As We Are and As We May Be | Page 4

not brought him solid success, so that there is
always tightness. And it is beautiful to remark the cheerfulness of the
girls, and how they accept the tightness as a necessary part of the
World's Order; and how they welcome each new feminine arrival as if
it was really going to add a solid lump of comfort to the family joy.
These girls face work from the beginning. Well for them if they have
any better training than the ordinary day-school, or any special teaching
at all.
Another--the most potent cause of all--is the complete revolution of
opinion as regards woman's work which has been effected in the course
of a single generation. Thirty years ago, if a girl was compelled to earn
her bread by her own work, what could she do? There were a few--a
very few--who wrote; many very excellent persons held writing to be
'unladylike.' There were a few--a very few--who painted; there were
some--but very few, and those chiefly the daughters of actors--who
went on the stage. All the rest of the women who maintained
themselves, and were called, by courtesy, ladies, became governesses.
Some taught in schools, where they endured hardness--remember the
account of the school where Charlotte Brontë was educated. Some went
to live in private houses--think of the governess in the old novel, meek
and gentle, snubbed by her employer, bullied by her pupils, and
insulted by the footman, until the young Prince came along. Some went
from house to house as daily governesses. Even in teaching they were
greatly restricted. Man was called in to teach dancing; he went round
among the schools in black silk stockings, with a kit under his arm, and
could caper wonderfully. Woman could only teach dancing at the awful
risk of showing her ankles. Who cares now whether a woman shows
her ankles or not? It makes one think of Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle,
and of the admiration which those sly dogs expressed for a neat pair of

ankles. Man, again, taught drawing; man taught music; man taught
singing; man taught writing; man taught arithmetic; man taught French
and Italian; German was not taught at all. Indeed, had it not been for
geography and the use of the globes, and the right handling of the
blackboard, there would have been nothing at all left for the governess
to teach. Forty years ago, however, she was great on the Church
Catechism and a martinet as to the Sunday sermon.
It was not every girl, even then, who could teach. I remember one lady
who in her young days had refused to teach on the ground that she
would have to be hanged for child-murder if she tried. Those who did
not teach, unless they married and became mistresses of their own
ménage, stayed at home until the parents died, and then went to live
with a brother or a married sister. What family would be without the
unmarried sister, the universal aunt? Sometimes, perhaps, she became a
mere unpaid household servant, who could not give notice. But one
would fain hope that these were rare cases.
Now, however, all is changed. The doors are thrown wide open. With a
few exceptions--to be sure, the Church, the Law, and Engineering are
important exceptions--a woman can enter upon any career she pleases.
The average woman, specially trained, should do at any intellectual
work nearly as well as the average man. The old prejudice against the
work of women is practically extinct. Love of independence and the
newly awakened impatience of the old shackles, in addition to the
forces already mentioned, are everywhere driving girls to take up
professional lives.
Not only are the doors of the old avenues thrown open: we have created
new ways for the women who work. Literature offers a hundred paths,
each one with stimulating examples of feminine success. There is
journalism, into which women are only now beginning to enter by ones
and twos. Before long they will sweep in with a flood. In medicine,
which requires arduous study and great bodily strength, they do not
enter in large numbers. Acting is a fashionable craze. Art covers as
wide a field as literature. Education in girls' schools of the highest kind
has passed into their own hands. Moreover, women can now do many

things--and remain gentlewomen--which were formerly impossible.
Some keep furniture shops, some are decorators, some are dressmakers,
some make or sell embroidery.
In all these professions two things are wanting--natural aptitude and
special training. Unfortunately, the competition is encumbered and
crowded with those who have neither, or else both imperfectly,
developed.
The present state of things is somewhat as follows: The world contains
a great open market, where the demand for first-class work of every
kind is practically inexhaustible. In literature everything