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"Forty years ago, when our convention met in Worcester, the papers far and wide laughed at it as a ‘hen convention.’ That was what they called it. One of the gains between that time and this is that women can meet and sit in convention and find themselves fairly and well reported.

"Among the first and best gains that have been accorded to us is free speech for women. Up to that time and before it, the women speakers had been hailed with mobs, brickbats and stones. When I held a meeting in Maiden, Mass. the pastor of the Orthodox Congregational Church, being asked to give notice of the meeting (this meeting was under the auspices of the Massachusetts Anti Slavery Society; William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips were officers of the Society), this minister in Maiden held the notice up before his face, and he said, ‘I am requested by Mr. Mowry to say that a hen will undertake to crow like a cock at the Town Hall this afternoon at five o'clock. Anybody who wants to hear that kind of music will, of course, attend.’ So unpopular and unwelcome was the idea of a woman speaking in public, that, after years of effort by Angelina and Sarah Grimke and Abby Kelley, that was the welcome that came to a younger worker. The consequence was, I had a very large meeting. Everybody came, and Mr. Mowry was asked what kind of a hen it was, and all about it; and altogether it was a very good advertisement of the meeting.

"Then see the different tone of the press. Deacon Samuel Bowles, editor and founder of the Springfield Republican, a most excellent man, said of me in his own paper, ‘You she hyena, don't you come here!’ Today the Springfield Republican is one of the staunchest advocates of woman suffrage, and it publishes a department every week concerning woman and her interests."

In the times of anti slavery agitation women exerted a strong influence in politics, often amid scenes of great excitement. Mrs. Stone was a little woman with an attractive face and a sweet voice. It is told of her that once, at an anti slavery meeting held an Cape Cod, in a grove, in the open air, a platform had been erected for the speakers, and a crowd assembled; but a crowd so menacing in aspect and with so evident an intention of violence, that the speakers one by one came down from the stand and slipped quietly away, till none were left but Stephen Foster and Lucy Stone. She said, "You had better run, Stephen; they are coming!" He answered, "But who will take care of you?" At that moment the mob made a rush for the platform, and a big man sprang up on it swinging a club. She turned to him and said without hesitation, "This gentleman will take care of me." He declared that he would. He tucked her under one arm, and holding his club with the other, marched her out through the crowd, who were roughly handling Mr. Foster and such of the other speakers as they had been able to catch. Her representation so prevailed upon him that he mounted her on a stump and stood by her with his club while she addressed the mob. They were

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so moved by her speech that they not only desisted from further violence, but took up a collection of twenty dollars to pay Stephen Foster for his coat, which they had torn in two from top to bottom.

In 1869 Mrs. Stone, with William Lloyd Garrison, George William Curtis, Colonel T. W. Higginson, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe,Mrs. Mary A. Livermore and others, organized the American Woman Suffrage Association. From that time until now the cause of woman's suffrage and the interest of women in politics generally has steadily increased, although not without the opposition and disapproval of many of the same sex.

Sixty years ago women could not vote anywhere. In 1845 Kentucky gave school suffrage to widows. In 1861 Kansas gave it to all women. In 1869 England gave municipal suffrage to single women and widows and Wyoming gave full suffrage to all women. School suffrage was granted in 1875 by Michigan and Minnesota, in 1876 by Colorado, in 1878 by New Hampshire and Oregon, in 1879 by Massachusetts, in 1880 by New York and Vermont. In 1881 municipal suffrage was extended to the single women and widows of Scotland. Nebraska gave school suffrage in 1883 and Wisconsin in 1885. In 1886 school suffrage was given in Washington and municipal suffrage to single women and widows in New Brunswick and Ontario. In 1887 municipal suffrage was extended to all women in Kansas and school suffrage in North and South Dakota, Montana, Arizona and New Jersey. In 1891 school suffrage was granted in Illinois. In 1892 municipal suffrage was extended to single women and widows in the Province of Quebec. In 1893 school suffrage was granted in Connecticut and full suffrage in Colorado and New Zealand. In 1894 school suffrage was granted in Ohio, a limited municipal suffrage in Iowa, and parish and district suffrage in England to women both married and single. In 1895 full suffrage was granted in South Australia to women both married and single. In 1896 full suffrage was granted to women in Utah and Idaho.

The first petition for woman suffrage presented to Parliament, in 1867, was signed by only 1499 women. The petition of 1873 was signed by 11,000 women. The petition presented to the members of the present Parliament was signed by 257,000 women.

The well known newspaper correspondent, Harold Frederic, says, "The question may be one at which many politicians smile, but the steadily increasing support it receives cannot be denied by any careful student."

Naturally, it is in the four Western States of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, where suffrage is absolutely free, that women have become most prominent in politics. The Colorado House of Representatives for 1897 contained three women members. They acquitted themselves of their duties creditably and with dignity. One bill in connection with which they did specially good work was

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that for the establishment of a separate reformatory for women. An observer of this branch of the Colorado Legislature wrote:

"The lower house outranks the Senate in the serious decorum of legislative deliberation. The few women who sit as members in the representative hall of the beautiful Colorado capitol seem unconsciously to impose upon its proceedings a greater regard for the amenities of speech and conduct than is observed in the upper house, where there are, as yet, no women to be considered."

The office of chairman of the Committee on Printing, of the same Legislature, was filled by Mrs. Conine, one of these women, and so efficiently that the cost to the State for the printing for the session was $2000 less than ever before.

Mrs. A. J. Peavy, State Superintendent of Public Institutions for Colorado, proved herself a woman of strength and ability. The office sought her, and not she the office. Her administration was characterized by thoroughness, economy and honesty.

A similar record was made by the County Superintendents. Twenty six women occupied these positions to thirty men.

Wyoming has had for some time a successful State Superintendent of Public Instruction in the person of Miss Estelle M. Reel.

In city politics the women of Denver particularly distinguished themselves in 1897. In the spring of that year the Civic Federation, consisting of about 10,000 women, conceived a plan to call a convention and put out a non partisan ticket for the municipal election of April. A single organization not being strong enough to carry an independent ticket, the Civic Federation accepted the invitation of the Tax payers' League and joined forces in an effort to secure a ticket in the interest of good government. The Tax-payers' League was organized as a revolt against gang rule, and its platform received the endorsement of the Civic Federation in 1895. Both organizations stand for Home Rule and the interest of the people as against the control of corporations. The call for the convention was issued conjointly by the Civic Federation and Tax payers' League and when the election occurred their candidates were elected.

The convention which was the result of this movement assembled in the Chamber of Commerce Hall at 10 o'clock, February 25. Mrs. Frank Hall, president of the Civic Federation, was chosen temporary chairman, and presided until the convention was organized. The delegates, numbering more than a hundred, represented the best elements in the city — ministers, lawyers, physicians, labor men, trades assembly, etc. Women constituted about half the delegates. At the Silver Republican Convention, held a week later, a score of women were delegates.

The following account of an election in Denver is interesting. It was written by a woman who was not herself in favor of women voting:

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"I went from polling place to polling place in the lower part of the city. I did not see one person under the influence of liquor. Every saloon in the town seemed closed. The polling places were invariably clean, and in perfectly approachable buildings. There were no crowds, and no disorder of any kind. The women were treated with absolute courtesy in every way. I saw not the slightest sign of that contempt which is said by opponents of suffrage to come with too much familiarity. Neither did I see the little self consciousness which marks the ordinary woman in the ordinary crowd. The women seemed serious and straight forward."

While it is not the purpose of this article to give prominence to any special movement, but to speak of women in politics in general, it is interesting since woman suffragists are generally most active in politics, to read what certain well known men and women think of the suffrage question.

Clara Barton, in speaking to the soldiers, said:

"When you were weak and I was strong, I toiled for you. Now you are strong and I am weak. Because of my work for you I ask your aid, I ask the ballot for myself and my sex. As I stood by you, I pray you stand by me and mine."

Hon. John M. Long, Secretary of the Navy, said:

"Somebody says few women would vote if enfranchised. Well, it often happens in an election that more than half the men refuse to vote. But if one man or woman wants to exercise the right to vote, what earthly reason is there for denying it, because other men and women do not wish to exercise it? If I desire to breathe the fresh air of heaven, shall I not cross my threshold because the rest of the family group prefer the stale atmosphere indoors?"

Hon. George F. Hoar, United States Senator, said:

"If any person deems the franchise a burden and not a privilege, such a person is under no constraint to exercise it. But, if it be a birthright, then it is obvious that no other person than the individual concerned can rightfully restrain its exercise. The committee concede that women ought to be clothed with the suffrage in any State where any considerable part of the women desire it. This is a pretty serious confession. What has become of the argument that women are unfit to vote?"

The names of the women who have been prominent in politics are too many in number to be included with any degree, of completeness in an article like this. One thinks of Miss Susan B. Anthony, who years ago declared her constitutional right to vote, in New York State, voted in spite of the law, and was attested and fined. The fine was never collected, but the courts decided that women did not have the right under the Constitution to vote.

Mary Elizabeth Lease, of Kansas, has proved one of the most eloquent speakers, and has perhaps come to be quite as well known throughout the country

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as any other of the "new women" of whom she speaks so earnestly. Two quotations from Mrs. Lease show her picturesque power with words.

"The hands on the dial plate of time mark the hour for a new dispensation. The Samson of soul power is shaking the pillars of material authority. In these later days the phrase ‘new woman’ has become strangely familiar. Looking into the soul life of the world we find abundant evidence that the new woman, new in a much higher sense than many can now perceive, is here, a prime factor in the world's redemption."

"Then strong in faith the hour abide,
Light, Truth and Love, the battle ground,
For every wind and every tide
That pulses all the wide world round,
Shall start the languid pulse of time,
Shall beat and surge in rhythmic song.
All hail! the New Woman for whose love
The world hath hungered long."

Mrs. Anna E. Diggs and Mrs. Anna Waite are prominent Populist leaders among the women of Kansas. The latter edits a paper in Ellsworth. Mrs. Laura M. Johns, of Salina, Kan. is a Republican worker. Mrs. Judge Henderson, the wife of a former Senator from Missouri, took an active part in the last campaign as a gold standard Republican.

Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, for many years a practicing lawyer in Washington, came prominently into public notice as a presidential candidate in the campaign in which Cleveland was first elected.

It is much to the credit of our sex, however, that their most important political work has been done in and for the Prohibition Party. This party was founded some twenty five years ago, and from the first has stood not only for the prohibition of the liquor traffic, but for the full enfranchisement of women. Its record has been that of an educator of other parties, although it has elected some candidates, and has had tickets in the field in almost every State in the Union. So far as can be learned the highest number of votes yet polled is three hundred thousand. Women have served on its executive committee, and on that small central committee which manages its affairs; they have been delegates to its convention, and have received every recognition. At the last presidential campaign the Prohibition Party left out all its previous planks except that relating to the liquor traffic, which caused a division, and about one third of the delegates, led by Governor St. John of Kansas, adjourned to another hall and formed the Liberal Party, which makes women's ballot part and parcel of the movement, because it is believed that the ballot in the hand of women means prohibition.

The white ribbon women of the country sympathize strongly with this wing of the party, but inasmuch as the Prohibition Party had a resolution for the

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ballot, although it did not at this particular convention include the subject in its platform, the W. C. T. U. is loyal to both these parties, and its influence is in favor of their being merged in one as before. They have been requested by the white ribbon women to change their name to Home Protection Party, because this name indicates precisely what all the temperance forces of the country are working for.

The names which have been given above are only a few of those which the history of the last few years have made prominent, and although, the turmoil of political life may fail to attract some women, may even for a time, at least, repel them, the passing years have shown that here, as in so many other fields, the opportunities for women to work, and to make their influence felt, have vastly increased.

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XXXII. Woman In The Pulpit.

IN no profession which woman has entered has she encountered such bitter opposition as was shown her when she tried the ministry. Much as those had endured who in the earlier days became medical students, it was slight compared to the obloquy showered upon those who sought entrance to the schools of theology. They were assailed by pulpit and press. St. Paul was quoted to them, their opponents meanwhile overlooking, in teaching the letter of the Apostle, the spirit of Christ, which was revealed to women as well as to men. But the barriers of prejudice were at length broken down, for a few strong, fearless men gave the benefit of their influence to the women, and now the woman minister is no unusual sight, and her ministrations are followed in almost every case by blessed results.

The Universalist Church has from the first welcomed woman to its councils, and has accorded to her the fullest liberty in the exercise of her powers in its service. Maria Cook and Lydia Jenkins, both of New York State, were the first women who are known to have preached Universalism. They preached for a short time in the early part of this century, though neither of them sought ordination. Olympia Brown was the first woman upon whom ordination was conferred. This occurred directly after her graduation from the Canton Theological School in 1863. There are sixty five women in the ministry of the Universalist Church.

There are more than twenty women in this country who are pastors, not preachers merely, but settled pastors over Unitarian churches, and they are uniformly successful. The president of the Iowa Unitarian Association, Rev. Miss Safford, is one of the most conspicuous women pastors. Still another is the

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Rev. Mary P. Whitney, of the Unity Church, South Boston. She is not only an able pastor, but a woman of force in church councils; and the same may be said of the Rev. Florence L. Pierce, of Pomona, Cal. the Rev. Harriet D. Boynton, who, with her husband, is settled at Roslindale, Mass.

The Congregational Church of today draws no line of eligibility to pastoral ordination between men and women. According to the latest pastoral lists, however, there are only seventeen ordained women preachers in the Congregational Church. Half a dozen of them are in the New England States, the majority are stationed in the far West.

The Methodist Episcopal Church refused to ordain women as preachers. But licenses have been granted to many, Mrs. Jennie Fowler Willing, sister of Bishop Fowler, and Mrs. Mary T. Lathrop being the most prominent. It can be but a little time before this church, usually so broad and liberal in its views regarding women, will wheel into line and ordain those who desire to become preachers of the Word of God. Certainly there are no more devoted women in the world than those belonging to the Methodist Church.

While the women preachers of the Methodist Church are more properly evangelists, yet many have gained for themselves the name of able preachers, in the full sense of the term. Mrs. Maggie Van Cott has been for many years engaged in active evangelistic work in almost every State of the Union. Other well known women preachers of the Methodist denomination are Mary Sparkes Wheeler, of Philadelphia; Grace Weiser Davis, of Jersey City; and Mrs. E. O. Robinson, of Indianapolis, and many evangelists of the W. C. T. U.

Rev. Anna Howard Shaw graduated from the theological department of the Boston University with high honors in 1878, and served the Methodist Episcopal Church at Hingham, Mass. for a year. Her second pastorate was at East Dennis, Cape Cod, where she faithfully discharged her duties for several years. The "fault of being a woman" prevented the Methodist Episcopal Church from granting her ordination, notwithstanding her long and useful services, so in 1880 she applied to the Protestant Methodist Church and was regularly installed a minister of that denomination.

A prominent woman minister in Greater New York is the Rev. Alice K. Wright. She and her husband are co workers in a parish just outside the city limits. They graduated in the same class at the Canton Seminary, were consecrated together, then married. In speaking of her work Mrs. Wright says:

"I make the young people my specialty, and they come to me for advice and counsel. I am the confidante of almost every young man and girl in our congregation, and I am kept busy straighten out the many unhappy tangles into which young people fell so easily. The older people go to my husband with their difficulties, but I find that he often turns them over to me when there is a

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particularly delicate case to handle, or when the persons concerned require an. extra amount of sympathy and patience. This is the one thing that makes the life of a woman minister more difficult than that of a man. Being a woman, she is expected to have an extra supply of those two qualities — patience and sympathy — and to have them ready for immediate use on every occasion. But I love the work, and am doing everything in my power to encourage more women to enter the ministry. During the ages of woman's bondage she developed many characteristics which unfitted her for useful service in the new fields of labor to which she is now called. Our most successful leaders had much to overcome within themselves while they carried on the conflict against prejudice and ignorance.

"When we study these conditions we cannot but marvel at the wonderful success that has so early crowned woman's efforts in the new fields of her choice.

"But during those ages of ‘the dominion of muscular force,’ as Oliver Schreiner calls them, woman developed some characteristics which, I hope, she may never lose, as such a calamity would divest her of the power by which she rose above bondage and by which she is destined to succeed in whatever good and worthy thing she undertakes.

"The characteristics are chiefly patience, tenacity, tact, truthfulness, and, above all, mother love. And when woman comes to focus these tendencies upon great and unselfish ends they broaden and develop into glorious potencies.

"The ministry is one of those fields of effort where the characteristics mentioned are in demand, and where women seem peculiarly fitted to perform a much needed work. I believe that the ministry is the broadest, loftiest field on earth for the exercise of noble and helpful characteristics. No field furnishes so great an opportunity for reaching all classes, all ages and both sexes with the gospel of purity, honesty and equality for which the world is famishing.

"The responsibility of the ministry exceeds that of any other profession, in the fact that one who preaches with real and lasting effect is one who tries harder than anybody else to live up to the truth professed."

Rev. Caroline Bartlett Crane has established a working church in Kalamazoo, Mich. of which she is the pastor, and which is one of the most influential for good of any church in the city. Rev. Augusta J. Chopin is another active minister doing noble work.

And why should not women enter the ministry? The mother heart of God will never be known to the world until translated into speech by mother hearted women. Law and love will never balance in the realm of grace until a woman's hand shall hold the scales. Men preach a creed; women declare a life. Men deal in formulas, women in facts. Men have always tithed mint and rue and cumin in their ecclesiasticism, while the world's heart has cried out for compassion, forgiveness and sympathy. Men's preaching has left heads committed to a

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catechism and left hearts hard as nether millstones. The Greek bishop who said, "My creed is faultless; with my life you have nothing to do," condensed into a sentence two thousand years of priestly dogma. Men reason in the abstract, women in the concrete. A syllogism symbolizes one, a rule of life the other. Religion is an affair of the heart; the world is hungry for the comfort of Christ's gospel, and thirsty for its everyday beatitudes of that holiness which alone constitutes happiness. Men have lost faith in themselves and in each other. Boodlerism and "corner" on the market, greed of gain, passion for power impurity of life, the complicity of the church with the liquor traffic, the preference of a partisan to a conscientious ballot, have combined to make the men of this generation faithless to each other. The masses of the people have forsaken God's house. But the masses will go to hear when they speak, and every woman who leads a life weekday holiness and has the gospel in her looks, however plain her face and dress may be, has round her head the sweet Madonna's halo, in the eyes of every man who sees her, and she speaks to him with the sacred cadence of his own mother's voice.

Men have been preaching well nigh two thousand years, and the large majority of the converts have been women. Suppose now that women share the preaching power, may it not be reasonable expected that a majority of the converts under their administration will be men? The entrance of woman upon

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the ministerial vocation gives to humanity just twice the probability of strengthening and comforting speech, for women have at least as much sympathy, reverence and spirituality as men, and they have at least equal felicity of manner and of utterance. Why, then, should the pulpit have been so long shorn of half its power?

Formerly the voices of women were held to render them incapable of public speech, but it was discovered that what these voices lacked in sonorosity they supplied in clearness, and when women singers outranked all others, and women lecturers were speaking daily to assemblies numbering from one to ten thousand, this objection vanished. Men said that admitting women into the pulpit would disrupt the home. In this, as in other arguments, they have been proven wrong. The mother heart has not changed — never will change. Women may enter the arena of literature, art, business, the professions, what you will, become a teacher, a physician, a philanthropist, a writer, a minister, even, but she is woman, first of all, and cannot deny herself. A woman in the clerical profession is never in danger of forgetting that she is a woman. She is continually expected to do things that are never required of men in the same position, that men could not do if they would, and at the same time she is required to perform all the regular duties of the minister. And what is the reward for all this? None whatever, unless she finds it in her own heart, born out of the love for her work. The woman who goes into the ministry thinking thereby to make a good living in an easy way, or to popularize herself and get her name before the public, will meet as she deserves to do, disappointment, dissatisfaction and failure. But when a woman goes into the ministry with a true ideal of her work, if after one year of conscientious effort — one year of trial and heartache, too, perhaps — she turns back, she will be an exception to the rule. There is a satisfaction, an inspiration which comes very early in the work and binds one to it forever. Let the discouragements and troubles come as thick and fast as they may, the true hearted minister will not falter in her loyalty to the grandest calling in the world, for in her heart is a joy that can hardly be expressed, beside which "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared."

One minister in speaking of her work says: "To know that God has worked through you to bring sunshine into but one dark home; to give hope to one soul that was in loneliness and doubt; to have heard the words ‘My pastor’ spoken in confidence and love when a heart could call to no other human source for sympathy; to know that every week some tired mother or some little child will come to you for sympathy and help — it is these things that raise the minister above the criticism, the fear of failure and disappointment. It is the desire to help and the occasional satisfaction of hope fulfilled, that makes the ministry a good and happy field for work."

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XXXIII. Piano And Organ Tuning.

WOMEN who were girls half a century ago, and who, looking back over the years, see what the time has brought both in advantage and opportunity, may well call this, as one woman did not long since, "the golden age for women." There is very little today in the way of profession or employment that the woman with ability, steadfastness of character and courage, may not undertake. Avenue after avenue has been opened, and quietly, without flourish of trumpets, women have set out to walk therein. It is no longer a matter of surprise to find them occupying almost any position, and if one wonders at all, it is that they had not found its desirability earlier.

I do not know how many of the girls who are reading this book in the hope of finding the one suggestion that shall open the way for their own advancement, know how many girls are employed as piano and organ tuners, or how successful they have proven in this position. Does the idea startle you? Have you grown so accustomed to having your piano always tuned by a man that you can't imagine doing it for yourself, or having some other woman do it for you? Have you always thought of it as exclusively a man's business? Well, why should it be? It is not difficult it is pleasant, and more sheltered than many other employments which take women out of their homes.

The first person to employ women as tuners was the Hon. Jacob Estey, the founder of the famous Estey Organ Company, of Brattleboro, Vt. It is thirty years since women were first introduced into that factory, so you see this avocation is not so very new, after all.

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"Deacon Estey," as every one called him, was a very progressive man, and his daughter stood in as high regard as his son. He believed in woman's capacity and ability to do the finer parts of mechanical work, and when the opportunity came he put his theory to a practical test. This was soon after the civil war when so many women were left dependent on their own resources, and oftentimes the sole support of little children or aged parents. New ways must be made for these workers, and one of the first men to give them opportunity was kind Deacon Estey. When first a woman was introduced into the factory, the men tuners were exceedingly indignant, and after holding a meeting at which they expressed themselves very freely, and worked themselves up into a wrathful state of mind, they waited upon their employer and demanded that the offending woman be sent away. The alternative was given him of discharging her or losing them. He listened to them very patiently, and when they were through, he answered them with as much determination as they had shown, but with no anger. The woman was there, she did her work satisfactorily, she was to stay. Of course they could do as they chose about remaining; every man had a right to do what seemed best for himself; but he should never be guilty of an injustice to please any one. The men listened, withdrew — and stayed. As the work increased and the business was enlarged, other women were employed.

It is a pleasure to be able to record that this introduction of women into the Estey Organ Works was not made in the interest of "economy:" they received the same wages as did the men who did the same kind of work, and had every advantage that was given their fellow workers. Good Deacon Estey has gone on, out of this world, but women should always have a kindly thought for him and hold him in grateful remembrance. His son, who has succeeded to his business, follows his father's example in employing women tuners, and respecting all the traditions of liberality and justice.

A little less than twenty years ago, in response to the rapidly increasing demand for practical instruction in piano tuning, there was introduced into the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston a department which would afford special facilities for the development of this important art. Among those who applied for admission to this department were a number of young women; they were cordially welcomed, for the late Dr. Tourjee was another man who believed in the capacity of women to excel in various directions. Their progress was noted with special interest, for they were the first, so far as could be learned, who had undertaken the systematic study of the theory and practice of tuning. To the great satisfaction of the management and faculty, their advancement was from the start both rapid and thorough, and before the first term was ended, it became evident that a new field of endeavor had been found for girls. As time passed, the highest expectations were abundantly realized; the young women easily kept

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pace with the young men who were pursuing the same course, and amply proved their entire ability to excel in this new line of work. From that time the proportion of women to men students has constantly increased until now they are about equal; and years of active effort by the women who have received an education in this department have proved beyond a question their special adaptation to the work.

The department has become one of the most important in the Conservatory and it is provided with ample accommodations for a full and systematic course of instruction. The common idea that the art of tuning is exceedingly difficult to acquire, demanding primarily and exceptionally fine ear, is incorrect. The success which has attended its pursuit in the Conservatory has fully demonstrated that it is within the reach of all who have sufficient natural ability to succeed in any other department.

The faculty of the Conservatory strongly recommend the course to all who would become teachers, and especially to those who reside in sections of the country where competent tuners are not to be found.

For the benefit of the girl who may like to prepare herself for this business, the outline of the course of study is briefly given. It requires two years to obtain a diploma, and the first year the studies include, for the first term: The general study of pitch and relation of musical intervals. Their application as employed in tuning. Structure of the temperament. During the second term: Principles and practice of piano tuning continued. Factory tuning begun. Musical acoustics, embracing the theory of scales, harmonics, beats and temperaments. Study of general construction of piano forte begun, action model drafting. Polishing begun. Third term: Tuning at Conservatory and factory continued. Study of mechanism of piano forte action in minutest detail. Stringing and principles of action regulating. Polishing. Fourth term: Tuning practice as in previous terms. Setting up and regulating piano action. Voicing. Capping, etc.

The course for the second year includes in the first term: General review and development of previous year's work. Reed organ construction and tuning begun. Second term: Reed tuning continued: general repairing. Study of reed organ building at factory. Pipe organ construction and tuning begun. Third term: Reed tuning and voicing. Pipe organ tuning continued. Study of organ pipe construction at factory. Organ construction completed. Fourth term: General completion of all departments of study in the school.

In introducing this profession for women it was fully expected that the same prejudice and opposition would be encountered which have always greeted any innovation, and those who were instrumental in bringing the movement forward prepared themselves carefully to defend it. They knew that the objections would be just what they turned out to be; the first one was, that young women would lack the necessary physical strength. To this they had the ready reply that the

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demands made upon the strength were not so great as those made in factories, mills, sewing rooms, or even kitchens; in fact, that the tuner's work was not so fatiguing as were many of the employments in which women were constantly engaged, and which came under the head of "woman's work."

The second objection made was, that women, as a rule, lacked mechanical ingenuity. The only answer needed to this objection was to point to the many manufactories where the nicest mechanical skill is necessary, and which are crowded by women operatives.

The third objection was that women lacked the power of application necessary to the acquirement of a difficult mechanical art. Time has answered that argument, as it alone could, and the experience of the years since the department was first instituted has proven that young women, with the naturally delicate ear and touch, possess peculiar qualifications for this work, and that the fine discrimination necessary to the tuning of an instrument is characteristic of them.

A large number of the women students in this branch come from the West and South, where skillful tuners are rare, and many of them have gone back to their homes and are practicing this art with great success, some of them combining with it the profession of piano or organ teacher.

The attractions which the profession of tuning presents are many. The work itself is well classed among the arts, being the correct adjustment of the musical instrument to the purposes of artistic expression. The manual labor necessary to the accomplishment of this branch of work is calculated to make it healthful and strengthening, and the mental application is sufficient to impart zest and interest to it, while it is attended also with the satisfaction of immediate results. Aside from the limited amount of tuning done during the construction of the instrument, the sphere of the tuner in the homes of the people, or in the warerooms of music dealers, lies in sharp contrast to the life in shops and mills. The profession is conspicuously one in which there is, and is to be, plenty of room. A glance at the actual condition of the country, as concerns the tuning of pianos, and the numbers of instruments demanding constant attention, proves this to be true. In the cities, naturally enough, the profession is fairly represented; although the number of thoroughly educated tuners is limited, while, as I dare say many of you realize, in almost any part of the United States there are whole counties, containing hundreds of pianos, with new ones being constantly added, where only an occasional traveling tuner can be found to hurriedly attend to them all. With the vast number of old pianos, which each year demand more care as they show additional signs of wear, and the thousands of new ones, which scores of manufactories are producing yearly — to say nothing of many times the number of organs — there is surely no occupation which promises a more abundant and ever increasing business than this of tuning. Every piano made requires care, whether it is used much or

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little. And as the country increases in wealth and the art of music becomes more universal — especially as pianos become lower in price and are even in greater demand than now — the question very naturally arises. Who shall keep these countless numbers in condition to be used? This, then, is a new field of labor opening to women — another avenue in which our girls may seek employment.

Not every girl will be attracted to this new field, but there is work and remuneration for those who are. In regard to the qualifications necessary to a perfect acquirement of this business, they are: a correct musical ear, a fair amount of musical intelligence, and a desire to excel.

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XXXIV. Public Singers.

EVER since that far away time of which the poets sang:

"When Music, heavenly maid, was young,"

women have naturally tunned to music as a field in which they may properly exercise their talents for the sake of giving pleasure to themselves and others, and when necessary, find in them a means of earning a livelihood. While it is true, then, that certain opportunities have been open to women in music longer, perhaps, than in almost any other direction, it is no less true that during the last quarter of the nineteenth century new opportunities have presented themselves in music, new fields for work been opened, in the same gratifying proportion as in so many other lines.

In vocal music there has been a widening of the field for opera and concert work, and the addition of one entirely new branch in the teaching of music in the public schools. In instrumental music, not so very long ago, women played practically no instrument except the organ, piano and harp. Now there is no instrument in the largest orchestra — with the exception, perhaps, of the heaviest double bass horn — which women do not play. They direct orchestras and write music. In fact, there may be said to be no branch of music now in which a young woman with reasonable talent, and a willingness to work hard, may not hope to succeed.

Of all forms of musical expression, singing is the one most commonly employed. Song comes as easily and spontaneously from the lips of the human being as it does from the throat of a bird. In writing of women in music, then,

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one naturally thinks first of the women who sing, and those who hope by singing to earn for themselves that independence which is the ambition of so many young women today.

To write even the names of the women who have become famous as singers would fill a chapter as long as this can be. This century has seen Bosio, Sontag, Lucca, Jenny Lind, Albani, Marietta Piccolomini, Anna de la Grange, Krezzolini, Gazzangia, Parepa Rosa, and many others almost, if not quite, as distinguished.

Nearly all of these birds of song were heard in America. Of them all no one attracted so much popular attention as Jenny Lind, probably because she had the advantage of the consummate advertising skill of P. T. Barnum. The young people of today cannot remember the enthusiasm which was excited by her visit here, and since they cannot, they also fail to understand the firmness with which the majority of people who crowded freight sheds and extemporized shelters to hear her, contend that since her time they have never heard her equal.

Of later great singers there has been, perhaps, no greater favorite than Annie Louis Carey, now Mrs. Raymond. She was a Maine girl, born to very modest circumstances, who determined to develop her rarely beautiful voice, and did so, through years of hard work in village and city choirs, concerts, and finally opera.

Albani was a Canadian girl, her father a country organist. She first learned to play the organ, and played in church. Then came the piano, both instruments to be practically abandoned later, when she came to realize that her talent lay in her voice. After years of work she was able to go to Paris and study with Lamperti, eventually becoming one of the great singers of the world. Albani, now Mrs. Gye, has lived for many years in England, where her sweetness of disposition and beauty of character, added to her talent as a musician, have given her a hold upon the English public which makes her appearance upon any stage a signal for a tumult of applause long before she has opened her lips to sing. The writer heard Albani sing not long ago at the great Handel Triennial Festival in the Crystal Palace, London. There were 22,000 people in the audience, and 4500 were in the chorus. When Madam Albani walked down the stage there arose such a shout of welcome as must have been a satisfactory reward for even so many years of hard work as hers. More than that, her life and talents have so attracted the attention of Queen Victoria that she has long enjoyed the royal favor as no other artist does, and the woman who was once a little Canadian girl enjoys the rare distinction of frequent invitations to Windsor Castle, where she is greeted not merely as a great singer, but as a friend.

Adelina Patti needs no word. Her triumphant career as an artist is fresh in the mind of every one. The practical financial results of it are seen in the castle in Wales in which she lives in regal style. Her wonderful coming up, with her sister Carlotta, from being bare footed little Italian girls in New York, has always

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been one of the phenomena of musical history. She sang as naturally as a bird, and with almost as little regard for that "method" which is so essential to most artists.

Today the mind turns naturally to Nordica, Calve, Eames and Melba, when one thinks of great singers. The State of Maine has been remarkable in the number of great singers which it has sent out. In addition to Carey, Nordica and Eames were natives of the Pine Tree State. Nordica came as a girl to Boston to study in the Conservatory of Music. She thought herself fortunate to get a place, some time later, to sing in a quartette, and from that went on to concert work. Eventually she was able to go to Paris to complete her studies. Emma Earnes was another Maine girl who was willing to study hard and profit by the advice of older and more experienced musicians. She is gifted with great adaptability. Her marriage to Julian Story, the successful portrait artist, has been a very happy one, and without doubt, the doubly artistic atmosphere in which she has lived has done much to develop her talent.

Melba was an Australian girl who studied in Paris, and has achieved a very great success.

The possibility of becoming a Nordica, a Melba, or an Eames is a fascinating one, and it is only natural that in the success of such women other young women should find encouragement for the cultivation of musical talent. And although there can of necessity be but few great prizes, such as these women win, because few persons are gifted with their pre eminent talents and abilities, there will almost always be open to the woman of moderate talent who will thoroughly fit herself for such work as she can do, and is willing to do it, a field in which she can earn a comfortable living, and be happily independent in doing so. This field is by no means narrow. It embraces among other lines of work the ordinary teaching of singing, the teaching of singing in the public schools — a constantly widening field — choir work in churches, and concert and festival singing.

The writer has asked one young woman of her acquaintance, whose experience as a teacher of singing has proved the correctness of the above statement, to write out a brief account of what she did, with the thought that it will be of interest, and the hope that it may be of help, to other young women who may have the same ambition.

"My home was in a country town of about 2500 inhabitants. My father was, a clergyman, and while there was always the money which might be necessary to provide us children with the means for an education, we expected and wished to practice all possible prudence. The fact that there was a good small college in the town made the matter of education easier to accomplish. I think me fact that I had a good voice was first noticed as far back as when I was a child in Sabbath school, and I began to sing little songs in the school entertainments.

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When I was twelve years old our church gathered a chorus choir, and I was among the number. It was not long before I began to be asked to sing the solo parts there. Two or three years later I began to take my first special lessons, driving twelve miles on Saturdays to an adjoining town to do so. That was when I was in college.

"We had a long winter vacation, then, of seven weeks. The last year I was in college I spent that vacation in Boston, studying with a good teacher there. The next winter I went to New York, and devoted the whole winter to hard work there with one of the best known teachers in that city. It was my intention to have returned to New York for another year with the same teacher, but an older brother having decided to go to Leipsic, Germany, to study that year, the family decided that as there would not be very much more expense, and many added advantages, I had better go with him, and I did so.

"As my studies had now begun to cost more money than I could expect to easily have from home, I had my life insured and began to borrow from a friend who from interest in my work was willing to accept the insurance as security. The debt incurred then, and added to during the next few years, I was able to fully repay after I began to work for myself.

"I always tried to be economical, except that I did not hesitate to go freely to concerts and the opera, because I felt that to be a legitimate part of my education. Fortunately such expenses in Leipsic are comparatively small. We used to pay thirty seven and a half cents for seats at the opera, and although they were far back we were able to hear well. I am frequently asked what a student can live for, and study, in Europe. My experience was so largely in Leipsic that I can answer for only that city. My first year's expenses, all told, were only between $500 and $600. Except for the entertainments which I have spoken of I am afraid most young people would have thought I lived pretty poorly. I do not mean but what we were comfortable, and very happy. My brother was with me, as I have said. We lived in lodgings, and got our own breakfasts and suppers, taking our dinners at a restaurant. I remember we restricted ourselves to a supper of bread and butter, and milk, with the addition of so much extra as could be bought each night for not more than twenty five pfennigs, an equivalent of five cents in our money. Sometimes that meant two little slices of cold meat, sometimes a bit of cheese, but I think, we never exceeded the sum.

"I studied in Leipsic three years. The next two years cost me more, as my brother was not with me, and I had rooms and board with a family. I studied the piano, composition, counterpoint, and the general branches of music at the Conservatory, and vocal music with an able teacher outside. For two years I took lessons in the German language. When I am asked what I think of the advisability of students going to Germany to study, I have always said that I think

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they will get there a better ‘all round’ education in music than anywhere else. It seems to me as if the Germans make the study and teaching of music such a serious matter that no conscientious student can help coming to feel the responsibility and value of the work, and study accordingly.

"After my third year in Leipsic I came to London and studied for seven months with William Shakespeare, and the next year came home, in debt, but feeling that I had now sufficient knowledge of music so that I ought to be able to earn a living by teaching, even if I could not do anything else. I think many young women who want to begin to teach music make a mistake in thinking they cannot be successful, or perhaps contented, unless they are in some large city. The field is very much more crowded there. I began in a large country town, some distance from my home, but near enough so that I could go there in the morning and come back at night. I had no trouble in getting thirty six pupils at the very first, in that one town, and soon there were others in other towns and at home. It was hard work. I used to teach all day long, and sometimes would get pretty tired. But from the very first I was able to more than pay my expenses, and I paid my board at home, too, because I had all along been determined that there was no reason why I should not take care of myself, just as my brothers were doing. During the next year an opportunity presented itself for me to go to an institution in a Western State to take charge of the music there. The salary was very reasonable, and as this institution was in a city of 20,000 inhabitants there was a chance for considerable outside work. I succeeded in getting a church position, and during vacations was able to take some concert engagements. My total income the second year, when I had got fairly settled there, was a little over $1500, and that I felt was doing very well for a girl. Since then it has steadily increased, and I have been able to live very pleasantly, and, as I have said, pay all my debts."

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XXXV. In Choir And Concert.

THE three lines of music work — teaching, choir singing and concert work — are so closely interwoven that it would be hard to treat them separately. Very many musicians combine two of them, some all three. Choir work forms, perhaps, the first steady means of earning money, which the majority of singers find available, although the pay at first may be very small. As a general thing, while there are many more paid church singers now than in years past, the average salary is less. Many women are glad to get a chance to begin in church work for nothing, singing for the sake of the drill, the experience, and the reputation which the position gives them. Then, perhaps, a. dollar a Sunday is paid, and later two dollars. A woman who is paid five dollars a Sunday may count herself doing well. The average salary for a good church soprano is now from $400 to $600 a year. Of course, there are fortunate exceptions. A few wealthy churches in each of the great cities pay some favorite and famous singers much higher prices. Even in these cases $1200 to $1500 is generally the limit, although there are exceptions, and one woman in New York City is said to receive no less than $4500 a year for singing in church.

The training necessary for making a successful church singer should be quite as arduous as that in any line, and no one makes a greater mistake than the woman who, because she has a good voice and knows a little something of music, thinks she is fitted to sing in a church choir. Nowhere else is the ability to read music at sight correctly so indispensable. Most church choirs can have but one rehearsal — generally on Saturday night. If the director is to keep any kind of a

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reputation for himself and choir, he must present fresh music from Sunday to Sunday, and it must be of a high order of merit. If he puts such music into the hands of a person who cannot read it readily, it is like putting a French book down for a child to read who hardly knows English. It is possible for the ignorant singer to learn the piece of music by rote, if she have a quick ear, but even then the whole time of its rehearsal must be given to her especial benefit, and the time of the other three members of the choir, quite likely able musicians, entirely lost.

The young woman who hopes to perfect herself as a church singer should furnish herself at once with an instrument, preferably a piano, and then practice, practice, practice, until she can read readily and correctly. Then, and only then, ought she to think of asking for a place in a first class choir.

In vocal work one of the most widely and favorably known teachers, church and concert singers, is Gertrude Franklin, of Boston, formerly Miss Virginia Beatty, of Baltimore. Her musical education began while she was quite young, and at the age of thirteen she gave promise of becoming a brilliant pianist. Her taste, however, was for vocal rather than instrumental music, and prompted by natural inclination, and the possession of a voice of remarkable sweetness and purity, she began the study of singing. Mr. Aaron Taylor and Signer Agramonti were her first teachers, and on the advice of the latter she went to Europe to

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complete her musical education. In Paris she studied under Madame Lagrange, and with Professor Barbot, of the Conservatoire, and in London. On returning home she took an extended course of study under Madame Rudersdorff, for oratorio and the more serious range of classical concert music.

Miss Franklin has appeared in the symphony concerts of Boston, New York and Brooklyn, and in classical and other concerts in most of the large cities of the United States. Her work has been under the leadership of such men as Theodore Thomas, Walter Damrosch, Emil Pauer, Karlberg, Henschel, Gericke, Nikisch, Tomlins, Gilchrist and others. Her concert work was remarkable apart from her fine voice, because of the extent of her repertoire. She sings in French, German, Italian and English, and has the proud distinction of having the largest repertoire of any American singer, also the largest collection of arias and orchestral scores for the concert stage. Miss Franklin has never repeated a program in the same place, or an aria, unless called upon at a moment's notice to sing without, rehearsal. At present her time is so engaged in teaching that she has given up concert, work. In private she is now known as Mrs. W. C. G. Salisbury.

Mrs. Jennie Patrick Walker, Miss Gertrude Edwards, Mrs. Humphrey Alien, Mrs. Marie Kaula Stone, Mrs. Titus — one of the Boston symphony soloists, are only a few more of the women who in New England alone, have won reputation for themselves as church and concert singers.

Miss Julia Wyatt, who was born in Dover, N. H., but went to Boston to study, has won special success as a teacher. She emphasizes the point mentioned above in her teaching, saying in public recently:

"The pupil should learn to accompany herself. In this way, self reliance is learned and a freedom in execution, all important factors in the training of a successful vocalist. How often is a pupil asked to sing and cannot do so because see cannot accompany herself!"

The teaching of music in the public schools is a branch of work which is being rapidly developed. Almost all the larger towns and cities now require the services of at least one musical superintendent, and the majority of these are women. One or more hour's teaching a week will be given to each school, and a. general oversight kept over the music teaching of the regular teacher in that room during all the time. In the larger towns the salary is good. Often a woman will be able to combine two or three smaller towns, going to each certain days in the week, and from the combination secure a good living. The best training for this work is in a measure distinct from that for ordinary teaching. The pupils are instructed in large classes, instead of singly, and the teacher must learn to impart musical notation in a single rhythmic way.

There are now held at various places in the United States several summer schools of music, arranged and managed by the principal system of musical

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instruction for schools now before the public. Much can be learned at these schools, and a few courses of their instruction, supplemented by diligent practice, have fitted many women to do work which enables them to command paying positions.

Concert work is apt to lead very naturally out of teaching and successful church work. It is an acceptable adjunct to other musical employments, but perhaps no one takes to it entirely for a support. A few women can command high prices for an appearance in concerts, but the opportunities are not many. Traveling from town to town is hard at best, and becomes a much more serious matter when one remembers how much care is necessary to preserve such a delicate organ as a singer's voice. Probably a scale of from $5 to $50 would embrace the prices paid very nearly all concert singers after expenses are paid, and the majority of those would be nearer $5 then $50. Of course, there are to be excepted the great opera stars when they appear on the concert stage, and all such singers as may have made a world wide reputation in other lines of work. If a young woman has made up her mind that she wishes to study music as a profession, and taking stock of her especial talents has also decided in just which branch of music her taste and talents incline, so that she may more reasonably hope for success in that than in any

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other line, she should next, if she is really sincere in her desire to fit herself to do such thorough work as can only lead to genuine success, seek the judgment and advice of a thoroughly able specialist in that particular line.

Do not trust only to the advice of relatives and friends. Even if they honestly desire to be sincere in their opinions they cannot help being prejudiced and they too often make the mistake of raising false hopes in a young singer who would do well enough in a parlor but who is by no means a person of sufficient parts tor the arduous study which alone can make the artist, be they ever so talented.

For instance: at one time, some years ago, there happened to be studying music in Milan, Italy, between three hundred and four hundred Americans. Over half of them were women. Out of the number there at the time referred to only one woman, Madam Albani, has achieved a really distinguished success.

There are many things to be considered. A famous American teacher tells of one experience thus: "A young woman came over a thousand miles to have me try her voice and advise her if she should study for the stage. I had her come to my studio and sing several arias. She had been well trained in technique, and her voice was a beautiful one, but she sang every one of the numbers out of tune. When she had finished I told her so, and she said, ‘That may be so, but don't you think my voice is a beautiful one?’

"I told her that her voice was a beautiful one, and then tried it again, but with the same result, and told her so. She argued that this would not interfere with her artistic success, until finally I told her, ‘If you possess all of the other artistic virtues but that of absolute pitch, you forfeit your right to them all when you think of following the career of an artist.’ She was so offended that she put on her cloak and went away without even thanking me."

Asked for a general summary of the whole situation, the same teacher replied:

"There is no doubt but what the musical profession is overcrowded today with persons who could do something else a great deal better."

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XXXVI. Pianists And Composers.

AFTER a young woman decides that she has sufficient musical talent to be justified in devoting time and money to its cultivation, she ought next to try and find out if hers be a special talent in some one direction, and if it is, direct her work and energies accordingly. Of course the distinction between study of the voice and of instrumental music is easy to make, and in the latter there is generally a decided taste for some one instrument. There is, however, a further division which can be made in most cases, and it would be of advantage to many young women music students if they would realize this earlier than most of them do. In the teaching of vocal music, for instance, there is, as has been said in a preceding chapter, a very decided difference between the qualities necessary for private teaching and for teaching in the public schools. Some young women seem to have a special fitness for dealing with children in large divisions, which is of the greatest value in school work. It is just the same with the student of the piano. Given talents which may be developed into equal ability, one woman may be able to excel as a teacher, another as a concert performer, or another as an accompanist.

The remarkably successful career of Mrs. Martha Dana Shepard, of Boston, as a music festival pianist, is a striking proof of the truth of this statement. Mrs. Shepard very early in her life realized in just what direction her talent lay and developed it in that direction. Her home was in the town of Ashland, N. H., and she lived there some years after her marriage. She had gradually won a good local reputation as all accompanist for choruses and festivals, until through the instrumentality of some one who knew of her work, there came a chance for her to go

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to Keene, N. H., to play at a festival there at which Carl Zerrahn, already the most famous director in New England, was to conduct. This was the first opportunity which she had had to play at so large a festival and under so experienced a conductor. Mrs. Shepard tells the story herself as follows:

"I was a young woman then, almost unused to the world outside my own country town, and when I came to consider the proposition found myself frightened at the thought of coming before so large an audience and so able a conductor. Mr. Zerrahn even then had the reputation of being a keen critic, and not very favorably disposed toward women pianists. I was determined I would succeed, though, in the line of work which I had chosen, and this seemed to be the first beginning to be made. I accepted the offer and made my plans to go. My baby then was only six months old, and this in itself seemed reason enough to make me give up, but when the time came I took my baby and my girl and went to Keene. The girl stayed at the hotel and minded the baby and I went to the hall. To say that I was frightened wouldn't begin to express the situation, but I watched Mr. Zerrahn's baton, and when that came down I came down on the piano. I did the very best I could, and I succeeded."

Mr. Zerrahn was quick to recognize the merits of his new found accompanist, even if she was a woman. From that time until her retirement from her field of work in 1897, thirty two years, Mrs. Shepard played every year at a great many festivals, all over New England, New York and Canada. After a few years she moved to Boston, and added the position of a church organist and director of a choir to her other work. During the thirty five years that Mrs. Shepard was constantly before the public she had the rare record of having failed to meet only one engagement, and that only on account of the illness of her husband. In this time it is probable that no one else but Mr. Zerrahn did so much for the cause of music in New England outside the large cities as did Mrs. Shepard. Her success was largely due to her possessing, in addition to her musical ability, the talent to inspire a country chorus of inexperienced singers with confidence and enthusiasm. Added to this she was gifted with perfect health and a physique so strong as to enable her to do a prodigious amount of hard work. Week after week she has played at her church in Boston on Sunday, taken an early Monday train for perhaps extreme northern New England or Canada, reached her destination on Monday evening, and played the same evening at a rehearsal, played the next four days at forenoon and afternoon rehearsals and evening concerts, and come home on Saturday to conduct her church rehearsal on Saturday evening. Mrs. Shepard's own explanation of her success is simple: "I have always worked hard, and always tried to do my best." The young woman who is willing to really do those two things, given any reasonable amount of ability to begin with, may hope to be just as successful.

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Of other women who have won distinction and a means of support from the piano, the number is too great to try to count by name. The field for this work has been greatly widened of late from the constantly increasing number of churches desiring a capable organist, and willing to pay them. When only a few years ago it was thought a woman could hardly play a church organ, they are now to be found doing satisfactory work in some of the largest churches.

A great many girls, too, earn a pleasant summer in first class mountain or seaside hotels by playing the piano a few hours every day and evening. Sometimes they are given nothing but their board and railroad fare, and sometimes they receive a small salary besides.

That such an institution as the National Conservatory of Music of America should have been founded in this decidedly practical country is worthy of note but that the foundation and the eminence attained by it despite many adverse or negative conditions, are due to the spirit, courage, labor and indomitable perseverance of one woman alone, Mrs. Jennnette M. Thurber, of New York, is remarkable. It has been sheerly a labor of love with Mrs. Thurber, love of the art of music and love of the culture of her countrymen; the Conservatory is not conducted for the purpose of making money. It supplies tuition at a nominal cost to all pupils who in the judgment of the faculty are apt to make a reputation in the world of music. Mrs. Thurher finds repayment for the expenditure of her time, labor and means in the hundreds of young men and women graduates of the Conservatory who are making a name and a living as singers and players.

The National Conservatory has been in existence a dozen years at 126-128 East Seventeenth street, New York. Its faculty numbers nearly sixty, and includes such musicians as Rafael Joseffy, Adele Margulies, Leopold Lichtenberg, Victor Capoul, Gustav Hinrichs, S. P. Warren and Anton Seidl, while its director is a composer of world wide fame, the greatest composer perhaps since Brahms — Dr. Antonin Dvorak. The pupils of the Conservatory number at present six hundred and eighty six, and it has supplied tuition since its inception to three less than three thousand pupils, in many cases free, thanks to Mrs. Thurber's broad generosity and love of music. Whatever there is to be learned in the practice and theory of music is here taught by the best masters, and, while called national, this Conservatory is really universal in the inclusive scope of its curriculum.

Of women composers of music there are at least four living at the time this chapter is written who have achieved a success which has given them a worldwide reputation.. These are Chaminade, a native Parisian; Augusta Holmes, a woman of Irish birth, but so long a resident of Paris that she is reckoned as a Parisian; Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, a native of New Hampshire, and Margaret Ruthven Lang, a native Bostonian.

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Mlle. Chaminade writes chiefly songs and pieces for the piano. Her work charms by its delicate beauty, and it has given her a unique position in the entire musical world.

Augusta Holmes has written songs, piano music, orchestral music and large choral works. Her success compares favorably with that of any living writers at music today. She has an unusual talent for melody.

Kate Vannah, of Gardiner, Me. is another successful song writer. Mrs. H. H. A. Beach was born in Henniker, N. H. When but a child of four years musical ideas began to crystallize in her mind, and she could put in correct form the harmonies which came to her. No more interesting study could present itself to the student of psychology than the natural talent of this woman, which though inherited in part from her ancestors, suddenly took a fresh bound and resulted in genius. Before she was thirty years old she had written a mass for solo voices, chorus, orchestra and organ, a symphony, and over sixty other works for piano. Her talent becomes the more interesting when one learns that it was self acquired, with the exception of rudimentary instruction received from a few teachers in harmony and musical form.

In musical composition Mrs. Beach for years has pursued diligently lines of study which have proved valuable, and among which may be mentioned the habit of analyzing the works performed by the noted Boston Symphony Orchestra. In addition to this practice she translated for herself treatises not existing in the English language, and which have an important bearing on her lines of study. Her first public success as a pianist was in 1883, when but sixteen years of age she appeared with the Symphony Orchestra, playing Moscheles' G minor concerto for piano and orchestra. Since then she has appeared many times with the latter organization, and also with Theodore Thomas, as well as at numerous recitals, performing chiefly her own compositions.

Her "Gaelic" Symphony is a composition well thought out, original and admirably handled. It does not suggest the sex of its composer, but rather the mind of a well balanced master in form and color. Her skill in the instrumentation of this work is remarkable. Mrs. Beach's talent in developing the heavier forms of musical composition found instant recognition on the performance of her Mass in E flat by the Handel and Haydn Society in 1892. This work was at once given just and enthusiastic praise. In the words of an eminent

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musical critic: "Mrs. Beach at once took rank among the foremost of America's composers."

Margaret Ruthven Lang was born in Boston, November 27, 1867. She inherits her musical ability from both parents. Her father, B. J. Lang, the eminent organist, leader and teacher, who has long held a foremost position in the musical life of Boston, has been the most influential factor in shaping her musical growth.

Miss Lang, therefore, has had coupled with her natural gifts a musical education which has been carefully nurtured in every detail. She began writing music when about twelve years old. Among her first compositions at that time was a quintette of one movement for strings and piano, and several songs. She began the study of the piano forte under one of her father's pupils, and later continued it under his direction. Some time after this she studied the violin with Louis Schmidt in Boston, and continued under Drechsler and Abel in Munich during the winters of 1886-87. While in Munich she also studied composition with Victor Gluth.

On returning to Boston in 1887, she took up the study of orchestration with G. W. Chadwick, since which time she has written a large number of compositions, many of which have had great success. Her "dramatic overture," op. 12, was performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Nikisch on April 8, 1893; her overture, Witichis, op. 10, was performed in Chicago under Theodore Thomas, at two concerts in July and August, 1893, and at a third concert under Bendix. Both of these compositions are in manuscript; also a third overture, op. 23, "Totila." Of other works for orchestra, composed later, are three arias: one for alto, "Sappho's Prayer to Aphrodite," was performed in New York in 1896; one for soprano, "Armida," performed at the Boston Symphony concert, January 13, 1896, and one for baritone, "Phoebus."

She has also in manuscript several part songs, piano forte pieces, songs, a cantata for chorus, solo and orchestra; a string quartette and several compositions for violin and piano; also forty published songs, several part songs and piano pieces.

What these four women lave done others may do. While it is not reasonable to expect that all will have the special talent necessary for composition, it may be

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safely thought that some will have it, who, if they are willing to work, may succeed. After all, it is the same story — application; and if Chaminade, Augusta Holmes, Mrs. Beach and Miss Lang were to tell you how they came to succeed, it is a question if all four would not unite to say that they believed hard work, quite as much as talent, lay at the foundation.

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XXXVII. In Orchestra Work.

PERHAPS no one instrument has been more nearly monopolized by women than the harp. While there have been able and famous men performers on the harp, like Ap Thomas, the talented Welshman, and Schueker of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, it probable than many more women than men play this instrument. The attraction which the instrument has for a woman may be partly accounted for from the fact of its picturesque accessories. It certainly true that no more charming picture can be imagined than a beautiful woman, clad in a simple but artistically designed gown, playing upon a harp.

Maud Murray is a young woman who has achieved success as a harpist at concerts and various public performances. Another very successful young woman harpist is Miss Harriet A. Shaw. Although she played the violin and piano it was not until she was fourteen years of age that Miss Shaw turned her attention to the harp. Then she went to Europe and began a most thorough course of study. In Dresden she pursued her work under Carl Ziech, of the Royal Grand Opera. Other teachers on her chosen instrument were Mr. Lockwood, harpist to the King of Bavaria and A. Thomas, harpist to the Queen of England; also under John Thomas and Lorenzi, the Italian rnaster, with whom she spent two years.

This extensive course of study, coupled with diligent work, has made Miss Shaw an artist of great merit. She has appeared as soloist with some of the most noted foreign orchestras, and has performed with the Buffalo Symphony Orchestra, on which occasion she performed the difficult Nikolai Concerto.

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Miss Shaw has also written many delightful compositions, not only as solos for the harp, but songs with its accompaniment. Her song, "Thou Art My Everlasting Light," has been particularly successful.

Miss Shaw seems to strive especially, and far more than most harpists do, after great variety of tone color, not confining herself to the single contrast between whispering pianissimo and what approach to forte the harp can make, but seeking after and often successfully exploiting a wider range of tone effect. Her technique is brilliant, and her playing essentially musical.

The demand which has sprung up during the last few years for small orchestras to play at hotels, more particularly at summer hotels and summer resorts, has opened a new field for women in music. With all due deference to the men, any one will admit that a prettily dressed company of young women is much more attractive to look at than the same number of men can be. They seem to be equally fortunate in selecting and performing such music as will please the public at these resorts. The number of these ladies' orchestras is now considerable. Many are small, only a quartette, directed by one of their own number. The larger organizations, with the exception of the Fadette Ladies' Orchestra, have usually been directed by a man. With the Marion Osgood Orchestra, however, came a departure in the shape of a woman leader, Miss Marion Osgood, who started the first one in America. This organization was succeeded by the Fadette Orchestra in 1888, with only six players. In 1890 Mrs. Caroline B. Nichols assumed the leadership and has conducted very successfully ever since. The size of the orchestra has been greatly increased in later years, and it is competent to perform the most difficult and intricate compositions.

From time to time another instrument has been added whenever an efficient player has been discovered. Even then, to provide some most important instrument, it has been necessary to have women specially trained. The French horns, for instance, whose beautiful, mysterious tones add so much color to orchestral pieces, were taken up, malice prepense, by two young violinists. So, at the time this article is written, an oboeist and bassoonist are preparing themselves — are, indeed, almost ready — to fill the only existing vacancies in the "wood wind" division of instruments. The full import of! this will be better understood when it is known that a person who already has a thorough musical understanding must still devote several years of hard, constant practice to acquire even a moderate degree of skill upon any of those difficult instruments.

In 1895 this orchestra was incorporated in Boston, its permanent home, and since then it has steadily grown in favor. It numbers a first Violin and director, four additional first violins, four second violins, two violas, two violoncellos, two contrabassos, kettle drums and a bass, two flutes and piccolo, two clarionets, two cornets, two French horns, three trombones, snare drum and "traps," and piano

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forte. Six of the ladies are notable soloists. In the winter the work of such an orchestra includes playing at club meetings, receptions, weddings and evening parties. They often play for dancing at balls or "small and earlies," and are favorites for afternoon or evening musicals.

Who would not prefer, at a reception or the commencement exercises of a girls' seminary, music evolved amid the flutter of lawn and lingerie to that struggling up from amid the stiff starched front and the dismal swallow tail: or harmonies scented with the delicate aroma of violet water, rather than with beer, tobacco and bologna!

Marietta Sherman (Mrs. Raymond) was also a pioneer as a woman director. All three of these women learned to play the violin, and developed from that into directing. Miss Osgood and Miss Sherman always directed with the violin in hand. It remained from Mrs. Nichols to assume the baton and become the first regular woman director.

An interesting feature in this connection was the presentation, in the autumn of 1897, of a solid silver baton to Mrs. Nichols by Dr. Ivan Michels, a Russian diplomat, who had been attracted by the playing of the orchestra at Washington in the summer of that year. All through the summer they played at Glen Echo, on the Potomac, six miles out of Washington, giving daily programs of popular music in a shell shaped pavilion on "Wooded Island." On Friday evenings a concert of entirely classical music was given. The auditorium seated ten thousand people. For the daily work the members wore a neat uniform suit of cadet blue, with jacket and military braiding, and in

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the evenings, light silks and muslins. The leader and manager of the Fadettes, Mrs. Caroline B. Nichols, is a most attractive woman, with marked ability along business as well as musical lines. She is a member of one of the old families of Dedham, Mass. and inherits her musical propensity from her father, who was a leader in Boston's musical circles. She has devoted a number of years to close and careful study of the violin, of which instrument she is thorough master; also to the science of harmony and to instrumentation and orchestration.

Miss Dora P. Damon, one of the soloists of the Fadettes, is regarded as one of the finest cornetists among Boston women. She is a member of the Damon Quartette, her three sisters, still school girls, playing the violin, flute and piano.

Another soloist is Miss Belle B. Yeaton, whose chosen instrument is the trombone, upon which she has no feminine rival in the country. A native of Chelsea, she was instructed entirely by her father from the age of twelve.

Miss Viola M. Dunn, the clarionet soloist, came of fine Maine stock, where her ancestors were among the early settlers. From her childhood she showed a pronounced taste for music, and began her devotion to the clarionet at the age of fourteen She has been a pupil and is now assistant to Eustach Strasser, the noted clarionetist, who points to her with pardonable pride as his first female scholar. She has had many honors conferred upon her, and holds the office of clerk, treasurer and the leader's assistant in the Fadettes.

Miss Mary J. Tracy, performer on both violin and viola, began her study of music when only a child, when she took up violin playing.

The Fadettes' first violoncellist is Miss E. Josephine Hale, of Maiden. She has done work with a quartette and trio, besides the orchestra, and at a musical festival in Weirs, N. H., not long since, was the only woman in the orchestra, and was highly praised for her performance.

Miss Alice E. Ball is flute soloist to the Fadettes, and the sisters Cora and Ardelle Cunningham, of Chelsea, Mass. are the only women French horn players in America.

To the list of her other musical accomplishments Miss Estelle M. Churchill adds the playing of snare and bass drums. She also intends to add tympany or kettle drums, but her real position is that of first pianist to the ladies' orchestra.

Miss Blanche M. Little has mastered that unusual instrument to take a girl's fancy, the contrabass, and is happy in the possession of a genuine Mittenwald instrument of the finest tone and strength. She is a Boston girl, and comes of a thoroughly musical family.

Other members of the orchestra are Misses Nettie and Freda Damon, Beth Page, Florence Hall, Minnie Grover, Eleanor Mauser and Christine Allendorf, all young women of character and strength of purpose.

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What the orchestra has done in Boston can be done elsewhere. Girls of talent will find the keys of a musical instrument more interesting to handle than the keys of a typewriter, especially if in the former case the hours are very much less and the pay a great deal more. Let competent women in our larger towns and cities think on this. Here is a new field opening; here new opportunities. Really good players will always be in demand.

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XXXVIII. Where Is My Place?

TO the savage, woman is a slave; to the half civilized she is a toy and to the enlightened she is man's equal.

The old Greek law gave woman a child's place and held her in lifelong tutelage. Fathers in mediaeval history and Christian fathers assigned no higher position to her. From the English Heptarchy to the Reformation she was still a servant. During succeeding years she might have been seen drawing ploughs through the furrows, bent under heavy loads, harnessed with the animals in the fields and forced into every imaginable drudgery. From American discoveries to the Civil War she seemed harnessed in the place she was compelled to occupy for the sake of an established custom of servitude. Today she keeps step with man in scientific pursuits, in art and in all occupations.

The places occupied fifty years ago are not sufficiently wide and broad for the girl of today. Changed conditions have brought women not only to positions of larger duties and heavier responsibilities, but to broader growth and nobler life.

Man today has to cope with a knowledge and aptitude which often baffle him at every point. This is as it should be, for a woman's intellect is as worthy of cultivation as a man's. Does the new education, the new order of things, tend to make her less womanly?

No indeed; a true woman is womanly in whatever she chooses to do and wherever she chooses to live. Whether the be found at the bar, in the pulpit, the Senate or bench, she may still be a woman in the highest, noblest sense.

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Since the day of woman's creation, there never was an age when so many legitimate opportunities were given a girl to become a part of this working world, an essential factor in its progress and a sharer with her brother in its emoluments.

She finds her highest service in ministering to humanity. Patients in hospital wards wait for her ministrations, pharmacists require her assistance, childish souls need her guidance, publishers, printers, artists, architects offer to her the chance for a cultivated and honest life in places hitherto unoccupied.

James Russell Lowell once wrote: "No man is born unto the world whose work is not born with him."

A child uninfluenced by the suggestions of others will engage in occupations for which she is by nature naturally adapted. She will do those things which she loves best. For hours her work will take up her attention. In one's life vocation "a little child shall lead." A child's mind is a guide to the woman's place.

The little girls whose dolls are sick, fed, nourished and nursed may in late years find her place among the physicians or in hospital wards cheering and ministering.

The child who for hours sits with her books, totally oblivious to all surroundings, may later find her place in the field of literature. The crude, deformed pencil drawings of many a girl have in womanhood developed her, and her productions as an artist are then widely prized. The little one who makes imaginary pianos of the chairs and tables, who sings her lullabys, carols, oratorio or opera selections to her dolls and child friends, may in womanhood find her proper place in the music world.

The child of domestic tastes, she who fashions marvelous creations in dresses or hats, who produces with the scissors wonderful designs from colored papers or teaches her mimic doll schools, will later find her place among the dressmakers, milliners, designers or teachers.

The lives of our women who have become famous in various lines of work show that many hours of their childhood days were spent in the work in which they afterward became pre eminent. The child's uninfluenced occupations are often but the woman's work in embryo.

The struggles, the disappointments of many a woman in industrial pursuits often arise from a lack of thought in regard to her chosen career.

A grave and daily recurring mistake is made in seeking the fields which are already overcrowded and not seeking new occupations. If fewer girls would qualify themselves for the overcrowded professions and fit themselves for other skilled employments and newer industries, there would be a less number of anxious, discouraged, overburdened women.

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Even after a work is mastered, or the girl is proficient in her art, then comes the question, where shall I pursue it? To many a girl in the country town comes the dream of earning her living in the city. Unless her preparation has been exceptionally thorough, her talent remarkable, her work superior to all others, her resources and influential friends many, it is a risk for her to seek the city. Stenographers, photographers, dressmakers, physicians who are unknown in a city must wait, and wait long, must struggle, and struggle hard.

The girl who would make her work profitable must select some special branch and pursue it diligently, striving with heart and soul to render herself as nearly perfect in it as possible.

Her name should become known in some one occupation: one work, one particular branch, one place.

Unless she strives incessantly to get to the top she will remain at the bottom, and down there lies the threatening monster starvation. Unless in filling her position, she can make her influence and her power broadly felt, unless she can develop and bring the highest of her nature to her work, she has not chosen the right work or the right place in which to pursue it.

Whatever may be your gift, whatever your God given powers, cultivate your own talents; as Emerson says:

"Insist upon yourself, never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it."

To think we have the ability to do a thing is almost to accomplish it. To determine upon success is frequently success itself. Eager, earnest resolution in some line of work is its accomplishment, for to a steadfast, consecrated, resolute soul there are no impossibilities.

Maternity is her mission and education is her work. George Herbert said, "One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters." The advancement, improvement and the safety of the nation depend upon the perfect home, and earth's noblest thing is the woman perfected in the wife, the mother who rules that home. The husband's character and work, the child's love and life, are dependent upon her; what she is they will be.

The history of the home life of our famous men demonstrate that it was a woman's love, encouragement and help that inspired them to the noblest purposes, and through her influence they became a power for good.

A man may build a palace, but he can never make of it a home. The spirituality and love of a woman alone can accomplish this. By right divine these are a woman's special and unrivaled privileges.

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Throughout the broad highways of life we find the gates have been opened by a long procession of noble women.

In the hospitals by the battlefields of the Crimea, Miss Nightingale gave cheerfully and unfailingly her own vitality for the comfort and new life of the soldiers.

The name of Clara Barton means the greatest of humanitarian movement. Incredible exposures, tainted atmosphere, of battlefields and hospitals, unremitting care for wounded soldiers, a life of love and sacrifice are all associated with her name.

In prisons and reformatories we find the influence of Mary Carpenter, Sarah Martin and Angela Coutts. They, by lifelong efforts, lessened the hours of imprisonment, provided employment, education and shelter for the unfortunates and left names ever to be associated with foremost deeds in philanthropy and self sacrifice.

In the broad fields of literature we are influenced by Harriet Martineau's untiring work in education, government, woman's rights, temperance and political economy. Here, too, was Fredrika Bremer, the Swedish authoress, Charlotte Bronte and her experience with soul despairing fate, Louisa Alcott, a providential gift to father, mother, sisters, and hundreds of girls, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps' long struggle for the oppressed.

Trained for the profession as physicians, conquering much that threatens womanhood, are the names of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, our country's earliest and noblest women physicians. Dr. Zakrzewska's struggles and victories have made the path smoother and easier for other women who would study medicine, and the work of Cordelia Green inspires many a girl to enter the profession of giving life and strength to humanity.

The schools founded by Mary Lyon, the organized training schools of Catherine Beecher, the American work in kindergarten instruction by Elizabeth Peabody, all point to a path and a place in the educational world for the young girl of today.

In the scientific field the observations arid discoveries of Caroline Herschel and Maria Mitchell demonstrate the work is not beyond that of a woman. The world wide fame and true, faithful works of Rosa Bonheur, Susan Hale, Sarah Clarke, Anne Whitney and Harriet Hosmer are an inspiration to the girl who would enter the studio and produce true art and beauty.

A woman's place today, as in the early years, must largely be defined by her taste, capacity and health.

"Blessed is she who has found her place, and is conscious that her efforts are strong links in the endless chain of woman's life and work."

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XXXIX. Women As Photographers.

PHOTOGRAPHY is especially adapted to a woman's artistic taste and delicate touch. Many girls practicing photography as amateurs, do their work well and it seems unaccountable why so many who reach a creditable degree of excellence in the work should be satisfied and so cease to produce, better results. Why should they not continue in the art, master every detail, enter the field as professionals, and pursue the work as a business? Hundreds of women might accomplish far more in this occupation than at present.

Is it lack of energy, of courage or capital that deters them? It cannot be lack of energy, for the hours spent in the work by the ambitious, enthusiastic and painstaking amateurs prove the contrary. It should not be on account of insufficient courage, for it has been said that "the business woman is a nineteenth century production. She is honestly proud of her work, and of being a link in the great chain which keeps the business world moving." The hesitation should not be based upon the plea of "no capital," for the bright, determined girl of the present will always overcome this difficulty.

The work is not too difficult for a woman. For years it was regarded as a particularly occult and mysterious process, requiring a special gift, a knowledge of chemistry and years of professional study. During these years photography, to the woman, suggested untidy work, blackened hands, and soiled aprons.

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Today it is acknowledged to be a fascinating work, easily understood, requiring no superior knowledge, and demanding but a comparatively short time of study and preparation.

The introduction of electric lights, dry plates, light machinery, and dainty photographic devices renders the work more agreeable and available to women, besides offering at the present day a most inviting field.

Nearly two thirds of a photographer's patrons are women and children, and a woman photographer of pleasing manners, obliging disposition and artistic sense is most successful in securing happy results when the critical moment of posing arrives. There is but one best position, one best view of all objects. It is acknowledged that in woman the artistic sight is more perfectly developed than in man. This natural gift enables her to immediately discover the one best position — the one best view of her subject.

A woman quickly grasps the beautiful and harmonious in nature and in art. She naturally understands posing, colors in dress, and all the details that make up the artistic photographs of women and children. She will quickly tell why this line, shade or curve is more desirable. She possesses the faculty of bringing out the best in the patron who poses before her.

Many years elapsed in the history of photography before the public became assured of these neutral gifts in women — gifts so admirably adapted to this work, so favorably suited to its success. The photographers in several of our cities were assured of woman's efficiency in this work after securing her aid in their studios. It was when thus employed as assistants that women fully realized their adaptability, discovered opportunities for improvement, and resolved to pursue the work as a profession.

Mrs. Julia Cameron, of England, early realized that the ideal portrait consists in portraying a glimpse of a man's soul; not only the face but the intellect, the genius, the spirit in its completeness — these must all enter into the faithful portrait. This she aimed to accomplish and seldom has the work been more satisfactorily accomplished. She produced portraits which were an immediate inspiration to others who were striving to do sincere and truthful work. It is said: "She was of a most distinguished and fine nature, and was of unique pre eminence in the profession of which she has made a great and noble name." Tennyson was her neighbor, and often he posed for her. The faces of Browning, Carlyle, Sir John Herschel, Charles Darwin and Tennyson were among her noblest of English portraits. In these she succeeded in portraying the loftiest aim and the utmost steadfastness which were the principles of their lives. It is this that vivifies their portraits. "When I have had these men before my camera," she once said, "my whole soul has endeavored to do its duty toward them in recording faithfully the greatness of the inner as well as the features of

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the outer man." This is the secret of her power and her success: "Truth in art for truth's sake." It has been said that her work merits comparison only with the best portraits from the old masters.

London today has the most celebrated woman photographer in the world. Miss Alice Hughes, the daughter of Edwin Hughes, the portrait painter, has earned this enviable reputation.

Her photographs are more expensive than any others produced in London, and yet she is scarcely able to attend to her orders. Her work is all done at her home in Gower street, London, and here there are no surroundings usually associated with photographic galleries. No outward sign on portal or windows suggests the atelier. Her studio is built out over the garden and from the drawing room one descends to it by three or four steps. The secret of her success is that she makes her subjects perfectly at ease. She lets them pose themselves and makes only the changes that are absolutely necessary. Among her photographs are nearly all of our American girls who married Englishmen, from Lady Randolph Churchill to Lady Terence Blackwood.

Mrs. Emily Stokes, of Boston, is an example of what a woman may accomplish in photography. When compelled by misfortune to give up her London home, she came to America to begin life among strangers. Having been associated with enthusiastic photographers in England, and believing that the position could be filled by women as well as men, she resolved to enter the field as a professional. For sixteen years she has aimed to produce the true child portrait. She has conquered difficulties, and is an enthusiastic and successful artist. "This one thing I know," she said brightly, and it would be well if many girls could say the same. "I know every detail of the work; it is the only way to success," she added, as she glanced about the room at the pictures of sweet child faces.

Since the first public exhibition of photographs in London in 1852, and especially since the Paris Exposition in 1889, photography as an art has steadily advanced, and in the recent exhibitions in European and American cities the photographs executed by many women have been an inspiration urging others to enter the field. Not only have these women exhibited portraits, but their photographs of landscapes, marine views, mineral and vegetable specimens have won for them a wide reputation.

Some of the most beautiful photographs in the United States have been produced by Miss Johnston, of Washington. She has attained a superior degree of excellence in all her work. As a professional she ranks among the list of leading photographers in the country. The truthfulness and artistic beauty in all her photographs have earned for her a name pre eminent among photographers. She has done much work for newspapers and magazines, giving to the public truthful pictures of much that is constantly occurring in the public life of the capital city.

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Miss Beatrice Tonnesen, of Chicago, has opened a studio in that city, and her photographs of women and children, especially the latter, are already noted for their beauty.

Mrs. Farnan, a California woman, has earned the reputation of accomplishing remarkable results in photography.

In February, 1896, the Youth's Companion offered prizes for the eight best amateur photographs submitted during the following six mouths. Over six thousand photographs were received in response to the offer. Miss Emma Farnsworth, of Albany, N. Y., submitted a most truthful scene, "When the Day's Work is Done." This was awarded the first prize, and strikingly illustrates the perfection to which a young woman has brought her art.

Others who obtained prizes were Mrs. Sarah Holm., of Wisconsin, and Miss Kate Matthews, of Kentucky.

The girl who decides to leave the army of amateurs and enter the professional arena must feel assured that she has patience, an artistic taste, determination and business ability. She must be willing to inform herself of the multitudinous operations to be performed; she must expect waste and loss, and she must be able to rise above disappointments and trials. To be successful in working a "four by five" outfit does not imply an equal success with an "eighteen by twenty two." The ability to make a few blue prints daily does not mean equal success in producing five hundred to one thousand a day in albumen, ilo or platinotype. To be able to please a few interested, intimate friends is widely different from contending with the capaciousness of disinterested strangers. To take a picture and secure a local artist to do all the work requires little ability when compared with understanding the operating, printing, mounting and finishing. Possession and production are widely different in their meaning. It is one thing to work for pleasure and one's self and quite another to work for profit and the public.

Too often a girl thinks if she buys a camera, some plates and a few chemicals she can become a photographer. In her mind all that is necessary is to expose the plate properly, develop it, print from it, tone and fix the prints, and then the art will be mastered. She forgets that few can expose a plate with perfect success that judicious, painstaking care is necessary to develop it, and that toning requires skill. It must not be supposed that with the cheapness of material and the present comparative simplicity in applying it, the pictures require less care than formerly. The conditions of light and composition are the same as they were in the early days of photography, and the laws of lenses and theories of light must still be studied with the greatest care.

The girl who would be a photographer should consider her adaptability for the work, and, having decided to pursue the occupation, she will do well to work with some reliable firm. When once an opportunity is found in some photographic

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studio she must work earnestly and hard in learning the details of the work. After a short time is given she will obtain a position as assistant in the work. If she be on the alert for opportunities she will, when fitted, find the right locality and here build up a business of her own. The cost of materials, furniture, rent, wages and the fund for emergencies must then be considered. One young woman of the East fitted up a skylight for fifty dollars. The expense incurred will vary according to the taste of the young woman. Once furnished and equipped the subsequent outlay is but trivial, and if good work is furnished the profits are assured. A young woman may choose to devote herself to but one branch of the work. Should she excel she will find with determination the opportunity of assisting in some large studio. The operator and the one who poses the subject hold positions of importance and responsibility and are usually paid the highest salary. An education in photographic science is required, a knowledge of light and its effects, an artistic taste, and a knowledge of theories that constitute art in portraiture. Women who excel in these, who are professionals, will receive from fifteen to fifty dollars a week.

Especially adapted to a woman's delicate touch is the process of retouching photographic negatives. Before entering upon this branch of the work it is essential that she should draw and possess a knowledge of anatomy, especially of the face, neck and shoulders. If the work be undertaken without this knowledge, distorted, unnatural productions will be shown, and failure will result. The work also requires strong eyes, for the use of artificial light is a constant strain upon the eye. The amount paid for this work in large cities varies from ten to fifteen dollars a week.

Printing is the most interesting part of the work. Several women in the larger studios receive from twelve to eighteen dollars each week.

Girls who enter the work to mount the pictures should be alert, detect at a glance any imperfection, and must have artistic feeling.

During the past thirty years there has been a demand for the application of color to photographs, and today hundreds of young women are devoting themselves to supplying the demand. The technique of the work is simple. Many women earn from twelve to fifteen dollars a week by executing orders. After a short course of study they are able to earn more. A knowledge of drawing is necessary, or the artist is unable to produce form, and the work is flat or distorted; there must also be a knowledge of color, or the tints will be dry and hard.

One young lady of the East has supplied the teachers of schools with figure subjects. She has reproduced with exactness the little dramas and comedies of life. Here there are pictures of boys, their work and pastimes; school girls in their natural pleasures or duties. Kites, hoops, marbles, tops, dogs, are all so truthfully pictured that the teacher is seldom required to tell long stories for the

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children's amusement and instruction, for the photograph's explanation is clear, and from these the numerous stories are told or written.

Another young woman with her camera has reproduced engravings, and her copies of famous old pictures in European galleries and prized ones in America, have earned for her reputation and profit.

One woman makes a specialty of children's photographs, another confines her work to landscapes, a third takes photographs of interesting events in the city and sends them to the illustrated papers.

Everywhere in the scientific world the power of the photographic camera has been felt. Physics, Chemistry, Mechanics, Astronomy, Zoology convince one that by patience and study a woman may put her camera to a most excellent use.

Many eminent scientists are constantly preparing and publishing scientific papers. However perfect their language may be, however clearly their thoughts may be expressed, the words are often found inadequate to convey an actual visual impression. These papers, to satisfy the public and make the thoughts of more value, should be illustrated. The old illustrations of mammals, birds, reptiles and fish are frequently untrue, misshapen representations.

The young woman whose photographic work possesses merit and accuracy may in this field pursue her work to most profitable ends and to the advancement of learning. This field is full of interest to the gifted young photographer, but one in which ingenuity is demanded.

This is an age of books and book illustrations. The various processes of book illustration are annually enriched by new applications of photography. The present knowledge of the flights of birds and the motions of animals can be produced by the camera in a most accurate degree. Here the young woman may choose her work, and if she would succeed she must strive for the best and seek to do not only good work but a superior quality of work.

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XI. Women In Interior Decoration.

WHEREVER architecture leads, decorative art follows. While there are women there will be homes; and women will never cease to desire beauty and attractiveness in their homes. This desire is inborn and universal. The home of every woman should be as individual a possession as her wardrobe and requires equal care and taste in the selection and purchase.

A home manifesting an air of taste, refinement and classic simplicity is far more desirable and is a better indication of the owner's character and education, than the possession of a costly, inharmonious, unrelated array of paintings, porcelains, rugs and bric a brac. The perfectly furnished home is a crystallization of culture, expressing the habits, tastes and character of the family. Strangers, visitors and friends will judge the woman by the taste, comfort and equipments of her home.

It is the woman's hand that can and has given to many a home that mysterious, nameless charm, that atmosphere of harmony and quiet happiness which is felt in the very entrance hall. Such women have possessed unconsciously a knowledge of the laws of color and harmony and have been naturally endowed with the requirements which make many a woman of today the successful interior decorator.

Within the past two decades the profession has grown to such a remarkable extent that it has brought about a revolution in many American homes. During the past few years some of the most notable successes of women have been achieved in the art of interior decoration.

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It is as impossible to overestimate the importance of her work in the art as it is impossible to overestimate the importance of beautiful and tasteful surroundings in real life. Goethe said no man leaves a room the same person that he entered it, and if this be true then the room should attune his spirit to harmony, dignity and truthfulness. Every parent today realizes the duty of surrounding his child with beauty and fitness; it is his duty to establish a standard of taste in his children which will endure throughout their lives.

In the days of Jewish history woman's inherent love for personal beauty and artistic surroundings was manifested in the skill with which she embroidered veils for herself, for her home and her sanctuary. Grecian mythology teems with stories of the women who performed work for the decoration of their homes. In all ages, when the arts have flourished, every part of a room has been adorned with ornament.

The Egyptian women decorated their walls. The Byzantine women, the Moors, the Greek and Roman women never held plain walls in good repute. Even the women among the cave dwellers decorated the interior of their homes with bone ornaments.

The Japanese women excelled in the simplicity of their home decorations. An air of elegance, refinement and serenity of mind is manifested in their quiet, airy, open rooms. Here there is no crowding, no incongruous objects, but everywhere appropriateness and harmony of coloring with exquisite workmanship. Here there is no false standard of display. The Japanese women as interior decorators teach us the "simple grace of not too much."

The women in England's homes were surrounded by examples from which they felt beauty and inspiration. Growing up amid great museums, rare collections, noble old houses, depositories of accumulated art treasures, rich interiors, famous architecture, is it not a natural consequence that their homes should exhibit the influence of high art?

Mary Moser, of England, who was early admitted as a member of the royal academy, earned the reputation of an interior decorator. She was much admired by Queen Charlotte, and she, at one time, decorated a room at Frogmore for four thousand five hundred dollars. This room was one of the earliest examples of interior decoration by a professional woman artist.

Miss Robinson, of England, superintended all the interior fittings and decorations of the ocean steamship "Campania," of the Cunard line. The appropriateness, taste and skill combined with its magnificence are a proof of what a woman may accomplish with patience and persistence. She was conscious of her natural artistic instincts, and so received thorough instruction in the art. In Manchester, after opening her rooms of artistic furniture, failure seemed imminent; few orders and no sales resulted from the venture. The few orders

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were executed with such satisfaction that others followed. At the Manchester Exhibition, her fittings attracted the attention of the royalty and won for her the appointment of "Decorator to the Queen." Success followed. A branch office was opened in London. Her decorations were soon seen in hotels, theatres, churches and homes. Miss Robinson is said to be the first woman to receive recognition from Her Majesty.

The women of America grew up amid different surroundings from those of their English sisters. It was and is necessary for Americans to create examples of this decorative art.

For years in the United States, buildings remained without ornament. Hotels, theatres, churches and a few homes of the wealthy were ornamented later, but not until the past few years has a general taste for interior decoration been manifest.

This present decorative impetus is largely due to the Centennial Exposition in 1876. The present movement owes its origin largely to the women, who quickly gained a general idea of the true meaning and importance of the art of decoration.

Women eagerly urged the manufacture of more artistic materials, new industries were the result of urgent requests for more artistic stuffs and metals. Several women from this time gave their attention to the study of the best mode of treatment for the adornment of American homes, and as Americans are receptive people, the new work quickly gained lodgment. Today the demand for good decorators has almost exceeded the supply of competent artists in this work. Every where people are waiting for information, ideas, and, designs, regarding their homes. They are on the alert for anything new, suggestive, appropriate and beautiful.

The interiors of our public buildings and homes are daily being prepared for the decorator of taste — the artist who excels in the work.

Among the most successful of interior decorations done by women, those in our own colonial style rank among the highest in simplicity, appropriateness, suggestiveness and intelligence.

In reproducing the interior decoration of different periods or peoples, American women have been most successful in the Moorish and Japanese styles. The old bamboos, curious bronzes, carved teak wood, celestial porcelains, Japanese flower panels, swinging seats and curiously wrought lanterns make a most interesting and pleasing effect.

Several firms of women house decorators in New York have succeeded to a most gratifying extent both artistically and financially. These women are always prepared to make designs and decorate one room, a suite, or a whole house. Estimates of the cost art given. One firm began business in 1882, and employs

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from fifty to sixty women, who design and make hangings for houses, and superintend the interior decoration. During the past ten years this firm has produced more than five hundred designs in silks and cottons which have been manufactured and sold throughout the United States.

Mrs. Candace Wheeler, of New York City, is the leading spirit of the firm called the Associated Artists. About 1880 she began a business in a modest unpretentious way, and today its influence is felt in homes from New York to San Francisco. Mrs. Wheeler's draperies, hangings tables, stands, fabrics, show a peculiar artistic beauty and fitness. Her skill demonstrates what a woman may accomplish in this field of work.

Since the inauguration of this little band of artists in New York, a revolution has taken place in elaborate interior decoration in America.

This society has elaborated curtains for theatres, balls, decorations for the interior of churches, club houses and other public buildings.

Under the direction and inspiration of Mrs. Wheeler (Dora Wheeler Keith), Miss Emmet and Miss Clark, the art of interior decoration has been brought to what was formerly considered an impossible degree of excellence. The footsteps of these few brave women have made a wide path in this new field.

Here true art and manufacturing industry are blended in their own furniture, inlay work, ceiling decorations, wall papering, panelings, parquetry floors and glass mosaics.

The products of American looms never before included such filmy silks and damasks, and the tints surpassed those in the gown of Enid of old.

Hardly a building of magnificence in the country does not possess some work of the Associated Artists. It may be a dull Japanese portiere for the Veterans' Rooms of the Seventh Regiment Armory, or a curtain of cloth of gold for the library of the Union League, but in all, excellence and marvelous taste is displayed.

All "Wellesley girls" are familiar with the beautiful frieze in the Browning Room at the college. This is composed of flower panels, painted by Miss Ellen Robbins, of Boston. These exact reproductions of familiar flowers show in design and color absolute truth in following nature.

Miss Grace Lincoln Temple, of Washington, D. C., has worked up to a prominent position in interior decoration. She had charge of the decorations in the Woman's Building at the Atlanta Exposition in 1895, and her work then made an impression that was national and everywhere favorable.

Every woman who is planning a home is ambitious and anxious that it manifest a superior taste and refinement in its furniture and decorations.

This may be the old country place to be remodeled into the repose and dignity of a colonial home, the winter rooms in the city or in the South, the

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summer cottage by seaside, or the mountain home; wherever it is to be, artistic ideas are demanded, and each style of building, location and surroundings calls for its own particular adornment and treatment. Every woman, when planning or purchasing, is apprehensive; she fears that this or that acquisition may not be the correct purchase. This work of planning and purchasing is often a serious perplexity, and too frequently vexation and disappointment attend the final disposition or arrangement. Two contiguous objects are incongruous. The Naples yellow tint in the new and expensive rug mars and absolutely destroys the delicate canary yellow of the walls. How vexatious it all is! In this extremity one must do one of three things: be reconciled, exchange the rug or have the walls redecorated. Inharmonious rugs, draperies, ceiling or wall decorations may mar the beauty of a home when with proper treatment these would have been a delight, and all this might have been accomplished at the same expense. It is in just such instances that the professional interior decorator's knowledge is demanded, appreciated and prized. Women, from these experiences, foresaw the necessity of trained artists for this work, and earnestly made preparations to conquer all difficulties.

Among the first women who resolved to master the art — art it is — was a young Eastern woman. She was conscious of possessing an artistic taste of more than ordinary excellence. She resolved to study diligently and earnestly the needs of home makers in regard to interior decorations and furnishings.

It was an unknown path, and she had for a guide only her love and taste for the work. Her capital in stock was represented by a little knowledge of the general rules of decorative art, the harmonies of color, good judgment, artistic perception and a fair amount of business ability.

Thus equipped, she searched through the various art and decorative magazines, she purchased manuals and hand books of decoration, and resolved to succeed. She at once classified the hints given. In the index to her blank books were the styles: Moorish, Turkish, Japanese, Roman, Dutch, Louis Quatorze, Louis Quinze, Henri Deux and Colonial. She studied the characteristic features of each style, the simple but definite suggestions and descriptions applying to each, and enlarged upon many by adding original designs.

Then she studied the effects produced by certain treatments of rooms. Halls, reception rooms, libraries, dining rooms that were large, small, high, low, dark or sunny, received careful study. Her investigations included the best tone and coloring for the rooms; frieze, wood tints, wall papers, curtains, portieres, rugs, coverings, in fact every detail from a scheme for ceiling decoration to the skins and mosaic of the parquetry on the floor were earnestly studied, together with the quantity, quality and effect of different light, the surroundings and the inmates of the home.

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She then secured her samples of carpets, wall papers, paints and silks. Arranged on her tables were the cool shades adapted to entrance halls, staircases and vestibules; the quiet tones in olives, bronzes and greens for the library, the warm rich shades required for the dining rooms, the light and airy tones for drawing rooms and boudoirs.

In addition to these she secured samples illustrating that important and underlying principle of color gradation. A floor covering of pure strong tone, the wall decoration carrying out the next gradation, and the correct tint for ceiling to complete last gradation. This was her preparation.

She then sent her cards to a number of friends and acquaintances, announcing herself as ready to furnish them with suggestions and plans for interior decorations and furnishings.

Her first efforts, like those of others in all work, were of necessity limited to a small territory, but her energy, ability, superior taste and judgment were at once recognized. Her work broadened. Each new order when filled, caused the next to look less formidable, and each new decoration represented her best work. She soon required assistants, and today many Eastern homes show the skill and resolution of this young woman.

"How may I become a successful interior decorator?" is the question asked by the girl of today.

Go to some art school or school of design; seek a thorough training — one which will enable you to make broad schemes, comprehensive combinations; which will teach you the laws of harmony and color effect, and that mechanical and mathematical knowledge founded upon the immutable laws of both nature and science. All this knowledge is necessary. Then obtain the co operation of some architect; for the day has arrived when architecture and interior decoration go hand in hand. They are dependent upon each other for the realization, the perfection of the highest in art.

Nearly every large city has its art schools. In these schools the average yearly fees rarely exceed one hundred dollars. Exceptional work, marked talent or promise of superior skill may win a free scholarship.

At the School of Applied Design in New York over two hundred pupils assemble in the different classes.

Here young girls of sixteen are working side by side with women of fifty. Here one's amateur accomplishments may be directed to practical use.

At the Cooper Union, one of the famous art schools for women in New York, there are free classes. In order to enter these, each applicant must furnish proof that she is unable to pay for instruction.

It is not desirable that applicants should be under sixteen years of age, and no applicant over thirty-five years old is received.

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To the girl who is unable to attend a school, there is the chance of serving an apprenticeship to some firm of interior decorators. With natural ability, taste, keen observation, and love for work, she may at length become an assistant.

Such a young woman will soon learn that the first principles of successful decoration lie in harmony of color. She will next learn that the first, accurate and best teacher of color is nature. Nature's classes are free. It has been said, "An intelligent study of the distribution of tints in the natural world will make a successful colorist." Nature never errs, her tints and shades never jar, and here everything works together for beauty. Ruskin dwells constantly upon this fact.

What are the chances for success in this work? A woman, who, at a glance, can grasp the situation of a home, the character of its occupants, who can understand just what will be appropriate, who possesses the power to please individually and collectively, who can group all things in perfect harmony and unerringly combine tints that charm, will find her work in demand, her remuneration gratifying and her success assured.

Fewer occupations are better adapted to a woman's taste; few offer a greater scope of originality and in none will the true artist more rapidly advance.

Hundreds of women whose environment and opportunities prevent them from entering more popular or more familiar fields may find their true place among the interior decorators.

This work meets the needs of the rich, and the field is not crowded. The work also meets the needs of the middle class of people whose refinement and cultivation apparently exceed the means for gratifying their desires in reference to home decoration. To the girl who will make a special study of decorations, and furnishings suited to the demands of this class, who will be quick to follow the popular taste in a way equally effective but less expensive, there is a larger, surer opening, for the value of interior decoration depends not so much upon the richness of material as in harmony of color.

Where is the most desirable place to pursue this work? Where shall I meet with the greatest success? If unknown, and with few resources, the struggle in the city may convince one that "art is long."

In a large and prosperous town a woman's success may be more prompt. She will be able to provide material far more artistic and beautiful than the average local shopkeeper can afford to keep in stock. This local shopkeeper, too, rarely possesses the taste or understands the art even if he could afford to keep the materials.

Among a few thousand inhabitants her ideas, her ability and taste interior appointments will be recognised almost immediately. Her samples of artistic goods are soon known by all, and appreciated. A business here means less advertising, less capital, less competition. If she excels in her work, she will

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find the radius lengthening and she will soon be employed in decorating the suburban homes of the city.

If the young woman chooses to locate in the metropolis, she will do well to associate herself at once with architects and co operate with them. If her work possess real merit, her success will come, although not as promptly as she might wish.

Is it possible to make this work profitable financially? Yes; if you have business faculty. No; if you possess only the artistic ability and lack those business qualities which so essentially attend the success of any occupation in this present age of competition. You may have talent, pre eminent talent, your work may call forth praise and admiration, but you cannot live upon these prized phrases uttered so often by admiring friends. Praise is a sorry and uncertain crutch to lean upon when traveling in your field. The harvest will yield but poor profits.

If one can study but one branch of the work, which is the most advisable? The decoration of homes is productive of most good, in that here the inmates are daily influenced by the work.

Churches have from time immemorial been the recipients of priceless treasures of art and craftsmanship, and today these buildings afford a large field for the decorator, for in all true art there is religion.

There is another, public building in which interior decorations should be given more attention; this is the school. In what better place can permanent, artistic decoration fill so important a part in stimulating the imagination and forming the minds? Leading, distinctive and impressive subjects should here be seen. Whether in painting or sculpture, a suggestive, appropriate decoration here would be a daily inspiration to thousands of minds that would retain the influence throughout their lives, and make them nobler and happier.

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XLI. How A Girl May Work Her Way Through College.

THE desirability of a college education for girls is less frequently questioned at the present time than it was a few years ago. It has become natural to ask, when a girl completes her public school education, "Are you going to college?" Perhaps in a few years the question may be, "To what college are you going?" Every year the number of girls who answer, "Yes, I am going to college," increases, but the increase is largely due to the fact that many of these girls are obliged to add to the words, "if possible." To wish to go is easy; to plan and determine to go is not difficult; but how to carry out the plan is the question that presses upon the girl whose purse is light. The first thing to decide is, of course, the particular college one wishes to attend. Among several institutions, offering equal advantages in the matter of instruction, it is wise for the young woman who must get her higher education by her own efforts to choose that one which offers her the best opportunities for such work as she is fitted to do.

Having made her choice, there arises the puzzle of providing the money for the expenses of the first year. After entering college one may perhaps win scholarships, or earn her way term by term; but, for the first year, it seems necessary to provide a moderate sum, sufficient to pay one's entrance fees, and to guarantee a portion of the year's expenses.

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If the plans for college life have been made several years before the time comes to put them into effect, a sufficient sum of money may be in hand from vacation earnings. Or some friend may be found who is willing to loan what is necessary, to be repaid when the student has been graduated and is earning her own livelihood.

Lacking these resources, our girl will probably have to give a year to this preparatory stocking of her bank, and the question of what to do is often very perplexing.

One bright girl, as she was studying this problem, with her gaze fixed on the toe of her boot, discovered the answer right there, and a room, furnished with all the appurtenances for cleansing and blackening ladies' boots and shoes, is putting into her purse the money for her first year at Vassar.

The year of teaching in the country school, which many girls make their stepping stone between high school and college, is not to be despised as a means of income. Of course the amount so earned will be moderate. Were it large, young girls would have no chance at all in such places.

No girl should try this means of earning, however, unless she has some aptitude for teaching. The country school has some rights, and is not to be regarded purely as a source of income.

With willingness to do any kind of honorable work, the chances of success are reasonably sure.

Now let us suppose the entrance fees paid, and the young girl fairly launched on her four years of college life.

At the very outset let her be sure to be perfectly frank about her needs with the college officers. It will not do to be too shy or too proud to ask for work, hoping that in some way it may be offered without the asking. Too many girls are in need to expect that.

"A penny saved is a penny earned," says the familiar old proverb. Economy must be a cardinal virtue with the girl of small means. It is not necessary to specify the little ways in which economy can be practiced. Great neatness and order in taking care of one's apparel must be a matter of course.

It is useful to know that sometimes a chance is offered college girls to do their own laundry work. Quite a sum may thus be saved.

The first thing that occurs to most students as a way of earning money is tutoring. This is natural, and the upper years in college give opportunities for doing this work.

The remuneration is usually excellent, a fact which makes tutoring especially desirable. But it is not every student who is fitted for this work. One must have some aptness for teaching, and must have gained some reputation as a thorough student. During the first year some other kind of work is more easily obtained.

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In some colleges domestic work used to be meted out to the students as a part of their daily task. As the amount of mental work required has increased this practice has fallen into disuse.

Domestic workers are all hired at present, and the girl who is willing to wait on tables, or to assist in running the domestic machinery in any of the ways allowed by those in charge, can earn reasonable payment for doing so.

The superintendent of domestic work often needs assistance in her office, and some girl is almost sure to find, her place there.

Her fellow students may furnish a means of income to our would be earner. Not all who attend school are poor, and those who have plenty of spending money, or even but a reasonable amount, usually prefer to spend their leisure hours in some other way than in sewing on buttons, rebinding the frayed skirt bottoms, or mending hose.

If the college bulletin board contains the notice that Miss A. will do such work at reasonable rates, Miss A. will probably find her spare moments filled and her purse filled also.

Do not let any girl think she will be despised for doing such work as this. It has come to be a matter of course in college life; and the girl who is modest, kind cheery and ready to use whatever talent she may have to add to the social life and enjoyment of those about her, will find herself liked and respected, even though she post her advertisement as "mender."

To many, library work is especially attractive. All college libraries need assistants, and several girls may usually find work in this line.

Any one who has been a teacher will appreciate the fact that the pressure of really important work on a college professor leaves little time for the correction of the numerous recitation papers passed in by students. Upper class girls are often employed to correct the papers of lower class girls, and to do the clerical work for their teachers.

When a college is situated in or near a large city, a way of earning money is in vogue that cannot be used in schools distant from a city. This is newspaper reporting. Society events, theatre, opera, concert and lecture, all are served up by these young workers, who are thus adding to their experience as well as their money.

Scholarships need hardly be mentioned. It is well understood that these exist, and are open to all.

But one may be a very excellent scholar, and yet fail to get a scholarship, since these are limited in number. In most well endowed colleges, however, a girl who has shown herself deserving in every way, may obtain some help from the college funds, on the plan of returning the money sometime, if she is ever able to do so. If never in a condition to return it, she may consider it a free gift.

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It is not to be supposed that an exhaustive list of the methods of earning money during college life has been given. In actual experience the willing girl with eyes and ears open, would probably find many other ways. The methods mentioned are not theories, but have all been actually practiced at such colleges as Wellesley, Vassar and Boston University.

The only condition necessary to receive aid at any college seems to be that a girl shall be deserving, and shall be willing and able to help herself.

If the needs for work are not too pressing, she who saves a little time to take some part, however small, in the social life of an institution is doing a wise thing. She will gain needed variety, make pleasant friendships, and add to her education what books can never give her. Some very definite qualifications are needed by one who would work her way through four years of study.

First of all is health. To the strong, so many things are possible. And there must not be simply health at the beginning, but a constant care to keep in a healthful condition. Usually, a careful supervision of the pupils, and the gymnasium work and outdoor exercise required of them, keep them in excellent condition. But only the girls themselves can guard against overwork.

In anxiety to maintain a good class standard, and yet do work enough to earn the much needed money, the temptation to overtax one's strength is great. But it is worse than useless to yield to this temptation. Precious health once lost, one's plans and hopes for advancement go with it.

Two ladies were discussing a successful teacher in our public schools. "Her brilliant mind," said one, "has given her success." "Her perfect health," replied the other, "has been as great a factor. She is a beautiful example of a sound mind in a sound body. Her perfect poise gives her power that her pupils feel though they may not recognize its source."

The young woman who takes up any line of work must show herself trustworthy. If she engages to do a certain thing, it must be done thoroughly, promptly and ungrudgingly.

If one has not the quality of courage, cultivate it. Not merely the dogged persistence that will finish a task begun, but the sunshiny courage that can transform even drudgery.

Above all else, there must be perseverance. It will not always be pleasant and easy to lose many of the good times going on around one, sometimes from lack of means, again from lack of time. There will come moments when the question, "Is it worthwhile?" will rise to torment one; hours when life seems all work, with no pleasure openings at all. Then is the time for a discouraged girl to tighten her will fibres; look at all the bright places to be found in her daily life; set before herself very clearly again the results she hopes to gain, and then work steadily on, putting into life all the good cheer possible.

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The results that she hopes to gain: — What are they? A rich harvest of knowledge, of course. But it is to be hoped that something more is expected and obtained than knowledge of books.

The college graduate should have gained knowledge of herself, of her own capabilities, and of the place she was meant to fill in trie world. She should know how to cany herself in society, how to entertain, how to lose herself in consideration for others.

Through the distinguished musicians and lecturers who favor our colleges, she has gained glimpses into the worlds of art that have helped to polish her mind.

From the precept and example of Christian teachers she has learned the beauty of unselfish work; and has come to see that success in life is not to be measured by fame or money.

The college graduate should be able to refute the common complaint that higher education is unnecessary for the girl who is not to enter a profession, but is to have the management of a household.

She should feel, and be able to show, that the executive ability gained in college can be turned to the ordering of domestic comfort, as well as to the teaching of the classics. Her knowledge of chemistry and sanitation should give her household proper food, and keep her home in purity. And all the knowledge she has gained will not be too much for the guiding of a little child's mind. Sometimes it will not be enough to answer his questions.

"Frances is younger at twenty five than she was when she entered college at nineteen," said a mother, speaking of her oldest daughter. "She was prim and old fashioned then, and very one sided in her views. Has she not changed?" Indeed she had. One saw a charming woman, easy in manner, interesting in conversation, and with that subtle something about her, that would certainly make any one describing her say, "A woman of character."

There was good material to work on in this case, but almost any prominent educator can recall instances of crude, unformed girlhood, that four years of college life have softened, rounded and developed into gracious womanhood.

To become a noble, cultivated, helpful woman! Is not that a high ideal for any girl? And if college life will help in the attainment of that ideal, then it is worth the glad giving of work and sacrifice.

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XLII. Women As Teachers.

"I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well." — Alexander the Great.

NEXT to the woman in the home, guiding and training her own little ones at her knee, stands the woman in the school room teaching and leading thousands of little souls from the homes of others. Next to marriage there is no vocation for which woman is naturally better fitted than for that of teaching. She it is who guides, inspires and elevates. The safety and perpetuity of our national life is largely dependent upon a living, loving, womanly teacher in every schoolroom of our country.

In America the first lessons in English history, literature and composition were taught by the colonial mothers. These women teachers, by the fireside or spinning wheel; encouraged their children to keep up a close intercourse with the friends of the old home, and these early lessons from women of sterling character left their influence upon the later teachers.

Long after schools for boys were maintained, the girls were still at home with their "samplers;" for "educational opportunities for children" meant educational opportunities for boys — and boys only. "Samplers" and if manners" should make a girl content.

Ambitious girls then, as at present, found a way to attain their desires, so in groups they quietly sat on the steps of the schoolhouse to hear the boys recite. How much they learned is not recorded, but there is mention that the "act was frowned upon and in some instances met with proper punishment."

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In 1761, when the school at South Byfield, Mass. admitted girls, it was regarded by the conservative as a "foolhardy act," one man saying of the girls, "It will make them less healthy, less domestic, less useful."

"Women must be educated; they must be!" exclaimed Mary Lyon, as she walked the floor with flushed cheeks and flashing eyes. Her mother wrote: "Mary will not give it up." This young woman's determination was a realization and the founder of Mount Holyoke College represented the culture of the early New England and New York schools.

"Added opportunities for culture means added power for usefulness," and that every woman might have this was the plan, labor and prayer of Mary Lyon's work as a teacher.

In all these schools girls proved their ability as pupils and with the increasing number of schools came the demand for women teachers.

The importance of deciding this question of woman's ability to teach is evident from the accounts of an old meeting. The arguments, favorable and unfavorable, were given thoughtful attention. One man sought to convince the others that woman was incompetent, lacked the physical force, and closed his remarks by arguing: "She can never thrash the boys."

Others brought forth the argument that woman had "directed and guided her little family with a gentle hand, tender love and sympathy; if able to teach the few, can she not teach the many?

This argument won. Those who doubted and disliked the innovations of progress were convinced as they always will be.

The charge to the woman teacher was given hesitatingly, distrustfully, by the people. Among these teachers the struggle for bare existence and subsistence was severe. They received almost nothing for, their labor of love; discouragements were met at every step and this new path was made even more thorny by prejudice than by necessity. The early women teachers met and conquered every difficulty.

In the little school kept by Elizabeth Peabody, at Lancaster, Mass. America early saw exemplified the principles of Plato, Plutarch, Luther, Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Froebel. The brothers and sisters whom she taught, as well as the daughters of the formers and traders, here learned the meaning of Froebel's truth, "harmonious growth through self activity."

Miss Peabody moulded the life of each pupil and above all showed herself to be the true teacher in teaching others how to live. "Throughout my teaching life, I always made human life, as such, a leading study," said she. Today every teacher who will "educate the soul" and follow the examples of Elizabeth Peabody and her sister, Mary Peabody Mann, will not fail in her work. These two devoted sister teachers skirted the borderland of the present kindergarten

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method, but it remained for Froebel to evolve the practical methods that put children in possession of their faculties before they are contaminated by the world.

The call for more schools of this character and for more women teachers increased.

In America, after the war, when the work of the reconstruction of the South was progressing, it was largely due to the corps of devoted women teachers that the colored people were brought into subjection and trained for industrial pursuits. These women exerted their influence along the lines where service demanded and duty called.

The history of every country shows that the very flower of womanhood has entered the ranks of teaching.

The girl of the present feels this truth. The faculty of Wellesley College was and is largely composed of women. When Miss Alice Freeman, the young alumna of the University of Michigan, became Wellesley's second president, a great and marked development was apparent. To know the ideals of Wellesley was to know the ideals of Miss Freeman. When she became Mrs. Palmer, Miss Shafer made a strong permanent impression and left her influence on hundreds of teachers in the country.

Mrs. Irwine, Cornell's graduate, has exemplified the same high standard of womanhood, being an example of the motto on the college walls: "Non ministrari sed ministrare," and woman's highest honor has ever been found in faithful service.

We can trace the work of women as teachers in our colleges of Mt. Holyoke, Smith, Vassar, Wellesley, and thousands attest to the deep ethical influence, direct or indirect, exerted by Emma, Willard, Catherine Beecher and Mary Lyon.

Today thousands of young girls, encouraged by what has been done, are saying: "I intend to teach when I am through school."

This is one of the highest and noblest of ambitions, but she must carefully consider the requirements, the preparations, the struggles and the chances of her success.

Let a girl ask herself these questions:
Have I good health and strong nerves?
Have I broad education?
Do I love children?
Am I patient to a remarkable degree?
Am I sympathetic?
Have I tact, good judgment, common sense and governing power?
Have I originality and comprehensiveness of view?
Have I the faculty of imparting to others the knowledge I possess?

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Am I able to awaken interest in children?
Am I willing to give up my present pleasures, privileges and freedom for those of a teacher?

These are among the requirements, and who is sufficient for all these things? The girl who teaches must be, and if these questions are inwardly answered in the negative, then the girl has no right to indulge in the dream of teaching. In this work there should be no experiments. Uncertain experiment upon human souls is tragedy of the worst kind. There is a fitness — a divine, inborn fitness — a wisdom of heart and soul required in shaping souls that is not essential to possess in shaping clay or fashioning draperies.

To the girl who is conscious of possessing the requisite traits of character comes the question: "What preparation is necessary?" "Get the best training and the highest education at any cost," were the words of an eminent teacher. Too much depends upon our schools to accept anything in a teacher but the most careful training, the broadest culture and the best womanly development.

One of our foremost women teachers said: "If you are strong and healthy, strong of purpose and determination, do as I did: borrow the money, go to a college or at least a training school, and in two years after the completion of your course you will have paid your debt and made yourself an heiress of the world's greatest riches."

Send for circulars of the various training schools, study and compare them, decide upon your work, and train — train as the athlete trains for the victory he hopes to win. Exert every effort in daily toil for the place you aim to fill.

Do not seek to become the average good teacher, but seek to make of yourself a most superior teacher.

Every child in the land demands the best work, the highest character in every teacher.

Our whole nation demands it and must have it. A course at a training school is not long, nor is it expensive. In nearly every instance after the first term the weekly expenses may be reduced by assistance given in some line of work.

The only department of teaching which is not overcrowded is that of the kindergarten. In this field there is still room for hundreds of teachers. This is acknowledged to be the most important branch of the work and, as a natural corollary, the training is of the greatest importance.

Energy and time must be devoted to the study of every possible improvement adopted in the teaching of child culture and child development. A full understanding of its methods means the conviction that the best hope for the future of the world lies in the kindergarten and most of all in the kindergarten teacher.

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Each year the training schools are sending out women teachers who for months have given their attention to the fundamental laws of psychology and all that vitally concerns the development of tender, tiny child life.

In all other grades professional preparation is demanded. The Normal College of New York, which furnishes ninety per cent of its public school teachers, is a free institution. From this college about four hundred girls are annually graduated, and five sixths of these become teachers.

In the School of Pedagogy of New York the work lies beyond that of the normal schools. Here degrees are granted and advancement and success await those teachers who are able to acquaint students with the scientific investigations and principles of professional preparation.

After the decision is made and the preparation is accomplished, there will be many obstacles and struggles for the young teacher.

"Why do you select teaching as a field of work?" was asked a graduate.

"Oh, because the hours are shorter, and the vacations are longer than in other vocations; besides," she added, "you know the salary is assured, it is a permanent work if one shows ability, and one meets the most cultivated people." Six years later at a late hour one evening two hundred examination papers were closely packed on a table before her. These had taxed her physical, mental and nervous forces, and with eyes, head and heart aching, she was closing her day's work at eleven o'clock at night. Had she found the hours short?

Had she found an opportunity to meet the people she had hoped to meet? She had put her strength and vitality into the lives of others. She had been making men and women. She had made the reputation of being a rare teacher; but was she? She had never learned how to retain her forces for the benefit of those, under her charge, and had a mistaken idea of her calling and its demands. Her life had been one of devotion but not true devotion; hers was not the ideal of duty doing. Hers had been a complete self-surrender, an heroic self sacrifice, but it had been a suicidal self surrender and a mistaken sacrifice.

"It is all a struggle," said a teacher of three years' experience. "What is not?" Your realization of the deficiencies that cause the struggle, the responsibilities that increase it, is the strongest proof that you will become a better teacher.

"There is so much of pedagogy, so many scientific principles to grasp!" she continued.

Yes, but does all this resolve itself into simplicity when once mastered? Be thankful that a science of education has been formulated, adopted, and that you are commissioned to impart it to others.

The girl who contemplates teaching should clearly picture to herself the contrast between life as a student and life as a teacher. As a pupil she spent the

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greater part of her time sitting undisturbed in quiet halls, thinking of the one lesson before her, and of her individual desires. As a teacher she spends the greater part of the time standing or walking about a schoolroom, often noisy with street sounds, and she must think not only of the one lesson, but the many on her day's program, and adapt each to the minds of not one but the forty, fifty, or even sixty pupils before her.

When at school she talked only occasionally, was surrounded by congenial faces and enjoyed her freedom at recess. When a teacher she must expect to talk a greater part of the time to a class whose faces represent all sorts and conditions of people, and at recess her care and responsibility is not lessened.

As a student her work was planned, the interest was created and her liberty was enjoyed.

As a teacher she must plan for every moment, she must create and sustain interest, and her liberty becomes confinement for at least a portion of the day.

A disheartening, discouraging outlook, is it? No. On the contrary, it is inspiring, it is full of incentive, full of love, engaging heart and soul. No vocation is capable of producing grander results, no work is more comprehensive, no work well performed is so soul satisfying than this of leading and teaching living, breathing, human souls.

Whatever preparation is necessary, whatever struggles are encountered, she must make up her mind that she will succeed.

Once a timid spirited woman ventured to suggest to Lydia Wadleigh that failure might attend her proposed plan. "Failure!" exclaimed Miss Wadleigh, flashing her large black eyes in defiance and scorn, "I fail! Never!" She carried this principle through her girlhood days among the New Hampshire hills at Sutton; it helped her to mount the heights at the New Hampshire Literary and Scientific Institution; it was the foundation of her success in the early Twelfth street school in New York City, and finally won for her that glorious thirty two years' record as New York's ablest woman teacher, closing with eighteen years as first lady superintendent of the Normal College in, New York. Many a teacher today has felt the influence of Miss Wadleigh's "I fail! Never!"

Every girl who would teach successfully must be in herself all that she desires to communicate to those in her care. The traits of her own character stand out far more clearly to the intuitive minds before her than the chalk marks on her blackboards. If she would teach honesty, she must be honest; if she would teach, truth, she must be true; if she would teach conscientious duty, she must be conscientious to her own duties. A teacher cannot be one thing and teach her children to be another. Childish minds are quick in detecting the slightest imposture and quick to resent it. Any trace of hollow pretension is supremely abhorred by a child. A child's perceptive and discriminating faculties have been

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underestimated. A model of pure thoughts, high ideals and noble aspirations will be loved and faithfully copied by the pupils.

The new education lies rather in the spirit of the teacher than in the subject taught; for, underlying all, permeating all, and paramount to all else in the school is the character of the teacher.

The great aim of the teacher should be to develop character. "Moral education is the essence of all education," said Elizabeth Peabody. Apply all your energy to make a high, liberal, justice loving manhood and womanhood, and the result will be a success.

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XLIII. College Presidents, Professors And Principals.

IN this nineteenth century women are first enrolled as college presidents, professors and principals.

America today feels the influence of its women leaders in Vassar, Smith, Oberlin, Boston, Chicago, Wellesley, Cornell, Radcliffe, Michigan Universities and hosts of others. Our colleges stand for great ideas and these ideas are, in many instances, the ideas, the aims, the efforts of the women who act as principals.

Every year vast sums are left for the endowment of some college. Money alone cannot make a college; personal leadership can do this. Every new scholastic institution needs women of lofty ideals of the power of leadership of administrative ability and of magnetic personality. Positions as presidents, professors or principals require the largest executive and administrative ability, the broadest education, the ablest, noblest women. No more faithful, resolute, devoted women workers have anywhere given more of their resources, of their physical and mental powers, of their very life's energy than these women as college educators who have, helped to sustain, develop and perfect the greatest institutions of the age.

Not until the middle of the present century were attempts made in England to provide for the higher education of women. Queen's College and Bedford, in London, were established. Twenty years later Girton and Newnham followed, later still Lady Margaret and Somerville, at Oxford, then came the degrees to women at the University of London and of the honor examinations at Cambridge and Oxford.

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These early colleges, by the conservative, were regarded as a source of amusement. In 1870 the first lectures for women, resident in Cambridge, England, were delivered by university men. To these lectures the women came, eager for a higher, broader education than had hitherto been offered. Soon from another part of England, came an application from a woman anxious to come to Cambridge and receive the instruction. The request was considered and after much deliberation it was granted. As a natural consequence more women applied, and in 1871 a house was opened for students under the charge of Miss Clough, who afterward became the principal of Newnham College.

In 1874 the first women students were admitted. Among those who attended during the first fifteen years, five became professors and lecturers in American colleges, one became principal of the Cambridge Training College for Women, and hundreds became teachers.

In the educational movement in our country there were brave pioneers. The names of Mary Lyon, Emma Willard and Catherine Beecher signify broad ideals, early struggles and complete victories. It is largely due to their efforts that young women were placed side by side educationally with men. When the subject of a college course was mentioned to a conservative it was met with remarks similar to:

"Who shall cook our food and mend our clothes if the girls are to be taught philosophy?" or, "Think of a wife who forced you to talk perpetually about metaphysics or to listen to Greek and Latin quotations!"

Emma Willard early began to plan for a higher education of women, and with her to plan meant to accomplish. Her mastery of her girlhood's lessons, whether Milton, by the sheltered fireside, or astronomy from the exposed horseblock, proved that in her mind the difficulties should and would be overcome. This principle urged her forward through the schools of Miss Royce and Misses Patten in Connecticut, on to the position of assistant in Westfield Academy, to the full charge of a school in Middlebury, Vermont, and at last to the realization and establishment of the Academy for Female Education at Waterford, and later to more commodious quarter's at Troy, N. Y. Popular sentiment was opposed to her "visions." At her school "in Waterford, in 1820, occurred the public examination of a young lady in geometry. It was the first instance of the kind in the State, and perhaps in the country, and called forth a storm of ridicule."

Miss Willard's path was not strewn with flowers; it was made extremely thorny; but her one purpose was to succeed.

What did it mean to her, how was it to be accomplished? It meant study and work from ten to fifteen hours a day, a constant effort to remove public prejudice, to rise above ridicule, to overcome indifference, and to explore new fields. It could only be accomplished by skillful teaching, patient drilling, the

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wise addition of new studies to the old, the slow winning of the co operation of leading minds, submitting plan after plan to eminent educators, by arousing philanthropy and calling upon benevolence. All this Emma Willard did. She patiently and zealously prepared the way for a new era in woman's education. Troy Seminary was the result of her life work.

To her, as to scores of other noble women at the head of schools, devolved the labor of arranging, re arranging, simplifying, methodizing and leading as well as the responsibilities of the financial management. In all this work she was a power in that first of American schools for young ladies. The five thousand young women who were under her training have left rich legacies of her active, wide reaching work.

Can one ask for a prouder, grander monument? It is to such women of wide intellect and resolute determination that America owes much for its educational advancement of women.

Oberlin, Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Smith and Wellesley are indebted to the many noble women who pointed out the path and shed their own light upon it for the guidance of others. Many of the obstacles met and overcome by Emma Willard have been encountered by other women.

In Holyoke, Elizabeth Blanchard, its principal for five years and president for one, largely gave her energies for its present advancement. She arranged new schedules, secured extra funds and aimed to have the school a. realization of the expressed purposes of its founder, Mary Lyon: "A permanent institution consecrated to the work of training young women to the greatest usefulness." Today its present president, Mrs, Elizabeth S. Mead, is striving to develop these principles, and to her devotion, her love, is largely due the high standard of the work accomplished.

Mrs. Marianne Dascomb, when appointed principal of the ladies' department of Oberlin College, Ohio, established and sustained the fullest curriculum of studies for women which, in the history of our country, bad, previously, never been reached. Here, in the forests of Ohio, in 1833, was established that first mental discipline equally as thorough and severe as that which had been and was then required of young men.

This college was an early example of the movement which accomplished so much toward supplying the wide West with great and efficient institutions for the higher education of women.

The early foundations of that educational movement were, to a great extent, laid by Marianne Dascomb, who, at the age of twenty four, in the interests of literature, religion and humanity, accepted her responsible position. As the Western forests were gradually swept away, this institution became more of a power each year and to her judicious management, wise judgment and noble

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womanhood the college at Oberlin largely owes its safety, its wisdom and its early success.

Another girl struggling under adverse educational conditions was Sophia Smith. Eager for study, confronting meagre opportunities for education, realizing popular prejudice, indifference and opposition, she resolved to build a college for women. While the brother was gathering gold this sister's heart was preparing to dispense it. Her munificent gift of $400,000 was called forth by her inmost feeling and thought: "There is no justice in denying women equal educational advantages with men. Women are the natural educators and physicians of the race and they ought to be fitted for their work." Again she said, "We should educate the whole woman, physical; intellectual, moral, spiritual." The Greek motto over the entrance door at Smith College, "Add to your virtue knowledge," was and is a principle nobly exemplified in its women professors.

A Vassar College woman will recall with feelings of pleasure and almost of reverence the names of Professor Maria Mitchell, Professor Braislin and Dr. Webster, who were early members of the faculty.

The magnetic influence, intense individuality and helpful spirit of Maria Mitchell, who for twenty three years was Vassar's professor in astronomy, were long felt after her pupils had entirely forgotten zenith, azimuth, all the

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mathematical mysteries of eclipses, precession of equinox and the management of the sidereal clock in which this gifted woman was so thoroughly informed, and all of which were so loved by her.

She once said, "I had only ordinary capacity but extraordinary persistency." Her early familiarity with Nantucket's wide bordering sea, the deep, blue overarching dome, her father's telescope, her books and this "extraordinary persistence" incited her to reach forth into the mysteries of creation and the outer universe, to earn for herself the gold medial from, the King, of Denmark, the copper one from San Marino, to accept the position of professor of astronomy at Vassar College when it was opened in 1865. Later it was this same persistency that completed her important scientific essays, her contributions on astronomy in the Scientific American, and most of all that made her work at Vassar, strong, vital, lasting and successful.

The homelike appearance inside the observatory, with its quiet, country like surroundings, its windows half hidden by roses and overlooking the garden, all proclaimed the woman, not the professor. Inside, the bust of Mary Somerville, the pictures of home friends, the china, books, souvenirs of foreign travel, all were evidences of womanly love and feminine taste.

The picture on instruction nights was that of the stately professor with piercing black eyes, her strong face softened by snow white curls, sealed like a queen among the beautiful, bright eyed, laughing girls. Practical, mathematical work, drawings, photographs, records of meteorological matters and calculations beside the great telescope, was a part of the work required and accomplished; but greater, grander than all this was her earnestness, inspiration, strength, truth and justice which she imparted to every girl in her class. For such a professor a young woman has a. reverence almost approaching worship.

The grandeur and breadth of her life work seemed a part of herself; the quality of greatness always seen in the unfathomable spaces seemed reflected in her character; the great sums entering into her daily calculations were symbolic of the greatness of her daily duties.

The lives of such women as professors are not measured by the work accomplished by brain and figures.

A professor is not only loved because she can penetrate nebulae, detect impurities in minerals, discover new specimens in science or develop a new method in literature or history, but because she can penetrate aspirations, detect thoughts, discover talent and develop character and womanhood.

Mr. Durant, the founder of Wellsley College, said, "Educated Christian women have more to do in forming the opinions and making the character of men than all other influences combined; I will build a hall large enough to accommodate three hundred girls."

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While these plans were maturing a conscientious girl in the West was diligently studying all that nature gives so freely and all that schools gave.

Her desire for a higher education was increased by the opening of the doors to women of the Michigan University.

Here Alice Freeman entered, and after graduating in 1876 and spending two years in teaching, she was called, at the age of twenty four, to the chair of history at Wellesley College. Her character, her work at once gave rise to the prophecy that she would some day be its president. In 1881 the summons came. She won all hearts.

Her ready sympathy, her sincerity, her conscientious devotion were an inspiration to every young woman to lead the same pure, earnest, noble life. To her untiring energy and conscientious devotion was due the higher standard, the broader work, the nobler womanhood.

Her example has been followed by Mrs. Shafer and Mrs. Irwine. Others, at the head of our seminaries and academies have a record glorious in its execution and grand in its influence. From the East to Mrs. Mills, president of Mills College, California, noble examples of women are found in our institutions whose influence each year is broadening.

Included in the faculty of Standard University, California, is Miss Mary McLean, who has the distinction of being the youngest woman in the faculty of any Western college. The young lady is twenty five years of age, an only child.

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and has been carefully reared. Her father is Rev. J. K. McLean, D. D., who has been in California for thirty years, and is known all over the West. He is the leading Congregationalist in California. Miss McLean, after graduating at the University of California, went first to England, where she entered the Oxford College annex. Later she studied in Berlin and traveled extensively. At Stanford Miss McLean is an adjunct to the chair of English literature. She will introduce a number of European methods, culled from the great colleges, all of which she has visited, into her new department.

The first normal school of which a woman was principal was founded in St. Louis, Anna C. Brackett, a graduate of the Framingham Normal School, being at one time its efficient head.

Not until within a comparatively recent time have colleges recognized pedagogics as a science. The first professor of pedagogics in America, Miss Bibbs, was appointed in the University of Missouri.

Few people outside of those in the educational circles realize all that is required in the character and ability of our woman principal. She must always be hopeful, cheerful, courageous; she must possess superior sense, keen insight, wise judgment; she must show skill and tact in managing the infinite number of college affairs, must meet every duty with devotion and zeal, must hold herself and hundreds of others in her care with a gentle hand yet with the firmest strength of will, and often sacrifice her own happiness for that of others.

In her daily work, in personal interviews, in consultations with teachers, matrons, parents, pupils, in assigning daily exercises and studies, in delivering her course of lectures to her girls, in general class instruction and in her ever watchful supervision does she not add each moment some new gem to her well earned crown? Is she not entitled to the highest place of honor and power in the hearts of the college girls?

Many instances are cited in which comparatively unknown teachers of superior, natural ability and rare excellence have suddenly been called to assume the professorship or principalship in some institution of learning.

The teachers of the highest merit are raised from obscurity into the brightest light, she who was unknown in her work becomes known, the weakest becomes the strongest. Many of our women professors in Vassar, Smith and Wellesley received the call to greater, broader work when discharging the daily work in a field less known. True merit will find its place.

The filial like devotion and affection which never ceases to exist between the student and the woman: principal is the uniform and highest testimony to the high esteem in which these women are held. Their noblest work is written in the career of the thousands of young women whom they have fitted for life's highest and best service.

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XLIV. In The Lecture Field.

IN these days of women's clubs and the much talked of "woman's movement," the lecture field offers great opportunities for women with the necessary qualifications. These are, first, a thorough knowledge of the subjects chosen; second, a talent for public speaking; third, a cultivation of that talent, and fourth, a great many other things. Too many women are trying to get before the .public who are poorly equipped. A woman is asked to prepare a paper for a club, perhaps, she does it by looking up in an encyclopedia her subjects, and copying direct from that, instead of trying to put life and enthusiasm and fresh thought into her paper. But when she comes to read it before a friendly, small audience, who, perhaps, could not do as well, she is praised and told that her effort is "masterly," "scholarly," "learned." She is fired with ambition, inconsequence. If she says to herself "I know, if they don't, that I could do a great deal better than that," and goes to work to improve with all her might and main, she will succeed. But if she is satisfied and accepts the praise of well meaning but ill qualified friends, and then goes before a larger, critical audience with her patchwork, encyclopediaized paper, woe be unto her! For she can only fail. In this, as in all things, earnest, thorough study tells, and in this field, almost more than any other, it is suicidal to a woman's best interests to venture without a thorough equipment.

Many women in America are succeeding along this line, however. The W. C. T. U. and the suffrage movement are to be thanked for this development of opportunities for women. When the pioneers in these movements began, what a hue and cry there was! Now it is safe to say there is not a town in the United States, not even in the most remote backwoods district, where a woman may not

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go on to the platform or stand before an audience without being sure of a respectful hearing. All honor, then, to the pioneer women!

Fifty years ago both the woman who spoke in public and the woman who listened to the speech were maligned and vilified. They were characterized as "strong minded," "blue stockings," "visionaries," "unsexed," "atheists" "unscriptural," "revolutionaries," and today there are lecturers of all possible kinds in every part of the country. They do a wonderful and beneficent work in the education of the American people, and more especially in supplementing the training derived in schools and in bringing education down to date with those who have been too busy to pursue their studies after graduating from some scholastic institution.

The lecturers and their topics afford the means of determining the varied tastes of American women. A talented speaker might have a superb address upon any topic, but if the latter does not appeal, the lecture itself is almost certain of being a failure. If it does not succeed after two or three trials the lecturer gives it up.

It would be impossible to even name all the women who have made a reputation in this calling. The list with necessary comments would fill a large volume, and all that can be done is to select a few representing the various fields of thought and work.

Of the many prominent ones, a capital example is Miss Harriet Keyser, of New York. She is a woman of great ability who has made a special study of political and economical subjects for many years, and who lectures regularly before large audiences. One of her finest efforts was entitled "The Economic Value of Woman to the State," and beyond its great rhetorical beauty and value it was a remarkable collection of statistics on the subject which had never before been put together. Then there are the marvelous lectures by Miss Charlotte Hawes, of Boston, upon music, and those of Mrs. Mary H. Flint upon architecture. The former were entirely out of the beaten path; one was upon bells and belfries, chimes and bell music, and gave a succinct, history of the subject from the earliest times, along with illustrative music ranging from the simplest bob major to the greatest compositions by the Italian masters; a second was upon ancient and classic music; and a third upon the music of birds, and the musical element of natural life. Such work could not be obtained in any book, or even in any ordinary library. Put together in book form it would be invaluable to the musician and the general student. Mrs. Flint's lectures brought architecture down to date. The latest discoveries in the East, the newly found and explored ruins of both the Old World and the New; the newest creations of modern architects were all ably handled and brought together in compact, concise form. Her full course of talks would make a hand book of remarkable value to the reading public.

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Five distinguished specialists are Madam Eva Alberti, the president of the New York College of Expression; Professor Mary Williams, Professor Angeline Brooks, Miss Mary Proctor, and Professor Cornelia C. Bedford, the president of the New York Society of Teachers of Cookery. Madam Alberti is so versatile and accomplished that it is difficult to restrict her to any one class. In her college, which is a post graduate institution, she devotes the most time to philosophy, psychology, pedagogy, and the art and science of physical culture, in all of which fields she is a recognized authority. Professor Brooks is the great master of kindergarten science. Professor Williams makes a specialty of woman's education and the education of women's educators. Miss Proctor is the distinguished daughter of the famous astronomer, Richard A. Proctor, and inherits much of his matchless talent in making astronomic truths easy of grasp and popular to the public mind.

Madam Kleppisch has devoted many years to modern painters and paintings, has a superb collection of photographs of all the more important ones, and a remarkable fund of anecdote and incident respecting both the workers and their works. She has traveled through Europe several times, visiting the studios and galleries, and has utilized the knowledge thus gained for her addresses.

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Three public speakers who add to high culture and many accomplishments, great personal beauty and remarkable oratoric power, are Mrs. Mercedes Leigh, of New York, Miss Mary Haviland Button, of Chappaqua, and Miss Mary C. Francis, of Gotham. They are all young, graceful, enthusiastic and brilliant. Mrs. Leigh is seen at her best in the highest class of poetry, such as Shakespeare, Emerson, Goethe and Omar Khayyam Miss Sutton tends toward aesthetic thought, and Miss Francis to the literary spirit. It is a treat to hear Mrs. Leigh upon the "Rubayyat," Miss Sutton on "Beauty in Daily Life," and Miss Francis upon the "New Woman," These three represent the incoming generation and show that there is no dearth of splendid material for the speakers of the coming twenty years.

The field of literature is very well covered by women lecturers. While all of them are possessed of the broadest literary culture, yet either their own taste or the public fancy has identified nearly every one with some particular poet, playwright, school or period, Mrs. Abby Sage Richardson, although a finished Shakespearian scholar and a learned political economist is best known by her magnificent lectures upon the Arthurian romances; Mrs. Sarah Cowell Le Moyne enjoys a national reputation, but it is as the exponent and student commentator and transcriber of Robert Browning; Mrs. Anna Randall Diehl is associated in the public mind with Shakespeare and nothing else: Mrs. Alexander Kohut, of New York one of the superb leaders of the modern Jewish women, by Semitic literature, of which, as a matter of fact, she is a great masters. A lecturer who belongs to no class, but is a class onto herself, is Madam Hanna Korany. She

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comes from Syria, in Asia Minor, where she was born and raised. She came to this country the first time as a delegate to the World's Fair at Chicago. Here her oriental beauty and eloquence, exquisite manners and remarkable knowledge soon attracted attention and made her famous. At the suggestion of the new found friends she tried the lecture platform, and won an immediate and gratifying success.

Miss Jane Meade Welch, of Buffalo, N. Y., came into popularity first as a writer and then as a lecturer upon American history and literature. She began her work in her native city. It was of so high a character as to receive the highest praise of the press and pulpit, and to make her name known in the great cities. She took advantage of invitations to address various societies and lyceums, from which she rose to the highest step in the profession by being appointed a special lecturer of many women's colleges.

While law may not seem a very attractive field, it nevertheless has produced some very able women lecturers. At least five have already attained distinction in this part of the country. Mrs. Cornelia K. Hood, Miss Stanlietta Titus, and Miss Kate Hogan, the two latter belonging to New York, and Mrs. Hood to Brooklyn; Miss Mary L. Greene, of Providence, and Mrs. Alice Parker Lesser, of Boston, are all exceedingly popular, and in lecturing before mixed audiences or before women's clubs, they have shown great tact and wisdom, avoiding all technical terms, explaining delicate and

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difficult points, using as examples the questions which come up in the every day life of private individuals.

In this line of opportunity is it not gratifying to think that these women occupy the positions they hold by reason of the demand of hundreds of thousands of men and women, principally women, in every part of our great country, who see something in life greater and better than wealth, frivolity, or pleasure?

They indicate that a revolution has occurred in the present century such as our ancestors never dreamed of, and that the twentieth century will start upon the basis of a mental, moral and spiritual plane, higher than any the world has yet known.

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XLV. Newspaper Women.

THE women that we are going to talk about are not the literary workers, pure and simple, — those who write for magazines or story papers; nor those who in the shelter of their own home write letters for daily and weekly newspapers. The girls we are talking about are those who go into the newspaper once, have regular desks there, "take assignments," and go out to attend to them; going to their work as the, young men go to theirs and working side by side with them.

Among all the professions that have been opened to women during the past few years none seems on first sight so tempting as that of newspaper work. Not "journalism," for that term is too dilettanti, too little expressive of the real thing. Your genuine newspaper worker is an honest worker; there is no make believe about him or her. As for your "journalist," he is very likely to think more of his title than his achievement. One of the best American editors has a fashion of saying, if any one speaks of a journalist to him. "Oh, a journalist, is he? Well, I'm afraid he won't suit me; what I'm looking for is a good, wide awake newspaper man."

I have in mind a young woman with "journalistic" aspirations. She had had no experience, but she made up her mind to begin her work as an art or musical critic; or she might consider reviewing books. She found all such places occupied, but she could not see why the people who had grown up to a knowledge of work and were of value to their papers shouldn't be set aside and give her a chance. With the insolence of inexperienced and uninstructed youth, she really thought that her claim for consideration was greater, because she was "new and fresh" — very fresh, if one may drop into newspaper slang — and that those people

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who had the wisdom born of experience and were valuable workers, whose opinions were sought for and respected, should be put to one side in favor of her youth. She was quite indignant because it was suggested that she win her place by showing her ability to do any kind of newspaper work first. Now, a girl like that will never become a good newspaper woman; she will never gain the position she desires. While she is standing outside with folded hands, waiting for somebody to die or resign, and so leave an opening for her, another woman — or a man, maybe — is fitting for the place which shall be hers or his because he has won it. Positions don't come by way of legacy in a newspaper office, I assure you.

There is more than one reason why this profession should be regarded as a pleasant one, although it is a question whether the reasons are "good and sufficient." In most cases they are based on wrong premises, and arrived at through ignorance. In the first place, many think it an easy way to earn a livelihood; they imagine the remuneration to be greater than it really is; others think it a work that brings influence with it, and still others regard it as a somewhat less objectionable mode of work than that done with the hands, and they are very fond of setting off mental against purely manual labor. Others, again, are ambitious of position, and think it a fine thing to have, as they term it, "the public ear." Now, any one, man or woman, who takes up this profession with ideas of this kind, will make a speedy and signal failure. It is one of the best professions in the world, even if less remunerative than the other professions. It catches and holds the enthusiasm of the workers as nothing else does. It opens possibilities of attainment that are undreamed of when the first steps are taken, but it is a profession that must be undertaken with "humility of spirit, and treated with the highest respect. It cannot be used as a makeshift; it will do nothing for one who takes it up carelessly or to serve a mere purpose, intending to drop it after the purpose is served, or some other position won. It gives much to its honest workers, but to the selfish and shirking it refuses its best gifts.

After twenty five years of constant work in the profession which I chose when very few young women had dreamed of adopting it, I believe that it is a profession well suited to the woman who suits it. Not to all women, for all women will not make successful newspaper workers, any more than all men will. It is not an easy work, albeit it is fascinating. It, more nearly than any other I know, will answer to the description of woman's work in the old doggerel which ran,

"Man's work is from sun to sun;
Woman's work is never done."

This is true of newspaper work. Literally, it is never done. Your newspaper goes on through everything; it is printed every day, and sometimes several times a day, as in the case of the paper with which I am connected, the Boston

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Herald, which has eight daily editions. Can you understand what that means? Something fresh and new in every one. The last incident caught in its happening, chronicled in white heat, and put before a waiting public before it is two hours old. Nothing must escape; every class in the community must be looked after, from the merchant prince to the rag picker. Do you realize what this requires? Quickness, alertness, and if you will permit the use of a specially coined word — aliveness. A readiness to do whatever may, come to you, to turn out an interesting story on any subject, to make the most of trifling incident — in short, to give value to very piece of work put into your hand to do.

In regard to any personal gain of influence or recognition, that comes slowly. In taking a position on a newspaper you are but one of many workers, and you have your own place to make. First of all, you must make yourself of value to your employers, your editors. You must show them that you have within you the qualities which will, when you have had experience, develop into good working power. This you must prove in small ways before you will be given large opportunities. The mere fact that you have been taken on to a paper on trial does not make you a newspaper woman. You must prove your mettle before you are admitted fully to the inner circle and recognized as an accepted worker. Some young women who have an ambition to be journalists imagine that the whole thing is accomplished if they can secure the publication of something which they have written, and then have personal notes of themselves put into other papers, saying that "Miss Featherbrain, of the Tattler," says so and so. Nobody knows who Miss Featherbrain is, but what difference does that make? She has been in print, and she calls it being famous. It seems silly that persons should be content to pose on such very slim pretences as these, but there are many who do. Please, dear girls who are reading this, don't any of you join this army of incompetent hangers on and make believes. If you are ready to become honest, conscientious newspaper workers, consider something beyond the negative side which has been presented to you.

Having made up your mind that the work is not easy, but that it is exacting arid insistent, convinced that although you may make a fairly comfortable living if you work hard enough, you will not make a fortune, and knowing perfectly that your personality is to be swallowed up in the paper for which, nevertheless, you are willing to do your best work, you are ready to hear the affirmative side of the question.

You must possess the ability to write well — that is to express yourself in good English free from all redundancies, with clearness and conciseness. Fine writing is not wanted. By fine writing is meant the tendency to the use of excessive metaphor, flowery language, and long words of foreign extraction. It may not be easy for you to believe, but it is perfectly true, as you will admit after a

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few trials, that the simplest mode of expression, that which is elegant and refined in its directness, is the most difficult of attainment. If you watch yourself, you will find that the tendency is to amplification and redundancy of expression rather than to simple conciseness. You would learn the lesson very quickly could you be an invisible listener to the criticism of the "desk editor" on a piece of work over which you had spent much time, and of which you felt very proud. Every dash of his relentless blue pencil through lines over which you had pored and which had given you most exquisite satisfaction as you read and re read them, would pain you. You would writhe in mental agony to hear this brain labor of yours characterized as "gush" in a tone of unmistakable contempt. But you would most certainly grasp the idea that what the news paper wants is lucid statement, a clear bit of description, and an idea understandingly presented. Not careless work, or work without thought, but the work which has to be most carefully done and so well written that no one can find fault either with the essence or the mechanical construction. To be a successful newspaper woman — versatile, and who can be put to do work of any kind on any copy — one must be fairly well read, up in historical subjects, have some ideas about the movements of -the time, and quick to catch the spirit of events. There are many well read, highly educated women whose ideas are worth a great deal, but who would never make

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good newspaper workers simply because they never can be made to have any idea of relative values of happenings. They do not know how to take the public pulse; they have no genius for selection; and so, while they are most valuable friends for newspaper workers to have, they can do no practical work themselves. It is not always the person who knows the most who can best impart information. One must know how to give out, as well as to take in, to make a good teacher; and the same qualities, in a great degree, are necessary to make a good newspaper woman. It requires perfect physical, as well as good mental endowment, to make a newspaper career successful. The girl who has not a good constitution, unimpaired health and a perfect nervous system, should never think for a moment of entering this profession. In no profession does one have to meet so much in the way of physical disadvantage as in this. No matter what the weather may be, if a piece of news is needed, it must be secured. Daily papers do not wait on the weather clerk's convenience. Often there is great irregularity in eating. Hours of labor are un-certain; yon are at the; behest of others, and you must always be ready to respond. It is only right to put all this before you, for it is far better to know that there is a "seamy" side before you undertake the work, than to fancy it all smooth and even and find out your mistake afterward. If you have splendid health and no nerves; if you are ambitious to learn your profession and willing to begin with

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the alphabet of it; if you will understand that your remuneration will be small at first; and that severe economy will be necessary in order to get on; if you are free from nonsense — then you may undertake the work, feeling sure that there is no more delightful profession in the world, even though it is the most exacting.

You must be content to begin at the very beginning of things. You may be inclined to turn up your nose at being sent out to describe a shop window, or to make a paragraph about a removal. But it is all in the way of your education, and when your superior officer, your city editor, finds that you do the small things understandingly you will be given larger things to do, and it rests with yourself to make your work valuable and advance your own position. The trouble is, so few are willing to begin at the beginning; they want to strike in somewhere along in the middle; or they will make a bound for the very top — and usually come down quite outside the limits of the profession. Having once obtained the opportunity to make a trial of your powers, it rests with you to make the trial a success and your position a permanency. In the first place, do everything as well as you can. Put as much good work into a report of the most trifling nature as you would into an important editorial. Carry your conscience with you all the way along. Never let a feeling of private pique or private personal interest influence your work. You are a part of the paper which you represent and you must give to your work all the dignity

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and impartiality that belongs to the paper. There is nothing a good editor resents so quickly as the feeling that any member of his staff is using the position occupied as a means of carrying out private schemes, whether it be of advancing an interest or pulling down a reputation. Above all things, do not try to enhance your own value by writing about yourself and your own affairs and accomplishments. There is nothing which so quickly opens a person to ridicule as this habit of constantly writing about herself. It is simply the most palpable and laughable kind of self laudation, and no girl of refinement or good breeding will show such a lack of taste as to permit herself to make this pitiful bid for notoriety.

In regard to remuneration, which is what every possible worker wishes to know about — it is much less than is generally imagined. There have been so many sensational stories written concerning the money earned by newspaper workers, that they raise high hopes in the heart of the ambitious girl. But here is the truth to be told. The number of women who are earning less than a thousand dollars a year in newspaper work is very much greater than those who are earning that amount, and all who are earning one thousand dollars and over are women who have served a long apprenticeship. A girl has to work a long time, unless she has an unexpected piece of good fortune, before she will earn as much as a school teacher, and she will work all the time, day and night — with a possible two weeks' vacation — instead of having the long vacation and the off days which the teacher has.

Within the last few years there has crept into women's work a tendency which one cannot but regret to see; that is, the habit of many of the leading city papers to give to the young women in their employ tasks to do which no self respecting young woman should permit herself ever to undertake. It more often happens than not that the young woman to whom such work is given is a country girl, unaccustomed to city ways, who is anxious to "make a hit" with her editors and who, in her ignorance, undertakes something which the editor would never dream of giving to the city girl who would understand its full import. The very ignorance of the country girl is her shield from harm in the beginning, but this ignorance cannot be of long duration, and the knowledge comes to her in a most bitter awakening, often with the loss of self respect, if not of honor itself. If any girl who reads this is ever tempted to make her entrance into newspaper work through this unclean path, let her put aside the temptation and give up her fondest hopes of becoming a newspaper woman if they are to be attained at such a cost.

There is an honor list of newspaper workers which should be given to the world, but it is so long that only a few names can be mentioned. First and foremost is Mrs. J. C. Croly, the woman who, as Jennie June, was the pioneer

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woman to enter the newspaper office as a regular worker on the same terms with men. Her story is so well known that it will be needless to tell it, but all newspaper women honor her for what she has been and are grateful to her for what she has done to open the way for them. Other newspaper women deserving special mention are Mary Krout, of Chicago; Adeline E. Knapp, of San Francisco; Catharine Cole, of New Orleans; Grace Sheldon, of Buffalo; Eliza Archard Connor, Cynthia Westover Alden, Harriet Holt Cahoun and Eliza Heaton Putnam, of New York; Helen Winslow, Estelle M. H. Merrill and Elizabeth Merritt Gosse, of Boston; these are a few out of the multitude of women who have stood side by side with men and done honest, noble and conscientious work in the newspaper world, not as editors or special writers — although all have done special writing and editorial work — but as everyday workers — real newspaper women.

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XLVI. Editors, Magazine Writters And Paragraphers.

IT used to be commonly said in the newspaper offices that women could never make good paragraphists. That would hardly be said today in the face of the success which has been achieved by the few women who have seriously taken up that line of work. One only has to point to the clever work of Mrs. Welch, Mrs. Kidder and Mrs. Cahoun, of New York; Mrs. Wakeman, of Chicago, and more brilliant than any, Miss Josephine Jenkins, of Boston, to prove that a woman can write as spicy a paragraph — one as free from ill nature, with a clever touch of humor, as a man. A few years ago Miss Mildred Aldrich, of Boston, set everybody talking over her Harlequin column in the Boston Home Journal. It was a column of paragraphs, short, pithy and scintillant. Such work as has rarely been equaled. It is true that the usual training of women upon a newspaper is not such as to develop the power of pithy paragraph writing. All through their apprenticeship they are given more or less descriptive work arid work of a purely personal nature, such as interviewing; and writing biographical sketches, none of which are exactly the schools for successful paragraph writing. Another objection which was brought against women in the capacity of paragraphers was that they could not keep their personal feelings out of their writing, and were apt to be satirical or spiteful to those whom they wished to punish, and unduly gracious to those whom they favored. There might have been an atom of truth in the objection in the earlier days, but as the minds and ideas broaden, this quality becomes less apparent, and the woman paragrapher of today is as strictly impersonal as is the

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man. Not that she does not deal in personalities, for as the subjects of the majority of paragraphs are individuals, there must of necessity be more or less personality about them, but there may be, as there should be, an entire absence of personal prejudice. It is a mistake to believe that cleverness and ill nature must go hand in hand, or that criticism must be cruel, or that satire must of necessity be ill natured. The paragrapher who wishes to keep a reputation, as well as to earn it, must have an abundant flow of the milk of human kindness. Never yield to the temptation to say stinging things because they chance to be bright and raise a momentary laugh. The wound never heals and the exercise of this power oftener than not leaves a self inflicted sting in the mind of the writer that causes constant pain.

Paragraphing is one of the newspaper fine arts, and the man or woman who can do it successfully is almost sure of permanent employment. It is much more difficult than one would imagine to write a paragraph that shall be short and yet carry a vital point. It is easy enough to write long descriptions or dissertations, but to get a chunk of truth wittily set in the space of a dozen lines is a feat which not one out of a hundred men can accomplish, and so far the proportion of women who have been discovered as adepts is far less; yet that fact need not be a drawback to any bright girl who feels it borne in upon her that she would succeed in just this line of work. All she must do is to put herself in training, writing and rewriting, until she has attained such a degree of cleverness and ease as will give her the courage and the confidence to approach some newspaper editor with a sample of what she can do.

Some of the most successful editors during the last decade have been women. Harper's Bazaar, since its inception, has been in the editorial charge of two women — Miss Mary Booth, who brought out its first number and held the position as editor until her death, and Mrs. Margaret Sangster, the present editor, who succeeded Miss Booth, and who has not only kept the paper up to the high ideal which Miss Booth established for it, but has added new features and given new strength and impetus to it. Mrs. Sangster is not only the successful editor, but the brilliant, helpful writer. Her poems are full of the most delicate feeling and womanly sympathy. Her prose is strong and helpful and she always says the one wise word that some woman is waiting to hear.

Another woman who seems born to be an editor, so keen is her sense of literary values, so exquisite her taste, and so delightful her methods of dealing with those associated with her, is Mrs. Ella Farman Pratt, who is best known as the editor of the magazine Wide Awake, which is now merged into the St. Nicholas Indeed, to most of the contributors to that delightful little magazine, every page of which bore evidence of Mrs. Pratt's keen oversight, Wide Awake was Ella Farman and Ella Farman was Wide Awake. She was living

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on a Michigan farm, writing books for girls, when Mr. Lothrop carried her away to Boston to become the editor of the projected magazine. For years she continued its editor, being assisted during the latter part of the time by her husband, Mr. Charles Stuart Pratt, who attended to the art side while she had exclusive control of its literary department. She left Wide Awake to edit the young people's publication for Mr. S. S. McClure, but the magazine was never the same, and shortly after was swallowed by St. Nicholas. Mrs. Pratt is now editor of Little Men and Women, and is bringing to the preparation of this wholesome little magazine all the devotion, all the conscience, and all the thought that she gave to Wide Awake. There are few editors, either men or women, who so thoroughly know the needs and the wishes of their readers as does Mrs. Pratt. She rarely makes a mistake, and if she does, she is the first to see it and correct it. Loyal to those whose interests she represents, strong in her personal convictions of what is best and right, kindly disposed toward the world, generous and thoughtful of those whom she employs, she is indeed an editor in a thousand.

The St. Nicholas is happy and fortunate also in having a woman at its head. Mrs, Mary Mapes Dodge has occupied the position of editor of this favorite magazine from its very start and no one would ever dream of the magazine going on without her guiding hand. Mrs. Dodge has also written some of the most charming children's books, foremost of which stands that unequaled story, "Hans Brinker and His Silver Skates." That volume may be placed well up in the list of juvenile classics.

The story has been told and told again of how Mrs. Nicholson, of New Orleans, was left a young widow with a big newspaper, the Picayune, on her hands, and how she developed it until it became one of the finest pieces of newspaper property in the country.

One never thinks of the Times Democrat without also thinking of Lilian Whiting, who has been for many years the Boston correspondent of the Times Democrat, and who was also for some time the editor of the Boston Budget, and still remains its literary editor. Newspaper women everywhere should be proud of Lilian Whiting's record and should take her for an example. Beginning as a reporter on the Cincinnati Commercial under Murat Halstead she gradually worked herself up to the highest point which she could attain on that paper, then without a friend or even acquaintance she made a dash for Boston, and by her persistency, her womanliness, and the quality of her work, gained a foremost position in the ranks of the newspaper workers of the country. No woman connected with newspapers ever had higher ideals and none has ever maintained them as has Lilian Whiting. She is staunch, loyal and fearless, having the courage always of her convictions, and yet never saying one word

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that shall wound a person, no matter how undeserving or how ungenerous one may have proven himself.

Those who know Lilian Whiting well and have been admitted to her friendship never think of her without thinking of another one of America's most brilliant women. Kate Field, special writer, correspondent, paragraphist and editor. Kate Field is a unique figure in the history of American journalism. She began writing when still in her teens, and her letters to the Springfield Republican of Massachusetts, and other papers, over the signature of "Straws, Jr." were always eagerly looked for and as eagerly read. She wrote from Washington, from New York and from Europe. She saw things through the rose colored glasses of youth, and she portrayed them with a girlish enthusiasm and exuberance that was simply irresistible. She was one of the few successful paragraphists, and her criticisms of art, music, and the drama, were just, brilliant and good tempered. She was both editor and publisher of her paper, Washington, and it was but natural that when she gave it up she should quietly have laid it to one side, trusting to no other hands the work which she had carried to such a successful issue. Kate Field's personality shone in every page of the paper. No one who cared for her could have borne to have seen it in other hands, reflecting other opinions, swayed by another personality.

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The Woman's Journal, the organ of the woman suffrage movement, has as its editor Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, the only child of that well beloved pioneer woman, Lucy Stone. Miss Blackwell has taken up the work left by her mother as a legacy and brings to it all the devotion of a daughter allied to strong principle and a brilliant mentality. Papers devoted to any one idea are rarely highly successful, but Miss Blackwell, in her work on the Journal, as nearly approaches success as it is possible to do.

Miss Katherine E. Conway is the associate editor of the Pilot, the Catholic organ of New England. Miss Conway received her training as reporter on a daily newspaper in Buffalo, N. Y., where she so thoroughly proved her ability and her wisdom, as well as her keen sense of news value, that she attracted the attention of the late John Boyle O'Reilly, who secured her as his assistant on the Pilot, a position which she still holds. Miss Conway is a rare poet, as well as editor, and has published two or three books of dainty verse which have met with the approval of the critics and the appreciation of the reading public.

Miss Helen M. Winslow has been for some time one of the editors of the Beacon, of Boston, and has just launched a beautiful periodical of her own, the organ of the National Federation of Woman's Clubs — the Club Woman. Miss Winslow writes clever verse, is a good paragraphist, and a special writer of more than ordinary ability.

Among the other women who have succeeded as editors are Mrs. Ella Ford Hartshorn, of the Household, who comes naturally by her ability for editing, being the only daughter of Mr. D. T. Ford, the editor and publisher of the phenomenally successful paper, the Youth's Companion; Mrs. A. E. Whittaker, associate editor of the New England Farmer; Miss Helen A. Clark, editor of Poet Lore; Miss Anna Barrows, editor of the American Kitchen Magazine; Mrs. Mary Sargent. Hopkins, editor and proprietor of the Wheelwoman; Miss Annie M. Talbot, editor for the publishing house of Silver & Burdett; and Mrs. Emily McLaws, editor of the American Queen. The field for women's work here is bounded only by their own ability and desire, but in almost every case the successful editor first served the apprenticeship of reporter and special writer.

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XLVII. In The Dramatic Profession.

THE list of professions which are open to women would not be complete if the dramatic were omitted. When one considers, the number of women who are making a living in the ranks of that much abused profession, it is difficult to realize that it is but a little over two centuries ago since they were permitted to appear on the stage. When Shakespeare wrote and acted all the female parts were taken by young boys, and it was not until about the time of the Restoration that women Juliets and Ophelias and Desdernonas were seen on the English stage. The condition of things was then precisely what it is today in the Chinese theatres, where, except in markedly isolated cases, the drama is in the hands of men for representation.

The women who have won distinction, and at the same time, made a place for themselves in the memories and hearts of the public, are too numerous to be given in the limits of a chapter like the present, but a few can be quoted whose names are held in pleasant remembrance. Such a one was Charlotte Cushman, whom the whole world delights to honor, as well as the city of her birth, Boston, which has given her a memorial, such as she gives only to her best beloved, in naming a school for her. The Cushman School, in the old historic North End of Boston, within a stone's throw of the old North Church, where John Pullen hung the lanterns to signal Paul Revere on the night of the 18th of April, 1775, and but a short walk from the wharf where "Old Ironsides" was built and launched, is on the site of the house where Charlotte Cushman was born, and it was in the district where she went to school. When the school was dedicated Miss Cushman was the guest of honor of the city, and she made a very beautiful speech, her words to the

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girl pupils of the school being most uplifting. If the girls of the North End, educated at the Cushman School, could live up to the high ideals of character and womanhood which Miss Cushman set for them, they would, indeed, be representative women. In all her work on the stage, all her success as an artist, Miss Cushman never forgot her womanhood, and she held herself to all the ideals which she gave to the girls in her talk that September day a quarter of a century ago.

Success did not come easily to Charlotte Cushman, she had many a hard fight to conquer adverse circumstances, but every struggle not only brought her nearer to the goal for which she had started but it added to her strength of character, and helped to develop her into the grand woman she became. After she had won renown and money she left the stage and lived in Rome for many years, where she became the friend of the magic inner circle there which included the Brownings, Robert and Elizabeth; the sculptor. William Story, and his delightful wife; Harriet Hosrner, and all the list of English and American celebrities who made Rome a delightful spot during the '50's and '60's. But even and all these brilliant and congenial surroundings she often longed for America, which she dearly loved, and early in the '70's she came home to live. It was shortly after her return that she had the honor paid her of having the school for girls named for her, a fact which made her prouder and happier than all her professional success. She had not

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intended to appear again on the stage, but so great was the desire to see her once more that she agreed to give a few performances in the leading cities, and so once more the American public had an opportunity of seeing her as Meg Merrilies and Lady Macbeth. Her farewell tour was an ovation, but it was as much for the woman as for the artist. During her residence in Rome she crossed the ocean to act in Philadelphia one evening for the benefit of the sanitary commission. She was a devoted patriot, as she should be, born among the scenes of the early struggle for independence.

Miss Cushman was a deeply religious woman, and a constant attendant at church. Wherever she was she found out a church and attended it, and she had many of her closest friends among the clergy. She was naturally devout and her thoughts were reverential. Here is a short extract from one of her letters, written to a very dear friend. "Tomorrow will be the last day of the year. I sometimes stand appalled at the thought of how my life is passing away, and how soon will come the end to all of this probation, and of how little I have done or am doing to deserve all the blessings by which I am surrounded. But that God is perfect, and that my own love for Him is without fear, I should be troubled in the thought that I may not be doing all I should, in this sphere, to make myself worthy of happiness in the next."

Another American woman who won for herself distinction in the dramatic profession, but who left it while she was at the very height of her career and the fullest flush of her youth and beauty, is Madame Navarro, of England, but whom the world remembers as the beautiful Kentucky girl, Mary Anderson. Miss Anderson made her success at a very early age, being but about seventeen when she undertook the professional career of an actress of Shakespeare's plays. It was a tremendous undertaking, and she says herself had she realized all that it involved she should have never dared to face the ordeal. But her youth and her enthusiasm and her love for the poet whose characters she desired to portray made her oblivious to anything else, and she was intent only on one thing, putting Shakespeare's heroines before the world as she thought they should be portrayed. Her youth, beauty and devotion to her ideals carried her through and won success for her, and her own beautiful character gained her the love and respect of the great public. There are very few women who could deliberately cut short a successful career, as Mary Anderson did, leaving it in the flood tide of triumph, but she was, after all, more of a woman than an actress, and home life had for her the stronger attraction. Nor has she ever been tempted to return to the stage. Inducement after inducement, all of the most flattering, Have been offered her, but she has always firmly persisted in refusal, and nothing short! of a financial stress, which does not seem likely to occur, would bring her back.

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She loved her profession, and yet her advice to girls who are thinking of entering it is to pause and take a second thought. It required something more than talent and enthusiasm to make a career which one can look back to without regret, it needs strength of character, singleness of purpose, a firm religious conviction to keep one from yielding to the temptations try which every public path is surrounded, this one the most thickly of all, perhaps. It needs just such mental and moral qualities as Charlotte Cushman and Mary Anderson possessed, and which, just as much as their dramatic talent, contributed to their success.

In the same rank with these two, both as a woman and a probable artist, when she shall have had their experience, is Mrs. Julia Marlowe Taber, who is fast winning her way to the very front rank. And another, who stands for all that is sweet and true among the women of the stage at the present time, is Miss Maude Adams. It is comparatively easy to gain a sort of reputation on the stage, but that kind is not an enviable one, and the girl who risks her character to obtain it, finds, in the end, that she has something it would be far better for her to be without. She is like the girl in newspaper work who descends to "gutter" methods to win fame, and wakes up to find it unsavory notoriety. But to come to the place which Miss Adams occupies means hard work, steadiness of purpose, loyalty to ideals, and, above all, a true womanliness of character, which forbids her doing anything unworthy

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of the profession which she has adopted, or her own personal ideals. It must not be supposed that in singling out these few to mention specially that there are no others in the dramatic profession worthy of consideration; that supposition would be incorrect. But these women, representing different periods, with the exception of Miss Marlowe and Miss Adams, who are of the same epoch, but who represent different schools and methods, stand for all that is best worth following. They are representative of what the women in the profession should be, in art and character. Besides they are attractive examples, and they are American girls. To be sure Miss Marlowe, or rather Mrs. Taber, was of English birth, but she was educated in America, and her professional career has been identified with this country, so that she seems to belong to us.

All these women agree in declaring that the dramatic profession is one of the most exacting of all, and the most ungrateful, if the artist does not meet with every demand. No girl should undertake it unless she has unquestioned ability, and a strength of character which will place her above all influence for wrong, nor unless she has proper protection. There is often a glamour about it which is deceptive, and the loss of the illusion is painful. It is, oftener than not, a profession to be avoided, for, in its best phases there is much that is unpleasant about it, even to the successful actress. If you are inclined to doubt this, you should read the story of Mary Anderson's life, told by herself, and you can then get a glimpse of stage life from the inside, free from all the fascinating glamour of the footlights. And it is told, too, by a reverent lover of the dramatic art.

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XLVII. Women As Dramatists.

MR. SOL. SMITH RUSSELL said, not long since, speaking to a girl who had been talking of her literary ambitions and hopes: "Why don't you turn you attention to play writing? That is to be the most remunerative field for writers who have, with the skill to weave a plot, and the power of expression, the instinct of dramatic values."

Mr. Russell only echoed what is being constantly said by the managers and players themselves. It is, indeed, the cry heard everywhere, by those whose ears are open to catch it. New plays are wanted, fresh and pure in thought, full of sentiment which is not maudlin sentimentality, bright and clean in dialogue, natural in action, just the plays that shall mirror the healthiest, sweetest side of human life. Such plays, in intention, as "The Old Homestead," "Shore Acres," and the drama which Mr. Russell is making so popular, "A Bachelor's Romance."

The last named play is by one of the woman dramatists who are coming to the front, and it was in view of the success made by Mrs. Martha Morton, who wrote this play as well as the one in which Mr. William Crane played during the same season in which Mr. Russell appeared in "A Bachelor's Romance," which induced Mr. Russell to give the bit of advice to the young girl who was consulting him about giving up literature for the stage. He felt very sure that if she had the dramatic instinct and ability wedded to the literary power that she had the mental outfit for a playwright. Of course neither Mr. Russell nor any one else can predict success with any degree of certainty, for, in this line, as in many another, success is elusive, and does not crown effort when it is plain that she should.

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Still, women have written plays which have proven successful, and which were not only good acting plays, appealing to the best of the emotions, but were literary productions of absolute merit.

First and best in this line, standing on a plane high above that of the average drama, are the two plays of Miss Anna Dickinson, "The Crown of Thorns," in which Miss Dickinson made her own ill starred attempt at acting, and her superb picture of Roman life in the full flush of imperial power, "Aurelian." This play has never been produced, although, previous to her retirement, Miss Dickinson gave several readings from it. Mr. John McCullough had the play in contemplation when it was first written, but through some misunderstanding with the author, he decided not to attempt it, even though it was quite in his line, and he had only the highest praise for it. Those special friends to whom Miss Dickinson permitted the pleasure of reading this play, were amazed at it. Its classic tone, upheld through the whole, the strong, beautiful language, the steady increase of dramatic interest, reaching to the climax, without one lapse, the sustained power were remarkable, and made this the drama of the century. It seemed almost impossible that one so essentially modern and up to date in all her ideas and beliefs could so enter into the spirit of a period so tar removed. It was the truest test of the genius of which Miss Dickinson's bitterest opposers could never deny her the possession. It is a great pity that the American stage can never have the benefit of this work, as Miss Dickinson has absolutely refused to allow it to pass out of her keeping. The same is true of "The Crown of Thorns." After she had given up playing it, she was approached by several persons who desired to use the play, but she would never permit it, although she stood in her own light financially. No one should play the character of Anne Boleyn except herself while she lived, and she has been consistent and firm in keeping her word. This is not the place to review Anna Dickinson's work as an actress, but if every woman who adopted the profession would come to it with the reverence which she did, and bring to it the same devotion and respect, the stage would be one of the strongest educating influences that the world could have which was purely secular.

Another of Miss Dickinson's plays, "An American Girl," was produced in New York by Miss Fanny Davenport, but was not a great success. However she might meet modern topics and treat them in her lectures and books, she was not so successful with them in her plays. She needed the heroic to make her dramas; the trivialities of the nineteenth century society were underneath her comprehension, and she could not treat them with the lightness which belonged to them, and which gave them their grace. But, if Anna Dickinson's dramas are ever given to the world in a printed form, they will take high rank in literature, and stamp the woman who wrote them as a genius beyond question.

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If ever this time comes it will be too late for her to know the verdict, and to realize that the recognition and the justice, for which she so longed, was hers at last. Without doubt, had Miss Dickinson so willed it, had she given her plays to the world instead of hoarding them away, she might have taken rank as the first of the women dramatists.

At present the most prominent women who have taken up this line of writing are Mrs. Martha Morton, who has already been mentioned; Mrs. Madeline Lucette Ryley, who has written several plays for the Frohmans; Miss Marguerite Merrington, a young woman who gave Mr. Sothern one of his best successes, "Captain Letterblair," and who has written still other plays, and is still writing; and Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, who has dramatized her story of "Little Lord Fauntleroy," making it one of the most delightful plays that has ever been seen, and whose latest play, "A Lady of Quality," is placed on the list of permanent successes.

There is another rising playwright who belongs to the class of which Anna Dickinson has been called the head, the class of writers who do not sacrifice anything of literary beauty or merit to mere dramatic intention. It is often said that it is not difficult to write a play which shall be correct from the literary standpoint alone, but which will never make an "acting" play. One has only to look over the long list of literary men who have made pathetic failures in the attempt to write for the stage, to realize the truth of this. What they write is delightful to read, and fulfills every canon of literary law, but it cannot be put upon the stage successfully. It has not the life principle. It is the description of people and event, it is not the people themselves, nor the event. But the woman who can so write that her play when put upon the stage is so full of life, so true to humanity, that all who see it accept it as the genuine bit of human nature, and who with all this can keep it up to the high literary plane which stamps the writer as belonging to the guild of authors as well as of playwrights is the truly successful one, whose work shall attain something more than the ephemeral popularity of the moment.

Such a one is Mrs. Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland, of Boston. Mrs. Sutherland is first of all a newspaper woman and a critic, successful in her profession, but with a taste for dramatic writing which could not be held down by the harness of daily newspaper drudgery. She has written several plays in collaboration with Mrs. Emma Sheridan Fry, who was once a player, but who left the stage for the, to her, more congenial profession of letters; but more recently she has been working by herself, and has produced some most interesting plays. She is versatile, portraying the scenes of modern life, or catching the spirit of the middle ages. She delights in army incidents, and has made a spirited dramatization of Captain Charles King's story; "Fort Frayne." Mrs. Sutherland has by no

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means achieved her best work yet, but with her high ideal of the stage and its possibilities, she will do something by and by which will surprise every one, except her best friends.

The writer of the successful play has an assured income as long as the play runs, for she is paid a royalty on every performance which is given of it. Sometimes she is paid an arbitrary price, so much every evening; again, and the most frequent way, she receives a certain per cent of the manager's receipts nightly. The contract settles which way it shall be.

Many young women make a regular income by writing for amateur companies. Miss Rachel Baker has made a specialty of this kind of work, succeeding her father, Mr. George M. Baker, who was the pioneer in it. Mr. Baker's little parlor plays have been produced by nearly every school and society in the country, and his daughter's are achieving the same degree of popularity. Miss Furniss has written several which have proven very popular for amateur clubs, and Miss Caroline Ticknor has also written some exceedingly clever ones. Other young women have contributed to this class of literature, and while they have tried, as yet, nothing so ambitious as writing for the professional stage, there is no question but some of them might attain a degree of success, should they give their attention to this class of work.

As a rule, women's work in this line is pure and wholesome, and a relief from much of the foreign spirit which pervades the larger part of the modern drama. It is surprising that managers still cling to the argument — probably it is from force of habit, and the inability to see indications — that

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the public cares most for the plays of foreign life, in the face of the immense success which has attended, for years, the simple plays quoted at the beginning of the chapter, and such idyls as "Alabama" and "The Professor's Love Story." The public does like sweet, pure, clean things, and the people who are making up the attendance upon the best class of drama are the ones to be considered, and it is for this class that the women dramatists write.

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XLIX. What The Blind Can Do.

THERE is no name in the American roll of honor which should be more venerated than that of Dr. Samuel G. Howe. His devotion to the cause of the education of the blind, thus opening to them the world of opportunity and self support which had been so hopelessly closed, ranks him foremost among American philanthropists. It was through his untiring effort that the Massachusetts School for the Blind was established and placed upon an enduring basis. During his whole life he gave his personal attention to this school, and on his death left it in the hands of his son in law, Mr. Michael Anagnos, the present director, whose unselfish devotion to the work for the blind has been second only to that of Dr. Howe himself.

Formerly the blind boy or girl was considered an incumbrance, a lifelong care to be supported by the family if their means would allow, if not, to become a dependent upon the bounty of the State. It was a hopeless outlook for these afflicted ones, but with the opening of the schools came a new hope, a new light, into the darkened lives.

At first the industrial training was of the simplest kind; knitting, bead work, the plainest of sewing, and the simplest of household avocations were taught the blind girls, and their mental education went hardly beyond the simple grammar school training, while those with musical gifts were taught to play on the piano and organ. But even with simple training the girls who went out from the school were able to assist in household duties at home, and to earn a small

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income which met their own frugal wants. Knitting stockings and mittens, crochetting collars and laces, making toy furniture from wire and beads — these various things contributed to the support of many a blind girl.

But as the years went on, and the ability of the blind to learn was demonstrated, the scope of the teaching was enlarged and new industries were added. If any one who reads this has a doubt as to what these girls can do, she should visit the School for the Blind in South Boston and see them running sewing machines doing the most exquisite work without ever a mistake, modeling in clay, carving in wood, and running typewriters with the facility of an expert operator. Indeed, these blind girls are so phenomenally quick of ear and touch that they can follow the most rapid dictation when once they have learned their instrument. They use the needle with dexterity, and it is the boast of many a blind girl that she makes every article of clothing that she wears. In their studies there seems nothing too advanced for them. They take the sciences with avidity, and their mathematical work is wonderful. Nothing could be more interesting than to listen to a class of children reciting geography. They have raised maps and globes, and with their fingers will find localities much more quickly than the average child with its eyes. Their geography examinations are wonderful displays of perception and memory. Dissected maps of different countries are placed in a basket, the teacher mixing the parts with her hands, until Europe, Asia, Africa and America are in a hopeless jumble. She then calls the children one by one to take a piece from the basket and tell her what it is. Almost as quickly as the piece can be drawn the little intelligent fingers have answered the question, and the reply comes almost before the hand is raised to the level of the shoulder to show the teacher what it holds. In no case is the name of the country on the piece; the child tells entirely by the shape. Dr. Howe himself would be surprised, could he listen, for instance, at a recitation in physics, chemistry, botany or physiology, where the most complex tests and analyses are given by the means of models in the two latter studies, and of the special apparatus in physics and chemistry.

In music many of them attain a remarkable degree of efficiency and become teachers and composers. The late Miss Cornelia Roeske, who was during its first years a teacher of music in the Kindergarten for the Blind, published several quite ambitious pieces of music and many settings for children's songs and simple orchestral pieces which were used in the Institution. Miss Roeske was a fearless, independent little body, with shrewd business sense, and she made all her arrangements for the publication of her music personally with the house of Ditson & Co. Boston.

Blind people have attained eminent positions in the world of literature. Probably there are few of you who are not familiar with the beautiful hymns and religious poems of Fanny Crosby, the sweet blind singer.

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Another woman who attained to a fine position in literature was Mrs. Helen Aldrich De Kroyft. She was born in Rochester, N. Y., October 29, 1818. Early in her life her father lost a fortune by endorsing for a friend, and when only fifteen she conceived the idea of achieving a higher education by teaching winters and attending what has since become the Syracuse University summers, and finally graduated, as may be imagined, with no small degree of honor.

Shortly after leaving school she was married to a young physician to whom she had been long engaged; but owing to a carriage accident, four hours after her marriage, she was a widow. As if the fates had not left her life sufficiently desolate, not quite a month had elapsed when she awoke to find that the darkest of all earth's misfortunes — blindness — had also fallen to her lot. Confronted now with the necessity of doing something to maintain herself, she entered the New York Institution for the Blind to become an organist. In a few months, however, a card invented in Paris for keeping the lines straight was placed in her hands, and in less than three years her first work was written, entitled: "A Place in Thy Memory."

Having no name as an author, no publisher would undertake to bring out her work without being secured for half of the first edition; and with a courage that has been compared to that of Napoleon crossing the Alps, she wrote a prospectus and personally solicited subscribers enough in New York to bring out her work with two engravings, all paid. Delivering the book to her subscribers, she saw that she had in her hand the means of travel by everywhere introducing her own work; and engaging a young lady companion, she went first to Washington, D. C. Several of the New York papers announced her there, and one of the directors of the Institution gave her letters to his friends, Mr. Henry Clay, Mr. Samuel Houston, Mrs. Commodore Aulic, the Chaplain of the Senate, and so forth. During her stay in Washington, her charming personality, her brilliant conversation, and her consummate address, to which her misfortune only added interest, won her so much favor that on leaving for Charleston she was overwhelmed with letters of introduction, among them one from President Zachary Taylor, in the name of his family presenting her to all his friends in the South.

So, under the auspices that she had won for herself, through forty eight years she has been almost constantly traveling, exploring the world that in the morning of her life was veiled from her eyes. Meantime, though, her pen has not been idle, and there are seven volumes in the world that call her their author. One has been quoted from in five elocutionary collections, the second has been abridged in Johnson's "Classics," a.third was pronounced by Dr. J. G. Holland "an immortality," and four others are yet in manuscript.

One always associates with the name of. Dr. Howe the thought of Laura Bridgman. Her story of achievement in spite of the fact that three avenues of

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intercourse with the world were closed to her — those of sight, hearing and speech — has been told all over the world in nearly every spoken language. And yet, wonderful as it was, it is far surpassed by the records of achievement of Helen Keller, Edith Thomas and Willie Elizabeth Robin, all three deaf, blind and dumb. Helen Kellar is almost a miracle of attainment. Told in the old days, her story would read like a fairy tale. As it is, it is regarded with wonder and almost awe by those who have watched the growth and development of this brilliant girl of seventeen, to whom until she was eight years old, the world was a sealed book of whose pages she had not the faintest comprehension. Her story has been so often told that it seems almost superfluous to give it here, but lest there are those among you who have not heard it, just the merest detail will be given. Helen Kellar was a little Southern girl, born in Alabama, and until she was nearly two years of age, was in possession of all her faculties. A severe attack of cerebral meningitis, from which she barely recovered, left her without the senses of sight or hearing, and naturally she never exercised that of speech. But with all this deprivation of sense, her brain was as active as ever, even more active than that of the average children by whom she was surrounded. When she was eight years old her father sent to Mr. Anagnos, having heard the story of Laura Bridgman and what had been done for her — to know it a teacher could be sent to his little girl.

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Mr. Anagnos at once decided upon Miss Annie Sullivan, a former pupil and a graduate of the school, who had by a successful operation upon her eyes regained her sight. Miss Sullivan was an exceptionally brilliant scholar with a rarely sympathetic nature and affectionate, sunny disposition, just the sort of young woman that one would choose to be a companion to such a child as Helen Kellar. It took but few months of special study to prepare Miss Sullivan fully for the position, and as soon as she was ready she went to Alabama and began her teaching. The little girl proved amenable and learned with a quickness that was surprising. When once she found that intercourse with the world was possible for her, there was literally no end to her eagerness for attainment. Now, at the age of seventeen, she is a regular student at Radcliffe College and is doing the most brilliant mental work. She has a positive genius for learning languages, and Latin and Greek possess no terrors for her, while she is already proficient in French and Garman. She has even learned to play the piano, and since she has learned to speak in the mechanical manner by which the dumb are taught, she expresses herself as anxious to study singing.

Her letters show a wonderful power of composition and an understanding of social and moral questions far beyond that of the average young woman of her age. Her belief in the goodness of humanity is positively touching. She has the

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sublimest faith in the possibilities of men and women that can be imagined. It would be a pure and lofty soul that could live up to Helen Kellar's ideals, and it is not too much to say that she finds the inspiration for them and the embodiment of them in her teacher, Miss Sullivan, who is as marvelous in her way as Helen is in hers. In fact, whatever Helen attains will be through the instrumentality of her teacher, who learns everything that Helen learns and is a constant source of encouragement and helpfulness. One cannot think of these two apart, who has ever seen them together.

The sensitiveness of Helen's touch is almost incredible. With the tips of her fingers resting lightly on a speaker's lips and throat, she understands all that is said to her, and she enjoys the music in the same way, always detecting the slightest discord. She can tell the color of the flowers which she holds; but more wonderful than this, she can detect a mistake in her typewriting by passing her hand over the paper, not even a misplaced punctuation mark escaping her.

Dancing is another of her accomplishments. Though she cannot hear a note of the music, she keeps perfect time and moves gracefully, with no guide but her partner's motions. It has been said that she cannot hear the music, and yet, by some sense, she knows what is being played and feels the rhythm, probably, through the vibrations in the floor. When Miss Sullivan first went to her and. she had begun to speak in sounds, she used to frequently ask to be taken to

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church; on being questioned as to why she wished to go, she invariably said, "Because I so love to hear the organ." Experiment after experiment was tried, proving conclusively that she could not hear, and yet, by some subtle sense, she could feel and enjoy the music.

Similar experiences have been noted with Edith Thomas, another girl a year or two younger than Helen, who has also lost the senses of seeing and hearing. On opening a door into a room which contains a piano, she can tell at once if it is being played upon, and will ask quickly, "Who's at the piano?" Edith Thomas, like Helen Kellar, was born with all her faculties, but lost them by scarlet fever when she was between two and three years of age, just as she was learning to talk. After her recovery she was blind and deaf, but retained the habit of speech for some weeks, until, failing to hear the sound of her own voice, she gradually dropped the habit and soon forgot all the words that she had learned. And yet, strange as it may seem, the very first word which she spoke when she began to learn mechanical articulation was the last word that she ever spoke when she finally, as a child, gave up speaking. The word was "kitty." Edith Thomas, although not possessing the mental brilliance of Helen Kellar, has a remarkable mechanical genius, and her work in wood carving is very beautiful. It is already so finished and so original in design that there is every prospect that she may be able to earn a good income by the practice of this art.

Willie Robin is the youngest of the three, and as yet has not indicated her special bent. She is exceedingly bright, learns quickly, both in her mental studies and in the industrial branches. If the need ever comes for her to be a bread winner, she will find some way out from among her list of attainments.

Surely no girl in full possession of her senses should ever allow herself one moment of despair, nor yield for an instant to discouragement, when she thinks of how much more she ought to get out of life than these other girls who are so heavily handicapped, and yet are so bright, so brave, and so courageous.

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L. Women In Science.

WHAT would have become of me if I'd delayed a bit?" asked the Irishman, who was born on the last day of the year, and Josh Billings declared that it "would have been money in his pocket if he had never been born."

Had the girl with a predilection for science who was born fifty years ago "delayed a bit," it surely would have been "money in her pocket."

No road which leads to successes an easy road, but the woman scientist, in whatever line, finds far fewer obstructions in her path today than she did during the years when her mother or grandmother or aunt was striving to make a way in the sterner pursuits which had hitherto been monopolized by men. It is with awe and admiration that one thinks of those women who hewed a way through the blocked highways of half a century ago.

The story of Maria Mitchell, the child of the Quaker school teacher of Nantucket, is too well known to need lengthy recapitulation. She began the study of astronomy with her father, devoting her attention especially to nebulae and comets. In 1847 the woman of twenty five published an account of the discovery of a new telescope comet, for which she received from the King of Denmark a gold medal. During the next ten years she was employed by the coast survey, and assisted in compiling the nautical almanac. In 1857 she visited the principal astronomers and observatories in Europe. In 1865 she became professor of astronomy in Vassar College. She was a member of the Association for the Advancement of Science, and also of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, to which she was the first woman to be admitted.

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Probably no woman since Maria Mitchell has made more remarkable progress in astronomical directions than Mrs. Elizabeth Preston Davis, of Washington, who married her classmate, Arthur Powell Davis, of the Geological Survey.

From a mere child, Miss Preston showed a remarkable fondness for mathematical calculations and a marvelous ability to work them out. She graduated from Park Seminary and the Normal School. In 1888 she took the degree of Bachelor of Science at the Corcoran School of Columbian University, and afterward secured the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy at the Johns Hopkins University, making mathematics her specialty, being afterward admitted to the university as a graduate student.

It fell to Miss Preston to read the proof sheets of an important work by Professor Gore and of Professor Newcomb's Calculus. Both men acknowledge their indebtedness to her in the prefaces of their books.

While on her bridal tour in New Mexico, Mrs. Davis accomplished intricate work on a volume for the Navy Department. While in California she visited the Lick Observatory for the purpose of establishing methods of computing the orbits of new comets. A few years ago she published a mathematical table entitled, "The Washington Greenwich Reduction Table." Her most important work has been the calculation of the sun's ephemeris for the Nautical Almanac.

Mrs. Davis, with all her care and studies, is a devoted wife and tender mother, and her family "rise up and call her blessed." She is a member of the Woman's Literary Club, of Baltimore, and of the Anthropological Club, of Washington. She has made time, with all that crowds her days, to fit two cadets for Annapolis and two young men for Stanford University.

Miss Dorothea Klumpke is one of the youngest of American women who have won distinction as scientists. She wears the tiny purple ribbon with which the French government decorates the officers of its academy. Her honors were won in the Paris Observatory, where she was given an important position over the heads of fifty French male competitors.

Miss Klumpke is a Californian by birth. She was educated in the public schools of Valentia, and afterward went to Germany to study.

The New York Journal speaks thus of women scientists employed by the government:

"Uncle Sam employs a great many scientists, and among them are several women who are regarded as experts in their several departments.

"Miss Adelaide Hasse enjoys the distinction of ranking higher officially than any other woman in the government employ. She stands next to the chief in her department, and acts for him during his absence. While she was still a child she moved to Los Angeles; Cal. On being graduated from the high school there she obtained the position of assistant librarian of the Los Angeles Public Library, and

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so distinguished herself there as an organizer and manager that in March, 1895, when it was first decided to establish a library of public documents in Washington, she was sent for to take the place of librarian. "Up to that time nobody knew how many public documents there were, excepting that there was a great accumulation of them piled up pell mell somewhere in the depths of the Interior Department.

"‘There was nothing for me to do,’ said the pretty librarian, ‘but to put on a big brown gingham apron and get down on the floor and go to work.’ She had no help except simply a couple of laborers who moved about the heavy volumes under her directions. There are now 1500 volumes in the library, and there is room for 200,000. They are all arranged with wonderful method and exactness, and the catalogue is most complete. By its aid the smallest pamphlet can be found in a minute.

"In a large bright room in the annex of the Agricultural Building Miss Lillie Sullivan sits. She has two desks — one where she keeps her paints and pencils, and the other bearing a microscope of the latest pattern. Here are also such entomological treasures as the left hind leg of a flea, part of a wasp, a baby mite and a spider's head.

"Miss Sullivan is a particularly sweet looking little woman, with shy brown eyes and a charming smile. Her business in life is painting bugs. In order to paint them well she has to dissect and study them. It is said that there is no one in this country who can depict insects so accurately and so beautifully.

"Miss Sullivan, who is a Washington girl, studied art and painted portraits until one day she saw a friend painting insects. She became at once infatuated with the study, and began devoting herself to it. She has been in the government service for nearly fourteen years.

"Miss Alice Fletcher's life study has been ethnology. She took part in the opening of many Indian mounds from Florida to Maine. Then she took a daring resolve. She made up her mind that the real way to study Indians was to go and live among them. So she took up her abode among the Dakotas. This was nearly twenty years ago.

"After being among the Dakotas and Omahas for some time, Miss Fletcher went to Washington to beg certain favors for them from Congress. She was successful, but was asked to see the reforms she asked for carried out personally. This she did, living among them altogether for fourteen years. She administered for them at one time a million and a half of acres. She has helped to have educated a great many of the children. One of her former proteges is Mr. La Fleche, one of the cleverest employes in the Indian Bureau. He is now preparing a work about his people.

"Miss Thorn Steininger makes mammals her study. She is authority on the names by which these animate are known.

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"Two of the best known of the government scientific women are Miss Rathburn, of the Fish Commission, who is considered the greatest living expert on crabs, and Miss Caroline Stevenson, of the Ethnological Bureau, who is a profound student of American ethnology."

"Although," says the author of "Women in the Business World," "fashions rather than fluxions, are popularly supposed to be the peculiar province of women, nevertheless women have furnished a very respectable list of mathematical celebrities, even within the last century. Two women astronomers — one of Hamburg and one of Boston — discovered the cornet known as Olbers', almost at the same moment, though studying the heavens independently. In our own days, for a long time a woman was director, of the astronomical observatory of Rome, which was always famous for the brilliancy of its staff. She was one of the ablest mathematicians of the century, and a member of nearly every European learned society, but so modest and unobtrusive that only a few of her own countrymen knew that the work of the great observatory of the capitol was conducted under the supervision of a woman. A woman filled the mathematical chair in the University of Stockholm many years, much to the surprise of that part of the world, who imagined the feminine mind incapable of mastering so abstract and logical a branch of knowledge as the science of numbers in its higher development and application.

"No greater example of perseverance against difficulties can be cited than the life of Mary Somerville, ‘whose name stands at the top of the scanty roll of women eminent in science.’ At the age of fourteen a friend taught her some fancy work from a fashion magazine. On one of the pages she saw some strange x's and y's, and was told that they belonged to a kind of arithmetic called algebra, but nobody could explain it to her. It was even next to impossible to procure books to study from. At last her brother's tutor brought her Euclid's geometry and Bonny castle's algebra, and she set to work to master the contents without an instructor. It was necessary to first brush up her knowledge of arithmetic, which had never been very exact. Indeed, at this time, she frankly said she could not add up a column of figures correctly. She studied at night till there was complaint that she used up the candles too fast, and she was deprived of them altogether. Then she began reviewing her geometry from memory at night. The intellectual rank assigned women by public opinion at that time was very low, and any attempt on their part to rise higher was met by prompt and severe disapproval.

"Not until she was thirty three years old, a widow with two children, did she possess a library of mathematical books. This treasure was the reward of a long course of years in which she had persevered almost without hope. She was considered eccentric and foolish even by her own family and much of her studying had to be done in secret. One of her male admirers accompanied his offer of

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marriage by a pamphlet on the ‘Duties of a Wife,’ with the pages turned down at the narrowest precepts. After her second marriage her life flowed smoothly, success followed success; the leading scientific men of England did her honor, and she lived to the age of ninety one, working till the day of her death upon her difficult calculations.

"The first woman doctor of note in this country was Harriet K. Hunt, of Boston. She was educated in her profession by private instruction, and began practice in 1835. Twelve years afterward she applied to Harvard University for admission but was not admitted. Three years later the faculty were willing to receive her, but as the students objected she declined to attend, and continued a successful practice in Boston for more than a quarter of a century.

"Now nearly three thousand women practice medicine in the United States, and most of them are more than ordinarily successful. One woman in England has been appointed house surgeon in a children's hospital, the first of her sex to hold such a position in London. Nine male candidates for the place were vanquished by her superior qualifications. She is both Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery of the London University. Paris, for a time, had a medical examiner of girls in its municipal schools. The examiner's duty is to see that the girls are not overworked, and that they get through their studies under sanitary conditions.

"The woman doctor goes through severe discipline to qualify herself for future usefulness; but if she is possessed of genius for her work, and applies herself to it zealously, she will achieve enviable financial independence.

"To begin with, she should have strong predilections for the profession — should be a born doctor, not a made one. This is the only kind that ever succeeds in the true sense of the word. A genius for healing and helping underlies all the training of the greatest lights of medicine. Next to that, good health and a stout, though sympathetic, heart are most essential, granting, as a matter of course, that the head is supplied with brains. In this calling more than any other, perhaps, the higher or subjective senses need to be developed, though of this the schools have nothing to say.

"Formerly the woman who chose to become a physician experienced great difficulty in getting a medical education, and had the sentiment of the public against her, besides. Now the doors of the schools are open to her and the public accepts her without an antagonistic word."

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LI. Women In Unusual Paths.

WOMEN as archaeologists?" says Rev. William C. Winslow, Ph. D., Ldot H. D., LL. D., vice president of the Egypt Exploration Fund. "Yes, a good number of women have done splendid work in this field, but in many cases their work has not been accredited to them, but to the men whose best helpers they have been. There is Madaine Edouard Naville, for instance; her husband, Henri Edouard Naville, is king of Egyptologists, you know. Madaine Naville is a splendid draughtsman, and illustrates all her husband's books, copying hieroglyphics from tombs, and every where where they occur, in a most masterly manner, besides assisting him in a thousand other ways. I am not sure but she is about as good an Egyptologist as he is.

"Then there are Mrs. H. M. Tirard, who edited Erman's ‘Life in Egypt,’ Mrs. McClure, who edited Maspero's ‘Dawn of Civilization,’ and Mary Broderick Ph. D., who edited ‘Outlines of Ancient Egyptian History,’ ‘Egypt under the Pharaohs,’ and who edits all of ‘Murray's Hand Books for Egypt.’ These are all good Egyptologists. But, of course, the stars, however brilliant, pale before the sun, and all women and most men Egyptologists look small beside Amelia B. Edwards. She was the queen of this realm, and it is not likely that we shall look upon her like again.

"Miss Edwards was, as you know, the honorary secretary for Great Britain of the Egypt Exploration Fund, and did her best work as an Egyptologist. And yet she was marvelously gifted in other directions. At nine years of age she won a prize for a temperance story, and had a tale accepted by the Omnibus at fourteen. Hers was a voice of such wonderful flexibility and compass that it was thought at twenty that the opera would be her profession. She was well known

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at twenty two as a contributor to periodical literature and as a full fledged novelist. Later on she became a reviewer on the staff of the London Morning Post, Saturday Review, Graphic, Illustrated News and other journals. And so on and on in a splendidly brilliant career, till late in the afternoon of life she took up the study of Egypt, preparing, as a result, the best work, in its scope, on ancient Egypt that I know of, giving the world a most captivating, inspiring, instructive book that has become almost another ‘Baedeker’ to the Nile tourist.

"She was many sided as an Egyptologist. When she vividly painted the many pre requisites of the successful explorer in situ, in one of her lectures, I inwardly said, ‘What a queen among explorers you would make!’ As an incipient Egyptologist, in 1874, she ‘wriggled in’ through ‘an aperture about a foot and a half square’ in ‘Discoveries at Abou Simbel,’ so graphically told by her in Chapter XVIII of ‘A Thousand Miles up the Nile.’

"By nature and by grace, and otherwise, it came about that Miss Edwards was the best delineator that Old Egypt has ever had. The Saturday Review thinks ‘no other writer did so much to render Egypt popular.’ Her advent christening as an enthusiastic amateur in Egyptology may date from 1877, when ‘A Thousand Miles up the Nile’ appeared, and her confirmation in that science from 1881, when she had critically mastered all the details of the unprecedented discovery of the royal mummies at Thebes, and substantially assisted Sir E. Wilson in preparing his book, ‘The Egypt of the Past,’ which she was revising the last year of her life. Harper's Magazine, of July, 1882, under the title, ‘Lying in State in Cairo,’ gives her clear, picturesque delightful story anent those regal mummies.

"Harper's, October, 1886, contained ‘The Story of Tanis’ (Zoan), which, as an archaeological paper in a popular magazine, is, as a whole, without its peer. Its background of study and research, its grouping of historical data and exploration details, its dignity and classic finish, its imaginative play (resting on ascertained conditions and established topography) in the portrayal of Zoan in all its glory, when Rameses oppressed Israel — particularly in the description of the scene, which a stranger approaching that great northern capital of the Pharaohs would have witnessed, when the king of all colossi in Egypt and in the world towered in majesty above the vast temple — these and more stamp this article as a masterpiece of archaeological and historical verbal painting.

"One of Miss Edwards' pamphlets is in substance her paper read at the Congress of Orientalists, held at Leyden, in 1884, entitled ‘On a Fragment of Mummy Case,’ illustrated by herself. Here I may exemplify the clearness and grace with which she transcribed hieroglyphs. On page 212 of the New England Magazine, for April, 1890, I introduced a fac simile of her manuscript that she had intended solely for my own eye. The characters are models of elegant drawing; yet I am sure that Miss Edwards executed them with a running hand.

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Some of my readers will pleasantly recall her electric manual touches upon the blackboard in her lecture upon the evolution of Egyptian letters and text.

"Had Miss Edwards' life been spared another decade the world would have been the richer by at least two or three more new books of a calibre and merit equal to her ‘Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers;’ and her revision of Wilson's ‘Egypt’ is the work on the history of the dynasties and marked epochs of Egypt for the general reader, and singularly useful for reference. Her translation of Maspero's ‘Egyptian Archaeology’ gives to the English reader a most authoritative text book on the architecture and art of the ancient Egyptians.

"The Egypt Exploration Fund owed an unpayable debt to Miss Edwards; that debt is now due, will be ever due, to her memory. ‘Miss Edwards,’ as the obituary in the Annual Report of the Fund says, ‘has followed Erasmus Wilson and James Russell Lowell. In honor of their memory, we, who survive, have a sacred duty to the great enterprise consecrated by their names.’ It may be truly added that the archaeological bread she cast upon the waters returned to her not after many days.

"Intellectual culture, education, may everywhere regard Miss Edwards as a generous creditor in the great exchange of knowledge. For out of Egypt has chiefly come our knowledge of the evolution of man during a period of five thousand years B. C., and among the delightful surprises of our day is the enthusiasm, intelligence, skill, magnetism and poetry with which her pen and voice have invested the old, old subject, now regenerated to notice — public notice — by discovery, and by portrayal like hers. May other imaginative and scholarly souls take up the burden of her song in the promotion of exploration to reveal and to record monumental history by the sweet waters of the Nile."

The most famous woman archaeologist now in the world is Madame Dieulafoy.

"When people go to the opera or theatre or the salon in Paris," says the Sketch, "they sometimes see a small, well dressed man, with a clean shaven face and small feet and hands, and they sometimes think what a nice looking man, but never in the world do they suspect that this same fine looking man is a woman, and one of the most famous in Paris. Mme. Dieulafoy is one of the most celebrated of the world's archaeologists, and has been of great service to the scientific world. She discovered the ruins of the Temple of Darius, which are now in the Louvre, in Paris. For this great achievement the French Government decorated her with the Order of the Legion of Honor and gave her the right to wear men's attire at all times. She is married, and she and her husband both patronize the same tailor. Their home is one of great luxury, and they gather about them the savants of France, who are anxious to pay homage to so learned and remarkable a woman."

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A most noted traveler in unusual paths was Florence van Sass, better known as Lady Baker. In 1861 she started, a mere girl, with her husband, Sir Samuel Baker, on his memorable journey to discover the source of the Nile. She shared all his hardships, and her courage and tact were equal to every draught upon them. On one occasion Sir Samuel was obliged to struggle through fire and water to get through the Ellyrian pass in advance of his deadly enemy, the Turk Ibrahim. When he believed that the task was accomplished, and imagined he heard his men talking behind him, his implacable foe, Ibrahim, confronted him. That this encounter meant the entire failure of his expedition he did not doubt, but, as he himself declares, "its fate was retrieved by Mrs. Baker. She implored me to call him, to insist upon a personal explanation, and to offer him some present in the event of establishing amicable relations. I could not condescend to address the sullen scoundrel. He was in the act of passing, and success depended on that instant. Mrs. Baker herself called him. For the moment he made no reply; but upon my repeating the call in a loud key he turned his donkey toward us and dismounted."

Baker reasoned with the Turk, and by "clinching his argument with a promise of a double barreled gun and a bag of gold, Ibrahim was won."

At a time when a number of the men had mutinied, Mrs. Baker quelled the riot, and caused the little army to go quietly forward.

She accompanied her husband in all his African travels. In 1861 she went with him to Abyssinia; in 1863-65, while investigating the course of the Nile; and in 1869-73 she labored with him during the Ismailian expedition to suppress the slave trade. In the midst of actual engagements, while the air about her was thick with spears, she remained cool and collected. Her kindness to her husband's men filled them with love for her and by her skill and devotion as a nurse she saved many of their lives.

The story of Alexandrine Trine as a wanderer in strange paths reads like a romance. Miss Trine was a born traveler. In her early teens she had visited Norway and Sweden, and at eighteen had journeyed through Asia Minor, Palestine, and Egypt, The Pyramids captivated her; the Nile enchanted her; and there was kindled in her heart a vehement desire to explore a part of the unknown regions of Africa, and to investigate the source of the Nile.

In July, 1861, Miss Trine and her aunt and a friend were domesticated for a while in Cairo. After a time, and with a suitable retinue, they journeyed as far as Khartoum, and from thence to Gondokoro, the place where preparations had been made for Captain Speke and Captain Grant in the unlikely event of their returning from their expedition into Zanzibar in search of the source of the Nile. When they did return, after discovering Victoria Nyanza, Samuel Baker and his wife met them at Gondokoro, but never had a meeting with Miss Trine.

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Miss Trine's expedition to search for the Nile's source was fitted out on so grand a scale that the natives averred that she was the daughter of the Sultan. Terrible disasters overtook this expedition: sickness, famine, obstructions of all kinds. These things and the death of her aunt drove the adventuresome lady back to Cairo, where for a time she lived in Oriental magnificence. She finally started on another expedition, still with the purpose of tracing the Nile to its source. She was murdered between Mourzouk and Ghat by the savages, whose rapacity her apparent wealth had excited.

An entire volume could be interestingly written about the travels of Isabelle Bird, afterward Mrs. Bishop.

Miss Bird, a frail, delicate, refined woman, pushed her way along many tracks which had been trodden by no woman and by few men. In her youth she visited America, about which she wrote with justice and intelligence. She traveled in Japan, the Malay Peninsula, Persia, Kurdistan and adjoining countries. About 1893 she went to Corea and China. Her books are full of interesting information. Wherever she travels Mrs. Bishop takes a warm personal interest in the people, and does all she can to make their lives brighter, their outlook more hopeful.

Miss Gordon Cummings is too well known and too widely loved to need extended comment here. Like Mrs. Bishop she is a wanderer in many far fields, and, also like Mrs. Bishop, she everywhere "goes about doing good."

Nellie Bly's exploits as a traveler have been too widely and too recently exploited for our readers to have forgotten them.

Miss Annie S. Peck, a young American woman, is one of the comparatively few people who have ascended the Matterhorn. Miss Peck says:

"It was early in the eighties that my attention was first called to the Matterhorn by hearing Dr. David Jordan, now president of Leland Stanford University, describe his ascent of that mountain. He told a tale so terrible that while my spirit was fired with a determination to see this wonderful rock pyramid if I ever went to Europe, I concluded that I should be satisfied with beholding it from below. When, in 1885, I first saw this magnificent rock towering above me I was seized with an irresistible longing to attain its summit. But alas! fifty dollars is a large sum to spend on a single day's pleasure, so I reluctantly turned my steps onward, cherishing the determination that some day I would come again and fulfill my heart's desire."

Miss Peck did "come again," and this time she was prepared for the stupendous climb. She goes on:

"Though nearly all the snows of winter slide from the mountain's steep slopes, it is nevertheless true that the irregular ragged rocks allow of the lodgment of a few inches of snow here and there, enough to make the footing insecure and the handholds uncomfortable, thus increasing the danger both of freezing and of

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unexpectedly gliding down the mountain side. One is so situated during a large part of the time that if he should slip, and was not held by the rope, he would slide two or three or four thousand feet down to one of the glaciers three thousand feet below."

The narrator speaks of parts of the route where "the incline was from forty to eighty degrees, mostly eighty, the rocks smooth," and where "there were no secure handholds." "The distance covered by ropes," she goes on, "is probably one or two hundred yards. It was here that young Hardow fell, dragging three of his companions to death four thousand feet below."

Miss Peck's story, as told in McClure's Magazine for July, 1896, relates a feat of splendid endurance and persistence.

One of the most remarkable trips ever taken by a woman, however, was that of Mrs. May French Sheldon in east Africa, when she traversed 990 miles of interior, never before explored by white person. There have been white women in Africa before — Lady Burton, Mlle. Tinne and others even — who have gone at the head of expeditions. But Mrs. M. French Sheldon — an American woman by birth, training and loyalty — was the first, and so far the only one, to enter the African wilds at the head of a large caravan of natives, and entirely unaided or unaccompanied by any white person.

Mrs. Sheldon is a native of Philadelphia, and has lived in several American cities, although for some years she has been a resident of London. In making this journey into savage wilds Mrs. Sheldon did not Jay aside the social graces for which she is noted, nor discard the amenities of a refined civilization. On the contrary, she observed and maintained the same dainty habits which belong to a lady's boudoir in London.

Instead of adopting a rough dress and lowering her personality to the level of wild and uncivilized surroundings, she provided herself with one magnificent court dress of white satin, and was carefully costumed in becoming, clean and suitable clothing at all times. Only a woman versed in the ways of the world would have acted on the truism that "clothes make the man," and recognized in advance that the way to maintain her social prestige, even among savages, was to live up to it. Throughout her journey she had her private bathing tent, which was sacredly guarded by boys detailed for the purpose; and every day she performed in it the sacred mysteries of a refined woman's toilet, securely screened from observation, and was regarded in consequence as a being of better than ordinary clay, a creature of finer mold — in short, as the "white queen" — ("Bebe Bwana").

The Sultan of Zanzibar, although not an uncultivated savage, recognized the divine royalty of a pure and true woman, and threw around her the protecting influence of his despotic favor. He not only assisted her materially in the

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selection of men for her caravan, but he sent before her a proclamation threatening instant death to any who should molest her.

And so this woman at the head of two hundred men was regarded as a superior being, and was paid involuntary tribute like a princess with greater powers than their own chiefs. The native potentates met her with gifts, invited her to visit them, and allowed her to talk with there women and to witness rites and ceremonies

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which are usually carefully kept from white men. Their homage at times threatened to become tedious, as when they brought tribal differences to the "white queen" for adjustment. Domestic trials were also laid before her, in the hope that she possessed some occult authority to right all family wrongs. She was taken to their lurking places, too, giving her an insight into their character and customs far beyond what she had dared hope. They had no doubt of her motives, and she carefully kept up the appearance of royalty which had so impressed them.

Every night she slept in her palanquin with the curtains closely drawn, and a faithful native guarding it on each side.

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Mrs. Sheldon's object was not simply to gratify her love of adventure. There was a humanitarian reason for her journey. She succeeded in penetrating the wilds of Central Africa, unattended by other assistance than her own woman's wit and marvelous firmness and magnetism of character. She has proved to a thoughtful people that the natives of those countries are intelligent human beings.

If she shall convince the world that the problem of educating and Christianizing them can be solved by industrial education she will have more than succeeded. Mrs. Sheldon was recently made a member of the Royal Geographical Society of London, an honor seldom accorded any woman. Her lectures before scientific societies in London have been heard with extraordinary interest. Her work supplements that of Mr. Stanley, which was purely geographical, by giving a side no male traveler could have ever reached — the customs, habits and home life of the women and children. Mrs. Sheldon brought back with her an immense variety of objects which she uses to illustrate her lectures, and which give graphic interest to her picturesque narrative.

Along the same line of effort is the work of Marie Robinson Wright, of Georgia and New York. She was reared in luxury with slaves at her command to gratify every wish, until she was almost a young lady. At the age of sixteen she married, and by the time she was twenty she was the mother of two children, and the ravages of war had devastated the fair Georgia country so that neither

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husband nor father had any property left. She had to go to doing her own work and taking care of her own babies — a rather dismal prospect for a high bred, high spirited Southern girl of twenty, was it not? She did not dream then that some day she would be a distinguished traveler, nor that she would be received by foreign potentates with every mark of respect and distinction.

When she was left a widow a few years after, she found that she must do something for the support of herself and her young children. And so it happened that she struck out into a new path. Not all at once however. She went to the office of the little magazine called the Sunny South — not with poor poems and worse stories in her pocket, but with a proposition that met the wants of the publishers. She asked for the privileges of traveling and soliciting subscriptions. Doubtless she would have liked to be a famous author as well as anybody else, but she had good common sense, and she knew that the business end of the magazine offered her a much quicker opportunity.

She was engaged at once, and for two or three years made a good living for herself and babies, and very materially increased the circulation of the periodical. So successful was she that a chance came from this work to go on to the New York World, not as a sensational reporter, nor even as editorial writer, but to travel through the Southern cities and write them up for the big city daily. This work was even more successful, and her great feat of writing an article descriptive of the resources and development of Mexico, for which the Mexican government paid the paper the sum of twenty thousand dollars, is, one of the most remarkable in the annals of modern journalism. At the World's Fair in Chicago, she was again given an opportunity to distinguish herself by getting the illustrated edition of the Fair, again making several thousand dollars.

"But why should I go on making enormous sums of money for other people?" she asked herself. "Have I not now sufficient ability and experience to stand alone?"

She decided to try, and in 1895 with her daughter, Miss Ida Dent Wright, for her sole companion, she went again to Mexico. Secretary of State Mariscal and President Diaz were already her warm admirers, for splendid courage and womanly independence were never more strongly combined with all feminine graces — and to them she went with her plans. Both these executives furnished her with letters to every governor in Mexico, and the President ordered, not only a military escort wherever needed, but that special trains and steamboat facilities should be given her throughout the country. Then she spent a year in thoroughly inspecting and studying the country. Besides thousands of miles of railway and steamboat traveling, Mrs. Wright and her daughter went nearly nine hundred miles in mountain regions, on mules, attended by military escort, and penetrating regions where none but native women have ever been seen. The result of her

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experiences has been put in a large illustrated book on Mexico, which is the most comprehensive and altogether the most beautiful book on Mexico ever written in any language, and which was ordered in advance by Mexican officials to the number of 8000.

In addition to this, or as a result of her success, Mrs. Wright has been invited to Costa Rica to prepare a similar book for the government, and later she will make a thorough tour of South America for the same purpose.

And so tired, weary young woman, do not get discouraged no matter how dark the outlook. The clouds may hang low at times, but they are sure to clear away and perhaps your sun may be mounting toward a zenith of whose brightness you little dream. Only keep up courage and determine to do your best to develop the highest qualities of which you are capable, and you cannot fail.

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LII. Just What Women Are Doing.

THERE is one cheery little woman in a large city who has started out to earn her living in a most original way — as an entertainer of invalids and convalescents. So far as is known, she is the only person who makes it a profession to bring even laughter into the house. The little woman is a brave soul who was left a widow with a son to educate, a boy in his early teens. At the death of her husband she found herself possessed of little else than a mortgaged home. Something had to be done, but what it was to be was a most perplexing query.

"I tried everything I could think of," she said, "but I did not succeed in doing anything to speak of. At last I was companion for three months to a woman who was suffering from a severe case of nervous prostration. I kept her mind from her troubles. It came near killing me, but she lived and the physician said it was I who saved her. Then I happened to think it would not be a bad plan to go into the cheering up business for a living. I made the attempt, and have been quite successful. Most of my — what shall I call them — clients? — simply want to talk, and they are happy to get a good listener. I go regularly to see one woman who talks the entire hour on religion. Doubtless she has tired out every one in the family, and they have little patience in hearing the same thing over and over again. All that I find it necessary to do is to listen interestedly and just take the opposite side once in a while to give her a bit of excitement, and she enjoys it immensely. Sometimes I succeed in interesting her in other things, and I consider that quite an achievement, something to be proud of.

"There is an elderly man whom I visit who is perfectly happy if I will only listen while he talks politics. Now I cannot argue on politics, although I am not

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absolutely ignorant on the subject, but I can listen, and I understand enough to object occasionally to some of his views, and so keep him interested. There is nothing like a little well timed objection to keep a political enthusiast entertained.

"It is surprising how grateful an invalid is for any attention; they are the easiest people in the world to entertain, anything which diverts them, and takes their mind off themselves and their own condition makes them happy, and it is a delight to do this. I am happy myself in the accomplishment of my endeavors. I think one reason why I have been so successful is that I have never bothered any of my clients by asking them what they wanted. If there has been no one to tell me, I have found out for myself. Some want music, and for them I play the piano and sing; others like to be read to, and to others I just talk, telling them what is going on in the world. Of course, I have to read the papers and keep up in current events, and that is good for me, as well as for those for whose sake I do it. Some want me to play games others want to learn some new stitch in embroidery, knitting or crochet, and these I have to learn in order to teach them. So you see, it is no small task to get ready to play. But the best part is the eagerness with which my arrival is awaited. There is no familiar friend who receives a more cordial welcome than I do. It is worth every bit of bother and thought which you have given to getting prepared for a visit to see the glad smile break over a listless, wearied face as the door opens to admit you to the invalid's room. I wonder more women do not take up this plan of earning money, there is such genuine satisfaction in it."

The unexpected ways are oftenest the successful ways, and many a woman — yes, and man, too — owes her good fortune to an accident. Not, my dear girls, that I would have you sit around in Micawber fashion waiting for the accident to happen, for it is only when one is active that accidents of this kind occur, but when you are looking for one thing you may chance to stumble over another. If you do, please regard the circumstance as of value, and do not pass it over without taking advantage of it, for this very thing may be your opportunity which presents itself in this unceremonious manner. Just, indeed, as it did to Mrs. Sarah D. Kelly, of Chicago, who is making a living as a scientific packer.

"I have made a good living at this work for more than six years," said Mrs. Kelly when asked about it. "I have managed to support and send to school three children, besides laying up a few hundred dollars in the bank against a rainy day. My story does not differ much, in the main, from that of many another woman left a widow with children to support and no money to do it with. I looked about for work, and approached a man, whom I had known, in the hope of getting into his office. There was no opening, and he frankly told me there was no chance for me in the office, but he said that his wife had been suddenly taken ill and they were to move the next week. If I would not be

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insulted by the proposition, he would be glad to have me go to his house, take charge of the things and see to the packing and moving. I can assure you that I was not insulted, but glad enough of any opportunity to earn money for my children, and I undertook the work readily. When I had finished I was pretty sure that I had found my vocation.

"I had cards printed and distributed them among firms who made a specialty of moving furniture. Then I went to some of the best real estate offices and furniture houses, explained my business and asked them to speak a good word for me when an opportunity offered. But I did not then sit down and wait for my customers; I looked out for myself, and when I heard of a family who expected to move I called and offered my services. Naturally, I met with rebuffs at first, for people had never heard of such a thing, and told me so. But, fortunately for me, there are delicate and busy women, who find it impossible to superintend the packing and moving of their furniture and valuables. These women recognized the convenience of my proposition and gave me work.

"You ask me to tell you how I go about the packing for the average well to do family. Pretty much as I do for their richer neighbors. They are expected to find all the boxes and barrels necessary, but when I go through the house if I find there are not enough I order what are needed. I have an index book, and after numbering each end and all four sides of every box and barrel, I enter the numbers in my index book, and under their respective numbers I give a complete list of their contents. Suppose I read you the contents of a box or barrel from this book made out for a family for whom I have just finished storing and packing furniture. They have gone abroad for several years. Box No. 5 is on page 13, and contains four etchings, one pair of rowlocks, a pair of skates, three games, a box with wedgewood candlesticks, six copies of Harper s Magazine for 1896, two bundles of letters (H. P.), the Pathfinder, Oliver Optic series, and so on, dozens more of miscellaneous articles. This seems a motley collection, but they fitted in, and in that way saved space. When possible, I pack the contents of a room together, but where they do not fit. in they must go elsewhere.

"Frail objects should be packed in cotton, excelsior or wrapped in several thicknesses of paper or cloth, then, when possible, put into pasteboard boxes and securely tied up before packing with other articles. Pictures and engravings should be carefully wrapped, first in soft paper, then in several folds of newspapers, tied securely with twine and placed around the four sides of the box. The box should then be packed as firmly as possible with miscellaneous articles, so keeping the pictures in position, and thus insuring their safety. I omitted to say that in placing the pictures in the boxes the glass must face the sides of the box. Books, magazines, pamphlets, and all those things which every housekeeper has stored away, seldom used, yet valued for various reasons and kept from year to year,

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may be used as filling. By this plan everything can be securely packed, and nothing need be left behind."

Mrs. Kelly not only gave her own story, but she kindly gave so much of her methods that any woman who is moved by her example to undertake the work will see the way to do it successfully. There should certainly be an opening in every city and large town for at least one scientific packer.

Another young woman makes a good income as a teacher of athletics. During the winters she has large classes in the various cities, confining herself chiefly to physical culture, pure and simple. She teaches the proper use of the muscles, the correct way of breathing, walking, running, standing, sitting, sleeping, and, in fact, she treats every point of that important study which is so essential to the health and development of every girl. She makes a special point of posturing, as it applies to holding one's self well and walking correctly. There are too many women nowadays who walk badly and sit ungracefully, and the most sensible of them realize the importance of improving in this respect, and they are willing to pay well to be taught.

In the summer she teaches other branches of athletics. Swimming, diving, floating, all the fancy strokes, and turns out graceful swimmers. She takes parties for horseback exercise, teaches cross country riding, and directs the dressing for this exercise. She teaches tennis and golf, in short she is up on all points of athletics which interest women, and is an expert in them. She is well bred, dresses in perfect taste, talks interestingly, and has no end of tact. All these are necessary for the successful teacher in these special branches. This special girl says that there is plenty of room for more teachers along the line which she has chosen, and she says, still farther, that the prices obtained are precisely the same as those paid to a man for the same kind of instruction.

There is a young woman in Buffalo N. Y., who has made a reputation as a window dresser. It would seem as though the decorative taste of women might stand many of them in stead in a vocation like this. Why have not more tried it? It must be a pleasant and attractive mode of gaining a livelihood, and surely the average woman has as much taste as the average man. Why not employ it in this fashion? Here is a suggestion for some girl to act upon.

An English woman has taken up the business of Cleaning bicycles. She goes from house to house, so that no one need to take the cycle to a shop for repairs. She carries an assortment of cheese cloth cleaners of various sizes, well permeated with oil, and bits of flannel to use in polishing. She adjusts handle bars, saddles, tightens nuts, pumps up and fills tires, trims and fills the lamp and puts it securely in place, and tests everything to see that it is firm. She is familiar, not only with all the tools used about a wheel, but with every piece which goes into it, and its proper relation and position with regard to every other piece,

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and understands the mysteries of gearing. She finds herself a very welcome visitor at the houses which she visits at stated intervals, for the new duty of attending to the wheel of her mistress does not belong to the housemaid, nor, in fact, to any member of the household staff as yet.

Trimming and cleaning lamps and keeping them in order, and cleaning silver are two branches of labor that some girls might find remunerative. Very few servants know how to take care of the beautiful, decorative lamps which are such an important part of furnishing now, even in houses which have gas or electric lighting. The lamp is an ornament, and, for many purposes, its light is preferable, but it is such hard work to keep it in order, complain the mistresses. Get a dozen or more of these mistresses to let you come daily, for a small consideration, and take care of these lamps. If you have time, you might undertake the silver also, receiving an additional sum, of course, for the service. You need only work during the morning hours, and you would not only solve a vexed question for the house mistresses, whom you assist out of a difficulty, but you gain a nice little income for yourself.

You may call this a chapter of hints, if you like, only some of you must find one that is worth the taking, or all the work of dropping them will have been in vain, and one does not like to work with no return, it is disheartening.

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LIII. Cooking School Teachers.

SINCE the establishment of school kitchens in connection with the public schools, a new field has been opened up to young women, and it is a field that is constantly broadening and that will continue to develop for some time to come.

And not only are public schools requiring teachers of cooking but communities everywhere are asking for teachers and lecturers on this subject, and every helpful, philanthropic institution into which girls are received, are establishing classes in cooking, and naturally they must have trained teachers.

This movement is a comparatively new one and that is the reason why there are more openings in it than there are in many of the occupations. It is but a few years since the first cooking schools were regularly established and it is only about ten years since they were tried as an experiment in the public schools of Boston, which was the first city to introduce cooking as a regular branch of public school instruction.

And its establishment and its carrying on to success was due to one woman. And to this woman all the women in the United States owe a debt of gratitude. For, although Mrs. Mary Hemenway began her work in Boston, it did not end there, Mrs. Hemenway was a New Yorker by birth, her father being one of the staunch business men of a half century ago. In her young womanhood Miss Tibston was wooed and won by Mr. Augustus Hemenway, of Boston, and after her marriage she was closely identified with the city of her adoption. Mr. Hemenway was one of the famous New England merchants and his fortune was splendid, ranking him among the many time millionaires, and when he died, leaving the use of the larger part of the fortune which he accumulated to his widow, he

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cautioned her against so using her means as to make two persons miserable in the endeavor to give happiness to one. He knew the generous heart she possessed, and he knew also the evils which attended misapplied benevolence, and knowing both these things he gave the word of caution which proved the wise word of direction.

During the Civil War she was an active member of the Sanitary Commission, and her large means made it possible for her to advance the State work most materially. Then she turned her energies to the Freedmen.

It was about this time that she became impressed with the need and value of industrial training in connection with the public schools. She realized, with many others who were engaged in relief work among the poor, that what was most needed among them was a practical knowledge of the best and most economical manner of managing with what they had to do with, and the first step to meet this need was the attempt to establish classes of sewing in the schools.

This attempt was met with the most determined opposition on the part of teachers and committee. One of the principals said, when he heard of the new movement: "Sewing in school! Well, the next we know they will bewanting to set up cook stoves and teach the children to broil a beefsteak."

This remark has been recalled many times since it turned out to be a prophecy. And the fulfillment was brought about by the very woman who was,

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more than any other, instrumental in introducing the sewing. To prove to the school committee that the cooking classes were quite feasible and would prove beneficial, she equipped and carried on the first one for two years at her own expense, and, when finally the school kitchens became a part of the school system, she continued for a while to support the first one, so that the committee might have the more means for establishing others, and she also opened and sustained a Normal Cooking School to prepare the teachers for the work which by this time was adopted by other cities.

In precisely the same way she introduced the "Ling" system of gymnastics into the public schools, giving the pupils a thorough physical training under competent teachers prepared for the purpose at the Normal School of Gymnastics, which she instituted and maintained, and which is still supported by a fund which she left for the purpose, and where hundreds of young women have been trained for teachers.

She was one of the foremost in the work of saving the Old South Church from its threatened destruction, using both her means and her influence for the successful attainment of this end. It was her thought that made this historic building the centre of practical education in our national history, and the inculcation of public spirit in the young people who were to be the future citizens of the commonwealth. This she did by the impressive celebration of national festival days, by lectures on American history, by offering prizes for essays on historical subjects to graduates of high schools, and by the various methods, which as "the Old South work" has not only been plainly felt in the community already, but has been followed in other cities of the country.

And yet it must not be supposed that all of Mrs. Hemenway's work has been local; this is by no means the case. Her sympathies were as broad as the land, and her field of endeavor was bounded by the oceans on either side, with a limit the other way of the lakes and the Gulf. She was American to her fingers' ends, and had in her nature no room for mere partisanship. Whatever was for the nation's credit and interest appealed to her. She believed that the future well being of the nation lay in the proper education of the young of all classes and conditions. Education was the key which was to unlock many of the present national difficulties, education in the right direction, which to her meant love of country, loyalty to principle, the divorcing of all personal, private interest from all public questions, and the inculcation of a spirit and habit of industry. She did not believe in a leisure class, but maintained that all should labor for the good of the whole. She set the example herself, not by labor in its lower sense, the toil merely for pay, but in the broadest meaning, the constant thought and work for the uplifting of all humanity, and the amelioration of much useless bitterness and suffering.

She was the firm supporter of General Armstrong in this work at Hampton for the education of the Negro and Indian. Indeed, but for her help the school

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could not have attained the position which it holds. She was an ardent member of the Indian Association, and it was through her interest in the cause of Indian rights that she was first attracted to the work of Mr. Frank Cushing, who was a student of the Zuni Indians, and so enthusiastic a one that he took up his abode among them, and won their confidence and respect while studying their history. In consequence of her friendship for him, she established the Hemenway Southwestern Archaeological Expedition, and Mr. Cushing's important contributions to science, founded upon his explorations among ancient ruins in New Mexico and Arizona, were the result. Through Mr. Cushing Mrs. Hemenway secured the preservation of the pre historic ruin of Casa Grande, in Arizona, and its protection in charge of the United States Bureau of Ethnology.

Nor, in her interest for the oppressed of the Indian and Negro nations, was her own forgotten. Recognizing the disadvantage under which the white children of the South suffered for educational privileges after the war, she established, at Wilmington, N. C, a school for white children, placing it under the charge of Miss Amy Bradley, who had been a nurse of the Sanitary Commission during the war, and previous to that a most successful teacher in the North. A beautiful building was erected at a cost of $75,000, and was named by Mrs. Hemenway, the Tibston School, in honor of her father. Competent teachers were supplied, and the school was opened in the midst of the most bitter opposition and

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prejudice. But as people grew to understand the motive of Mrs. Hemenway in placing the school in their midst, the opposition died away, the success of the school was assured, and has continued from that time. Southern girls were educated there, and took the places of the retiring Northern teachers, Miss Bradley still remaining at the head. It is one of the most highly prized of the institutions of Wilmington now, and in that city Mrs. Hemenway's memory is held sacred.

One of the most marked features of Mrs. Hemenway's character was her aversion to anything like publicity. She was personally unknown to the thousands of persons whom she benefited. She had always about her a corps of sympathetic, competent men and women, who carried out her plans and did the work she laid down for them. Of course a woman of her social standing and her means, could not avoid a certain degree of prominence, but as far as she possibly could, she kept her own personality in the background, content to know that she was doing a work which was helping and ennobling all mankind.

She has left behind her a memory whose fragrance shall never be lost, and the country still mourns a citizen who, in the quietest and simplest way, laid the foundation for future loyalty and good citizenship in the hearts and minds of thousands of young men and women. Could any work of achievement be nobler than this?

She also sought by her influence to elevate the idea of domestic labor and bring it up to the plane where it belongs, and her most successful work in this line was the establishment of the school kitchens in the public school work.

The Boston Normal Training School for cooking teachers provides that the teaching shall be uniform, and the course studied is to be adopted in every school. This school has graduated a large number of pupils, and, so far, every one has found a place waiting for her when she graduated. You can see by this that the work is being carried forward as rapidly as teachers can be got ready. The great danger is in beginning the work before you are altogether prepared. There is as much danger in undue haste, as there is in delay. I am not altogether certain that there isn't more. In any; important matter like this, it is safe to make haste slowly. No matter how anxious you are to begin this work in your own town, wait until you are trained, and do not fall into the mistaken notion that anybody can teach cooking who can cook. A mistake at the beginning would be fatal, and you could never again awaken interest in the subject if you once fail.

In regard to the training school, its demands, and its accomplishments: In the first place every applicant for admission must be acquainted with the theory of teaching, and it is considered a great point in her favor if she is the graduate of some normal school. She should possess that particular qualification for the work — a genuine liking for it; and she should determine to devote herself to it to the exclusion of all other branches and be a power in her line of teaching.

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There is no use in taking up any work in a half hearted way; and if a pupil does not show herself disposed to do her best in the school, her continuance in the class is not encouraged. The teachers very soon discover if a student is lacking in the ability to do the work, and if there is any doubt of her ultimate success as a teacher of cooking she is kindly advised to turn her efforts in some other direction.

That is fair treatment certainly and kindly too. For the whole future of a girl may be spoiled by allowing her to make a failure when good advice, honestly given, might have turned her in the direction of success. And that is why we should be so glad of the interest and care that the managers of this particular school give to the pupils.

When a student has taken the course, passed the examination, and received her certificate, then she may feel that she is well equipped lor the work, for no certificate would be given her had she not won it, you. may be sure. The course of study includes, beside cooking, lessons in chemistry by the most competent teachers, and with the practice lessons in both branches, there are frequent lectures by well known specialists.

The salary of the teacher is the same as that of any grammar school teacher, and the hours of work are the regular school hours. Sometimes, when a town is not large enough to take a teacher's entire time, it will combine with an adjoining town, and the two will employ the same teacher.

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Besides the teaching in the public schools, there is the teaching of independent classes, and of private schools. The Lasell Seminary, in Auburndale, Mass. which is one of the most progressive schools for girls in the country, has a regular course in cooking, ranging from the simplest to the most intricate. It has a prize for bread making, and there is a spirited contest for this prize every year.

Miss Maria Parloa, who is, without doubt, the best known and most capable of all the lecturers and instructors of cooking in this country, is one of the pioneers as well. She has amassed a snug little property by her work, and she is still in greater demand than any other lecturer. Mrs. Sarah Rorer, of Philadelphia, and Miss Maria Daniell, of Boston, are also successful and well known teachers.

These teachers form classes, and also give demonstration lectures, for which they get well paid. If a girl is fond of cooking, can impart her knowledge and has patience for detail, she may make a successful teacher, and earn a good income; but she must work for it.

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LIV. The Kindergarten Teacher.

AS OUR ideas in education are advanced and become incorporated in the school system, new opportunities for those desiring to teach arise, and so a fresh avenue for endeavor is opened.

The development and growth of the kindergarten is a case in point. Where, twenty years ago, there were not a score of kindergarten teachers in the whole country, there are now hundreds, and the demand for them still continues as the different communities make the kindergarten a part of the public school work.

When the kindergarten was first introduced into this country it was as a private school, and the experiment was tried only in the large cities and among people of wealth. The mass of people regarded it as absurd to send such tiny children to school as those this new school took under its special care, and even physicians inveighed against it, and talked about crowding the brains of the little ones, and predicted dire results — which predictions, by the way, have never been fulfilled.

The idea of bringing the kindergarten to this country belonged to a Boston woman — Miss Elizabeth Peabody. Miss Peabody was the sister in law of Horace Mann, who was so prominent in educational matters during the early portion and the middle of this century, and who was specially identified with the education of the deaf and dumb. So Miss Peabody was always living in the atmosphere of progress, in educational affairs. She was also the sister in law of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the American novelist, the writer of the most remarkable stories that any American author has given to the world; and she was the chosen friend of

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Emerson. You can easily see that she must have been a remarkable woman to win and hold a friendship like that.

During a visit to Germany, Miss Peabody became deeply imbued with the spirit of Frederic Froebel, and she saw in his methods of teaching, or rather of directing and leading the minds of the little children, the best basis for all education. On her return she talked and wrote on the subject, until the time became ripe for the introduction of a teacher. First one came from Germany to establish a training school to prepare teachers for this new work, then another came, when there were training schools both in Boston and New York.

The wealthy people and the more cultivated classes took the idea very readily, and for a number of years these were the only patrons, because to send a child to a private kindergarten was a somewhat expensive matter.

But Miss Peabody was not satisfied with this state of affairs. She wanted the children of all the people to have the same opportunity that a portion of them already had. She labored earnestly to have the school committees take favorable action on the kindergarten, and make places where the smaller children could be kept from the pitiful surroundings, which so many of them knew as home, and given some brightness and cheer to lighten their little lives.

But school boards are slow to become convinced, they are the reflection of the public whom they represent, and Miss Peabody had times of almost discouragement, but she would rally and work with new determination.

When it became apparent that nothing could be done, for the present at least, through the public schools, Miss Peabody then turned her attention to the establishment, through private means, of free kindergartens in the poorer parts of the city of Boston. In this effort she was met generously and heartily by Mrs. Quincy Shaw, of Boston, who did at once what Miss Peabody desired, and established several free kindergartens in Boston, Brookline, Jamaica Plain and Roxbury, paying all expenses out of her own private income. Mrs. Shaw was the daughter of Professor Louis Agassiz, of Harvard, and her mother was from the Carey family, of Cambridge, who have always been identified with every progressive movement in education and sociology.

Mrs. Shaw supported these! schools for many years, until the city, recognizing their worth, and the strong influence for good which they exerted, decided to incorporate them into the public school system, and now the city supports them as it does all the other public schools. The movement has gone outside of Boston, and many of the towns and cities of New England support the kindergartens.

New York has taken the same step, and in many of her cities the kindergarten flourishes as a part of the school system.

The women of San Francisco, headed by Mrs. Leland Stanford and Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, have established the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association, and

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are supporting free kindergartens all over the city. From the inception of the order, until her sad death, Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper was the head of the Association, and she gave her most devoted care to it. She, a newspaper woman, beloved of every one, was the chosen almoner of the charities of the richest women of San Francisco, and she made the very best use of the means that were placed at her command. One of the early San Francisco kindergartners was Kate Douglas Wiggin, whose fascinating books, especially "The Bird's Christmas Carol," and "Timothy's Quest," have made her name a household word wherever sweet, choice literature is appreciated. The work done by the kindergartens of San Francisco is a marvelous work, and full of interest, and the teachers are among the most charming and refined young women of that city.

St. Louis stands well to the front in the kindergarten work, and the other Western cities are following closely.

So you see, here is a work that is growing, and will grow with the future growth of the communities of the country. Teachers will always be needed, and the renumeration is fairly good.

But not every one can be a successful kindergartner. Simply because some girl may think it an easy and a pleasant way of gaining a livelihood, it is no reason why she may expect success in it.

In the first place, much depends upon, the personality of the girl. She must be attractive. By that I do not mean merely pretty, for I have known — and, no doubt, you have known also — pretty girls who have not been attractive when you came to know them. I mean girls with refined natures, good manners, high moral sense; cultivated girls, who win admiration and compel respect. There must be character to the girl who wishes to be successful in this line of work, and this strength must be allied to gentleness. She must really love children, attract them and hold them, after she has won them. She must be patient, tactful, cheerful and firm.

She needs to have a pleasant voice, both for speaking and singing for so much of the kindergarten work is done in song, that this is an absolute necessity. And she must also have a good education.

It is not so easy to gain entrance to a kindergarten training school as it was in the earlier days. The supply of teachers has been so much increased that now it is possible to choose who shall become teachers. A girl must be able to pass a certain examination, which is rather rigid, or she must bring a certificate from a high or normal school. In some training schools the latter is demanded, and no pupil will be received unless she has graduated from a regular normal school.

The course of study is by no means easy, and in the best and most thorough training schools it covers a period of two years. Until quite recently one year

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only was given, but with the additional requirements has come the need of additional time.

Not only are the methods thoroughly taught, but the science of pedagogy is considered, and the pupils have to write abstracts, essays and stories, as well as do practical work in some of the schools. The girl who studies kindergartening may make up her mind that she will not have time for anything else during her two years, but that it will mean constant application. But when she gets through she has a profession that is one of the most beautiful in the world, and that will be, not only an assured income to her, but a constant source of pleasure; that is assuming, of course, that she has a natural aptitude and love for it. In any other case she would better not attempt it, for she will, if she does not fail altogether, become only a common place teacher, and so find herself frequently out of position as well as always out of place.

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LV. Women As Inventors.

WOMEN have invented nothing but flat iron holders and stove lifters and fruit strainers, or other things similar in size and importance," was the remark which recently fell upon my ears.

"So?" I said. "I think you will be willing to withdraw that statement when we have looked a little while at the facts of the case. There are several industries, each of which has added millions to the wealth of nations, and immeasurably to the comfort and well being of individuals, which were made possible by women inventors."

Every large cotton mill owes its existence to the invention of the cotton gin, and the cotton gin was evolved and primarily produced by Catherine Littlefield Greene, wife of the Revolutionary officer, General Greene.

The Greenes moved from Rhode Island to Mulberry Grove, on the Savannah River. The General died soon after the removal, leaving five children and a much embarrassed estate.

It was during the winter of 1792-93 that there was gathered in Mrs. Greene's parlor a little group, whose conversation turned upon the subject which was then largely engrossing the attention of nearly every planter in the South: the toilsome and profit destroying process of separating cotton and its seeds, and the fortune which would come to him who should invent a machine for the accomplishment of this work. To clear the seeds from a pound of cotton kept one person busy for an entire day. Every evening found the entire family of most planters busy with the uncongenial task of separating

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seeds from cotton. It was only thus that the staple production of many a plantation could be made to yield maintenance for those who were dependent upon it for support.

Mrs. Greene had taken into her home as boarder, Eli Whitney, a young man who had gone South to teach in a private family, but who, on reaching his destination, had found his place supplied, and had thereupon decided to study law. She proposed to Mr. Whitney that they should construct the much needed machine. He agreed, and the work was begun, Mr. Whitney proceeding according to Mrs. Greene's idea, and under her immediate and constant supervision.

The first model, which was supplied with wooden teeth, did not perform the work satisfactorily, and Mr. Whitney was about to give up the experiment in despair, when Mrs. Greene suggested the substitution of wire teeth. With this change the machine wrought wonderful results. So perfect was it that all subsequent cotton gins have been, in all essentials, modeled after it. Instead of one pound, three hundred pounds of cotton could now be cleaned in a day, and the South, which had been languishing in poverty and discouragement, or emigrating to more hopeful fields in search of work, took heart of grace, and found employment at home, while all over the world manufactories sprang up, the price of cotton cloth went down, and a complete commercial revolution was inaugurated. Cotton became king because of a woman's thought.

When Mrs. Greene became Mrs. Miller, she took, through her husband, a partnership with Mr. Whitney in the manufactory of gins.

One who realizes how a woman known to be an inventor would have been looked upon in the year of our Lord 1792, and for years afterward, will not marvel that Mrs. Greene did not proclaim herself maker of one of the most wonderful machines of her own or any other age. Had she done so, the ridicule and scorn of every man and woman who knew her name would have been heaped upon her. She would have been looked upon as a monstrosity of unwomanliness and presumption. A Lucy Stone, or a Mary Somerville, or a Mary A. Livermore might have braved all this. That Catherine Greene did not, has deprived her sex of an honor and an example which were lost to it by her age's manner of thought, or lack of thought.

China, a country which supports such an overwhelming number of people, must long ago have been blotted out of existence but for two things — rice and silk.

Silk fabrics were first invented by the Empress Si lung chi, between three and four thousand years ago. Cotton was unknown to China till about eight hundred years ago, and the inhabitants of that country were almost universally clothed in silk. Even now more than half the garments of the empire are made from this material.

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Silk was introduced to the notice of Europeans during the reign of Alexander the Great, and has since formed a most important article of trade between China and the European nations. Soon after its introduction into Europe a woman of the island of Cos, called Pamphila, invented the art of unweaving it and remanufacturing it into a fabric so fine that it was spoken of as "woven wind," and.yet sufficiently firm to allow of its adornment with embroidery and threads of gold, and to retain beautiful colors. Thus we came to have silk gauze.

More than forty years ago it was estimated that France received from silk an annual profit of over seven million dollars, and the value of the raw material each year is over twenty five million dollars.

The education, the arts, the entire prosperity of the nation hinges on its revenues. This being true, the importance of that which a woman inventor did primarily for China, and through China for all the world, can scarcely be overestimated.

Whenever we see one of the mammoth straw shops which give employment to thousands, and place befitting head gear within the reach of all, we should, if we knew the history of the straw bonnet's evolution, think that here, and in the myriads of other manufactories scattered throughout the country, we have the concrete results of a woman's invention.

In 1798 Miss Betsey Metcalf, of Providence, R. I., sat herself down to form from straw a bonnet which should resemble the costly imported Dunstable concoction which she had seen displayed in a shop window, the latter species of that being much too expensive for the usual New England purse. The maiden succeeded, well in her task, and at once straw hats begun to be manufactured.

Twelve years after the making of that trial bonnet it was estimated that the value of straw bonnets manufactured annually in Massachusetts alone was over half a million dollars. Massachusetts now produces over six hundred thousand straw hats and bonnets annually, and the city of Philadelphia manufactures over five hundred thousand dollars' worth of straw headgear each year.

The Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry still preserves a fac simile of this initial straw bonnet originated by Miss Metcalf.

The invention of engraving is claimed by several different nations, but the weight of testimony is in. favor of the twins, sixteen years old, Alexander and Isabella Cunio, who lived in Ravenna, Italy, in the thirteenth century. This, brother and sister made a series of pictures representing scenes in the life of Alexander the Great, which were executed in relief on blocks of wood, and polished by the sister. It is supposed that the engraving was printed by placing the paper on the block and pressing the hands upon it.

One has only to fancy the riches which the want of engraving would have withheld; the copies of great paintings, the illustrations of books and periodicals,

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the reproductions of geological and ethnological discoveries, the temples and shrines and obelisks and monuments too far afield for poverty to compass a sight of them, but with which the man of humblest means may become acquainted through their many likenesses — one has only to fancy this to realize something of the world's debt of gratitude to Isabella Cunio.

Many countries derive an immense revenue from the manufactory of lace. Lace making is the bread winning trade of over two hundred thousand women. Valenciennes, Chantilly, Lisle, Alencon blond and Alencon point are all pillow laces — and the art of pillow lace making was invented by Barbara Uttman, of Annaberry, Saxony.

About the time this art was invented the mines were less productive than usual, and the embroidered veils which were made by the peasant women were in less demand. Multitudes were out of employment, and great want prevailed. Lace making provided work for thousands, and brought back comfort and happiness to a whole community. The industry spread rapidly, country after country taking it up. Many cities are famous for the variety of lace which they make. Caen and Bayeux are noted for their silk mantles, veils, scarfs and laces. Who does not know Alencon by its point lace? or Mirecourt for its elegant designs in thread lace? In Devonshire, England, seven or eight thousand girls are employed in making Honiton lace.

Lace is the universal ornament. It beautifies the infant's frock and droops over the bosom of the mother. Priests and popes, kings and courtiers, generals and statesmen have found it fitting to embellish their attire. It adds richness to the apparel of the bride, and is handed down from mother to daughter, from friend to friend as dower most precious.

In our own day and country women have been busy inventing many small articles without which life would be harder and labor more wearisome. From October 1, 1892, to March 1, 1895, over seven hundred patents were granted to women. To Lucretia Lester, Cuba, N. Y., a patent for fire escape; to Margaret Knight for a sole cutting machine; to Mary E. Cook for a railway car stove; to Mary F. Blaisdell for a combined trunk and couch.

Miss Cora L. Turner has invented and patented a boiler especially adapted for securing great economy in storage of fuel, and for this reason likely to be of immense service in vessels, rendering it possible to make longer voyages without renewal of fuel.

Miss Turner's father had during his life endeavored in vain to render this idea practical. It was after his death that the daughter took it up and carried it through to a successful issue.

"How to Obtain Letters Patent" is the title of a book which gives many valuable hints to would be inventors. This book declares that although great

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inventions bring more fame, little ones are more profitable. It states that the invention of a certain kind of ink brought its inventor sixty thousand dollars, and a chimney spring was worth fifty thousand dollars annually to its originator. We hear of millions being made by the invention of a shoe clasp, an envelope fastener, and many another equally small and seemingly insignificant things; and these are the kind of articles that women are constantly evolving.

In a paper entitled "How to Invent," in the book referred to, the author says:

"The readiest way to invent is to keep thinking. Inventors should cultivate habits of observation. Examine things about and see how they are made, and how improved."

If "genius is eternal patience" as has been declared, then women should be successful as inventors, for nothing requires more patience than invention. The dreaming tendencies of woman, also, should be a factor in her success as an inventor. Nothing is ever mentally discovered in the noise; everything photographs itself on the imagination "in the silence." Edison says that "women have more fine sense about machinery in one minute than most men have in their whole existence." If one has "fine sense" about one delicate thing why not about others?

The day is probably not far distant when we shall see as many important inventions by women as by men. While it is true of all important callings that "there is always room at the top," it is particularly true of invention, for even our male Morses and Edisons and Wattses do not by any means jostle each other.

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LVI. Women As Business Managers.

THE number of women who are successfully managing large business houses or manufacturing concerns in the United States is not large, but it is annually growing. Those women who have taken such positions have usually been forced into them, in a way, but they have almost invariably proved successful.

Miss Helen A. Whittier, for instance, who is president of two of the largest cotton manufactories in America, did not go into the work from any desire to work, nor did she climb the ladder of success, step by step, as so many women have to do. Her .father was the principal owner and manager of the Whittier cotton mills of Lowell, Mass. Just as age came stealing upon him, his only son was taken from him by death, and Miss Whittier, realizing how much he needed such assistance as only one could give who shared his interest, then went daily from a luxurious home into his office, taking many burdens from his shoulders, and gradually learning the details of his immense business. At his death she was left the principal heir, and with no near male relative who could take her father's place in the business office. Consequently she kept her hold on the position, and was soon elected by the stockholders as president. For several years now she has attended to the details of this cotton mill, and in 1895, built and set in operation the second one in Atlanta, Ga. She is said to be the only woman president of a big cotton factory in this country. She is a finely educated and highly refined woman, mistress of all the so called "accomplishments," and

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president of one of the largest woman's clubs in the country. Miss Whittier, with her gentle, quiet ways and wonderful business ability, is a fine example of what the true American business woman may become.

In a similar way Miss Amanda M. Lougee became the head of a large rubber "gossamer" manufactory at Hyde Park, Mass. She was "silent" partner with her brother tor some years. At his death she decided to look after the business herself, rather than to entrust it to strangers, or sacrifice what she had put into the business. She began in 1879 with the rubber gossamer works, and has since developed the manufacture of double texture clothing, mould work, electrical tape, etc. She employs two hundred and seventy five men and women, and occupies besides a factory at Clarendon Hills, three floors of a large block in Boston, with offices in New York and Chicago. Probably most men who deal with "A. M. Lougee, Treasurer," do so in utter ignorance that they are dealing with a quiet little elderly woman.

Mrs. Harriet G. Minot is another woman who successfully runs a factory, hers being a large woolen factory in Vermont, which came to her from her father as a losing venture, She left her pleasant home in Somerville, Mass. and went to the little country village among the Green Mountains, remaining for several years, studying the best ways of improving her machinery. The result is, that she makes the finest blankets in the world today, although they are sold under the

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private label of a large New York concern — who pay handsomely for the privilege! Almost nobody in the world knows that Mrs. Minot's blankets are her own manufacture.

But she does more than that. She owns four of the principal bakeries in Boston, and she personally sees that they are property managed. She is up at four every morning, and sometimes gets in town before her employees open the shops at six o'clock. She hires all her own help and attends personally to the pay roll and its duties. She is one of the busiest women in the world; but if you were to see her at her club, at home, or in society, with her sweet face and ladylike charm of manner, you would never dream you were beholding an up to date business woman of the period!

Miss Charlotte Bates, of whom mention has been made before in these pages, has built up a very large business in the manufacture of reform underwear. In fact she has made a comfortable fortune; and, best of all, she has used it to establish and maintain a home for little destitute children. Her "Ella Reed Home," at Sharon, Mass. was opened by no less important a personage than the late Phillips Brooks, bishop of Massachusetts; and he called this one of the most beautiful of all charities. Just think what a pleasure it must be to make a pleasant home for motherless little children, and to feel that you are doing it with your "very own" money.

Mrs. Nellie Russell Kimball, of Dunkirk, N. Y., has demonstrated the good results of industry and business calculation. Six years ago, in the beginning of her widowhood, she decided to continue the business left by her husband, this being a coal and wood yard situated near the shore of Lake Erie, entirely away from the active portion of the town. She was a young woman, had just recovered from a long illness, and did not feel equal, in any way, to the work before her, but she went bravely on. Under her excellent management the business has grown and is now large and thriving. In addition to a good local trade, she has the contract for supplying all the coal used by five dredges employed by the government for cleaning the harbor. This contract calls for about three thousand tons. She has to "coal up" two of these dredges every evening. She is her own and only bookkeeper, weighs every ton of coal sent out from her yard, hires and discharges the men and gives personal attention to the care of her horses. She is kind and pleasant to all who work for her, whether man or beast.

Her days are filled with work, which begins at 7:30 a. m. and ends at irregular hours in the evening. She is bright and cheerful and seems to be as happy as she is busy. Quite recently she has added a farm of eighty acres to her business cares.

Mrs. Emma Column Hamilton is the owner of a large coal and wood yard in the same city. She also sells drain pipe, fire brick, tiles, cement, etc. has a

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trusty man in her office, but oversees her books and the business generally herself. Besides this she was president of the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union for three years, when she resigned on account of business and family cares. She was one of the principal workers in organizing the Dunkirk Library, which has been a decided success. She is interested in everything that benefits humanity, a broadminded, progressive woman, loved and respected by all who know her.

Mrs. Ella H. Eddy is founder, owner and manager of one of the most successful manufacturing plants in Worcester, Mass. She manufactures fine overgaiters and leggings, lamb wool soles and machine buttonholes in shoes and clothing, and has a trade in these several productions as far west as Minnesota, and south to Alabama and Florida. She employs her own salesmen, who cover every important trade centre in the country. Bicycle, riding and hunting leggings and overgaiters for men and women are made in especially large quantities. She has a large machinery equipment and some twenty employes.

Another capable woman has made great success as manager of a New York wood carpet establishment, and is in receipt of a five thousand dollar a year salary.

Many instances in New York could be cited where women have succeeded as business managers. A notable one is that of a young gentlewoman who is not only the working manager, but the real owner, of a large and successful photograph establishment, although her name does not appear. This is on Fifth avenue. The young woman commenced at the bottom round of the ladder, and step by step rose to the top. She first was paid ten dollars per week, then twenty, and so on until she received fifty dollars per week. Subsequently she was offered a share of the business, in order to retain her valuable services. When the proprietor had "made his pile" and wished to retire, the young woman had saved enough money from her salary to purchase the business, which she still runs successfully. As an outside investment, this woman photographer has recently built a splendid apartment house. It is original in design, and one of the novelties on the facade, introduced by the architect, is a portrait bust of this same clever and charming young woman.

Some people attribute such a career as this to luck — "blind luck, I tell you." I think there is another name for such a career. The result is gained, I know, by simple, but sure, winning methods — industry, frugality, fidelity to employer, tact, good judgment, and downright cleverness. Let us "give credit where credit is due," and "render unto Caesar," — you know the rest.

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LVII. In Government Service.

MANY young women, particularly those who have been brought up in a political atmosphere, turn naturally to government service when the question of bread winning is put before them. This, perhaps, is natural, for certainly the government does offer many desirable positions which women can fill and fill well, and which are paid at a fair price for the labor performed and the hours observed. Within a few years, owing to the development of the civil service, it has not been so easy a matter to obtain these positions, and only women of education who were able to pass the severe examinations have been considered as candidates. Although a political pull is not without value, and, indeed, may be said to be almost necessary, yet it by no means possesses the power which it did in the days preceding the civil service examinations. After one has passed the examinations successfully, she who brings to her support some Congressman or other officials, is likely to be the first chosen, but a creditable passing of the examination is the first point to be gained.

It is surprising to note the number of positions, civil and governmental, which women are filling. Not only are they clerks in the departments at Washington, and in like capacity in the capitals of the States, but they are also postmistresses, notaries public, deputy constables, legislative engrossing clerks, supervisors and superintendents of schools, overseers of the poor, county clerks, examiners in chancery, and members of boards of education and charity. The latest position of public trust to which a woman has been appointed is that of inspector of streets. Mrs. A. E. Paul, of Chicago, has just been appointed to

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attend to the work of cleaning the downtown business streets of Chicago. It was through her efforts that women were first employed by the authorities of that city to look after its house cleaning. Mrs. Paul has given up all social attachments and other pursuits, and devotes all her energy to the work of cleaning and keeping the downtown streets. There is sentiment in Mrs. Paul's devotion to this most trying work. She is a widow, and when her only child died of diphtheria several years ago, she resolved that the deadly and disease laden atmosphere of the city must be purified. So earnest and determined has she been in this work that the city authorities, seeing her fitness for the task and her devotion to it, put the work into her hands. It is to her the work of salvation for other mother's little children, and it will be done in no perfunctory manner, but in such a way as to prove to every one who sees it that a woman can do for the public thoroughfare what she accomplishes for her own home, if the opportunity is but given her. To one who stops to think of the matter there is nothing surprising about this. Women have been the most devoted members of the village improvement societies which have wrought such changes in the rural districts, giving of their time, their substance and their thought bring about the desired results. They care for the physical cleanliness of their town almost

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as much as they do for its moral purity; indeed, to the average woman, the old saying that cleanliness is next to godliness is an important article in her civic as well as her personal creed.

Rumors have gone abroad of late to the effect that women are being crowded out of government service. If one may judge by figures, that rumor is entirely erroneous. It probably sprung up from the fact that during the last Cleveland administration Secretaries Carlisle and Smith openly announced that no woman's work could possibly be worth more than $1200, a year, and then proceeded to follow their announcement by the wholesale cutting off of the heads of the higher salaried women. Fortunately, this sadly prejudiced opinion did not obtain in other departments and the women were left in their positions, although there were much quaking and terror lest the example of the Secretaries of the Treasury and the Interior should be followed by some of the others.

Recent appointments seem to show that the confidence in the ability of women has been more firmly than ever established, some of the most arduous and important positions having been filled by them. A gentleman resident in Washington, Mr. Rene Bache, has gathered some valuable statistics and facts which will show just what positions are possible to women in the government at Washington. The Indian Bureau is offering just at present the best chances. The available places reserved for women under the Department of the Interior are numerous and well paid. Cooks at the schools and agencies, for example, get $500 a year, and are obliged to do no menial work. Their business is simply to teach the young Indian women how to cook in civilized fashion. It is the same way with the laundresses and seamstresses in that service, who receive from $400 to $500 a year, with the prospect of promotion to the office of matron. Such appointments are well worth having, notwithstanding the fact that the Indian schools and agencies are mostly scattered over the far West. For these institutions matrons were appointed during one year, one each from North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon, and the positions in question are worth from $500 to $600 a year. They are the only offices under government which are accessible to the married. For it is a fact, that the wife of any superintendent of an Indian school or agency is always a preferred candidate for the place of matron there. The Indian service calls also for a great many teachers; of these forty three were appointed during the year which ended on the first of October, 1897. They get from $550 to $660 a year; two of them stationed at Fort Belknap, Montana, and Fort Louis, Colorado, are obliged to give instruction in vocal and instrumental music, besides the regular school branches.

The war which opened so many brandies to women, as well as made bread winning a necessity for hundreds, opened also the government offices. General Spinner, of the Treasury Department, was the first to employ them. A few were

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taken as an experiment. Today the personnel of the Treasury Department is half made up of women who do practically all of the money counting and ever so much more of the responsible work. There are, in all, about 15,000 women in the employ of the government in national offices, and of this number 6100 are in Washington. Of the rest 7500 are postmistresses and post office clerks scattered over the country. The number of women in state and city positions equals, if not exceeds, the number in the national government, and this makes a large army employed in public positions and paid out of the public funds.

Only a few years ago all the women in government employ were on a level of mediocrity so far as status is concerned; they were all in subordinate positions. At present it is otherwise. There are women in places of authority in government service. One of them is chief librarian in the Bureau of Public Documents. Two mere girls were appointed only the other day to very responsible offices, as translators of French and Portuguese in the Bureau of American Republics at $1600 a year each. The women experts engaged in reading illegible addresses at the Post Office Department could not be replaced by equally competent men, and the same is true of the women who dissect and identify the paper money damaged by all sorts of accidents, which comes to the treasury for redemption.

Women are even invading the domain of science. One of the appointments during 1897 was that of a female "agrostologist" from Tennessee at $900 a year. This term, being translated, signifies an expert in grasses, the study of which has been taken up by the Department of Agriculture. Already in government service there are women botanists, women ethnologists, while the most accurate living artist in the representation of insect life is a woman attached to the Bureau of Entomology.

Women, no more than men, shrink from hardships in their search for employment. The government Bureau of Education recently applied to the Civil Service Commission for four women teachers to go to Alaska. The Commission, doubting whether candidates would be easily forthcoming, sent a circular query to the ten highest names on its list. To its great surprise, nine out of the ten replied, they would be glad to go, and of these the ranking four were selected.

The number of women typewriters and stenographers is slowly increasing, ten having been admitted during the year 1897. These get from $600 to $900 a year. The Patent Office has a woman linguist at a salary of $720, whose business it is to translate French and German patents, in order that the patent examiners may know about foreign inventions. Another translator is employed in the Department of State, where she draws $1200 a year. In her examination she stood at the head, with a much larger percentage than any of her rivals. The requirements included half a dozen languages as well as a knowledge of other things which might have troubled a Cambridge senior wrangler. She answered

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everything correctly, and although failing to get the position in the Department of War for which she was trying, she stepped at once into a superior position in the Department of State.

Vanceburg, Ky. and Allegheny, Pa. have each of them a woman deputy sheriff. Miss Florence Klotz, of Allegheny, is a young girl only eighteen years of age, but she serves warrants, summonses and subpoenas with all the authority of a male constable. Miss Klotz's father is an alderman whose regular constable was an old man who had an inconvenient way of being sick or invisible when he was wanted for duty. On one of these occasions the despairing alderman pressed his daughter into service. That settled the matter. The girl constable proved to be the pluckiest, quickest and most reliable one in town. Her first mission was to serve a subpoena on a farmer living four miles out of town. Miss Florence put on her bicycle dress, mounted her wheel, and went after her man. When she came back tired, muddy, but triumphant, she found a crowd in front of her father's office to welcome her. "I served them, papa," she exclaimed, and then, girl like, she cried, even though she was constable. Before she went into the constabulary, she wheeled through Allegheny County, taking orders for her father's candy manufactory. In one case Miss Klotz acted as counsel as well as constable. A butcher had kicked in the door when he found his hallway locked up by the baker, who, with his family, occupied the rest of the house. The locking was by the order of the landlord who demanded that it be done at 10 p. m. Miss Klotz brought her man to court, also served a score of subpoenas for witnesses, arranged the details of the hearing; cross examined the witnesses, and finally had the case dismissed on her own recommendation that each of the parties be furnished with keys. The costs were divided, and the young lawyer constable smiled with delight as she counted over her share. She says she doesn't know what she would do if she ran against an ugly customer, but she declares, with a snap of her black eyes, that she would get him. She is the pet of the municipal court, and if she ever sent word for help the entire retinue of clerks, heads of departments, and underlings, would turn out to the rescue of Constable Florence.

Miss Lillie Fountain, the deputy sheriff of Lewis County, Ky. is a young woman whose first experience as bread winner was as school teacher. She then became an attendant and teacher in the State School for Feeble minded, and left that to undertake the duties of her present office. She is especially successful in dealing with the insane, and her first work in her new position was to take a trip of ninety miles, carrying a woman to the Insane Hospital of the State. She has the respect and confidence of all with whom she is associated, and is already much relied upon by the superior officers.

The women lighthouse keepers are the modern heroines of real life romance. Grace Darling and Ida Lewis were the pioneers of their calling; and the latter,

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who is now known as Mrs. Wilson, is still in charge of Lime Rock light in Narragansett Bay. But there are others of efficiency and courage, whose lights shine for them while their names rest in the obscurity of government records. There are no less than thirty women lighthouse keepers in the employ of the United States. Some of them have been in the service forty years, or almost since the present organization, which dates back from 1852. Mrs. A. C. Murdock, the keeper of the light at Rondout on the Hudson River, and Mrs. Nancy Rose, keeper of the light at Stony Point, were appointed in 1861; Julia F. Williams, at Santa Barbara, Cal. in 1865; Mrs. Maria Younghaus, at Biloxi, Miss. in 1867; and Mary J. Succow, at Pass Manchac, La. in 1873. These female slaves of the lamp are notably careful and conscientious in the discharge of their duties, and it is remarked that they endure the lonesome, monotonous life of the light keeper better than men. The salaries range from $400 to $1400 and the keepers have comfortable houses, with fuel, lights and provisions furnished by the government.

In state and municipal offices many of the clerical positions are held by women, and in one case at least, a woman has been appointed State Librarian. For some years Miss Harriet P. Dickerman was at the head of the Corporation Bureau in the Department of State in Massachusetts, taking the position on the death of its previous incumbent whose chief clerk she had been. By the civil

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service rules she was next in the order of promotion, and the fact of her being a woman did not influence her appointment. She continued in that position, filling it most creditably, fora number of years, when she was transferred to the Archives Department.

In Michigan a woman has been appointed Game Warden for Grand Traverse County. During May of 1897 the State, Game and Fish Warden's Department prosecuted 109 alleged violators of the law and convicted 96, growing out of 149 complaints. All but three of the convictions were obtained for violation of the fish laws, and the majority of these cases were established by Mrs. Neal. The duties of Game Warden are to keep a sharp lookout for violators of the game and fish laws. As Grand Traverse County is densely wooded and has many lakes, Mrs. Neal will be kept busy in seeking out and bringing to justice violators of the law. She handles a gun like an expert, rows a boat, and is a skillful woodsman and knows every inch of the country she has to patrol. She usually makes a trip over the entire county once a week. When out after the violators of the game law, she rides over the country on horseback, and when she comes to a lake, secures a boat and with a steady, swift oar, she rapidly covers her territory made up of water.

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LVIII. Architechts, Civil Engineers And Designers.

THE professions of architect and civil engineer are two in which, until recently, it would probably have been impossible to find successful women workers. Even now the number is not great, but the success of those who are now at work in those lines shows that this work for women is perfectly feasible.

When one speaks of women as architects, the name of Miss Sophia B. Hayden, of Boston, comes into mind as the designer of the superb Woman's Building at the World's Fair at Chicago, in 1893. Even if the beautiful building, looking out on the lagoon where Venetian gondolas floated, is only a dream, now, its memory will always remain as a proof of what women architects can do. The artistic designs of the interiors of several of the separate rooms in the same building also showed what women designers could do.

Two young women who have won success as architects are Miss Mary N. Gannon and Miss Alice J. Hand, of New York, Both came to that city as students at the School of Applied Design, and graduated in the Class of 1894. In the same year they entered the competition for the plans of a hospital in San Francisco, and received the award. This hospital is now completed and in running order, and is pronounced by physicians a model of sanitation, convenience and architectural beauty.

Miss Gannon, when asked about her work, and how other young women could learn it, said: "One can never master the intricacies of architectural drawing except under the instruction of practical architects. Theoretical training amounts to but little; but practical knowledge, the most important thing, we acquired at the school. Of course, one must have a thoroughly good mathematical knowledge, and a love for art is necessary.

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"We make our own measurements, and having made an exhaustive study of the different building materials in the market, we know just how much everything should cost, and can give a correct estimate of expense with every plan. We not only draw our designs but superintend the building in person, except in New York, where an engineer is always chosen for that purpose. Among other buildings which we have put up was one of those at the Atlanta Exposition, and a pretty little Dutch cottage at Asbury Park, called Gretchen Cottage, in honor of Margaret Bottome, of the King's Daughters. We have also built a number of suburban cottages and several in the Catskills and at the seashore.

"A point upon which we are determined is that we will not cut rates. The cheapening in all the departments of work undertaken by women is deplorable, and causes men in the same professions to discourage women, whom they correctly hold responsible for the lowering of wages. This is why men as a rule are opposed to women usurping the professions usually considered as the prerogative of men. From the beginning we decided that it our work was equally meritorious with that of men in the same line, we should demand equal recognition, although we were women. The best architects encourage and praise our efforts. It is from the insignificant: and unsuccessful ones that the opposition comes; those who are not sure of themselves criticise us and are afraid of us as competitors."

Miss Gannon and Miss Hand have made a special study of the tenement house problem. Having finally decided that they could not properly understand

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the conditions which confront people who live in tenement houses unless they lived in one themselves, they hired two small rooms in a moderate class tenement house, had their laundry done there, bought their provisions at the same shops their neighbors did, and in fact lived just like them. Of what they learned, Miss Gannon, writing not long afterward in Godey's magazine said:

"We discovered that the rental paid for these miserable rooms was greater in proportion than that for rooms in the better quarters of the city; that enormous prices were charged for gas and fuel. The conditions were unsanitary, the ventilation poor, and there were no bathing privileges. The poor overworked women were obliged to bring buckets of coal up four and five pairs of stairs, do their laundry work and cooking in a kitchen without light and ventilation, and inhabit with their families an apartment where privacy was impossible.

"After gaining a thorough insight into the habits of these unfortunates, Miss Hand and myself set to work to improve the sanitary conditions of the tenement houses. Our plans have been approved not only by philanthropists, but by practical business men. We believe it is possible to erect buildings for the poor, which shall be healthful, beautiful, and homelike, and where light, ventilation, and every convenience shall be provided at no greater cost than in the miserable tumbledown tenements that families are now obliged to occupy, and that, moreover, they will be profitable to those who invest their money in them. This is in no wise a purely philanthropic scheme, but is intended to provide healthful homes for working men's families who must live in the crowded districts of New York. The tenement house as it stands today is a reproach to the humanitarianism of this enlightened century. It is a crying evil, and one which should be redressed without delay."

Miss Marian S. Parker enjoys the distinction of being a practical woman civil engineer. Miss Parker, when asked to tell how she came to take up this branch of work, said, "At first I thought I would study architecture, because plans and designs had always had a great attraction for me. Then as I became more and more interested in mathematics I came to believe that some work involving that branch of science would be more to my liking. Civil engineering seemed to be just the thing, and so when I was fifteen years old I began in earnest to study for that.

"I had no trouble in getting the education. My father is a graduate of Ann Arbor, so I naturally decided to go there, especially as that school is coeducational. I prepared myself, was examined, and was admitted to the regular course in civil engineering, just the same as if I had been a man. I have no doubt some of the faculty, and perhaps some of the students, thought it strange, but no one expressed any unfavorable opinions or discouraged me. I could not have been better treated than by the professors and the men in my class. I took the regular

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course, except that m the senior year I took architectural work instead of surveying, because I thought that would do me the most good.

"I was fortunate in getting a position easily. I had expected to have to encounter a great deal of prejudice, but this was not the case. I was offered a position with the same salary that is given to men doing the same work, and the same chances of advancement. Two weeks after I had graduated I was at work."

As in the case of Miss Gannon and Miss Hand, Miss Parker has had her attention attracted to the subject of model tenement houses, and she has done a great deal of work in designing and building these. The sufferings which the women in the poor houses in the slums of the cities have to encounter seem to appeal especially to other women, and it is only natural that women who have learned how to do things should desire to plan some way tb help these unfortunate people.

Asked what she thought would be the necessary qualifications for a woman wishing to take up the same work, Miss Parker replied, "First of all to make a success of such a career, a woman must be thoroughly and naturally fond of mathematics. Not merely algebra, and the like, but applied mathematics. Civil engineering is really the application of pure mathematics to construction. Then, too, a woman must be willing to work with all the little intricate and complex details that are part of mathematical service. She must be careful, accurate and patient.

"The whole system is made up of trifles, to be sure, but if every trifling detail is not exact and perfect, serious accidents may occur."

In the office where Miss Parker is engaged she has her desk, table, and high stool, just the same as the other assistants do. For a year and a half she was employed upon the construction of a large hotel, then in process of building. She worked on all parts of the structure, detailing and designing, and making the shop drawings. The shop drawings are the plans for the workmen to follow, and must be absolutely correct, even to the smallest fraction of an inch. The work is of a difficult nature and involves great responsibility. Estimating the amount of materials necessary is another detail which she is often called on to calculate.

The women who are finding congenial and profitable employment as designers is greater than in either of the two classes just referred to. As designers of fabrics, carpets and wall papers it is only natural that they should excel. The usual way in which a woman fits herself for such .work is by attendance upon some art school. Whether manufacturers would accept young women or girls, as some of them accept boys, and pay them a trifle while they are learning to design is a question. At any rate, without the advantages of being in the midst of such

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work the processes have been mastered by women, and acceptable designs produced.

And so scientific education is helping women to "find their places," as Huxley expresses it. To these pioneers in new fields other women look to see proved their abilities, and disprove the old time theories against the limitations of the sex.

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LIX. Women At The Bar.

FOR some reason or other not so many women have adopted the legal profession as have taken up medicine or even the ministry. It seems strange that this should be the case since law, in certain of its forms, is specially adapted to the attention of the woman student. This is specially true of the departments of probate and realty, in which the work lies mostly outside of the court room. The knowledge of law should be much more general among women than it is, so that they might be able to protect their own interests and avoid being drawn into many of the pitfalls which are laid for their ignorant and unwary feet. So important, indeed, is this knowledge considered that some of the leading girls' schools, notably the Lasell Seminary at Auburndale Mass. has every year a course of lectures on the common law given by some leading member of the profession. The president of the school, Mr. C. C. Bragdon, tried the first course as an experiment about the year 1886. The course was given by Mr. Alfred Hemenway, the law partner of Governor John D. Long, now the Secretary of the Navy, and proved so interesting and so helpful that the students begged for a continuation the next year. It has been a feature of the school curriculum ever since and during the later years the lectures have been given by Miss Mary A. Green, a lawyer of Providence, R. I., who was admitted to the bar in 1888. She studied law in order to be independent in transacting the business of a private estate, and she graduated from her class in the Boston University as second in a large class of men, her diploma being

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enhanced in value by the magna cum laude to which only a student is entitled by a high average standard in the studies of the entire course. An exceedingly delicate constitution has prevented Miss Green from engaging in active court practice, but her work has been of a literary character and in assisting other lawyers. She has had published in one of the legal magazines a paper on the extreme technical points of law, which is one of the most valuable of its kind. She is a thorough French scholar and has translated for the Chicago Law Times a work of Dr. Louis Frank, of Brussels, "La Femme Avocat," a history and criticism of the course of women in law in ancient and modern times. In addition to her lecture work at Lasell she gives every year courses of lectures before Women's Clubs and Young Women's Christian Associations. She is warmly regarded by the other members of the bar with whom she is associated, who cannot say too much in praise of the ability of this serious, physically frail young lawyer.

Mrs. Alice Parker Lesser was admitted to the bar in California the same year in which Miss Green was admitted to the bar of Massachusetts. She practiced for a year in that State, then came to her Eastern home and sought admittance to the Suffolk bar. Although Mrs. Lesser, who was then Miss Alice Parker, received her legal education in California, she was an Eastern girl, born and educated in Lowell, Mass. the only child of Dr. Hiram Parker, a leading homoeopathic physician of that city. Being left an orphan, not needy, but with a desire for more and more practical knowledge, she at first, through the influences with which she was surrounded, was inclined to become a physician; but; her health failed, she was obliged to give up her studies, and she went to California to recover; but there she was given up to die and plans and preparations were made for the final return and disposition of her body — not a very cheerful prospect. Destiny had a different road for her. She suddenly took a turn for the better, and in that wonderful climate her improvement was very rapid, and in a very short time she was seen riding horseback and became, a keen huntswoman. With returning health and having her own property to care for, she began the study of law for her own convenience, but its infatuation seized her and she determined to make it a life profession. While Mrs. Lesser is fearless and firm, she has the modesty of true womanhood and is unobtrusive in all her ways. So accustomed had she been to a sexless deference to her abilities, and to being the acknowledged comrade in law, she was unprepared for the different sentiment which prevailed in Boston toward the woman with a defined purpose of a life of usefulness on the basis of value for value received — in other words, toward a woman in a professional and commercial sense. Mrs. Lesser has a good practice, and as a counselor at law, is not only grave and judge like, but her keen wit, dry humor and eminently social nature make her one of the most entertaining of women. While in California, Mrs. Lesser, then Miss Parker, was made referee — that is, a lawyer in prominent

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standing appointed to hear cases in place of the judge and submitting testimony to him — a legal office that does not exist in the New England States, but equivalent there to the Master in Chancery.

The pioneer lawyers of the United States were Mrs. Belva Lockwood and Mrs. Myra Bradwell. Mrs. Lockwood fairly fought her way through opposition. State after State refused to admit her to the bar even after she was fully qualified and passed the most rigid examination. Mrs. Bradwell was the wife of Judge Bradwell of Illinois, and studied with her husband from genuine love of the profession. She was appointed editor of the "Court Register" of the State, a position which she held until her death. Mrs. Bradwell went abroad as representative to several congresses, and was an expert in international law. Her only daughter is also a lawyer, and after her admittance to the bar was married to a young Chicago lawyer, with whom she is in legal, as well as domestic, partnership.

Mrs. Carrie Burnham Kilgore was the first woman lawyer in Philadelphia. She was a school teacher and began to study law in 1875, when such narrow prejudice existed against woman receiving the benefit of a university course, that accompanying the refusal of her application for admission to the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania, was the courteous observation of the dean, that the time for him to resign would be when negroes and women were admitted. Mrs. Kilgore

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persevered sixteen years before she became a recognized member of the bar.

A woman of Bucharest, Roumania, has been given the degree of LL. D. She is held in high esteem in her own country. Her marvelous talents developed early, and at the age of seventeen years she gained her B. A. degree and went to Paris where she studied law for five years, passing brilliant examinations through this period, until in 1889 she received the degree of LL. D. taking the first prize in the final examination. Her treatise entitled "The Legal Position of the Mother in Roumania" was considered the most comprehensive work of the kind that had ever been written, and its five hundred pages showed an extraordinary acquaintance with both ancient and modern law. Soon after the bestowal of her degree Mlle. Bilcesco petitioned the legal authorities of Bucharest to permit her name to be placed on the roll of advocates, a demand which was agreed to unanimously.

Mrs. Anna C. Fall is another successful Massachusetts lawyer, being a partner of her husband in his Boston office, and having an office in Maiden of her own.

Miss Amy Acton and Miss Alline Marcy are the two women who have entered the profession purely and simply to make a living out of it. They are working as a man works, just for money, while most of the others are doing it for pure love of the profession. Miss Marcy occupied an important position with the Massachusetts Title Insurance Company for some time, and is now in the State House at Boston in the Realty Department, her special work being that of looking up titles. She is one of the best authorities on the subject in the State. Miss Acton is at Dayton, Ohio, in the legal department of one of the large manufacturing concerns. She is practically the head of the department, and attends personally to all details of contract and other legal work. She draws a handsome salary.

One of the early lawyers was Mrs. Clara H. Nash, who was admitted to the bar in Maine in 1872, and Mrs. Manila M. Ricker, who does not attend strictly to law, but devotes much of her time to political writing.

In New York, Miss Nellie Robinson has recently won two cases in the Court of Special Sessions, and is being talked about as a rising young lawyer. On being asked whether she would advise girls to become lawyers, she said she would not, unless they were seriously in earnest and felt a special calling for it. "It is," said Miss Robinson, "a hard life. The nervous strain of court practice is wearing even to men, and women are much less able to endure it. I would certainly advise girls to study law as part of a valuable practical education, but I would discourage them from attempting court practice unless it is necessary. It is useless to deny that there is a prejudice against woman lawyers. I mean among the men in the profession. When I first began to practice I had the

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feminine idea of the social courtesy extended by men to women, and I thought everything was going to be perfectly lovely; but I found out my mistake. If I wanted to win, I had to fight tooth and nail. I did it, but it isn't every woman who would be physically able to endure the strain."

A young woman recently graduated at the Union College of Law in Chicago. She is entirely blind, and during the lecture course her mother was her constant companion and read from the text books to her. Miss Lilian Blanche Fearing was one of four students whose records were so nearly equal that the committee appointed to award the scholarship prize decided to divide it equally among the four. The blind girl has already been admitted to the Illinois bar by the Supreme Court, at Springfield, and is said to give great promise in her profession.

Mrs. Ella Knowles Haskell, the assistant attorney general of Montana, differs from Miss Robinson regarding the profession of law as a suitable one for woman. She says: "I think the vocation of law is a good one for women who are willing to work early and late in the interests of their clients, and who will give attention to details, no matter how unimportant they may seem to be. A women taking up the profession of law should have a logical and a reasoning mind, a good education, and should have already learned the indispensable lesson of how to concentrate the entire mind force on the work at hand. She should also possess a good share of sound common sense. With these qualifications, a woman should succeed in law as well as a man, but when we think of the great number of men who never attain success, we must not be surprised if women, bright and clever though they may be, should also fail."

Mrs. Haskell graduated at Bates College, Lewiston, Me. in 1880. She then began to read law with the view, first, of being able to attend to her own business affairs; gradually she became more absorbed in the study, and after three years went to Helena, Montana, where she continued her studies in a law office. She was soon able to pass an examination for the bar, and then arose an obstacle which taxed her best efforts to surmount. Women were not allowed to practice, and she introduced and worked for a bill which, after great opposition, passed the legislature, and she was permitted to appear in court as a full fledged attorney. She is the only woman lawyer in Montana and she has earned large fees. One was for $10,000. In 1893 she was nominated on the Populist ticket for attorney general of the State, and the election was so close that for three weeks it was not known who was the successful candidate. It proved, however, to be General Haskell. Immediately after his election he appointed Miss Knowles as his assistant, and in less than two years they were married.

Other women have graduated from the law schools who have studied simply to be able to manage their own business affairs; in fact, it has become quite the custom for rich women who have large estates to take a course in law that they

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may better understand the value of their property and its wise administration. Among the women who have studied for this purpose are Mrs. Theodore Sutro and Miss Helen Gould, of New York. So far as she possibly can, every woman should know the points of law which will be of service to her should she be left either to settle an estate or to manage a business.

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LX. Chances For Colored Girls.

DURING the past few years colored girls have been coming rapidly to the front and making their way in the professional and business world. Opportunities are opening for them that once were firmly closed, and they are making the most of these opportunities, like the sensible women that they are. Race prejudice, although still existing to a certain degree, is much softened, and the girl of ability belonging to the colored race finds entrance, if not welcome, in almost any vocation which she attempts. This is true more largely of the professions than of the trades, because with broader education comes a broader view, and the men and the women who are met in professional life are more courteous than are those in the lower strata to these new invaders of the field of endeavor.

A great deal of comment has been made on the fact that a colored girl was given a degree at Vassar College with the Class of '97, her classmates and the faculty not knowing that she was of African descent until her college career was near its close. She was called the most beautiful girl in the college, and her mental attainments ranked with her beauty. Tt is no matter of comment because a colored girl entered the Freshman Class of '97 of Boston University, although she was the first colored woman who ever entered the college of liberal arts as a regular candidate for the degree of A. B. The color line has never been drawn at this coeducational institution either in theory or practice, so when Miss Ida Hill, of Millerton, N. Y., applied for admission as a regular student, she was cordially received. She prepared for college at the Gilbert Academy, Winstead, Conn. from which school she was graduated with honor the June previous to her entering Boston University. Dr. Clark, the principal of Gilbert, is a Boston University graduate, and it was through his recommendation that she applied to the college on Beacon Hill. Miss Hill is exceedingly attractive. She has a

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pleasant manner and a face that bears the traces of refinement. She dresses in excellent taste, is pretty and graceful, and altogether a decided acquisition to the college. It is said that the several secret societies, to be a member of which is a badge of social prestige, are all anxious to claim Miss Hill as a member.

Just after the war Miss Charlotte Fortin attracted much attention in Boston by her brilliant translations of the Erckmann Chartrain novels. Miss Fortin was a young quadroon who had been educated abroad, and was a girl with rare qualities of mind. She was quite a protege of Colonel T. W. Higginson, Dr. Samuel G. Howe, and other members of the Boston literary guild. She was the first colored woman to attain distinction.

Cambridge has among its most valued teachers a colored woman, Miss Maria Baldwin, who is principal of the Agassiz Grammar School, situated in the most aristocratic and exclusive part of the University city. Miss Baldwin was educated in the Cambridge public schools, finishing her education at one of the State Normal Schools. On her graduation she applied for the position of teacher in the Cambridge public schools. Her claims to consideration were upheld by many of the leading Cambridge people, and the committee determined to give her a trial. They knew it would not do to attach her to a school in the poorer parts of the city, because the ignorant foreign element, of which these schools were largely composed, would resent the idea of being taught by a colored woman, so she was given a position in the Agassiz school, which is largely attended by the children of the University professors and that choice coterie which makes up Cambridge's most delightful social element. Not only was no opposition offered to Miss Baldwin, but she has been liked and revered as a teacher by the children who were under her training, and her work has been respected and honestly valued by the school committee. She not only kept the position upon which she entered, but by degrees was advanced, until now she is the principal of the school, and Cambridge people would resent the idea of supplementing her by any other teacher.

Miss Baldwin has also been successful as a lecturer, and during the summer of '97 gave one of the lectures in the famous Old South course, her subject being "Harriet Beecher Stowe and Her Work for Anti slavery through the Medium of the Story." No lecture in the course, which had among its other speakers such men as Secretary Long, Mr. John Fiske, and others of the same stamp, was so warmly commended or so enthusiastically reported as the one given by Miss Baldwin. She closed her lecture with some comments on the question of how far the efforts to educate the negro had been successful. She said, the answer could not yet be given, but there were indications to mark what it would be. The hardest thing of all to bear was the contempt of the white race. The white man kept telling the black that he had not the capacity for the highest development. Something, however, had kept the negro from believing that himself. In the little attempt

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here, the little struggle there, there was evident at least an aspiration. Perhaps no more striking addition to this comment of Miss Baldwin on the question of the capacity of the negro for development could be made than to quote one of her own final sentences. What shall be said of a race one of whose women can say this: "It is not easy to tell what genius is, but there are certain things by which we recognize it — intense personal impressions of life; fresh, strong and direct speech: swift, irresistible rushes of power; newness, unexpectedness, exuberance, and nearly every page of, Uncle Tom's Cabin, bears this royal mark."

Topeka, Kansas, has a colored woman lawyer, Miss Lutie Lytle. She says of herself:

"I am not the first colored woman in America who has studied law, but I am the first to practice it. Miss Platt, of Chicago, was the pioneer of my race in the study of law, but she intended to acquire legal knowledge only as an assistance to her in stenographic work. I will practice and make it my life work. I may open an office in Topeka, but my ambition prompts me to begin practice either in New York or in Washington. Those who have taken an interest in me recommend New York.

"I graduated from the Law Department of the Central Tennessee College on September 8, and was admitted to the bar by Judge Cooper, of Nashville, who, although a typical Southern gentleman, was kind enough to me to bid me Godspeed in my profession, and professed a hope and prophecy of my success.

"My favorite is constitutional law, but I shall have no specialty. I like constitutional law because the anchor of my race is grounded on the Constitution, and whenever our privileges are taken away from us or curtailed, we must point to the Constitution as the Christian does to his Bible. It is the great source and Magna Charta of our rights, and we must know it in order to defend the boon that has been given to us by its amendments. It is the certificate of our liberty and our equality before the law. Our citizen hip is based on it, and hence I love it.

"In the North the letter of the Constitution is better observed than in the South, but in the South the spirit of the Constitution is not dead. In the North the colored people are given all the privileges of spending money, but not of earning it. In the South the negroes are given the privilege of earning money, but not of spending it.

What I mean is this: In the South the white people give our people employment side by side with themselves in a most generous spirit, but they are not allowed to spend money side by side with them in the opera house, in the restaurant, in the street car, nor even in the saloon. In the North the people are niggardly in giving the colored people a chance to earn a dollar, and they are generous in allowing them to spend it elbow to elbow with them at the theatre or anywhere else.

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"The South discriminates in punishment for violations of the law as between the Caucasian and the negro. If a poor negro is suspected of a capital crime he is immediately lynched; if a white man is convicted of a capital offence he is given a slight jail sentence. That is not right; both should be justly dealt with and punished with equal severity.

"In connection with my law practice, I intend to give occasional lectures, but not in any sense for personal profit. I shall talk to my own people and make a sincere and earnest effort to improve their condition as citizens. I shall also talk to the white people and appeal to them for fair play to my race. I am not a radical in anything, nor do I intend to be. I believe in efficacy of reason to bring about the best results.

"I conceived the idea of studying law in a printing office where I worked for years as a compositor. I read the newspaper exchanges a great deal and became impressed with the knowledge of the fact that my own people especially were the victims of legal ignorance. I resolved to fathom its depths and penetrate its mysteries and intricacies in hopes of being a benefit to my people. I very soon ascertained that it was more deep and intricate than I first supposed it to be. It requires hard work to master it, if such a tiling is possible at all. It is a great study and I am infatuated with it. I have devoted some time to the study and cultivation of elocution and oratory, and I intend to improve myself in them."

The Boston Herald has on its editorial staff a young colored woman, Miss Lilian Lewis. Miss Lewis is a graduate of the Girls' High and Normal School

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of Boston and began her newspaper career very early after her graduation. Her first position was that of private secretary and assistant to the then society editor, Mrs. Anna M. B. Ellis, now of London. Upon Mrs. Ellis' retirement from the position, it was taken by Miss Lewis, and she filled it very creditably for a period of years. Then feeling that she was capable of stronger and more original work, she gave up the position, still continuing with the Herald, however, and became one of its corps of special writers. When it is understood that the Herald writers are considered among the most brilliant of the newspaper men and women of the city, it will be easily seen that Miss Lewis must have been possessed of genuine ability to attain a position among them. Besides her newspaper work Miss Lewis has written several exceedingly clever stories, and has been so successful in that line that she sometimes threatens to abandon newspaper work for the field of fiction.

Mrs. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, widow of the late colored Judge Ruffin, of the Massachusetts bench, has edited for some time a weekly paper devoted to the interests of her race, particularly to the women. Mrs. Ruffin is a handsome, stately woman, with the airs of a grande dame, highly intelligent and refined. She makes her paper exceedingly bright and full of interest. She is interested in charitable and philanthropic movements and is a member of the Woman's Press Club of New England, as is Miss Lewis also.

Miss Dora Gould, of Dedham, Mass. is a graduate of the State Normal Art School, and has been a successful teacher in one of the race schools in the South. Miss Gould, who also possesses fine literary ability, is a frequent contributor to Mrs. Ruffin's paper, writing many of the book criticisms and articles treating on purely literary topics.

Many girls who have been educated in the schools of the North have gone South and found a fine field of labor among their own people as teachers. The list of colored women of attainment would not be complete without the name of Mrs. Booker T. Washington, the wife of the principal of Tuskegee University, in Alabama. Mrs. Washington is an inspiration, not only to the girls who come under her immediate influence, but to all colored girls with ambition and ability. It is to women like her and Miss Baldwin that the women of the negro race may look for the gradual beating down of the race prejudice which still exists to a marked degree, although it has lessened materially during the last quarter of a century.

With examples like these and that of the other women who have been quoted, the young colored woman of the present and of the future may feel that no path in the professions is barred to her, but that there is work for her hand to do if she has courage and perseverance to attempt it.

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LXI. Trained Nurses.

THE task of caring for those who are ill is one for which, by very common consent, women have always been allowed to be particularly fitted.

Many years ago Sir Walter Scott wrote of woman:

"When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou."

Mothers, sisters, wives, cared for their relatives who were ill, until through many generations of exercise, what may have been at first only the natural maternal instinct came to be developed in some women until they had what was called "a gift for taking care of the sick."

Because they could do the work, of nursing better than other women, and because people must be ill who had no mother, sister or wife to care for them, the work of these self taught nurses came to have a distinct market value. Partly because there grew to be a demand for a greater number of nurses than then existed, and partly because, in these later years, people have come to see that very often, in the absence of the physician, the life of the patient depended on the nurse knowing, in some sudden emergency, just what should be done and how to do it, there began to be a demand for women who should have this knowledge. The trained nurse has been the result.

Compared numerically the number of women at work as trained nurses will always be very much greater than the number of men in the same profession. The writer has asked a successful woman physician, who has been practicing for the last fifteen years in a large city, to write out the results of her observations during this time on trained nursing as an occupation for women.

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"So nearly as I remember now," she says, "the first training school for nurses in this country was established early in the '70's, by an English woman, at Bellevue Hospital, in New York. Since then similar institutions have sprung up all over the country, and the demand for the work of the graduates has been so great that women have flocked to this new field of labor until it is sale to say that the number at work today is at least a hundred times what it was five years ago. As a result, if I was asked what I think about the desirability of women entering upon this line of work now, I should say that I think the field is probably about full. In saying that, however, I should wish to add another statement which I believe to be equally true.

"The women who first became trained nurses took up the work as many men and women study medicine; because they had a special fitness for it which led them to look conscientiously upon this as their ordained life work. Since then the commercial advantages of the field have led many other women to enter it, regardless of the question whether or not they have any liking or fitness for it. The result has been that there are now many trained nurses who will always be of only indifferent ability in the work, and so, while the field may seem to be full, I am convinced that any woman who has tact and a liking for the work, who will thoroughly fit herself, and then is willing to work hard, will find profitable employment.

"Many young women seek this field because they have an idea that the work is easy. A greater mistake was never made. There are rare cases which a fortunate nurse may sometimes obtain, where the nurse's work is little more than that of a companion, but they are indeed rare. In general it is hard, confining work, with long hours, day or night, sometimes both. It is true that very often a young woman who has no organic disease, but who may not have been well, finds herself grow stronger and better after she has been for some time a pupil in a nurse's training school. When this is the case her friends are very apt to think, and say, that this is because the work of a nurse is easy. The real reason is very much more likely to be that the change from the irregular hours of home life to the regular routine of a hospital, and the increased knowledge of the laws of hygiene and physiology, are what has caused the improvement.

"The first thing a young woman should do, if she thinks of becoming a trained nurse, is to go to her physician and be thoroughly examined to see if she is physically well enough to take up the work. If she has any organic disease whatever, she should at once dismiss the idea of becoming a trained nurse.

"Thorough training can be had only at a training school connected with some hospital. As a general thing the larger the hospital the better the school, for the reason that the experience is so much wider. The pupil rnust expect to

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stay at least two years, while the best schools are now extending that time to three years, and recommending four.

"The work will not be easy. The hours in most schools are from 7 a. m. to 8 p. m. for day duty, and from 8 p. m. to 7 a. m. for night duty. Of course there are stated periods for rest and recreation. The young woman who knows nothing of what the drill may be, and goes to her duties expecting to assist at a delicate operation the first day, may be surprised to know that her first task will probably be the scrubbing of floors, and the second, the scrubbing of newly arrived patients, quite likely to be a good deal more dirty than the floors. In time, the other duties come, though, a steady development from one thing to another.

Apropos of the need of training even in these first duties, there came not so very long ago to one of the great New York training schools, seeking to become a nurse, the daughter of one of the most famous poets America has produced. The second day she was there she was set to work to bathe an old woman patient just brought in. In this case ‘scrub’ would have been the better word, for there seemed to be good reason to believe the patient's assertion that she had not taken

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a bath for fifteen years. The new pupil had energy and determination, though, and she did the task set her so thoroughly that the patient died the next day, from the direct effects, so the doctors said, of her bath.

"One advantage about this work has been that the expense of learning has been small, and from the very first there has been some income. The only expense is that of the uniform which the nurses are required to wear, and since these must be of cotton, and must be worn all the time, the cost is apt to be less than ordinary clothing for the same length of time. From the very first, too, the pupil receives not only board and lodging, but a certain sum, even if small, for wages. I think there are some of the Canadian hospitals where the pay is only seven dollars a month, for the first year, but I do not know of any in the States where the wages are less than ten dollars for the first year, and from that up to sixteen dollars for the last year.

"Girls wishing to enter a training school must make application, and then wait until there is an opening for them. The number which can be taken at almost any school is limited, and of late there have been so many would be pupils that it is often necessary to wait some time.

"So far as wages after leaving the school are concerned, the best nurses in large cities, except in some very special cases, can command twenty one dollars a week for ordinary diseases, and twenty five dollars for contagious diseases. From that the price comes down to ten dollars a week in smaller places. The woman who is willing to go out into the country towns and smaller cities will not be able to command quite so high prices as her city sister, but on account of the lack of competition her employment will be so much more constant that I am inclined to think her income will equal that of the city woman. It should be remembered that even if she is to be employed a good portion of the time, the nurse must have a home to which she can come when not at work. The expense of keeping a room, or a suite of rooms, in the town is very much less than in the city.

"If I was to add a word of advice to young women who are trained nurses, or hope to become such, it is to emphasize the need of tact. The difference between hospital nursing and private nursing is very great. Very many trained nurses fail, or at least fall far short of success because they have not the tact to adjust themselves to the changed conditions into which they come to work. It is no less necessary that they be exact, and insist on being allowed to strictly carry out the doctor's orders, but it is possible to do this and still ‘get along’ with the patient and the family. The nurse who does not do this runs the risk of serious injury to her patient from the uncomfortable atmosphere with which she surrounds herself

"Try and put some heart into your work. Don't look upon it simply as a means of earning money. Don't feel that the giving of powders at the appointed

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time, and the shaking up of pillows, are all the duties which you owe your patient."

It was in this special tact and thoughtfulness that "Mother" Bickerdyke perhaps the most famous nurse this country has ever seen, excelled. It was on the battlefield and in the hospitals of the Civil War that Mrs. Bickerdyke gained her reputation, but she had been an experienced nurse for a long time previous, and had supported her two little sons by her work.

Mother Bickerdyke's eightieth birthday was celebrated in 1897. Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, who knew her and her work very intimately, and loved the woman as much as she admired the work, in speaking of Mother Bickerdyke on that occasion, said: "She was the best nurse I ever knew. She had the instinct which led her to know what was the best thing to do for every case. With it she had a heart so big and kind that she would go to no end of trouble to do things to make her patients happy, believing this did quite as much as medicine to recover them.

"I remember once a poor young fellow in a hospital had set his heart on having a baked potato to eat. She had told him that just as soon as it was prudent for him to eat a potato he should have it, but his mind still dwelt upon the coveted delicacy so persistently that finally she went and got four nice new potatoes, washed them clean, dried them, and then warmed them. Then she brought them to the sick boy, for he wasn't very much more, and said, ‘There, my boy, here are four nice potatoes. You shall have them in bed with you, where you can touch them, and look at them, and just as soon as it is safe for you to have a baked potato to eat, you shall have one just like the best of these cooked for you.’ The man was as happy as a child. He hoarded up his treasures, and crooned over them, and was quiet and contented.

"The next day along came the ward surgeon on his rounds. He discovered the potatoes, asked how they came there, and when he knew, tossed them out onto the floor. He was a young man, and did not know Mother Bickerdyke. She happened, to be out of the room, but came in before the round was completed. The potatoes were on the floor, and the man, weak with pain and long illness was crying. It took only a glance for her to comprehend what was the matter.

"‘Who threw those potatoes clown there?’ she asked.

"‘I did,’ said the surgeon.

"‘What did you do it for?’

"‘Because it was foolish and unnecessary to have them where they were. I'm not going to have the beds in this hospital made into potato hills.’

"Mother Bickerdyke swooped down on the potatoes, and gathering them up in her apron brought them back to the bed.

"‘Do you think anything is foolish which makes a sick man comfortable?’ she exclaimed. ‘It can't possibly hurt him to have those potatoes there. I even

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warmed them, myself, so they should not be cold to touch.’ Then to the patient, putting the vegetables back into the bed. ‘There, there, my poor boy,’ said she, ‘don't you feel bad. You shall have them back, and you shall keep them in bed until they sprout if you want to.’ And he did keep them until he was able to eat his potato baked."

The young woman who has Mother Bickerdyke's tact and kindness of heart, and who has fitted herself to be a nurse, need not fear but what she will be successful, and have all the work she wishes to do.

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LXII. Women In Millinery.

"YOU see," said a Boston milliner, "my sister and I at first made the great mistake of locating where there were no other millinery establishments, thinking to thus secure a clear field; and, indeed, the field was so clear that we got no customers at all. A friend with whom we took counsel said: ‘Move at once into the very midst of bonnet shops. People looking for head gear never come into this district, and the people who live near here, even if they patronized you, which they won't, for every one likes to go to a fashionable place to look at things even if she is going to buy a twenty five cent hat, even if they patronized you, their custom would never support you and pay your rent. When places of one kind are near together, if one doesn't find what she wants at one store she will go to another. You are apt, even from the beginning, to catch a good deal of this floating custom.’

"We acted on the advice of our counselor, and here we are in a thicket of milliners. We have done well; better than I expected we should.

"We have these two rooms, and make trimming a specialty. We used to make hats, but we find it pays better and is less trouble to have our customers bring their hats. We, of course, buy individual hats and bonnets when requested to do so. Our second specialty is making over old hats. Our customers sometimes declare the remodeled affair is as pretty as any new creation could be, and go away wearing a half price headgear which looks like brand new. Many people patronize us who cannot often afford a new hat or bonnet, but can comparatively often spend a dollar on what they already have.

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"We take great pains to give our customers just what they want, letting them see that we appreciate and desire to cater to their taste as well as put forward our own."

These two sisters had tried many kinds of work before recognizing, or yielding to, their vocation of millinery. Their motto is that the proper study of the milliner is woman — not merely the shape of her head and face, but her whole nature. Does she choose shapes and colors wisely? Does she need a little less or little more color than she naturally chooses to wear? Must one furnish her with a taste, or be guided by her taste? By this habit with their regular customers these young women have come to be depended upon for decisions or appealed to for advice in scores of cases. By their comprehension and tact, their ladylike and attentive manner, their ability to converse on many subjects, and their interest in the affairs of the day, they have, with very small capital, built up a business which has evidently come to stay.

Moving through the large millinery department of R. H. White & Co. Boston, is a little blonde woman with a vivacious manner and far seeing and pleasant glances, whose comprehension seems capable of taking in a dozen things at once. This woman, Mrs. Georgia Krafts, buyer and designer, makes two trips to Europe each year, designs every special bonnet and hat in the establishment, has entire oversight and direction of the workroom and

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salesroom, taking orders from no one. "Is the milliner born or made?" says Mrs. Krafts. "Both, if she is really to be a success. I was certainly born a milliner. My mother at one time kept two houses in London, employing some of the time as many as fifty girls. She made and trimmed hats and bonnets for all the elite of the city. My uncle declares that I ‘was always in a bandbox.’ My mother says that I never wanted a doll, but used to toddle over the counters, peeping into every box and drawer I came to, and my favorite and always continued amusement was to make tiny hats and to manufacture wee boxes into which to put them.

"My parents lost their property and came to New York, where I was born. I entered the store of Madame Galleapeau, the famous New York milliner, when I was fifteen. Madame had for customers the Astors and Vanderbilts, the Steinways and Heinrichs — in short, all the rich families of the place. I have known her to receive as high as a hundred and eight dollars for one hat.

"I came from New York to Providence, R. I., to take charge of the millinery department in Shepard's; or, rather, to make a millinery department, for there was very little to begin with. We built up a large and splendid business there. From there I came here, being offered a much larger salary than I received in Providence.

"I have never sought places; they have sought me. I have never left a place where I had been employed without sincere regrets, and carrying with me pictures of my late employer and the members of his family. From this close sympathy and good will between my employers and myself I believe much of my success to have resulted. To be in happy and harmonious relations with every one, especially those near to you in space or in interests, facilitates business by helping to keep one well, and enabling her to keep her mind on affairs in hand, rather than dissipating her force by worries.

"Another thing to which I attribute my success is my ability to dispense with memoranda. When a customer orders a bonnet or a hat I make a mental picture of it; photograph it, as it were, on my brain, dwelling intently upon it till its image is so indelibly stamped on my memory that I cannot forget it, and can exactly reproduce it. I require my forewomen to acquire this ability, and thus much time is saved, and much more satisfactory results are produced.

"I take care to have saleswomen who are alert and courteous in manner, deft fingered, and with an intelligent, interested air. It adds much to a saleswoman's value, as well as makes her happier personally, if she is informed upon many subjects besides those pertaining to her immediate business. For this reason I make it a point, when I am with my girls in the workroom, to talk with them, or to them, upon various important and interesting subjects, which not only affords them information, but sets us all to thinking, and renders us eager to learn more.

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"A motto which I have found most useful is, that if a thing has a right to be at all, it has a right to be complete in all its details. I insist that all trimmed bonnets and hats shall go out in neat boxes, delicately papered, and that nothing about them shall suggest cheapness or carelessness. A badly done up parcel is a poor advertisement for any house.

"Where do I get my designs? Literally everywhere. I go to the theatre as much to see the women's headgear as to watch the play. In architecture, in groupings of statuary or single chiseled figures, in pictures, on placards and posters, in the way fences are built, in everything my eyes fall upon I look for a suggestion for shapes. Color and shadings, also, I gather from every conceivable source. The mosses on stone walls, smoke from chimneys, autumn leaves and berries, old gardens where many kinds of flowers are growing, vines, sunset hues, moonlight on different objects, the rings on the necks of pigeons, the colors on the wings of birds, insects, cattle, shrubs, hues in druggists' windows — all these and a thousand more objects give me hints which are carried out again and again in my business.

"While I believe that every one who is to be eminently successful will have one dominating idea, I do not for a moment believe that a one ideaed woman will succeed as well as a many ideaed one. Whatever things one may know besides those things pertaining directly to her business are like frosting to cake — not actually essential to the cake, but making it more valuable and attractive. Every class of women should read and think and converse, and certainly milliners are no exception to the rule. Talent for the work, open eyes, quick and deft fingers and a happy heart are the ingredients which go to make the artist milliner."

The author of "Women in the Business World" quotes a woman who has become wealthy as a milliner, as saying:

"I know of no better business than millinery for a woman who has any talent for it at all. Even if she have but little skill at first, more will come to her if she tries to acquire it, and is in earnest about her profession. I am a classical scholar. I graduated with honors from one of the best colleges, but I have never been sorry that I devoted myself to making bonnets rather than pursuing some of the phantoms women think they must give chase to, if they are educated. My education has been quite as much benefit and as great a pleasure to me in this calling as it could have been had I written books or chiseled statues.

"As for ‘society,’ I have the best, and have never heard of any lines being drawn upon me because I make and sell bonnets. The cowardice of women who are afraid to do this or afraid to do that lest they lose caste, is laughable to me. It is those who have no assured position who are most afraid. They are always indifferently educated, too, you will find. Thorough education rids the mind of all such foolishness.

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"Years ago, when the milliner was a poverty stricken being, bleaching old straw bonnets in a barrel with sulphur, she was not much sought after as an ornament to society, I dare say. Now, when she holds her own in the business world, and is useful in a large way, society — all she cares for — is ready enough to be nice to her. Besides, a woman in business is really ‘in society’ all the time. That is, she constantly comes in contact with others, and so has less need of that which calls itself ‘society.’ In fact, she could not give much time to it — if it begged on its knees. That sort of thing is for those who have time to kill. The business woman has none.

"No; I have never regretted becoming a milliner. I pay $2000 a year rent for my shop, and I own a twenty thousand dollar home uptown.. My account at the bank is good. I have little investments here and there, and I go to Paris every summer. Perhaps if I had turned my attention to what ill informed persons call a higher vocation, I might now be a newspaper reporter, running around armed with a shabby umbrella, and other accessories to match, anxious to ‘write up’ some idle woman's wedding trossean, or describe some actress home toilet. I am very satisfied to be what I am."

The author of the book from which the above quotation is made adds: "Old as this occupation is, it is one of the best paid in which women engage, because a milliner, of necessity, is one who understands her business, who has been trained in what she is expected to do. When employed by others, her salary varies according to her ability. If an expert in concocting confections for the head, she can command almost incredible wages as an employe, or make an enviable fortune as a proprietor. It is said that the Princess of Wales is a very clever milliner, and usually gives the finishing touches to her bonnets, sometimes making them outright. It is well known that she is a skillful dressmaker. Before her marriage she and her sister, now wife of the Czar of Russia, made all their own dresses. The sensible princess has taught her daughters the same art."

Two New York girls started a millinery business by sending out circulars and personally soliciting trials of their skill. At their opening, which consisted of "six ready made bonnets and a cup of tea for all who were good enough to come," they asked their guests to advertise them, which they did in a very generous manner.

They made it a rule to study the individual tastes of their customers, and to "never let a hat or bonnet box go home without a civil note of thanks."

One of their specialties is making second best hats for their customers, utilizing material which has already been used, and which they reburnish and freshen. This, they declare, is the part of the business which pays them best of all.

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LXIII. Manicuring And Hairdressing.

WHAT capital did I begin with?" says Madame Juliette Pinault, manicurer and dealer in high grade toilet goods, a Parisian born but now fully Americanized. "Well, I began with my mother's wrinkles and freckles, or rather they began my business for me, though I never realized that this was so. My mother, poor woman! was more wrinkled at twenty five than I am at sixty two, and her freckles were something terrible. We lived in a little house in Paris. My father was a physician, and from morning sunlight to evening moonlight there was something brewing or stewing or combining that possibly might remove freckles or dispose of wrinkles. After my father died my mother married an analytical chemist, and then the brewing and stewing and combining waxed hotter than ever. All the mixtures were first tried on me, for I, too, was more spotted than a leopard. In the meantime I had been reading, always reading, books heavy as to weight and matter, for I was eager for all kinds of knowledge, and most eager of all for a knowledge of chemistry. Of course, I entered into all the experiments with peculiar interest, and many I made on my own responsibility.

"In delving for a wrinkle remover and freckle effacer we evolved, instead, a number of other things which were valuable as aids to beauty.

"When I had become a young woman I married a handsome officer in the French navy, and was more anxious than ever to be rid of all face blemishes, for I longed to be fair in my husband's eyes. Therefore I worked with added zeal at my experiments.

"In 1875 my husband died, leaving no property, and I was forced to face the problem of how I could earn a living. Naturally it occurred to me to try and turn

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my knowledge of chemistry to account. For several years I remained in Paris, making and selling a few articles. In 1884 I landed in America.

"I was always deeply interested in occult and metaphysical works, and a year after coming to Boston I began studying with Joseph Rodes Buchanan. ‘I am going to make a good living,’ I said to my teacher. ‘What capital have you?’ he questioned. ‘No capital at all outside.’ I replied. ‘It's all inside, but I shall do well, depend upon it.’ ‘Good!’ he exclaimed. ‘I believe you will. I knew a mariner who built a ship with only a bushel of beans to start with.’

"Well, my large hope was my bushel of beans, and with that I set to work. I had only a few dollars. I went to the Young Women's Christian Association on Warrenton street, to board. I got a small number of pupils to whom I gave French lessons, and with the money thus earned I bought materials for a few articles, which I manufactured and sold to the friends or acquaintances I had, and they, in turn, told me of other ladies who might use my preparations, and to them I went, using the names of those who sent me as passports. I learned to do manicuring, and went to people's houses to attend to their hands. I really created a demand for my goods. People seemed to think it was wicked to want to look better than they naturally did, but with my philosophy, and my preparations and manipulations as temptations, I convinced them that the wickedness lay in being uglier than one needed.

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"At last I opened parlors, and my old customers and many new ones came to me. My business has been built up by always acting honorably, selling nothing which was not all that it was represented to be and able to do all that I claimed it would do. I had four articles when I began. I now have eighteen, I make every one of them, and warrant every one as harmless. You see my face. Can you see a freckle on it? I found the effective freckle lotion at last as I and thousands of others can testify, also the wrinkle eraser. Ah! the millions of wrinkles my lotion has done away with! If my once poor tormented mother knows about it she must almost want to come back for a time just to feel how it seems to be where wrinkles cease from troubling and freckles are non est.

"I have now introduced manicuring into the business, and keep two assistants. I am not rich, but I consider that I am successful because I am always well, and have by honorable means built up an honorable business which is still growing, has few fluctuations, and which gives me all the necessities and some of the luxuries of life."

Madame Pinault is a handsome woman, "sixty two years young," who laughs and enjoys, and forges along with a vitality and eagerness few girls are capable of. Her brain keeps evolving some new article for the toilet, and her dreams seem to be pregnant with meaning, for the recipe for her "creme mystique," which is the long sought wrinkle and freckle destroyer, came, she declares, while she was asleep. Her parlors are unique and pleasant places to visit. Madame is finely educated, widely read in the best literature, a chemist of undoubted ability, with the American's capability for business and the Frenchwoman's charm. Although she does not lecture (publicly), she may rightfully come under the head of "beautifier," of which a recent writer speaks thus:

"The professional beautifier is usually a woman. She undertakes to remove all facial blemishes, wrinkles included. She gives practical lectures on how to be beautiful, and furnishes the example of beauty herself. Her pupils are numbered by hundreds, her dollars by thousands. The realm of the toilet is her kingdom, and royally she reigns. Of all lecturers on practical subjects, she has the largest constituency — one that continually increases."

"It is one of the best businesses in the world for women who will keep dignified and true to their best selves and their best interests," declares Madame Alary, of Winter street, Boston, speaking of manicuring and hairdressing. "It has many temptations to vice, but none of them need be yielded to, and when one's reputation is established these temptations are few and far between. I took up the work because I felt that I should love it, and became I so much like to experiment with chemicals. I live at home with my mother, and there I make all my own washes and creams that I may be able to say to my customers. ‘This is this, and that is that.’ There is capital as well as comfort in the confidence of one's patrons.

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"I put $500 into the business to begin with. Many start with much less, but of course it is far easier to make a good beginning if one has some money. I keep four assistants."

Madame Alary is a fine, frank looking woman, bland, serene, gracious, and businesslike.

I recently read the following anecdote concerning two men who were talking about the marvelous success of a friend:

"Everything seems to come to him without trouble," said one. "While others are frantically tearing ahead, exerting themselves to the point of madness, he quietly moves on, and money rolls in upon him, as though each dollar was bent upon reaching him and nobody else."

"I believe I know the secret of it," said the other. "He rides an even sea. That is, he keeps his mind calm, and that attitude attracts what he desires. You call it luck; but it is science, in its way. Look about and you will see that the people who accomplish most are not those who go tearing ahead like madmen. I always try to keep out of the way of people who bang through life, just as I try to keep out of the way of cannon balls, or other things too strongly charged with energy, and too unswerving in their course. The atmosphere of hurry is fatal to achievement. In the silent pool everybody is moved to cast a stone; but the torrent that tears its way through walls and over precipices drives everything away from it. Its turbulence makes it impossible for it to retain anything.

"Our friend rides an even sea. In his mind are no troubled waters. He understands the art of saying ‘Peace, be still,’ to his thoughts and they obey. The quiet of his mind is reflected in his manner, and that makes him agreeable to those who come in contact with him. He is not lacking in energy because he does not thresh about like a wounded serpent. The most irresistible form of energy is noiseless. Then, greatest of all accomplishments, he never speaks hastily, angrily, impatiently, or offensively, — not even in the shadings of tones, and that means that he is already in the kingdom, of which it is said that when we have gained it, all other things shall be added unto us. I do not hesitate to say that the full control of the voice and speech, which rids them of all that can hurt or offend, will be followed by wonderful prosperity. I have never seen it fail. Our words and even tones are fraught with power to make or mar our fortune. We can't be too careful how we use them."

I was strongly reminded of this anecdote by a visit I paid to Miss Rosilla Butler in her beautiful rooms on Tremont street, Boston. Miss Butler is sweetly genuine and genuinely sweet, and serene as the march of the planets. To a remark of mine similar to the above the young girl who was manicuring my hands, enthusiastically replied: "Oh yes, and she is always so. I have been here three years, and I never saw her different. I shall never want a place of my own.

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She makes it so pleasant we all enjoy being here. She takes an interest in all that concerns us. If one of us is ill she is so kind, and she enjoys our fun as much as we do."

Miss Butler, pretty, petite, frank and cordial, moves among the ten members of "her family" as she calls the girls in her employ, speaking kindly to one, smiling at another, careful that thoughtfulness, and justice, and sweetness shall make a magnetic atmosphere about them all. Work goes on like magic, without jar, break or fret, every one constantly and joyously busy. To me all this evoked harmony and happiness seemed this young woman's most valuable success, but she has, largely, I doubt not, in consequence of these, great success in that which would generally be considered a more practical way.

Miss Butler came to Boston at a very early age, having decided that she wished to do something to earn her own living. She was the youngest of eleven children, and naturally no great amount of money was hers. But she had the New England girl's usual heritage, good health, excellent morals, a good common school education, and plenty of energy. She always had possessed a taste and a talent for dressing hair, and doing deft little services about the person. When an opportunity presented itself for her to learn the art of hair weaving and hair dressing she gladly accepted it. She was master of the craft in three months. It occurred to her that she might as well have a shop of her own as to serve another, so she took a small room in the top of the building where her elaborate parlors now are, and began dressing the hair of her old customers on her own account. Business increased, and before long she needed an assistant. She also ere long needed more room. "I came down as my business came up," says Miss Butler, laughingly. She now occupies the whole second floor of a building near the corner of Winter street. Her large plate glass windows command a view of nearly the entire common, and the sun is always with her. An ecru and gold Axminster carpet covers the parlor floor, chairs and couches and cushions, each in excellent taste and perfect harmony with all else, are ranged about, while large plate mirrows magnify the apartment and its belongings. In this parlor the manicuring is done, while the hair dressing has a room to itself. In the back room, which Miss Butler calls "the kitchen," the hair weaving and shampooing are carried on. Miss Butler has invented an electrical apparatus by which drying is accomplished in seven minutes.

All the many washes and creams and other combinations exhibited in the oak showcases are manufactured by Miss Butler, who with all her other gettings has absorbed a considerable understanding of chemistry.

An inexperienced person would scarcely believe that so much happiness and refreshment could be extracted from an hour in a manicuring and hairdressing establishment, as is enjoyed during sixty minutes in Miss Butler's domains.

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LXIV. Dentists And Pharmacists.

WITH the advent of women into the medical profession has come also her entrance into its remoter branches. In dentistry, for instance, she is already a conspicuous factor and the number of women practicing this profession is increasing yearly. The latest data show that there are one hundred and fifty women dentists practicing in the United States. Statistics, however, are difficult to collect; for as one clever and successful representative of the profession said: "You see there are women everywhere, especially in parts of the West, who will practice without a full course or a diploma in States where the regulations regarding such things are not strict. Such women are not, of course, officially registered; but if they were counted in, the total would be greatly increased."

Philadelphia, which has cradled a surprising number of the woman movements of the century, was the first city to graduate women in this profession and naturally the greatest number of them flocked thither, only one dental school — that of the University of Pennsylvania — being closed to them. The Boston Dental College has let down its bars; and though Harvard has not yet surrendered, one of its professors lately said to a woman: "You are knocking at the doors so loudly that we shall have to admit you." Maryland does not admit women to any of its dental schools, and New York State is equally inhospitable, as is also the city of St. Louis.

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The summer of 1897 witnessed the graduation from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery of an interesting woman from Japan, Miss Yasa Nakamura. Miss Nakamura's object is not merely to practice the most painful of the healing arts among Japanese women, but to establish a school of dentistry of her own.

Although not such a steep and thorny way as the entrance into medicine, the story of woman's introduction into the untried field of dentistry is a story of struggle. As has often happened in such cases, the entering wedge was first inserted by a man, Dr. James Truman, of the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery, who, in 1866, in an address to the graduating class of that institution, launched a bomb in the form of a suggestion that women and dentistry were peculiarly fitted to one another. At a date when a female physician was a thing to be shuddered at, the idea of a woman dentist was simply a combination of the outrageous and impossible. Within two years, however, the "eternal feminine" made her appearance in the form of Fraulein Henriette Herschfeld, who, when refused admission by the dean of the Pennsylvania College, appealed to the faculty. She was finally admitted to matriculation, when it was discovered that she had come to America from Germany fully persuaded that in that woman's country she would have no difficulty in obtaining the education she desired; and more than that, she had been promised by the Minister of Public Instruction in Germany that she would be allowed to practice there if she secured her diploma in America. The dangerous precedent, however, was not followed in a hurry by the college, which rejected all subsequent applications from women, until one of the disappointed candidates was admitted to the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery; the first and last woman ever received there. This spurred the rival college in Pennsylvania into formally opening its doors to women, in which it was followed by those of other States.

The National Woman's Dental Association was organized in Philadelphia about the year 1892, and in 1897 had about fifty members all over the country.

Now no one worries about the woman dentist. The tender solicitude over her health, always shown when woman enters a paying profession, has subsided; the discourtesies first offered her by masculine rivals have been exchanged for the hand of fellowship — and she is making money. One of these successful practitioners said recently: "It is because there are so few of us that women seem more prosperous in this profession, comparatively speaking, than men. It is not such a choked up ‘opening’ as most of those we hear about for our sex. Woman's tact and dexterity peculiarly fit her for such work. People have asked me how women can bear constantly to inflict pain. We don't inflict pain, we relieve it; the pain is inflicted by nature." Someone, describing a call on a woman dentist, ends the story as follows:

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"My last glimpse of her through the half open office door showed her hovering over a small boy with a rubber dam in his mouth, who was so occupied in round eyed amazement, listening to her story of the wicked microbe family, and how they tried to take up their abode in good children's teeth and spoil them, that he occasionally forgot to howl in the right place — thus scoring the greatest of triumphs for the woman dentist."

Another of medicine's appended professions, into whose mysteries women have penetrated, is pharmacy. At the New York College of Pharmacy a feature of the fall term of '97 was an unusual number of women students. In the spring of the same year six young women passed into the senior class, and in anticipation of the largely increased attendance, the accommodations for women were enlarged and the woman's room changed from a contracted space on the ground floor to handsome and commodious quarters joining the lecture hall. In speaking of the marked increase in the number of woman students of pharmacy, a trustee of the college says: "Eventually the retail drug trade will pass into the control of women. It is a business suited to intelligent, wide awake women, and they seem to be developing a taste for it." One of the professors says:

"Women are particularly fitted for work in pharmacy. They are naturally neat and delicate in their handiwork. The average standing of women is better than that of men, so far as can be judged by the small number who have entered. The women are hard students, perhaps because they realize that, being few in number, they have a record to make. It is very possible that if there were more of them, they would not do so well. The best women are not up to the standard of the best men. They have not the ability of the men, for they have not had the years of training, which undoubtedly makes a great difference. It is the story of the tortoise and the hare. Industry will accomplish more than genius alone.

"There is one obstacle in the way of women securing good positions as pharmacists. There is always a chance of their marrying after a few years of service. A man who wants a clerk will be apt to say, ‘A student is of no very great service, anyway, at first. A woman will do no better work than a man, and then, just as I get her well trained, she is going to be married and leave me. If I take a man, he will stay and become a great value.’

"So he puts the woman behind the counter or at the cashier's desk, where she will be attractive, and takes a man for his more serious work. Pharmacy is not now so attractive to men as formerly, because of the reduction in pay. That does not affect a woman so seriously. If she takes it up to make a livelihood, she is well; satisfied to receive from $40 to $60 a month."

A woman who has made a notable success as a pharmacist is Mrs. Cora Dow Goode, a young woman not yet thirty, who owns and controls four prosperous drug stores in Cincinnati. The last one of the four to be opened is said to be one

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of the most magnificent establishments of its kind in the world. Mrs. Goode owes her success entirely to her own efforts, as she began her business career without capital. She inherited neither stores nor wealth, and all her property and all her professional success were won by her own industry, alertness, and attention to business. How many young men of the same age are there in the United States who have achieved so much in so short a time?

Mrs. Goode is not only a thoroughly equipped pharmacist from the scientific standpoint, but is, besides, a practical business woman of extraordinary foresight and sagacity. Her father, Mr. E. B. Dow, was for many years a well known wholesale druggist in Cincinnati, but a stroke of paralysis at the very prime of his life incapacitated him for business, and his successful career came to an untimely end. This was when his daughter was yet a child. Nevertheless, although but sixteen years of age, and knowing nothing of the business, she determined to do something, and accordingly opened a drug store in the city. A hired clerk who possessed the necessary technical knowledge supplemented her own labors and everything moved along as it should in a well conducted pharmacy. Every spare moment was spent by the young proprietor in studying the rudiments of her profession and in acquiring the art of making the receipts exceed expenditures. Her capital was limited and she found herself again and again handicapped on this side and on that; but in her bright lexicon that well known and too familiar word "fail" was wanting, and she passed successfully through this critical period of her pharmaceutical existence. At seventeen the State Board of Examination was wrestled with and triumphantly overcome. Encouraged by this, she immediately entered the department of pharmacy of the Cincinnati University and had the distinction of being the only woman in a class of seventeen. She graduated at nineteen, although at first there was some trouble about her diploma being conferred, since it was never given to young men until they were twenty one. This obstacle, like all others, was overcome and she found herself a fully fledged pharmacist with a business so increased that she was compelled to open a second establishment. This was followed by a third, which was for a long time the only all night drug store in Cincinnati; and, finally, by the fourth and largest.

Mrs. Goode attends personally to the details of the business, does all her own buying, writes her advertisements, and arranges her displays. She is a firm

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believer in advertising, and has prepared several articles of her own which she sells through a mail order department, already grown to be a most important feature of her business. With all this, she is intensely feminine — the strongest proof of which is, that she always adds postscripts to her letters. She is very fond of music and intended to make it her career, but she has become so much absorbed in the details of business and finds it so remunerative that she is satisfied to depend now on music for amusement and recreation alone. One chief article of her creed is, that a woman's work, like a man's work, is gauged by ability.

Other girls and women are finding good livelihoods in this profession, but none of them, so far, have attained the position of this clever, keen, shrewd Ohio woman.

Miss Sophia B. Cowles, of Johnson, Vt. entered the drug store of her brother in law more than a quarter of a century ago, and learned the business so thoroughly that when reverses came to him she was able not only to buy the drugstore, but to carry it on alone, doing a thriving business for several years. When, after a trial of other kinds of business, her brother in law wanted to go into the drug business again, Miss Cowles hired him as head clerk for a while, and later took him into partnership. Today the firm stands as "Holmes & Cowles," and she is the active head, doing the buying, putting up prescriptions, etc. while everybody in the town feels perfect confidence in her skill and honesty.

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LXV. Printing And Publishing.

OPPORTUNITIES for women to work as printers, editors and publishers, have been possible for a longer time than in many other occupations, and yet here the field is rapidly widening. In years past, when all typesetting was done by hand, women were very frequently employed, their deftness of touch and quickness of motion making them particularly skillful. Nor has the introduction of typesetting machines driven them from the field. Many women now become expert in operating these machines, and when they have done so, are able to earn excellent wages. The supplementary branches of the printers' work are being constantly made more available for women.

Of women publishers, the name of Kate Field suggests itself first. Her "Washington" was original with her, and she made it eminently successful. Mrs. Nicholson, of New Orleans, took charge of the Picayune of that city upon the death of her husband. Mrs. Anna M. Grogan, of Hartford, Conn. upon her husband's death succeeded him as editor and publisher of the Telegram, and for several years has conducted the paper in an exceedingly able manner. Miss Jeannette Gilder is associated with her brother as editor of the Critic. Mrs. Annie L. Y. Orrf, of St. Louis, edits and publishes the Chaperon Magazine. The Household Realm of Cleveland is published by a woman. Miss Marilla Andrews, of Evansville, Wis. assisted by her sister, edits and publishes the Evansville

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Badger, and Miss Helen M. Winslow is publisher as well as editor of the brilliant new magazine, the Club Woman.

One of the most conspicuous successes in this line of work is that of Miss Kate E. Griswold, of Boston, who publishes "Profitable Advertising." Her success is the more gratifying to women from the fact that such a publication as hers calls particularly for that executive business ability which women are sometimes said to lack.

Miss Rena Challender, of Manistee, Mich. enjoys the distinction of being, so far as the writer has been able to learn, the only woman at work as foreman of a daily newspaper office. Miss Challender's position, and her very notable success in it, have been honestly earned, for she has worked herself up from being simply a "printer's devil" to where she is now. She has fed the press, done job work, run the engine, and, when necessary, sat down and written copy. As a result, she has gained a thoroughly practical knowledge of all the details of a printer's work.

Miss Challender's home was in a village in Michigan. When she was fourteen years old she was apprenticed to a printing office where a paper with "patent outsides" was published. From a brief story of her experience which Miss Challender wrote for the News, certain paragraphs have been quoted because they seem to have such a practical bearing on just the points which this book is intended to emphasize.

"From this office," Miss Challender says, "I went to a daily newspaper office in the city, where I came into competition with men. Many difficulties were encountered, but they were surmounted by careful attention to business. Without wishing to set myself up as a superior to the women who were my fellow workers, I could not help noticing that I easily gained the goodwill of the men workers by attending strictly to my duties, and not asking assistance for every move I made. The others seemed to require so much attention, and ‘I can't’ was often upon their lips, while my conduct was governed by the instructions of my first employer, who taught me not to care what the ‘other fellow’ says does or thinks; never to grumble; to pay no attention to the work of others; to have a pleasant word for all; and to do my work so that the foreman would not be compelled to do it over.

"Early in my experience I found that men were prejudiced against women because the majority are willing to work for lower wages, and to do a man's work — or attempt to do it — on half the salary given to men. If a woman can do as much as a man she should be paid accordingly, and if there is a trade union in her vicinity she should join it and demand equal rights. Most unions are now open to women workers.

"By following this plan I received my just dues and wages, and was made ‘foreman’ of the composing room of the afternoon daily after serving one year at

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the case, and was also entrusted with the mechanical department. There were in the office four presses: a large cylinder, a pony cylinder, and two small jobbing presses. I held this position for two years, and was then sought out to assume charge of an illustrated eight page morning newspaper where none but women were employed. I attended to the making up of the paper and acted as foreman of the office.

"In my opinion there are few professions or trades that a woman cannot enter, but to maintain her position she must closely follow the independent line. I am aware that employers usually insist upon paying a woman or a girl small wages, taking advantage of her generally too helpless condition.

"I do not think there is any other business from which a woman can derive more satisfaction than that of printing. It is like music to me to hear the click of the type as it tails into the stick, and the buzzing sound of the old press as she turns her papers out on the ‘fly.’ Girls who are starting out as I did will do well to note some of the rules I adopted. Never say ‘I can't,’ but go ahead and do the best you can and you will succeed. Learn the printing trade, learn to operate the machine, for our typesetting days are over. There is always work for a good competent woman compositor. I have never been without a position. Whatever you undertake, go at it with the idea that you cannot fail and must succeed, and you will surely win."

Boston enjoys the distinction of having a successful woman job printer. Miss A. Florence Grant has now conducted a printing business in that city for eight years, competing successfully with the men in the business, doing almost all kinds of work, and giving the best of satisfaction.

Miss Grant was born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, in 1870. She says that she always thought she wanted to go into business for herself, but that as a child, she thought she would like to be a grocer. The printing business, she says she grew into, influenced perhaps by the fact that when at the Wakefield High School she

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helped edit the school paper. Her knowledge of her business has been thorough and practical. Before it had grown to its present proportions, where all the proprietor's time is required in the office to attend to the executive department, she was able to take a hand at any of the mechanical details.

There is no evidence of femininity about this printing establishment except in the personality of its fair but business like proprietor. The sign on the door which indicates the character of the business tells nothing of the sex of the person whose name is given, and so "Grant, Printer," frequently receives visitors who are greatly, astonished at being met by a slender, refined appearing girl as representing the head of the establishment.

Seated at her desk in her private office she figures upon "contracts" with as much ease as the society girl reckons up the dances on her card, and with speculations that are doubtless more surely realized.

Miss Grant's experience, like many another business woman's, testifies not only to the genuine respect and substantial patronage which men accord a capable, business like woman, but also illustrates the fact that woman is woman's friend, and that no feelings of petty jealousy ever prevent a woman from extending the hand of sisterly fellowship to a brave woman comrade, and while doing all possible to encourage and assist her, experiencing a true sense of pride in the success which means not only personal benefit, but reflects credit upon the entire sex.

Of this matter Miss Grant herself says, in a paper which she read before a business league:

"When a woman enters the business world the first question is, ‘Is she a business woman?’ If so it will quickly be seen; and then she will receive the most courteous treatment from both men and women. The meeting in business is on a more equal basis than any other, and it is in this realm that the true nature of our fellow creatures is seen. A business woman of today has received her business education in a much shorter time than a man. He is trained from early youth to his career, while the girl is usually overtaken by circumstances and has to learn through experience many things which the boy has been taught.

"We so often hear it said by parents that they would like to have their daughters do something, but they do not wish them to work hard. They talk thus instead of finding for what the girl's capabilities fit her, and then training her for some definite purpose. Work, and hard work, are but synonyms for what one dislikes to do. Given a congenial occupation, and the energies of the worker may be pushed to their greatest and highest capability for endurance without making the work anything but pleasure, and the individual, the community — in fact, all the world, are the gainers thereby. To the mother who knows little or nothing of the business world it may seem hard to think of her daughter spending

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so many hours daily in an office. She may think it much easier for her to remain at home doing the sweeping, the cooking, or the fancy work. But to many, very many girls, housework is the dullest monotony, and it would be much more agreeable to be engaged in some occupation adapted to their talent. Office work may be the same routine each day, but the different characters one meets, the interchange of thought, the knowledge of the happenings in the world keeps one's brain active and gives one a great calmness in times of necessity, developing and strengthing one as nothing else can.

"For about three years my business was mostly with men, and I found them always courteous and kind. Since then I have met many women, and that has increased the pleasure I have felt in my work. There is true happiness in the business life if one enters into it for the sake of business itself, but if one does it ‘because it is the fashion,’ or ‘for the good of the cause,’ the results are dire in the extreme, both to one's self and to every one coming in contact with the business conducted on such principles. What is needed for success is a polite independence, and good will to all."

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BACK in the dark ages for women — and they were not so very far away, either, when one comes to think of it — the question was asked why need girls be taught arithmetic, because even if they had the brains to comprehend the science of numbers, they would never in later life have any opportunity to use it.

Those days passed; but it is only since we have been going down the last half of this century that business men began to realize that women not only could learn arithmetic, but practice it. Now, the number of women doing satisfactory work as bookkeepers and cashiers is legion; and while the opportunities for very great advancement may not be possible in this work, as in the, professions and in business, the number of women who earn a comfortable living salary is probably as great as in any other line of work. That they are efficient is shown by this very fact.

William Ellery Curtis, writing of life in Washington in the Chautauquan for September, 1897, says: "Nearly one fourth of the employes in the executive departments are women, and it is the universal testimony of all unprejudiced officials of experience that they maintain a higher standard of efficiency than men in this clerical work. This is even more noticeable in those branches of the

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treasury where bonds and money are to be handled. A treasury ‘countess’ in the redemption division, where worn out money is exchanged for new, or in the division of issue, from which all bank bills and greenbacks originally proceed, is unsurpassed for accuracy and acuteness in all the banking world. There are women in those offices whose instincts enable them to detect a counterfeit note almost by the touch. There is one woman who has testified as an expert in nearly all important lawsuits involving the genuineness of money, and she is regarded as the highest authority on that subject. There has seldom been a woman thief in any of the executive departments or in the post offices throughout the country, although the agents of the secret service are constantly making arrests.

"As clerks and correspondents women are equally efficient, and they often accomplish more than the men, although they are not promoted as rapidly and do not receive the same salaries. The highest compensation paid to a woman in the government employ is $1800, and there are only two or three who receive that amount. Married women are not allowed to hold positions if they have husbands or sons to support them, and the majority of women clerks have obtained their positions through competitive examinations. The old system of political patronage did not offer them as many opportunities as are afforded by the new system."

The great number of business colleges which have sprung up all over the country furnish instruction in the theory and practice of bookkeeping which undoubtedly gives a pupil in such a school a. very great advantage both about getting a position and taking up the work after the position is secured. At the same time the details of the different enterprises, and the individual methods of different employers vary so much that experience must be the last and best teacher.

In connection with this question of experience the writer has asked two young women, each of several years' experience, and successfully holding positions as bookkeeper and cashier, to answer certain questions, and give briefly an account of their own experience, as a help to other young women who may be wishing to take up the same work.

The questions asked were these:

"How did you first happen to take up the work; by chance or design?

"What were some of the principal difficulties you encountered at first?

"Does experience enable you to guard against these, or are new difficulties liable to arise at any time?

"Do you find the work pleasant? Tiresome? Hard?

"Do you think the pay is in general satisfactory?

"Do you think the field is full, or is there room for really competent women?

"General suggestions."

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To these the bookkeeper made the following replies:

"A successful bookkeeper asked me to study with her. After a course of private lessons there came an opportunity for me to open a set of books for a new business. From then on circumstances were such as to lead the way for me. Possibly the counting room would not have been my choice had some other field been open and promising of remuneration. The instruction I had received was invaluable in my work.

"There have been no difficulties except such as have been easily overcome by conforming to the main principles. The double entry theory being clearly in mind, details will vary to suit the business in hand.

"New emergencies are likely to arise at any time, but experience as to the best methods is of value, and, there are principles which are invariable.

"All three. The occupation may be said to be in some degree menacing to health because of the close application for so many consecutive hours. Longer periods for rest are needed than the ordinary vacation limit. The need for rest equals that of a teacher.

"There are instances in which the pay is very satisfactory. In general it is less than the value of the work. It is a field where many a woman does better work than a man would do in the same place, and as a whole she receives a. smaller compensation. The qualifications of patience, accuracy and close attention to detail mark her work.

"It is best to be as well prepared as possible. At the same time, the novice must continue to be teachable, and to learn new lessons constantly impractical work.

"There will always be room for the really competent, but the field is full of applicants, and it takes opportunity for ability to make itself evident.

"There is a field of effort in the counting room wider than would be supposed. A study to effect the best economy of time, to employ the best and simplest methods, to make the clearest and most intelligent showing of values accrued, and of expenditures, to present helpful analyses and ration of expense — these suggest that the arithmetic of the counting room goes further than the ‘rule of three.’"

The cashier, whose duties also include some portion of the bookkeeping of the establishment where she is employed, says: "Mere chance put me in the position I now hold. I entered the office as billing clerk. One day I was told I must help the bookkeeper, and take charge of the cash drawer, for a few days. This I did with fear and trembling. I had not had any experience whatever. In school I had studied bookkeeping, but of practical knowledge I had none.

"I shall never forget my first day, or rather night, for the night before I began my new duties I went through the whole day's work. After a few days I was told that I was to remain in the position of cashier; and here I am still.

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"Experience I do not think is really necessary, provided one learns quickly, as each person has his own way in which he wants his books kept. It is well, of course, to have a good idea of the general principle of bookkeeping. It is necessary to understand banking, discount and interest, notes payable, and notes receivable. One will gain more from one week of practical work than from two months in a school or college.

"I find my work very pleasant, and enjoy it greatly. It is really fascinating, and after a holiday I am always eager to get back to the office. The work of cashiering is not an easy task, because there is so much responsibility attached to it. Unless a girl's whole heart and soul are in it she should not attempt it, for she will not succeed. The work is very wearing, and if a girl is of a nervous temperament she had much better try something else."

The writer has also asked the president of one of the oldest and most successful business colleges in the country for a brief summary of his observations of the work of women in this field. He says: "There is an army of women employed now as bookkeepers and cashiers. It may be said, then, that the field is full. In a certain sense it is full, but the trouble is, both for the women who are at work, for those who want to go to work, and for too many of the employers, that a large proportion of the young women who take up this work do so simply as a stop gap between school and marriage. The woman who is willing to really fit herself for a position, and then do her work carefully and conscientiously, not all the time keeping one eye on the clock and the other on the boys, will never need look far for a place, and a good one, too.

"Of course, I believe that the best way for any one to fit for the work is to take a thorough course of instruction at a good business college. The time which should be required for this varies, in different pupils, with their previous training and their ability to learn. Many pupils learn all that is necessary in six months; others require a longer time. In addition to bookkeeping, arithmetic, and penmanship, the pupil should study banking, and commercial law. Rates of tuition vary from about $40 a quarter of ten weeks, to $120 a year of forty two weeks. There need be few extra expenses, except board. Thoroughly trained and competent women bookkeepers earn from $15 to $25 a week. Less able women, employed by smaller establishments, cannot command as high wages. Cashiers, as a general thing, require less training, and get less pay.

"So far as the comparative ability of women to do commercial work is concerned, I should say that the average woman is quite competent to take charge of the books of the great majority of business enterprises. Moreover, there will be, in every city, a few women who have developed so much talent for this work that they are the equals of any men, and perfectly competent to take the entire charge

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LXVII. Up-To-Date Rich Girls.

WHAT may be a sign of the times is disclosed by an analysis of the plans of a class of fifteen girls who have recently completed the three years' course in one of the best of Boston's private schools," said the Transcript of that city recently. The word "best" is used advisedly, and in its broadest and deepest sense; it is meant to stand not only for the kind of people from whom this school draws its patronage, but also for the high character of instruction which combines with the culture of modern Athens the enlightened Christianity of the best thinkers of this city.

Though not one of these fifteen daughters of wealthy parents has any idea of earning her own living, all have more or less definitely mapped out a life of useful activity and work. A few years ago for such young women to be simply "society girls" would have been enough. We have said that no girl in the fifteen has any idea of earning her own living; all have been taught to realize that every place filled and every salary drawn by women upon whom neither stern necessity has laid her imperative hand, nor special talent called with a constraining urgency impossible to misunderstand, deprives some other woman of her rightful work and wage.

Quite different from women who clamor for well salaried positions which they do not need will these fifteen be. Three will, in college, go on with their studies; three will, while traveling abroad, strenuously strive after deeper knowledge and

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further cultivation; two, who are motherless, will immediately assume the duties, social and domestic, appertaining to them as heads of their fathers' households; one, with a decided talent for music, will this winter continue her violin studies in Dresden. Thus it will be seen that nine, or more than sixty per cent of the class of fifteen, have distinctly before them working futures.

Six girls remain. Superficially, this half dozen might be said to come in the category of "society girls." They will be introduced by their mothers to the fashionable world, and, being bright, healthy girls, they will probably get a fair share of fun out of the frivolity about them. Yet, though they will be "in the world," they will not be "of it." One has already begun to stir up interest in a working girls' club, and another has gone in for sociological study with a fervent desire to "come over and help." The four who remain have not yet expressed themselves as to their intentions, but it is fair to assume that they, too, will be more than mere self indulgent seekers after amusement.

A deep sense of their responsibility as privileged young women to those less rich in opportunity animates the girls in the school in question, and shows itself in desire to help other girls. Certainty this bodes very well for American women of the twentieth century. College settlements and working girls' clubs are breaking down the barriers between classes, and, while the wage earner is being taught English composition, French, German, and music, her privileged sister is coming to realize that only by setting herself a purpose in life, — and that, too, an unselfish one, — can she do her duty in the world, and, incidentally, find the truest and most lasting happiness there is in it. With the tailoress, the educated daughter of today is crying for "more life, and fuller," and, while the one refuses to let her soul be bound by the four walls of the workshop, the other discovers that the narrow line of conventional "society" does not of necessity define her life's pathway.

The following faults of commission and omission in women's colleges in America were recently suggested in conversation to a prominent American woman by a college bred newspaper man. They were stated in a spirit so fair and friendly that I thought them worthy of transmission to the columns of the Critic, and submit the memorandum again to yon as a contribution to one of the most important studies now before our people. Under none of these heads do I mean to indicate that there is an utter lack of these things.

FAULTS OF COMMISION.

1. Too Great Emphasis of Literary and Scientific Life as the Life Really Worthy of a Woman. — This seems to be the only life for which some of the teachers care, and the only ideal of life which they, by precept or example, hold up to women.

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2. Imitation of Man. — In their effort to prove their capacity and the quality of their college work equal to man's, many women strive to make their capacity and quality identical with man's. This is unworthy of womanhood. Men's colleges have many faults which women, starting at this late day, could avoid. At the — Annex it is possible and desirable to correct faults and make advances impossible in — University. But a — professor (also professor in the Annex) says that the women will not have any improvement; they wish just the same education as the college man, not a better one.

3. Women's Education a Fad. — College education is held up before all women as desirable. Many women who lack strength of mind or body weaken what they have in the attempt to do what a few can or should do. Women sacrifice vigor which would otherwise tell to the advantage of men and women, in the attempt to re create their nature and capacities, and they utterly fail to develop already created capacities and ambitions. While women of too widely varying natures enter college, the college seems to be planned for a too limited class, often apparently for teachers. This makes the contrast all the more dangerous between the too wide range of women and the too narrow curriculum.

FAULTS OF OMISSION.

1. Lack of Physical Training, for (a) purposes of recreation and proper balance of bodily and mental work in college, (b) future health, and (c) the duties of wifehood and motherhood. Women's colleges are not responsible for all the ill health of their students in and out of college, but it is one of the special functions of women's colleges — through their more experienced trustees and teachers, and alumnae — to look this question more squarely in the face in the attempt to solve it for all American women.

2. Lack of Social Training. — Many of the teachers themselves have no social capacity. They do not care for humanity as much as for books, or they are sadly lacking in ability to express their interest in mankind. The over emphasis of the literary life prevents recognition of the claims of the social life among those teachers who have social capacity and trained social tact. The woman's college seems to fail to show the possibility of the development and expression of the intellectual in the social life. Women have the power and opportunity to do this in America. They should not put thought into social relations during their four years in college. Throughout I use "social" in a wide sense, including social events, conversation, friendships, mingling with men and women social helpfulness, and the; problems of mankind as bound together into a society with physical, artistic, ethical and religious needs.

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3. Lack of Refining Influences and Tendencies. — Women themselves recognize this in their college life. It is painfully apparent in some cases to men. Women can point out the way, if anybody can, to a "fine art of conduct" in dress, bearing, thinking, speech, and in a delicate sympathy that has real helpfulness and real tact. It is hard enough for men to attain and retain a wholesome and pervading refinement; and we look to women to set us the example, to hold up before us the ideal, and so in both these ways to make this refinement a pervading force. A member of one of the oldest and best Eastern women's colleges, a girl who is apt to be over loyal, told me that she did not think one would find much refining influence in this college. Under this head I find both an absence of helpful and a presence of hindering influences.

4. Failure to Hold Up the Ideal of Wifehood and Motherhood. — I do not forget that some women do not care to marry, and that some are not fitted to do their best work as married women. But a woman's college should present and rightly prepare for the duties of womanhood. In — College every teacher is, I think, unmarried, except a very few, who are widows. Is it not rare in other colleges to find women teachers who are, or have been, married? Does not the almost exclusive presence of unmarried teachers unconsciously tend toward an ideal which is not that of womankind? Of course, I am not issuing a diatribe against unmarried women as teachers, for they find a noble aim there; but I am questioning the effect of the overwhelming proportion in women's colleges. — College is more normal than — in that it has both men and women on its faculty. So far as I can learn from courses of study, and from the experience of my sister, my cousins, and my friends, almost nothing is done in the leading colleges and coeducation schools either by personal or public effort to train women intelligently m this line, or even to suggest the possibilities of the ideal. Is it reasonable for my sister now to feel it unworthy either to have, or to express to friends, this ideal of wifehood or motherhood as her highest ideal when she frankly expressed it as a little girl?

5. Lack of Preparation far Continuity of Intellectual Life After Leaving College. — A woman's college training fails to connect with her later life. The similar failure in men's colleges is somewhat remedied by the continuity of intellectual life in professional or university study and then in professional work. The failure of women's colleges seems to me partly in (a) selection of subjects, and partly in (b) method of work.

(a) Women seem to be working on the same old schedule, instead of taking for scientific study subjects which generally enter into women's later life. In order to let women develop their inborn interest, provide a good range of electives in pedagogy, psychology, hygiene, nursing, physiological chemistry, chemistry of good, economics of the household, physiology certain branches of medicine

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(elementary), physical culture, social science, social ethics, history of culture, scientific English composition (e. g,, daily themes), and the special interests which women can discover for themselves and which they will be likely to have after college. Of course, the standard branches must also be offered. But there is a whole range of subjects which enter into women's lives for which they have had no college training. How effective women could be in charities, in churches, villages, homes, if some of the time put into things dropped at graduation had been used to give them a systematic knowledge of social questions! Why should not upper class girls and graduate students make a regular part of their work the personal investigation and criticism of associated charity work in cities, or of selected families in villages? Women seem to me to be particularly fitted for satisfactory study of the much misunderstood and abused history of culture. They could have almost to themselves — with the exception of Edward Atkinson — the scientific study of domestic economy.

So, they have an open field in certain branches of economic history, the history of household economy, the effect of costume on trade, and vice versa, the history of social reforms.

Dr. Dyke, of Auburndale, Mass. published an interesting article in the Atlantic, about a year ago, on "Sociology in the Education of Women," in which he spoke well of this matter of continuity, and of the astonishing lack of courses in social science in women's colleges. Women could make pedagogy more practical and serviceable than it is now, and could put college training to immense advantage in the nursery. President G. Stanley Hall says women can make quicker and finer investigations in psychology than men. I think it was Mrs. Sidgwick, of Newnham College, Cambridge, who exposed some of the cleverest spiritualistic frauds in London. All of these things ought to be offered as electives of equal Value with literature and mathematics, and not as added burdens to overworked students.

(b) A majority of subjects must be studied in college generally rather than fundamentally, but every woman in the last two years ought to go near enough the bottom of something to find out what original research by the laboratory method is. She ought to have courses for method more than for matter. The college today fails to give her such scientific and independent work that she can hardly lose afterward her craving for and power to do her later work — at least some of it — scientifically. Today she fails to get such a clear habit of thinking, writing and acting that it shall always be a pleasure to her to do things clearly. This process of natural selection and of research would develop the average college woman, and would give a free range to real genius.

These faults of women's colleges, I think, are very fundamental and serious. One can excuse slow development, but one cannot excuse serious damage to a

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generation because college authorities and alumnae are unwilling to acknowledge mistakes. The errors can be remedied when the alumnae will forget false loyalty, acknowledge mistakes, and determine to correct them. The wonderful development of woman's higher education shows that it is possible for women's colleges to achieve this when they determine to do so.

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LXVIII. Women In Art.

OVER and again has it been proved that real, soul born art depends upon no favors and accepts no defeat from circumstances.

When Anne Whitney, the noted Boston sculptor, began her career there were no teachers, no interest in sculpture which represented anything later than some heathen god or storied nymph, no intelligent criticism of the little sculpture which was produced. It was the foresight and insight of genius which showed the young woman visions of something which might be closer and dearer to the present life. "I hold," she wrote in a letter to a friend, "that art, at its best, is only an expression of the life of the people in infinite adaption — and that its scope is correspondingly broad and varied. I hate the pedantry of prescriptions. Whoever prescribed limits to this expression and labels his articles. ‘Art for art's sake only’ or ‘Beauty is the sole end of art,’ or ‘No art without a moral purpose,’ I hold to be a weak brother, deserving commiseration."

Miss Whitney began her modeling by using snow, wet sand, clay or any malleable substance, and without any definite purpose in mind save the immediate expression of her mood, which often led her to indulge her love for shaping likenesses.

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One day she overturned a pot of wet earth in the greenhouse, and began to model with the damp material, which retained any shape which her deft fingers gave it. She worked for hours, returning to the task the next day with unabated zest.

From that time she recognized and accepted her vocation. That she has taken a foremost place among America's sculptors needs not to be reaffirmed. She has been declared "not merely high among female artists, but high in art itself, that knows no sex."

When, after working alone for a number of years in America. Miss Whitney went to Paris, and made known her wish to familiarize herself with the superior skill of the French artists, one of these artists said to her, "Why do you want to study with French artists? You have nothing to learn from them."

This to a woman who had never had a teacher! "Fra Angelico painted on his knees. With all sincere workers the spiritual attitude must be the same."

Thus declares Harriet Thayer Durgin, in whose studio, on Copley Square, Boston, one feels like removing his shoes, knowing that ground consecrated by high thoughts, constantly sustained, and soul endeavors continually maintained must, needs be holy ground.

In this studio are the two artist sisters, Harriet Thayer and Lyle Durgin, who have lived and wrought in a manner which may well be an inspiration and an incentive to any girl starting out in life with her brush for a weapon wherewith to carve her way.

The old refrain running like a central chord through all the variations of the most complicated musical theme, the unbroken thread of the poem about which minor fancies play, the pattern which obtains through all the intricate weavings of the many fibred web, — this old refrain, sounding from every country and myriad tongues, "I did this or this, or performed that or that, because it claimed and held me," this old refrain is that of the Durgin sisters.

"When did we begin?" they say. "We never consciously began. We always drew and painted. We should not have known how to keep from it."

The two were daughters of a clergyman richer in honor and intellectuality than in gold. They attended the New Hampton school, but education has come to them more through their own wide reading, observation and thoughtful deductions than by the teachings of others.

Before going abroad in 1879 they may be said never to have had any instructions in painting. They felt and painted, trusting to the inbred accuracy of their perceptions for just atmospheres and true values; and trusting wisely, for almost from the first they produced pictures which were noticed and sold.

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Harriet, the elder sister, found her most pleasing and successful accomplishment in water colors and sketches, while Lyle painted mostly in oil. While still what might be called an amateur, the latter had paintings exhibited at the Mechanics' Fair, in Boston, and after five years of study and work in Paris, her portraits were seen in the Salon of that city.

In the Rue de Verneuil, near the Luxembourg Gallery, the sisters made a little home, inexpensive, but adequate and restful, and supporting themselves by the sale of their pictures, all the while growing in grace of character and grace of touch, and into the fullness of the true life, — which is the life that works toward an ideal of holiness, and has found and accepted its true work.

After some years the two returned to America and established themselves in the studio which they have ever since occupied, and which was planned especially for them.

They are not rich in money; they probably never will be: I do not think they desire to be; but theirs is the beautiful and beautifying, the uplifting and unwanting life which is its own surpassing reward.

"How did you succeed?" I asked. "Why, we just kept on. We couldn't be anything but artists, you see."

"Ah! there lies the open secret. They "just kept on" and obeyed the "soul's emphasis."

"If," says Miss Harriet — and in her statements she was, I am sure, uttering also the belief of her sister — "if we read the lives of those who have left their record on the world of art, we find that they had no need of considering money. They were artists because they were born with the love of art in their very natures, and kings were their patrons, and fortunes were placed at their disposal.

"Our Western world is different. An artist on being asked why, with a history like ours, full of glorious subjects, our painters almost never avail themselves of its resources, while other nations have their museums, galleries and churches filled with great historical pictures, the reply was: ‘We can't afford to do so — nobody wants them.’ It is too true. It is not from the inability of our artists, but from a lack of public appreciation of such things, that so few great works are painted in America.

"The awakening is coming, no doubt. A love of art is inherent in humanity, and must develop itself, and if we consider the wonderful difference between the artistic conditions of today and those of so short a period as twenty years ago, we can comprehend the rapidity of the development.

"Truly, all may love art, but not all may be artists, and the student who is choosing his life work must consider carefully. There is a whole history behind the expression, ‘a struggling artist.’ It expresses a phase of humanity and a

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condition of society as well. All artists do not struggle, and the ill success implied by the expression proves nothing discreditable. Even exceptionable merit may be unrecognized by the wisest critics.

"There is always room for good artists. In affairs of the world's need the laws of supply and demand regulate each other.

"Art does more, for while widening her own influence, she increases in the heart of the world all those qualities which tend to its elevation, not only making beautiful things, but increasing the general capacity for enjoying them. She has creative force, like the Great Master,

"‘Who sendeth and giveth both month and the meat, And blesseth us all.’"

"No one," says Miss Anna E. Klumpke, who shows as an artist a talent equal to that of her sister Dorothea in science, "no one can promise success in art to any student, even when a considerable amount of talent and natural disposition is manifested. But patience, self sacrifice and determination will make an artist of any one who feels strongly drawn toward this invisible power, who has a real love of the beautiful and an intense desire to express it.

"I would like to emphasize the value of preparatory study in the best schools in America before going to Europe. Going abroad will naturally broaden one's ideas, and especially help one feel how little one knows. But, first, the American student must realize how much he can learn here.

"What I have seen of the schools in Boston and New York impresses me very favorably; here are fine, airy rooms, good casts, good models, and the instruction is such as would please any of the French masters. Bouguereau once said to me: ‘Most of the American students have very little to unlearn, and few bad habits about their work, and it takes them but a very short time to drift into the strongest current that moves to right results.’

"I may safely say that this is the opinion of several of the French artists, but this only applies to the students who have studied at the art schools of New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Before going to Europe let the aspirant have a good knowledge of drawing, composition, anatomy, perspective, and very little painting, and then his visit abroad, if it can only be a year, will be more beneficial than he can realize.

"While the financial side of this question is never the first one to present itself to the thought of any true artist, it is nevertheless something which must be considered in choosing one's life work, and what his success will be it is not easy to predict. It must depend very much upon the artistic development and culture of the people who look at pictures and buy them. From what I have

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known during my experience in America, there is no lack of either artistic appreciation or liberal patronage among its people.

"As American age increases the wealth of its citizens, they are naturally awakened to the life struggles of the masses from whence they came, and feel a sincere desire to help them, but who will open the way of each to the other, and save to the world some genius, whose sensitiveness might otherwise bury him?"

Miss Nettie Johnson, of Columbus, Ohio, is a young sculptor whose name has frequently been heard of later. Miss Johnson is a farmer's daughter, brought up in the country home of her father. She graduated from the Columbus Art School, and from thence went, about four years ago, to New York to avail herself of the privileges of the Art Students' League.

One day a person who was speaking with St. Gaudens asked his opinion of Miss Johnson.

"Out of dozens of students that flock yearly to the modeling class," was the reply, "there are perhaps one or two who evidence decided ability. Miss Johnson had not been there long when she arrested my attention. Her work stood out. She gives promise."

Miss Johnson not long after this conversation took place, assisted St. Gaudens in the mechanical part of preparing the statue of General Logan and collected material for models of the saddle, the spurs, and other paraphernalia. By her work on this statue she overtaxed her always delicate strength, and was obliged to retire to her country home. Her father erected for her a rough studio, and here she labored, almost discouraged, and utterly homesick for the atmosphere from which physical limitations had debarred her. One day she received a letter from the Ohio State University offering her five hundred dollars for a bust of Dr. Edward Orton, for the library of the college. Feeling herself unequal to so important a task, she appealed for advice to her old teacher. "Of course you can do it. Go ahead," wrote St. Gaudens.

The work was begun a little oven a year ago. Last June the plaster east was complete, the artist having spent many hours at the college studying the doctor's head while he delivered his lectures. St. Gaudens pronounced the bust a strong piece of work, and commended it enthusiastically. It has now been put into marble.

"Ever since she was old enough to crawl under the kitchen table and catch the drippings from the bread pan, Nettie Johnson has modeled," says Lida Rose McCabe in the Columbus Press.

Again the central chord in the music, the unbroken chain of the poem, the staying pattern in the web, the "keeping right on!"

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It is seldom that a painter or an author — any one whose sole capital is devotion to an ideal, a soul alliance with the work which has chosen her, and a consecrated heart, becomes even moderately wealthy. Therefore let no one dream that by entering one of these professions she will be at all likely to gain thereby aught beyond the work which, if it was born hers, will uplift and ennoble her, come nearer to satisfying her heart than any other employment could do, and if intelligently and persistently followed, afford her, in due time, an adequate livelihood.

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LXIX. My Brave Helper.

THE story of many a girl's achievement is but half told, when it only repeats what she has done for herself. The fully rounded recital is the one which tells what she does for others as well. And as an example of the harmonious, fully developed life of endeavor and fulfillment, it is pleasant to point to the work of Anna Adams Gordon. She was a very fragile baby, the fourth girl born into the home of the Gordon family in Boston. Her father had hoped greatly for a son, but being a man rich in sympathy, he took her warmly to his heart and said, "Father likes his little girl just, as well." She was so delicate that the most faithful of mothers carried her on a pillow much of the first year.

When she was three years old the family removed to Auburndale. Anna was now quite strong, and a most "noticing" little thing. As the family walked to their new home, they missed her at the open gateway of a fine old mansion, but the mother caught the gleam of her dress and entered, and there was the fair haired little one kneeling beside a bed of violets, with her small arms stretched out over them, and saying in. sweet, earnest tones, "I didn't know that." Her love of nature has always been so great that, with her gift of versification, I have felt that among literary surroundings she might have become a charming writer.

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Akin to this quality is her love of animals, which prepared her for a leader in our Mercy Bands.

Three little brothers came to the home, and doubtless her share in bringing them up gave Anna much of that bright, attractive "way" with children that has been one of her greatest charms in our white-ribbon work.

She went to the Newton High School, and afterward to Mt. Holyoke, where her sister Alice, after graduating with high honors, had become a teacher, and where her sister Bessie, since so warmly cherished by all of us, was also a student. But little Anna was a home lover. She used to cry herself to sleep thinking of that happy hearthstone in Auburndale, and, after enduring the separation for a year or two, she "begged off," and lived at home, taking studies and attending lectures at Lasell Seminary, and studying music, to which she and her whole family had always been devoted. I never heard so many fine voices at family prayers as those of the father and mother and their six children (for when I came to know them the youngest and fairest had passed away).

On my going to conduct the women's meetings for Mr. Moody, in Boston, in 1877, there was no one to play the cabinet organ that was beside my desk on the platform. An earnest appeal was made, and after a painful pause and waiting, a slight figure in black, with a little music roll in her hand, came shyly along the

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aisle of Berkeley Street Church, and Anna Gordon whispered, "As no one volunteers, I will do the best I can." That very day she had taken her first lesson on the organ, meaning to become mistress of that instrument. Her teacher was the famous organist, Professor J. K. Paine. But something greater had come into her life a fortnight earlier. Her brother Arthur, eighteen years of age. and nearer to her by years and temperament than any of the others, had suddenly died. This was Anna's first sorrow. She had been a Christian and church member since she was twelve years old, but a deeper current Godward now flowed through her soul. This was her first visit to Boston after her brother's death, and she had just attended Mr. Moody's noon meeting, at which the text was, "Whatsoever He saith to you, do it," and had promised in her inmost heart that by God's grace she would try to do helpful things as the opportunity offered: and behold! the very first "opportunity" was to come forward before twelve or fifteen hundred waiting women, and "start the tune."

I wish I could picture her as she looked then in her sweet youth, with eyes that were the mirror of an absolute truthfulness, no less than of the utmost kindness and goodwill; with soft, fair hair, a pretty brown complexion, and a smile full of humor and benignity. She was hardly up to medium height, and had a slight figure, with a remarkably alert bearing; and quick gliding step. She had that noiseless way of getting about and doing things without one's knowing that she did them, which I have found, to be a most uncommon characteristic.

For three months I led those great meetings, being obliged to have a fresh gospel talk of twenty minutes each day at noon, and I often went out into the suburbs to speak for our temperance women at night. We had a long inquiry meeting at the close of the noonday service, and yet I kept up in good condition from first to last, which I attribute largely to the fact that when I asked Anna Gordon if she could come and play for us every day, she said she would try, and I soon turned over my letters, messages, etc. into her faithful care. In prompt and accurate execution of commissions, tactful meeting of people, skillful style in correspondence, I have not known her equal. As soon as the meetings were over, she had a lecture trip ready for me extending all through New England. I remember she brought her plan to me in a little book ruled in red and black ink, showing the town, the hostess, the place of meeting, the time and place of trains, indeed, every item that one need wish. I used to say that if I should only pin Anna's directions on my back, I could go the country over in the capacity of an express package. From that day to this she has been doing these things, only they have multiplied until sometimes we say, "Let ns make out the duties of the private secretary." The last time we did so, they numbered anywhere between forty and sixty distinct lines of occupation!

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For fourteen years she was with us at Rest Cottage. As my mother grew older she resigned into Anna's hands more and more of the care, so that, although mother presided at her own table until a few weeks before she left us, Anna had the supervision of every detail of the housekeeping. Of course we had excellent "help," but the planning mind was hers. The house became a charming place as years passed by, and I was able to do more to make it the home I wanted it to be, chiefly for my mother's sake. Later, Mrs. Thorp and Mrs. Ole Bull, of Cambridge, added that beautiful room, the "Den." Lady Henry Somerset told me that nothing more complete and delicate than the housekeeping had she ever seen.

I wish I could tell of my mother's birthday, when there were twenty five hundred invitations sent out, all but five hundred of them to women at a distance, and when well nigh five hundred guests were entertained. Anna planned it all, besides writing one of the sweetest commemorative songs that I have ever heard. When my mother passed away, she who loved Anna so well and had said to me, "More than any one I have ever known, she reminds me of our Mary who died," what a solace and sure refuge was Anna, when my heart was overwhelmed!

She was brought up in a conservative Congregational church where it would never have occurred to anybody to ask her to speak, although her experiences in traveling through every State and Territory of the Republic were far more varied and helpful than those of any other member. Anna could not be persuaded to think that she could ever put two sentences together in anybody's hearing, but I begged her to speak at least once in my Boston meetings, and she came forward in Park Street Church and gave her testimony in the most natural and tender manner on the last day. From that time on she would "twitter a little," as I was wont to call it, in my afternoon meetings for women all about the country. Later she begged to be allowed to have children's meetings by herself. Then she began to write "Marching Songs" for those meetings; and, finally, she prepared a little book of "Questions Answered," taking all the queries about the Juvenile work that had come in our meetings and letters, and answering them in her clear, concise way. Then, with a great deal of urging from Mrs. Frances J. Barnes and me, she prepared her charming "Song Book for the Y's," and finally, under the ceaseless monition of our leaders, she gave us her "White Ribbon Hymnal," so that her books of song have gone wherever the W. C. T. U. has a group of workers the world over.

It was Anna Gordon who made the first flag of the W. C. T. U. We were "up in Connecticut" with a friend of olden time, when I said to her one day, "Go to, now, it is a shame that we have no standard to carry at the head of the regiment in our peaceful war." "I will see that there is one at the next

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National," said Anna, and calling in the advice of our hostess, and the services of the skillful lady who could design on satin, the dear old first flag, that is now given into the custody each year of the State having most members, was manufactured, with a water lily and the motto, "For God and Home and Native Land." I doubt if we have ever had a prettier flag, in all the rich variety that has developed since.

It is now more than twenty years since Anna has stood by me in temperance work. In 1891, at our first World's W. C. T. U. Convention in Faneuil Hall, she was elected secretary of the World's W. C. T. U., Mary A. Woodbridge making the nomination. After her unanimous election there was a call for Anna to come forward. She absolutely declined, saying she "would not dream of taking new cares that would make it less likely that she should faithfully discharge those she had already assumed " — with an arch glance in my direction. Then our good women insisted on her taking the leadership of the Juvenile work. Nothing would have induced her to consent had she not felt that Mrs. Helen G. Rice would be her strong right arm.

Her first effort were to unify the work of the children in all countries, and how admirably she succeeded is shown by the "Little Cold Water Girl" fountain, that beautiful statue standing in front of Willard Hall, also in a London park, and soon to be erected in Bombay.

It would be a pleasure to write of our life in England, which went on very much as it does here, only that through the kindness of our dear Lady Henry Somerset we were fitted out with any number of stenographers besides our own, and we never invested more earnest years of effort for the W. C. T. U. than while we were at Eastnor Castle, Reigate Priory and the dear old Cottage. Anna several times addressed groups of those devoted "British women" concerning the L. T. L.

Great changes have come in these years; Anna's home is broken up, even as mine is. Her mother and her sister Bessie (who worked so long and faithfully as corresponding secretary of the W. C. T. U. of Massachusetts, but who is not strong these later years) are in a.pleasant cottage at Castile, N. V. not a stone's throw from the Sanitarium of our faithful friend and helper, Dr. Greene. When Anna lost her father, James M. Gordon, for many years treasurer of the American Board of Foreign Missions, one of the purest and most devoted spirits that ever blessed the earth, the keystone fell from the arch of a home as hallowed as a home could be. It was a dear place to me, where I have hidden away many a time to write some special address or article, and I always felt in going from West to East that I went from one home to another.

There is "history" yet to be made by Anna Gordon. She is in her happy prime, in better health than even and with a rich experience and ever widening

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outlook. Best of all, she grows steadily in the sweet grace of humility and the crowning beatitude of loyalty to our Heavenly Father and that earthly brotherhood and sisterhood which are the crowning proof of the presence of Christ in personal character, and prophesy the setting up of that Heavenly Kingdom for which white ribbon women work and pray.

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LXX. For Study At Home.

THE simple announcement in the Boston daily papers, of the death of Anna Elliot Ticknor, brought a sense of personal loss to hundreds of women all over the country. Women who had never looked into her kindly eyes, nor felt the cordial clasp of her hand, yet knew her for a genuine friend and helper, who had made life broader and more satisfying, opened new vistas where before the outlook was circumscribed and brought dwellers in isolated homes into quick, responsive touch with all that was best in the world of action and endeavor, in the wide realms of literature, art and science.

Without doubt many of the readers know something of Miss Ticknor's work, some of them may have come under its influence, yet probably few know how widely diffused that influence was, nor how many women there are in America who owe to her a sweet debt of gratitude. She was the founder of the society to encourage home study, a society which has done most efficient work and has reached most admirable results. It would be more correct to say that she was the founder of the American society, for the idea was an English one which Miss Ticknor adopted, altering the methods so completely, however, that it might, almost be claimed that she was really the originator of the plan. She has also carried it to a much higher plane and a greater degree of usefulness than the English society has attained.

Miss Ticknor was the daughter of the eminent diplomatist and literateur, Mr. George Ticknor, the author of "The History of Spanish Literature," a work that has been most valuable to students, and is ranked among the American Classics. Mr. Ticknor was the foremost man of letters of his time, his reputation being

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international. He was more: widely known in Europe than any other citizen of New England, certainly if not of the country. The Ticknors owned and occupied a stately and elegant mansion on the very crest of Beacon Hill, diagonally opposite the State House, and here they dispensed the most courtly hospitality, entertaining most royally every foreigner of distinction who visited the country, and every noted American of their time. Indeed, the hospitality of the Ticknor mansion was famous, in the days which just preceded the Civil War, and one can hardly take up a diary or letter of that time without finding some mention of a gathering of noted folk under its roof. For some years after the death of Mr. Ticknor his wife and daughter still occupied the mansion, but its social glory had departed, as they lived very quietly, drawing about them only their most cherished friends. This was due to the enfeebled health of Mrs. Ticknor rather than any desire to shun social intercourse and destroy old traditions. At the death of her mother Miss Ticknor consented to the sale of the home, and she removed to a newer portion of the city, her residence during the later years of her life being in Marlborough street on the Back Bay.

It was in the old home, filled with the atmosphere of literature and art, and also of social distinction, that, after the death of her father Miss Ticknor first planned the work which from the smallest beginning has grown to such large proportions. The reason for the existence of the society was told in its name. It was intended to encourage home study, especially by women, and to so direct this study that it should prove of genuine benefit to the student. It was to be carried on steadily and systematically, and not allowed to degenerate into the desultory aimless mode of work that is so often the result when one attempts, with the best intention in the world, to study without guidance. Almost every woman who has been denied the early opportunity for education has sometime felt the need of the missing knowledge, and been eager to find some way to obtain it. It has been the province of this home study society to point out a way, and to assist the student to pursue it properly, and without mistake, and during the years in which it has existed, now over twenty, hundreds of women have availed them selves of the opportunities which it afforded, and enrolled themselves on its list of students.

Plans of study were arranged with as much care as would be given to the curriculum of a school or college, and the students chose the subjects they preferred. All the teaching was done by correspondence. Miss Ticknor surrounded herself with a number of men and women, all specially qualified for the line of work in which they were to jengage, many of them teachers and professors, while others were finely educated persons of leisure, who were glad to place themselves and their services at her command, and these enthusiastically undertook the labor of instruction.

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A system of monthly correspondence was established, with frequent tests of progress, the object being to produce intellectual results that should be apparent at once to student and instructor, without any of the evil of competition. These tests of results were found much more satisfactory than the system of annual examinations.

Possibly as clear a way of showing what the practical work of the society has been will be to give the story of one of the years of its work. In this year, one of the latest in the society's existence, over eight hundred women entered as students. These represented thirty four States, three territories, Canada and Hawaii. Ninety eight of these students were teachers, thirty three represented clubs and among the rest were women who had been shut in invalids, whose only relation with the outside world came through the society; and women who had been making the bravest struggles with adverse surroundings, fighting with closed lips, as only women do fight, and giving no sign of distress when circumstances were bearing most hardly upon them. Now and again a woman has entered as a student who imagined the work might be done superficially, but she has been speedily disillusionised and has dropped out of the list, but the number of such has been very small. On the whole, those who became students were earnest in their desire and untiring in their endeavors.

Following the correspondence came examinations and the writing of abstracts which were to test the quality of the work accomplished. These abstracts were sent from time to time, as the study of a special book or some portion of a subject was completed. The examinations were not intended to trip students up, nor to take the place of continuous work, but to show to the student herself, as well as to her teacher and the society whether or not she had mastered the subject in hand. The records, when fully completed, showed the names of twenty five students who, in different courses and under different teachers, took 100 per cent in examination, four, five, six, in some cases up to nine times.

The fee was three dollars yearly for each student to cover the expenses of stationery, postage and necessary printing. This was merely a nominal sum, when one considered what was the outcome of the work which rested essentially on the basis of individuality, the personal relation between one woman and another in correspondence — not dealing with private circumstances, but depending greatly on moral and intellectual sympathy.

Still, personal experiences would find their way into the letters, and some of them were interesting to a remarkable degree. One of the students lived in a log cabin in the extreme Northwest, six miles from any neighbor. Naturally, much of the loneliness of her isolated life crept into her letters, and as a slight alleviation of her forlorn condition her instructors gave to her their very best endeavors, often supplementing their letters with copies of magazines, reviews and interesting

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books. A student in the art course had been an invalid for years, suffering severely from heart disease. She found great solace in the society, first in studying herself, then in helping others to study. It was she who first suggested the "imaginary journeys," and she took great delight in piloting people through countries she had never visited. Lying on her sofa or on her bed, with all sorts of appliances of head rests, arm rests, back rests and pillows, by which, as she said, she reduced illness to a science, she mapped out trips for stay at homes, and once dictated to a friend what to see when she actually went to France and Germany. Still other students have been daughters of old members, joining the society when they have been old enough to be received, having grown up in its atmosphere, and looking forward to the time when they might share its benefits.

The course of study includes history, ancient and modern, political economy, sociology, science, mathematics, home sanitation, musical history, theory and composition, art, English, German and French literature and a special Shakespeare course. A library was established composed of several thousand volumes, covering every branch of study and including several important and valuable illustrated works on art. Most of the books were gifts from friends. These books have been lent to the students, being sent and returned by post. Very few have been lost, the entire number in twenty years being twenty one volumes in a circulation of over twenty five thousand. That surely speaks well for the honesty of the students and the safety of the postal service.

With the death of Miss Ticknor it was feared the society must be given up, but a few notable women who had worked with Miss Ticknor determined to carry on the work, and they formed the Anna Ticknor Library Association. They took rooms in Trinity Court, Boston, and they are already deep in work. All the teachers have been retained, and correspondence has been established with the Mycological Club of Massachusetts, the University of the State of New York, and the University of Chicago.

The chairman of the Executive Board is Miss Katherine P. Loring, Pride's Crossing, Massachusetts, and she has the welfare of "The Silent University," as some one has happily called it, very much at heart. She will welcome students as heartily as did Miss Ticknor; and no girl in the United States, but may find the opportunity of obtaining the education she craves in this Association for Home Study. She will meet all the encouragement in the world. It rests with herself what use she will make of the opening offered her.

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LXXI. Women's Ecxhanges.

AN IMPORTANT factor in the wage earning of women, especially those who work in the Seclusion of their own homes, has been the opening, in many of the cities of Women's Industrial Unions and Exchanges, which have proven a market to which workers may bring the results of their home work and place it on sale, giving to the Union, or Exchange, a commission on all the sales made. As a Boston woman wittily expressed it when asked what was the object of the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union:

"Oh, it is a clearing house for feminine industries."

And in a way that is what all of them are. To this exchange women bring the work which they have done, and which they think may meet some need, and so find a ready sale. The work has to pass a committee, whose business is to examine every thing brought, and see that it comes up to the standard of requirement, which is usually set rather high, because if the exchange is to stand for anything, it must be for excellence of its work, else it would not attract purchasers, for no one is going to buy poorly made useful articles, or inartistic "art" work simply because they represent the labor of a woman who happens to need money. There would be no business in any such transactions as that, it would be the bestowal of charity, and that is not what the Unions and Exchanges exist for.

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They are conducted purely on a business basis, just as any business is, and they require the best that their workers can give.

When a woman wishes to become a "consigner" to the exchange, she takes, or sends a sample of her work, and the committee examines it to see if it meets the requirement. If it does a number is given to her, and she is known by that number, instead of her name, to the managers of the exchange. The committee, following the suggestion of the consigner, sets the prices on the articles, and once in so often a settlement is made, the manager paying to the consigner the amount of the sales after deducting the commission, which helps to pay the expenses incurred by keeping the rooms open, and hiring attendants.

Some women make a good income through the work they send in to the exchanges. If they chance to hit a popular idea it pays almost at once. If you ask what it is that catches this fancy, it would be almost impossible to tell you. A few seasons ago, a woman in Brookline, Massachusetts, made a great success with some rag dolls that she sent to the Woman's Union of Boston. They were very well made, their faces prettily painted, and they were dressed like babies, with the cunningest little caps, and really they were the most fascinating bits of doll specimens that had been seen. The children took to them at once. They were such comfortable dollies. They could be hugged and kissed and made love to, and they weren't hard and unyielding like the French bisque dolls, which can only be handled very carefully. The first half dozen dolls were sold the very first morning they were on exhibition, and the managers sent for more. It was just before Christmas, and I would not venture to say how many Boston children had one of those dolls for her Christmas present. The maker had all she could do, and she could not meet the supply. So she kept right on through the year making and dressing the dolls, to give the Union its needed supply for the next holiday season. The dolls brought a good price and the maker found herself in possession of a good income which promises to hold good just as long as there are little girls who love dolls, and that will be as long as there are any little girls in the world, for the mother instinct is in every woman child's heart, and she loves her dolly as the representative of the real child.

The woman who is a fine needlewoman finds a ready market at the exchanges for the dainty products of her needle. Pretty hand made underclothing, finished with exquisitely hemmed or hemstitched frills, are always salable. One must, in cutting them, follow the latest idea in shapes, for there is as much fashion in the modeling of underclothing as in the cutting of a gown.

Then there are all sorts of infants' garments that may be made by the same needlewoman. Sets of sheets and pillow cases, hemstitched, and then neatly folded and tied with ribbon. In preparing your work for the exchanges you must take care that they are attractively put up. The class of women who patronize

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the exchange are, as a rule, a superior class, women, not merely of means, but refined women, who are attracted by any special daintiness. So be careful in the preparation, and remember that the nicest work may be unattractively arranged and thus lose half its beauty and effect. As much for your own sake, as for the sake of the prospective purchaser, you want your consignments to be attractive.

In plenty of time before the holiday season opens you to anticipate the wants, and make your consignments. You will need to keep quite up to date in your ideas, and if you are ingenious and contrive to think out something quite novel and taking, you can be sure of a good return from it. Then there are

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always plenty of useful things for which there is always a good market. The ready knitter can find a quick sale for golf and bicycle stockings. The home knitted ones are much preferred to those which are woven by machine and there is a chance for all sorts of quaint and pretty devices in the fancy tops. Knitted silk mittens for ladies and children, and knitted silk stockings for little girls are all good things to offer to the exchange.

Embroidery and china painting are so much a matter of course among the articles found in the exchange that I have said nothing about them. There is only this to say. If you embroider or paint only indifferently do not send any of your work, for it will only be rejected. There are so many now who do both these things in a superior manner, that only the very best will pass the inspection of the committee.

Most of the exchanges have a food department in which cake, preserves, jellies, mince pie meat, and other articles of food are received and sold. This is one of the most popular departments, especially in the city exchanges, and there are women who do nothing else besides cook special dishes for this department and deliver daily. At one Union a kind of Graham bread is sold which one woman makes, and does nothing else. As it is she cannot supply enough, and every day there is a call for more loaves than the Union can furnish. And the funniest part is, no one else can make it. She has given the rule to others, but some way it is not the same thing.

Once become a successful consigner to an exchange, and there is an assured income. It may not be always a large one, but as the consigner usually has the advantage of living at her own home, she is not at so much expense as the one who has to go out. There is not the wear and tear of clothing, of nerve or of body, and, consequently, she does better in every way, and the smaller income does more, so that, if any, the thing is rather broader than it is long when measured by the woman who has to go out of the home.

The consigners are not always resident in the city in which is the exchange, they may live at a distance and send their articles in. If a woman, within reasonable distance of the town and has anything which the public wants, the Union will be glad to be the medium by which she may reach the public.

It is the quality of work which tells in this as in everything else.

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LXXII. What We Owe To Pioneer Women.

IF I could have chosen when to live," said an enthusiastic girl not long ago, "it would be at this very time. Everything is so easy for girls now; I don't wonder that they call it, as I have heard them do, ‘the woman's age.’"

It is indeed a good time for girls to live, and I often wonder if they realize by whose efforts it became the "good time." Do they ever think what other women and girls had to contend with before this time dawned upon the world, or how much they owe to those same women? Not many of them, or they would never make the remarks which some of them do, and which to one who knows how all the good has come about, all the ridicule and suffering that was inflicted upon the pioneers of the so called woman movement — though I insist that it should be called the human movement — sounds heartless and cruel.

Think of the lack of opportunity for girls even half a century ago, and contrast it with that of the present. What were the possibilities of education? Unless she happened to be the daughter of a family who believed in advance of the age that a girl had the ability to learn, and that education would not spoil her or make less of a woman of her, and who could afford to give her private masters, she had to be content with the merest common school education less, even, than children get now in the grammar grades of the public schools. And even that

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was grudgingly bestowed. The spirit of the average man of the early century is shown in a story which Miss Mary Eastman tells. In the town of Hatfield, Mass. in the early part of the present century, the question of establishing public schools was being discussed in town meeting. It had finally decided that the schools should be opened, when the question came up regarding the propriety cf allowing the girls of the town to attend. Some of the voters were in favor of admitting them to at least a portion of the privileges, and others opposed. Finally one of the prominent men, whose word was almost law in the town, arose to his feet, looked around impressively, and seeing that he had the attention of the assembly, raised his arm and uttered solemnly, but vehemently: "Hatfield school shes! Never!" So it was decided, and for some years all the girls who wanted to read and spell had to pay some one to teach them. And yet, in Hatfield, the town that wouldn't "school shes" was born a woman who on her death left the fortune which endowed Smith College.

"Why cannot I go to college as well as my brother," asked gentle Lucy Stone of the father who believed in his girl as well as his boy, but who could not open the doors of Harvard or Yale or Dartmouth for her. She did go to college; she sought out the stirring young college at Oberlin, Ohio, where the people had caught the true spirit of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality, and shut no doors in the face of the two classes denied admittance everywhere else, woman and the negro.

Other girls joined her there, and in the face of hardships borne with the bravest hearts, and far from home and all that had been familiar to their young lives, they worked for what they most coveted, an education. What the world owes to the Oberlin girls can never be measured or computed.

To her great surprise, when she graduated from the Boston public schools, Mary Livermore found the college doors closed against her. She had kept abreast of her brothers and his friends in the school, and she could go no farther with them. She might go to a "female seminar," but there was nothing beyond.

Lucy Stone's daughter graduated from the Boston University taking her degree of B. A. in a large class of whom at least one fourth were girls, and she might do what she choose. The world of the professions was open to her to choose from. But Alice Blackwell, the daughter of the pioneer woman in education and reform, the; niece of the first woman doctor in the country and of the first woman minister, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, choose to take up her mother's work, and she carries it on as a sacred legacy, left her by the one whom she loved and revered beyond all others in the world.

Mary Livermore's granddaughter graduated from the same college a short time ago, and is preparing to take up some form of helpful work.

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In the years between the time when two girls longed so eagerly for an education, and the graduation of daughter and granddaughter, what had the older women's eyes beheld? The establishment of four splendidly equipped colleges for girls, Vassar, Wellesley, Smith and Bryn Mawr; the opening to women of Michigan University, the endowment of Boston. University, where from the beginning, girls were received as well as young men; the opening of Cornell to the girls who flocked to its doors, the establishment of Harvard Annex, which is now Radcliffe College and a part of the University system, the establishment of Barnard College as part of the University system of Columbia, the introduction of girl students into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and springing up all over the country, hundreds of co educational colleges, youngest and best equipped of all, the Leland Stanford University of California, the most magnificent memorial which ever bereaved parents raised to the memory of a beloved child.

They have seen, these pioneer women, the opening of the schools of medicine, of theology, of law, of laboratories, of all technical schools, until the entire field of education is thrown wide open to the young girl as well as to the boy, and her professional chances are equal to his.

They have seen avenue after avenue of labor open to admit the advancing feet of the army of girl workers, they have seen women occupying positions of

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importance in offices and banks, they have been interviewed by them for the newspapers, they have found them in positions of public trusts, they have known that they have penetrated everywhere. It has been given to these pioneer women to see the results of their sacrifices and labors, something which is not always vouchsafed to the worker for reform.

Little does the girl of today coming to meet life, with all its changed conditions, know what it has cost in real heart break to bring this condition about. She cannot realize the social ostracism, the coarse ridicule, the scorn and contempt which was heaped on the heads of the first women who ventured to ask for a broader outlook, a better chance for women. Yet they knew there was justice in their demands, and neither scorn, ridicule or threats could stay them in their work. It was not for themselves alone for which the brave, and sometimes it seemed almost hopeless, fight was being waged. It was for all the women who are to come in the history of the world. All the daughters who want the same education which is given to brothers; the wives who need protection from the husbands who should themselves be the protectors; the widows who are left with little children to bring up and educate; the whole army of women who have to face the world and make their own fight with it. These are they for whom these other brave women bore the burden and heat of a terrible day, and come out victorious.

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What do we owe to those women? Everything. Honor, reverence, affection, all that we are capable of giving, and then the debt will not be half paid.

I feel always as though some one had struck me a blow in the face when I hear these women spoken slightingly of, or when any one belittles their work. Lucy Smith, Susan B. Anthony,Julia Ward Howe, Mary Livermore, no woman, especially one who has to enroll herself among the world's workers, should ever hear these names spoken without a thrill of thankfulness. The open door would still be closed, the clear path full of rough places and stumbling stones had it not been that the bruised fingers of these women opened the one, and the bleeding feet smoothed the way of the other. My dear girls, you can at least pay a part of the debt which you owe to them, by gratitude and regard, and by trying to do for other women, something of the good they have done for you. For their sakes, who were true to you, be loyal to their memories, when they are no longer here to receive your personal gratitude. We have only the memory of dear Lucy Stone, but the others are still with us to hear our spoken thanks, do not let us be niggardly with them or give them grudgingly. As the years go on the world will know better than it does now how beneficent was their work, not for women alone, but for all the human race; for what elevates the women, and gives them wider opportunity, makes the whole world better. The development of the mother is the development of the race, and what is higher education and broader opportunity but development on the most beneficent lines.

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LXXIII. In New Fields.

THERE is hardly a field of labor into which woman has not penetrated, and every day brings some new story of discovery and achievement. It is usually a story of success, else it never would have been told. Failures are hidden away, the pathetic details locked in the heart and memory of one who has tried only to be baffled. The world is not interested in the story of defeat — it only opens its ears to listen to the plaudits which greet victory.

Among the new departures is one which is specially unique — that of Miss Minnie Alleyne, of Chicago, who paints anatomical charts. She is a slight, retiring, twenty year old girl with a piquant face and expressive eyes. If one were told that she painted one would think that it was some pretty arrangements of violets for Easter instead of a chart showing the malformation of a club foot, or an up to date girl in chiffon instead of an X ray view of that beauty's interior. Miss Alleyne began her work about five years ago. A German had come to Chicago, seeing the field was unoccupied, to paint the charts constantly needed by physicians lecturing before classes. But the man spoke no English and became discouraged. He had met Miss Alleyne, told her the paints he used, and gave her a few hints. Soon after he left Chicago and she began her work. All the charts are painted upon parchment and the paints are brought to Chicago only for her. Her grandfather father was a famous physician, her mother a skillful, though untrained, nurse, and her aunt, a rich New York woman, took a course at Bellevue just for the love of it,

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with the additional idea of being of use to the poor. So you see Miss Alleyne comes naturally by her taste for anatomical study. Sometimes she has her pictures given her by the doctors, small illustrations in books, from which she makes her charts, enlarging the parts mathematically in proportion. The colors the physicians describe and she experiments until she gets them of the correct tint. Miss Alleyne keeps a copy of every chart she paints, for reference and help. She has many hundreds of them, many in sets. They cost from $3.00 upward. There is scarcely a prominent physician or surgeon in Chicago for whom she has not painted, and the specialists say that she is wonderfully successful in catching quick directions, and exceedingly correct in drawing.

One of the most unique occupations for a woman to pursue is that followed by Miss Elizabeth Marbury, of New York. It is really a triple business, for she is a theatrical manager, an advance agent, and the American representative of Sardou, the French dramatist. Needless to say, she is a very remarkable woman. Miss Marbury is intensely interesting, for the strong masculinity of her mentality is combined with absolute femininity of temperament. She is shrewd and clever, yet modest and dainty withal, a by no means common combination. In each of the three branches of her profession she has been eminently successful, and has demonstrated her peculiar aptitude therefore.

The Veterinary School at Alford, France, graduated one woman this year, and she is one of the very few women who can write herself D. V. S. Germany and France have a number of woman veterinarians but the United States claims only one, Miss Jennie Revert, who attended the New York Veterinary College during two terms. Women have applied at the different veterinary schools in this country, most of them wishing to make a special study of cats and dogs, but none have ever done more than take a preparatory course at the various schools, especially at the one connected with Cornell University. Miss Revert, the only woman veterinarian in America, is the owner of Robindale Farm, Glen Head, Long Island, where she raises blooded horses and fine bull dogs. It was mainly on account of these pets of hers — for they are pets — that Miss Revert took up active work as a veterinarian. She has not yet finished her course, but it us her intention to complete it.

Veterinary surgery is a profession from which a woman might derive, a good income, for she would, no doubt, be patronized by the numerous female owners of cats and dogs that are always having some ailment which feline and canine flesh is heir to. Dr. Lew, of the Lexington (Ky.) Veterinary Hospital, says that a woman assistant would be so valuable to him in his practice that he would willingly pay her a good salary in return for her services during the college course. A woman would be likely to have an extensive practice among the smaller pets of society. The expensive pets of fashionable women would probably be taken

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to a woman in preference to a man, and by becoming a successful veterinarian she would make even more than the average doctor, the fees of a veterinary surgeon being double those of the ordinary M. D.

Another new vocation for woman is that of demonstrating or introducing. Nowadays a great many advertisements appear for demonstrators and introducers, sometimes specifying the line to be introduced or demonstrated. This method of advertising new goods was begun at the World's Fair, and since then it has become a permanent business. Manufacturers and wholesalers who wish to introduce anything new depend largely upon this means of doing it. There are the city demonstrators, who are stationed for months in the larger stores, introducing to whoever may come their way the excellencies of their wares. There are traveling demonstrators who stay from three days to a week in a place. Previous to their visit cards are sent out by the proprietor of the store to all his customers, saying that for so many days such and such a firm will have his new wares represented at his store by a demonstrator. Curiosity leads housekeepers to attend and be entertained and fed free of charge. Of course then the least they can do, having accepted the hospitality, is to invest. The desired effect has been produced, and the demonstrator moves on to the next town, feeling success is hers. If it be anything in the culinary line, you find the young woman in charge in neat, dainty white apron and cap, and she serves the drink, pudding, pie, biscuit, cake, or whatever it may be, in an appetizing way, telling meanwhile of the superiority of this particular brand over others.

It is not alone the housewives who respond to this invitation — often men may be seen lurking around. Soon they become deeply interested in the deft way in which the fair demonstrator manipulates her materials, and are soon devouring the mince pie or plum pudding with hard sauce with placid looks of contentment. It is the largest size of package that the men bear away with them.

If it be an exhibit of embroidery, to introduce a new brand of silks or the like, the men are barred out. You invest in the stamped linen and silks, the lesson being free. Morning and afternoon classes are always crowded, for who could resist free embroidery lessons? Or it may be introducing artists' materials, ribbon bows for neck and sleeves — in fact, a great variety of things are introduced and brought to the notice of the public in this attractive way.

The latest opportunity for those who have improved their time in music is introducing new music at the music stores and musical departments of the department stores, especially the latter, as these departments are usually run by one musical publishing company which desires especially to introduce its own publications. So they advertise for a bright young girl who can read music at sight, place a piano in the department, and keep her playing the brightest popular music, and music is attractive to everybody, even "soothes the savage breast,"

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as you will remember, and there is always an immense crowd attracted wherever the piano is heard, and the brighter the music the faster it sells.

The salaries of the demonstrators are good, their duties not arduous, and, lastly, what is often a great deal to the woman worker it does not take a lifetime and a small fortune to prepare one's self for this work. The accomplishments of a society girl suddenly and unexpectedly thrown on her own resources can thus be utilized with profit.

The women in New York inaugurated a new business as visiting household managers a few months since. They were very successful, but recently have dissolved their partnership, each one conducting business on her own account, thus making two concerns instead of one, with plenty of work for both. The business of visiting household managers consists chiefly in the relieving of wealthy women burdened with manifold social duties and many household cares. The managers take entire charge of a limited number of houses, and see to it that all the domestic wheels run smoothly both in the presence and absence of the owners. Both brought to the work a thorough experience gained in the management of their own households, and as they had been society women, they found a large clientele among their personal friends. The rich women handed over to their care the household affairs found to be beyond their physical resources. The manager engaged servants, first looking carefully into their references. All cleaning was done under the supervision of the manager, floors were polished, plumbing examined and, if necessary, put in repair by competent men; curtains, blankets, rugs and carpets were cleaned and put down in their proper order, and bric a brac dusted and replaced uninjured.

Another feature of the business was the house hunting department. If any patrons living in distant cities wished to come to New York to live and did not care for the terribly taxing work of hunting for a suitable residence, the manager would send full descriptions of houses, and meet the visitor when she arrived to inspect them, helping her to make a choice without the necessity of ransacking the real estate offices for likely homes. When a choice was made, the manager would see that the house was put in proper shape for the reception of the new family, and receive the baggage when it arrived.

If the wealthy woman was contemplating a trip to Europe or to her country residence, she could leave the closing of her house in the hands of the manager with perfect confidence. If it were required, all articles of value would be packed carefully and sent to a storage warehouse or to the safe deposit company's vaults, the manager keeping a careful record of everything stored away, so that it could be replaced in the house when a notification was received that the owner was about to return and wished the house to be reopened ready for occupancy. When such notification was received, the manager undertook to have the house in such shape

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that the mistress could step out of the carriage that brought her from the steamer or from the railroad station, to find that the servants had been engaged and awaited her arrival, the house cleaned and put in thorough shape from cellar to roof, the dinner waiting at the agreed time to be served, and the whole establishment in working order, as though it had never been vacated.

Miss Margaret McDonald, of Washington, who is called the cleverest designer of paper dolls, is in her early teens, and displayed her ability in this line of work when she was yet a child. Some of her very artistic designs came to the notice of a very large art publishing firm when she was about thirteen years old, and produced such an impression by their grace and originality that the house sent her an offer for them. Since then the work begun as child's play has proved extremely profitable, although all the instruction the young girl has had is what she received in an ordinary public school. Her ambition goes beyond her present accomplishment, and she is using this means to fit herself to become an artist in the fuller sense, although it is a question whether she will ever do anything more perfect in its way than these dolls are in theirs.

Miss Edith J. Griswold, of New York City, is a solicitor of patents, and she carries on her business in a room on the fifteenth floor of one of the big downtown office buildings. Although Miss Griswold is youthful in appearance, she has been in her present business for about twelve years. After being graduated from the New York Normal College in 1883, she took a special course in mathematics and patent office drawings, taught mathematics for a year, and studied patent soliciting. Since she started out in business for herself she has been very successful. She not only obtains patents for people all over the United States and in foreign countries, but gives opinions on patents and trademarks, and in her leisure studies law with the intention of passing the New York bar examination.

Miss Lilian Small is probably the only woman in this country engaged in the maritime signal service. Miss Small's father has been signal master at North Truro, Cape Cod, for thirty seven years, and he now finds an able assistant in his daughter. Miss Small is a little past twenty years of age, and completed her education in Dean Academy, Franklin, Mass. On returning home she resumed her interest in marine matters, and soon developed into a valuable assistant for her father, fully competent to attend to his duties. The work is not arduous, but calls for close attention, as new comers are constantly arriving, and the observer must note them. Miss Small has clear blue eyes, that readily catch the points of identification on a vessel, but she does not rely on these entirely. She has a telescope nearly six feet long, through which she can distinguish a vessel's class and rig thirty miles away, as well as read names on most of those that pass at the average distance. Foreign craft almost invariably show their signals as they make the light, and Miss Small is an expert at reading and answering them. After

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securing information from the vessel she steps into her office and wires her news to Boston. She is an expert telegrapher, having studied with her father.

In the appointment of a woman as sexton of a church, a new field of labor is suggested. The Clarendon Street Baptist Society of Boston recently held a meeting at which Mrs. William S. Stoddard received an official appointment to have the entire charge of the business usually assumed by men.

None of these fields are crowded; in most of them there is ample room for workers. Surely some of the clever girls who read this will find a suggestion that shall prove the practical words for which they have been waiting.

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LXXIV. What Two Girls Did.

IT is probable that to young women no other voting woman was ever more of a "living epistle" than is Lida A. Churchill. "I cannot say what I feel about her," said one who knows her well. "I just stand by and marvel. Her example stimulates us slow paced girls, but it half appals us, too. She has done so much! Better still, she is so much! Her handshake is a benediction, her commendation a tonic. I thank Heaven for allowing her to be. And one feels all the while that her deepest living and best doing are yet to be."

Of her writers of books Maine is particularly proud; one of these, a Harrison girl, Lida A. Churchill, whose stories, "My Girls" and "Interweaving," have given her standing as a remarkably vivacious and individual writer of fiction, is the daughter of the late Josiah and Catharine Hilton Churchill, and is a descendant of the historic house of Marlborough, England. In babyhood she was moved to New Gloucester, where she spent her childhood and early girlhood. She early fell into the habit of composing sentences, and at twelve had written several stories. The second of these to be printed appeared in the Portland Transcript. She was self reliant as she developed, and at sixteen she left home, and finally settled in Providence, R. I, where she learned telegraphy. While working at telegraphy Miss Churchill continued writing for the press, and after going to Northbridge, Mass. where she spent several years in charge of the local telegraph station, she wrote "My Girls," a simple, natural and vivacious account of a company of telegraph girls' experience when thrown upon their own resources. If it were not in purpose and in execution the helpful tale that it is, I should

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expect to see it read for its truthfulness, its merry humor, its individuality of style, and the freshness of the field which it cultivates. The girls are flesh and blood, and the "tickers" are actual railroad "tickers."

The "Carmen" of "My Girls," whom thousands will remember, and who now sleeps in Gracelands Cemetery, near Chicago, wrote some three years ago in The Telegraph Age:

"Lida A. Churchill, author of ‘Interweaving’ and also distinguished as essayist, novelist, writer of short stories, and of ‘sparkling press letters,’ was for a time a telegraph operator, and though now for some time withdrawn from the fraternity as a member, is still in sympathy and touch with it through numerous friends who still count her one of them.

"One of her pictures was seen at the Maine World's Fair Building among the celebrities of that State.

"There is a better pen picture of her to be found in her own book, ‘My Girls,’ than in all that others have written of her.

"In the ‘literary’ character, one of the four of the book, all taken from life, she represents herself perfectly. The other three are now well known operators. She began her telegraphic career as operator in her cousin's office, in Providence, R. I. He was at that time superintendent of the P. & W. R. R.

"We, along the line, soon became interested in the operator there who called herself ‘Billy,’ and whose sending always convulsed us with thoughts of the

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hymn — then popular — ‘Pull for the Shore’ — she always ‘bent to the oar’ and to her abnormal application and staying power she owes much of her success.

"Later she took charge of an office at Northbridge, Mass. and choose for particular friends a favored few young ladies along the line, who were beginniners, like herself, and of whom she tells in ‘My Girls.’

"In those happy days none of us had much work, and we used to chat over the wire, send letters to each other by the obliging train men, and exchange presents; and when we learned that we had ‘a chiel among us taking notes’ her Mss. had to pass through our critical but appreciative hands.

How we watched for ‘Lightning Flashes’ containing her story that we had already seen in her very own handwriting. How proud we were of it, and the numerous newspaper and magazine stories with which she often treated us. But more than her literary ability, more than her wit, which is beyond compare, we valued the great, loving heart, generous to a fault, and faithful not only unto but beyond death.

"Her remarkable quality of perseverance and constancy — without which genius is a laggard — has enabled Miss Churchill to stand where she now does.

"By her own unaided efforts she mastered the arts of shorthand and typewriting, which accomplishments placed her in a position as private secretary to Rev. Charles A. Dickinson, of Berkeley Temple, Boston, and opened to her other opportunities for furthering her hi