Vocational Guidance for Girls | Page 3

though that
be their just due, but the better use of powers that women have long
possessed, is most needed for the betterment of mankind.
It is not the province of this book to enter into controversy with either
radical or reactionary, but rather to search for truth which may be used
for adjusting to fuller advantage the relation of woman to society. First
of all must be recognized the fact that the "woman movement" deserves
the thoughtful attention of every teacher or other social worker, and
indeed of every thoughtful man or woman. The movement can no
longer be considered in the light of isolated surface outbreaks. It is
rather the result of deep industrial and social undercurrents which are
stirring the whole world.
In our study of the modern woman movement, which as teachers in any
department of educational work we are bound to make, the fact is
immediately impressed upon us that home life has undergone marked
changes. Conditions once favorable to the existence of the home as a
sustaining economic unit are no longer to be found. New conditions
have arisen, compelling the home, like other permanent institutions, to

alter its mode of existence in order to meet them.
Briefly reviewing the causes which have brought about these changes
in home life, we find, first, the industrial revolution. A large number of
the activities once carried on in the home have removed to other
quarters. In earlier times the mother of a family served as cook,
housemaid, laundress, spinner, weaver, seamstress, dairymaid, nurse,
and general caretaker. The father was about the house, at work in the
field, or in his workshop close at hand. The children grew up naturally
in the midst of the industries which provided for the maintenance of the
home, and for which, in part, the home existed. The home, in those
days, was the place where work was done.
With the invention of labor-saving machinery came an entire revolution
in the place and manner of work. The father of the family has been
forced by this industrial change to follow his trade from the home
workshop to the mechanically equipped factory. One by one, many of
the housewife's tasks also have been taken from the home. To-day the
processes of cloth making are practically unknown outside the factory.
Knitting has become largely a machine industry. Ready-made clothing
has largely reduced the sewing done in the home. In the matter of food,
the housekeeper may, if she chooses, have a large part of her work
performed by the baker, the canner, and the delicatessen shopkeeper.
Even the care of her children, after the years of infancy, has been partly
assumed by the state.
The home, as a place where work is done, has lost a large part of its
excuse for being. Among the poorer classes, women, like their
husbands, being obliged to earn, and no longer able to do so in their
homes, have followed the work to the factory. As a result we have
many thousands of them away from their homes through long days of
toil. Among persons of larger income, removal of the home industries
to the factory has resulted in increased leisure for the woman--with
what results we shall later consider. Practically the only constructive
work left which the woman may not shift if she will to other shoulders,
or shirk entirely, is the bearing of children and, to at least some degree,
their care in early years. The interests once centered in the home are

now scattered--the father goes to shop or office, the children to school,
the mother either to work outside the home or in quest of other
occupation and amusement to which leisure drives her.
[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros. Glove making. Women, like
their husbands, have followed work to the factories]
A second change in the conditions affecting home life is found in the
increased educational aspirations of women. Once the accepted and
frankly anticipated career for a woman was marriage and the making of
a home. Her education was centered upon this end. To-day all this is
changed. A girl claims, and is quite free to obtain, an education in all
points like her brother's, and the career she plans and prepares for may
be almost anything he contemplates. She may, or may not, enter upon
the career for which she prepares. Marriage may--often does--interfere
with the career, although nearly as often the career seems to interfere
with marriage. Under the new alignment of ideals, there is less interest
shown in homemaking and more in "the world's work," with a decided
feeling that the two are entirely incompatible.
[Illustration: Keystone View Co. Employees leaving the Elgin Watch
Company factory. Thousands of women are away from their homes
through long days of toil]
The girl,