346 ANNUAL REPORT. 



work. We all know, however, that even in this favored laud 

 very many women are dependent upon their own exertions for 

 a living; and not only this, but many, besides caring for tliem- 

 selves have others looking to them for supi^ort. How to i^rovide 

 for these is a serious question. 



There are many remunerative occupations which are closed to 

 woman by reason of her want of physical strength. She cannot 

 well engage in agriculture. There is much heavy work connected 

 with it which she cannot do herself, and if she attempts to hire 

 it done the proceeds will often fail to pay the help. Market gar- 

 dening is open to the same objection, and both have the added 

 drawback of requiring too much caijital. 



She cannot find employment as a common laborer. Aside from 

 the barrier of lack of strength, she could not engage in such an 

 occupation without losing much that makes her womanly, and 

 being reduced to the level of a beast of burden. This cannot be 

 done in the United States without a radical revolution in public 

 sentiment. She cannot learn the mechanical trades, nor engage 

 in mining or lumbering, or railroading. 



When she turns her attention to the lighter avocations the 

 case is but little better, for though she may get a situation as 

 clerk in a store, or operator in a telegraph office, or other similar 

 positions, she must be content with half pay. She may h;ive all 

 needed ability, perfect integrity, and a determination to render 

 good service, but she must do for five dollars a week that which 

 a young man — too effeminate and genteel to work, too ignorant 

 to enter a profession, and too poor to engage in business on his 

 own account — will receive ten or more. We have an opinion of 

 these ambitious young men who aspire to measuring tape, dress- 

 making, or any other light work that a woman could easily do. 



When the professions are considered as a means of livelihood, 

 woman is virtually shut out. A very few of her sex have studied 

 law and been admitted to the bar, and a few have entered the 

 ministry. Some have studied medicine, and are doing a noble 

 workintheir chosen profession. Still, the number who can engage 

 in the law, the ministry, or the ijractice of medicine is so very 

 small that the professions seem hardly worth counting as avoca- 

 tions upon which women can depend. 



It is conceded on all hands that women are naturally adapted 

 to the work of teaching, and the number of those who take it up 

 is rai>idly increasing; but here again they are subject to the gall- 

 ing injustice of seeing men receive much higher pay for the 



