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    296 WHAT CAN EDUCATED WOMEN DO?

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    *& M Number I Consrciitjded Of This My J...

    all those trades and offices in which women might otherwise be emloyed . If lack of ital prevents daughters from

    leavpcapgrown up ing * home and starting for themselves , lack of what they consider due and protection certainlweihs heavily with parents against

    parting proper with young girls , allowing y them g to be apprenticed to a trade or hired as clerks . In the minds of many men , this is an objection

    never to be got over , and no one who has any experience of life will wonder at it . It is evident that the conditions of business life can ,

    therefore , never be identical for men and for women ; no sane person will tolerate the notion of flinging irls into those very temptations

    and dangers which we lament and g regret for boys , and those who rise from the ranks into the middle class show the change in no

    more marked manner than in the standard of decorum they require from the gentle sex . If mothers are often less stringent than

    fathers , it is rather because they know less of what external life is , than because they would shrink less from exposing their daughters

    to evil example . Therefore we may talk to the wind about the folly of bringing up girls to be g'overnessesunless we so _arrange that

    every woman is protected in the exercise , of her profession almost as well as she would be if teaching by some domestic hearth , _ISTor is

    it any answer to say that some women , ten , twenty , or a hundred , have struggled nobly with the toughest problems of outer life ; that

    Rosa Bonheur and Elizabeth _Blackwell and Harriet Hosmer studied their professions in the general arena is very true and very

    inspiring , and makes one think well of one's kind , both men and women , but even their stories will never persuade the ordinary

    father to send his ordinary daughter out unprotected into the world of competition ; . and I think it very well that it is so . We must ,

    therefore , exercise a little common sense in arranging all those workshops and offices in which irls workand we must invariably

    associate them with older women g ; they , must in all cases work in companies together and not intermixed with men , and _, so long as

    they are young they must be under some definite charge . This has been managed in the collegiate institutions now so generally in

    vogue for education ; and I believe it rests with the women of the upper ranks to carry the principle down in minute ramifications into

    every department of woman's work . Let those who have birth , and leisure and means at disposal , set themselves to consider how they

    can make trade and professional life safe and respectable for young irlsand I am sure they will not find it a very difficult task . I

    may g , be reproached for not being- willing to leave this matter to the natural action of society ; but I confess I do think it requires at first

    a little " benevolent" consideration from those who do not work for their livelihood . The prejudice to be got over in the minds of

    parents is so deeply rooted , and their fears so well founded , that I think the active interest of women of high social rank would smooth

    the way very much sooner than , anything else . Many of them are

    deeply in earnest about charities for their own sex , and will spend

    296 What Can Educated Women Do?

    296 WHAT CAN EDUCATED WOMEN DO ?

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Jan. 1, 1860, page 296, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01011860/page/8/