The College, the Market, and the Court: or, Woman's relation to education, labor and lawDall, Caroline Wells Healey
History
The College, the Market, and the Court: or, Woman's relation to education, labor and law
Dall, Caroline Wells Healey
Women -- Education; Women -- Employment; Women -- Legal status, laws, etc.
What he says is perfectly true of _mistaken, ignorant_ moral effort.
That does help yourself, and does _not_ help anybody else. It helps you,
because it develops your right-mindedness,--your generosity. It does not
help anybody else. It _hinders_ others who are clearer intellectually:
they see and despise the mistakes, and are not inspired by the purpose.
Had it been intelligent, they would have seen it to be divine.
Mrs. Woodlock's work was both intelligent and moral. What inspired the
pupils was her moral force and disinterested love. They saw this, and
were kindled by it; while the community at large respected the
intelligence and common sense with which she laid her plans.
Intelligence made these plans self-supporting; intelligence gave them
solid pyramidal position in the world: but moral energy gave them their
prestige, and will win its way by the side of intelligence into the very
columns which Mr. Buckle's closing volume must quote.
Do not be disheartened, then, as to the ultimate profit to others of any
kindly work you feel inclined to do. Let kindliness inspire, let
intelligence direct, your efforts. God has made your success certain
from the very foundations of the world.
I cannot close such inadequate survey of this field as I have felt it my
duty to offer, without alluding to one other fact, and making one
parting suggestion. It cannot but be realized, by all the women to whom
I speak, how very casual is the communication between the laboring class
in this community and their employers. Suppose a housekeeper wants
additional service, how can she secure it? If she is not wealthy enough
to hire regularly, her "chance" is a very poor one; and she must take
the recommendation, in nine cases out of ten, of some one in the
charwoman's own rank of life.
Suppose a maid of all work leaves a mistress alone early some busy
Monday morning, where can her place be filled? How can any one be found
who will work by the hour or the day, in a cleanly, respectable manner,
till a new servant can be deliberately chosen? Nobody knows of a
washerwoman who is out of work on Monday. The intelligence offices hold
no women so distressed that they will go out for less than a week, and
that on trial. Yet, somewhere in the city, there must be women pining
and longing for that waiting work.
Suppose a sudden influx of visitors exhausts your household staff, and
makes a waiting-maid a necessity where none was kept before; suppose a
large group of relatives, passing quickly through the city, come for a
plain family dinner at a moment when your personal superintendence is
impossible,--where is the active, tidy girl who can be summoned, or the
decent woman of experience who can order matters in your kitchen as well
as you can yourself?
Somewhere they sit waiting--suffering, it may be--for the opportunity
which never comes. The intelligence office will get them places; but
places they are not at liberty to seek. They need what they call "a
chance lift."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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