702 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



her leisure for the elevation of the race. 

 Furthermore, anything that teaches men 

 and women to live independently of 

 each other lessens the respect that be- 

 longs to the family as an institution, 

 and robs parenthood of the honor that 

 it deserves. 



Before reading thus far, our critics 

 will be demanding what alternative 

 remedy we have to offer for the ills 

 whose existence we admitted at the out- 

 set. We would strike at the root of the 

 difficulty, and remove the disturbing 

 cause instead of accepting it as inevita- 

 ble. Earlier and more numerous mar- 

 riages should be the rule, and women 

 can bring this about if they choose. 

 Mothers should so rear their daughters 

 that young men can afford to marry 

 them. A young woman properly brought 

 up would be healthy and strong enough 

 to need few or no servants and little 

 doctoring; she would be competent to 

 manage a household ; and would not 

 have a fondness for extravagance that 

 is like a second nature. "Women should 

 discountenance the men who remain 

 bachelors without good reason, and es- 

 pecially should shut out of good soci- 

 ety those dissipated youths and wealthy 

 rakes who are the deadliest enemies of 

 the marriage relation. By these and 

 similar means women can secure for 

 most of their sex the most natural 

 mode of support that which belongs 

 to a wife. For those women who do 

 not lack means, but only an object on 

 which to employ their energies, there 

 is worthier occupation than acquiring 

 culture for its own or rather their own 

 sake. There are social and ethical 

 questions, and other problems, whose 

 solutions are demanded, and which can 

 be best solved by women. There are 

 affairs to be administered and abuses to 

 be corrected for which woman's nature 

 especially fits her; and there are other 

 fields of labor, not hers exclusively, but 

 which are imperfectly worked because 

 left to man alone. As a shining exam- 

 ple of women who have already seized 



upon such a chance for usefulness may 

 be mentioned the Ladies' Health Pro- 

 tective Association in New York city, 

 which is engaged in abating nuisances 

 prejudicial to the public health. There 

 might remain some women who could 

 not be provided for in the ways just 

 suggested, but they would be excep- 

 tions, and their wants could properly 

 be met by exceptional methods. 



There is a class of women to whom 

 the counsel in this article will be very 

 distasteful. The career of a wife and 

 mother has little appreciation in their 

 eyes. It is not enough appreciated by 

 a large share of both sexes. But the 

 remedy for this is in the women's own 

 hands. If they would have an honor- 

 able profession, they have only to do a 

 quality of work that is worthy of honor. 

 Surgery was once a branch of the bar- 

 ber's trade, and certainly no more hon- 

 ored than house-work is to-day ; but men 

 have made a study of it, have given it a 

 broad, scientific basis, invented instru- 

 ments and processes to increase its effi- 

 ciency, and arranged a systematic mode 

 of learning its practice, with the result 

 that the surgeon of to-day has one of 

 the most honorable of professions. In 

 a similar way dressmaking which is a 

 trade in the hands of women has been 

 made a profession in the hands of one 

 man. The ordinary dressmaker gets 

 little respect; Mr. Worth is held in high 

 esteem, and the difference is that ho 

 does work which compels esteem. The 

 ordinary housewife and mother takes 

 little pains to learn her business; she 

 follows rule-of-thumb methods handed 

 down from her great-grandmother, in- 

 troducing no improved processes or ap- 

 pliances, and feeling no shame if her 

 home is ill managed or her children ill 

 trained. If women doubt that competent 

 administration in the home would win 

 the same esteem that is paid to the com- 

 petent surgeon, or lawyer, or merchant, 

 or college professor, they should recall 

 the Eoman matron, Cornelia, whose 

 fame has already lasted for nearly a 



