292 The Farm Girl's Preparation for a Vocation 



seems that the general scope of the problem of 

 preparing a girl for her vocation ought to be fairly 

 clear. Still another way of putting the situation 

 is this : The girl must be carefully prepared, not only 

 for her first choice of an occupation, but also for her 

 second choice, because of grave danger of the failure 

 of her first choice to be realized. 



There is a perplexing aspect of the whole question 

 implied here, and every parent who has a daughter 

 should become aware of it and also prepared to 

 confront it. That is to say, almost any ordinary 

 man may go out into the open market and push his 

 quest for a life companion and be able to return 

 in the course of a very short period with one at his 

 side. But with the girl it is radically different. 

 Practically her only stock-in-trade consists of her 

 personal charm and her pecuniary advantages. 

 And many a young woman with both of these 

 qualities very strongly in her favor fails, by some 

 chance or other, to receive an acceptable offer of 

 marriage. Statistics widely gathered will show that 

 age is also a very positive factor in this matter, and 

 that the ratio of probability of marriage of a single 

 woman begins to fall very rapidly before she reaches 

 thirty. 



DESIRABLE OCCUPATIONS FOR WOMEN 



While there is abundant evidence to prove that 

 the great majority of normal young women desire 



