The Golden age. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1906-1915, December 13, 1906, Page 6, Image 6

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6 Worth Woman s While Dream Boats. The dream boats sail away at night, And the Lullaby Lady waves her hand; Over the s<ea of sleep they sail, “Outward bound with a favoring gale,” From the shores of Drowsy-Land. The Lullaby Lady waits on shore As the boats push off the sand. The fare is a kiss, or maybe more, And change she gives from a generous store, To each of the mariner band. And always the Lullaby Lady waits Each voyager dear to greet; With welcome warm to morning strand, As sunrise breaks of Daytime-land; For mother’s the Lady, you understand, The Lullaby Lady sweet! Grace Stone Field. Different Occupations of Women. We have recently been looking over a table of statistics made some time back showing the num bers of women employed in the occupations where they compete with men, and it is calculated to make one stop and think. We wish every woman who is dissatisfied with the restrictions of home life, and so less useful in her home, every wom an who sighs to be out in the business world, earn ing money and rubbing elbows with men, could read these statistics and comprehend the situation as it exists today and what we are surely and rapidly coming to. We prefer to believe that women first enterd the field of business from necessity. The few excep tional cases where the prompting was from taste and inclination were never sufficient in number to have resulted in the present wholesale custom which threatens to upset the social system, if it does not disrupt us altogether. Necessity drove more and more women to work until, growing so accustomed to see it, other women and more particularly girls, who might have lived comfortably if modestly at home, were led to enter the lists. They worked that they may have things that otherwise they did without, better dressing, pleasure, little indul gences, and sometimes to escape what they regard ed the limitations of domestic life. And so it has gone on, seeing each year swell the number of professional as well as working wom en. We heard last week of a woman who married a professional man and worked alongside of him, shoulder to shoulder, keeping a house and rearing a family. In time her husband besought her to leave off the business side of her work and devote her failing strength to home and children—she was not now strong enough to keep up with all. But no. She had too long experienced the independ ence of her own monthly income; she got rid of her children, one by one, sending the youngest to live with her parents, gave up her home, and with her husband is boarding and pursuing her vocation —preferring to earn money rather than be mother and home-maker. It is only one instance, there arc numberless others, hut this came recently under our own ob servation. and without doubt every other woman in the land knows of one or more just such cases. We hear of women who look after their husband’s comfort, oversee their houses and servants, or— more capable still—keep their own houses and make their own breakfasts, and then go forth to regular business hours at the office just as the men do. But we are not misled into believing all we hear. For instance: The most successful business woman we know—and besides making an income of several thousand a year, she is a fine woman—told ns in a letter shortly after her marriage how beau tifully she was managing. First, being accustomed, she and her husband, to black coffee before rising, The Golden Age for December 13, 1906. By FLORENCE L. TUCKER. she had her alcohol arrangement, the coffee and water all placed ready by their bedside on retiring, and on waking all she had to do was to raise her self on her elbow, and, still in bed, make and serve the coffee. Capital! Yes, but think of drinking coffee made from water that has stood all night in the bedroom of two persons! And coffee itself absorbs impurities. After the coffee, while her husband had his bath, she prepared breakfast. And after breakfast when he had gone to his office she did up her work, got herself ready and was off to her desk. Toward five o’clock she came home shortly before he was due. slipped into a wrapper, and had dinner ready in good season. Most excellent wife! Independent of servants, capable and economical! But what man wishes to sit down to six o’clock dinner with a wife tired and flushed and wearing a wrapper! And what man likes a sickly wife? For she had the doctor, the dentist, the hair specialist, all unit ed, trying to mend up the ravages of her ailments. When we read that letter we groaned in the spirit. Inwardly we cried, “My dear, what a fatal mistake you are making! Stay at home; dress yourself, have a servant, be calm and restful, look wes, make yourself attractive to your husband, even ‘do the rose act,’ as Josiah Allen’s wife did— and don’t wear a wrapper at dinner!” She made money, she had her name recognized in business circles—undoubtedly she had been a success up to the time of her marriage. But can the business woman conduct a home as it should be conducted? Not that she is not as capable, or more capable as some, think, but the proper mak ing of a home calls for all the time and strength one woman can possess. Just as we cannot serve God and mammon, so can no one make and keep a home, a. kingdom in itself, and give attention that is demanded to busi ness. Our friend had undertaken more than she could possibly keep up, and in failing was likely to lose not only health and confidence in herself, but her husband’s interest. She did not take into consideration that the male man demands that not only his appetite be appeased, but his eye pleas ed at the same time. And what is the making of money compared to the loss of the most that goes in the end to satisfy the heart? The instinct of home-making and home keeping is inherent in every woman, and though she may stifle it, put it aside, even silence the voice for a while, life without the indulgence and devel opment of this instinct is buit half life, a disappoint ment and a failure. This is what makes enforced going into business so pitiful—the necessity that is put on women who realize what they are giving up, and must suffer the cruel pangs of homesickness. And even sadder is it to see young girls, fresh from school, who have never even learned, perhaps, the joy and pride there may be in a perfect pud ding or well-baked loaf, or been taught the first lessons in the ordering of a home, thrust into stenographers’ or bookkeepers’ or clerks’ places, there to fade their lives out in routine and treadmill. What though they put themselves there? The lot is no whit different—the only difference is the way the money goes; the earnings of one are for her own pleasure; of the other, for her maintenance, and, too often that of some one else. The warping, nar rowing effect on the two is just the same. Each is cheated of her right and of the best that might come to her, whether by stern need or her own mis guided will. And the world is cheated. For every woman forced to be unwomanly the world is robbed of just that much good; it lacks just that much of being the good place it might be. To have to .spend her existence outside of home and removed from its influences, is foreign to all nature intended and develops another creature from that she had in view, making her, in truth, unwomanly. Home is the sacredest institution known to man; worn an is the maker, and "without woman there is no home. It just amounts to this: shall we do away with homes and all go into business, sleeping and getting our meals in lodging-houses and hotels and restaurants —shall we bring up our girls with the idea that they must earn their own livelihood, and give them business courses, and then see them go into shops and offices like the boys and men: or shall we call a halt, and teach them that home is the place for them, and the highest vocation op en to them, that of home-making? Nature fashioned the man for battling and for accumulating; woman was meant to stay by the stuff, and when she deserts her post and goes out to battle with her lord, there is none left to stay by and where were the use of accumulating? Man does his 'work pretty well, left alone; but when woman insists on helping him, or even taking in away from him, he sometimes becomes indifferent and leaves it to her. We need not be reminded of the cases where men absolutely refuse to get bread for their own children, even taking away the scant earnings of the wife; or those apparently more respectable, who can never get anything to do, and so are de pendent on wife or daughter for subsistence. There are exceptions always, there are cases where women have to work because there are no men in the family to look to. But we speak of men in general, and we maintain, as we have always done, that the men would do more, would work more and earn more, would support their families better, if women would keep out of the business world. Women would not in instances have so much—ex travagant dressing "would not be so general, the pleasures of theatre and concert and ice cream par lor, but who would mind, so long as all fared alike? We live by comparison, and are unhappy only when coveting our neghbor’s pleasure or goods. That the standards of fashion and other things are wihat they are, women have only themselves to blame. Denial in one direction were only gain, and greater in proportion, in another, the pleasures so dearly bought with the hard-earned dollars in business were not to be compared with the pure joys of home, the indestructible happiness found in that safe guard of all that is truly good and beautiful. We append here the statistics which have caused us so much thought, and we wish every woman who has seen or will see them might feel as we do: Journalists .. 2,193 Lawyers 1,010 Literary and scientific persons 5,984 Chemists, assayists, etc 248 Musicians and teachers of music 52,359 Physicians and surgeons .. 7,357 Teachers and professors327,6l4 Laundresses .. ..335,282 Stenographers and typewritersß6,llß Telegraph and telephone operators .. .. 22,556 Cotton mi 115120,216 Woolen mills 30,684 Silk mills .. • • 32,434 A Pennsylvania woman who had to write a pa per on Victor Hugo for her literary club collated her facts from encylopedias. Having a little space left at the bottom of the last sheet, she hazarded a thought of her own: “Whatever we and suc ceeding generations may think of Victor Hugo, we must agree on one thing—that he wrote good Eng lish. ’ ’ —Exchange. True hope is based on energy of character. A strong mind always hopes, knowing as it does, how slight a circumstance may change the course of events. —Von Koeler. Whom God loveth and propeseth to make a blessing, upon him he early layeth the cross and in that school who patiently endure learn much. —Schonberg Cotta Family.