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IT IS almost indispensable that the modern girl, in what ever position she finds herself, whether one of the world's workers or the girl of leisure, should give a portion of her time to reading. In this way only can she keep abreast of the time, sharing its best thoughts, understanding its important movements, and learning her own attitude toward the world and her duty toward it. She must read her daily paper, selecting with the utmost care the one that she should read regularly, and choosing only the one of clean, pure tone, that makes little of the social sensations, gives small space to the chronicling of crime, but that deals with the living questions of the day, honestly and fearlessly, and stands for what is sweet and good and strong in life. She must not omit her own weekly religious paper. These, with a good standard magazine that will be both entertaining and helpful and give her the best literary thought of the present time, and a few well-chosen books, should constitute her mental bill of fare She must remember that being a "great reader" is not, by any means, the same as being a "good reader."

The greater part of books that flood the market at the present time is trash of the trashiest sort; and because one can devour such a vast amount of the stuff in an incredibly short space of time, she fancies that she is doing extraordinary things in the way of self-culture and mental discipline. Quantity, not quality, seems to be the standard by which intellectual abilities are measured; as somebody whom I have seen counts everyPage that he reads, makes a record of it, then. exhibits this record to his friends to show what a great reader he is.

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Thank goodness, girls, he isn't one of you, but after all, I fear he is not so very unlike some of you in certain points, either as you are now or as you have been at some period of your existence. For, though you don't count pages, many of you get through with almost as great an amount of nonsense, and then make an ostentatious parade over your extensive acquaintance with books and their authors; oftener than not, just the kind that it might be quite as well to refrain from acknowledging.

I heard a conversation between two school girls the other day that I cannot refrain from quoting, it was so very characteristic, and reminded me so forcibly of the manner in which, some years ago, the girls who are women now used to discuss their favorite authors and go into raptures over their productions. And I wondered if we who were girls then could have the opportunity of talking together in the old familiar way, how much our opinions would have changed, how much more elevated would be our standard of taste. We know from experience what a fashion girls have of admiring one another--their abilities and attainments--and that a school girl friendship is, after all, a sort of mutual admiration society, the first ideal worship that by-and-by finds other outlets, but in the meantime demanding an object on which to lavish itself, selects one girl from all the rest, who is for the time the Alpha and Omega of the worshiper's existence.

This was evidently the relation between these two girls; one the adorer, the other receiving the homage offered at her shrine quite as a matter of course and accepting it with an air of gracious condescension that was amusing to watch.

Number one rolls up her eyes in an ecstacy of admiration and rapturously exclaims: "Oh, Lillie! I never saw anybody like you--always with a book; you must have read everything. I wish I knew as much as you do."

Number two looks conscious, and modestly, but very faintly disclaims the universality of knowledge ascribed to her by her friend, and goes on to say, "But I do read a great deal. I am a real book-worm. I don't do anything else morning or night, and I always carry a book to the table with me, so as to lose no time. I get two books out of the library every day. I just dote on intellect; and my greatest ambition is to be called intellectual. Mother says she expects me to turn into a book some day." Number one grew more rapturous and the eyes rolled more alarmingly. "Well, but if you don't turn into a book, you'll be sure to write--and that's the same thing--and wouldn't it be just perfectly elegant? I should think you'd try; I know you could write a story just as good as 'The Stolen Bride,' just splendid and real exciting."

There's where it comes, and there's where the mischief lies--"something real exciting." The constantly increasing demand for something unnatural and exaggerated, to which most modern novels pander to an alarming extent. I

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didn't hear any more of their conversation, but I had heard enough to change amusement into regret; and I was glad to find myself beyond the reach of their voices.

Do you think this is exaggerated? Not at all. I have quoted the conversation word for word as I heard it, and it has been food for serious thought ever since.

I remember once at school two or three girls and myself, bred by an ambition similar to that expressed by the young woman who wished to be literary, formed a club and passed an hour or two of our recreation time daily in reading. We did this quite without direction or advice from some one older and wiser, and we made a sad mistake. We fancied we were doing wonderful things, and gloried amazingly over our more frivolously disposed schoolmates, who sensibly preferred romping in the open air to romance in a stifled room. Had we remembered that discipline means strength, and gone to work accordingly, we would, no doubt, have obtained a modicum, at least, of the good sought.

But we forgot, or remembering, chose to ignore that important fact, and began a desultory course of reading that amused and excited, but did not strengthen any more than any stimulant which exhilarates for the time one is under its immediate influence, but whose after effects are weakness and prostration. And so, what was intended for a benefit became, through our thoughtlessness and our lack of wisdom, a source of serious ill whose after effects were long felt. We lived entirely in a realm of romance of the most unhealthy kind. Nothing pleased us unless it was sensational, or, as that "very exciting." We received distorted and unnatural views of life, and were in no way prepared for the reality of living, as we have since found living to be. The men and women we have met in our actual lives were not the people of our books; and there is a grandeur and strength in true living far beyond what we ever found in the ideal world of our romances. And what was true of us then is true of girls now. Indiscriminate reading enervates the mind and lowers the mental powers, although we do not see this until munch mischief has been done; yet it may not be always too late to remedy the evil in a measure, at least, if we are interested enough in our own self-advancement to care to apply the remedy.

I scarcely know which time is to be the most decried--the time when novels and all light reading were strictly tabooed from all God-fearing families, or these days when scarcely anything which is not a novel will be tolerated, when even our histories and books of travel must be tinged with romance and sprinkled with poetic dew to make them palatable to the modern taste.

Fault may justly be found with both conditions; but perhaps one is only the cause of the other. When once the strong, unyielding cords of puritanism were broken, there was a rebound to the farthest extreme of latitude, and we have not swung ourselves yet into our proper poise. Much as we find to condemn in the

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stern severity of the old time, it gave us strong, rugged men, and grandly enduring women; just the men and women needed to do the heroic work of the age in which they lived. There was too much hard reality in their lives for romance to have even the smallest part, and they would have scorned the senti mentalities of their successors. Not but that one likes a certain amount of grace and softness mingling with and tempering the strength, smoothing rough places, rounding sharp corners of character, and so making a life beautiful and gracious, as well as strong and enduring. But I fear we are tending too much toward the smoothness and ease, and leaving strength quite out of the question. We certainly can gain no mental discipline from the majority of the popular books of the day. There is no use saying "We read what is given us; if the books were not written we should not read them." It is a cowardly plea. There is no use in trying to put off one's shortcomings upon the shoulders of some one else. The fault is the reader's, and the reader's alone. One is not obliged to take arsenic or prussic acid because they are marketable articles; neither need one read undesirable books unless she chooses. Besides, your own argument may hold good against you. If you did not read the books they would not be written. Just so long as authors meet encouragement in any particular branch of writing, just so long they will continue in it; and just so long as you read trash, just so long somebody will write it.

But do not for a moment imagine, girls, that I advise you to give up all your light reading and devote yourselves expressly to solids. You must have a certain amount of literary recreation. I do not want you to steer from the Scylla of extreme silliness straight into the Charybdis of disagreeable pedantry. There must be a happy medium somewhere, and there is no reason why you should not find it.

Throw aside novels? No, indeed! Not while there is an edition of "The Waverlys" extant, giving you such insight into Scotch and English history as these wonderful books give. Not while Thackeray, sharp and clear as a keen north wind, shows you his views of life from his ever fresh pages; nor while Dickens, the inimitable, brings before you in their quaint reality the people who make up his world; nor while MacDonald, the man with the deepest sympathies and broadest humanities, reaching down deep into the hearts of men and setting them face to face with nature and nature's God, makes us better for his writing. Not while you have Jane Austen's sweet and simple stories, nor Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and Helen Hunt's "Ramona"--the gospels of two downtrodden races.

While you have these and others like them, which cannot be mentioned here for lack of space, you need fear no harm from novel reading. But when you get beyond, into the field of sensational literature, the harm begins. You can go on as you are, growing lower in the mental scale; or you can elevate your taste, and

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come out upon higher planes of living than you ever have known before, and it is your books that will help you; they are to be your educators. Look at what lies before you poetry, essay, history, biography, science. Will you call history stupid when Motley and Prescott invest every word they write with a new interest and enchain you to their pages by their exquisite imagery and elegant diction? When John Fiske writes American history so that you feel glad and proud of the achievement of your forefathers, and are made to realize how the story of America, its achievement and development, is but a carrying on of the story of the world, the Christian world, which was begun almost twenty centuries ago?

Will you vote essay dull when you have Charles Lamb--dear, gentle, quizzical Charles Lamb--to take into your heart of hearts? Where no one else penetrates, he enters with his queer drollery that overlies the deepest pathos, drawing smiles and tears simultaneously from lips and eyes, just as sunshine and shower struggle for mastery on an April day.

There, too, is Macaulay, with his somewhat confident self-assertion, but no less fascinating style and keen discrimination now and then blunted by prejudice: our own American Whipple, Curtis and Higginson, names well known in the pages of literature.

You never liked biography? Then you know nothing about it. Take the lives of some of the men and women who have lived and labored for humanity, who have struggled and won, who have left names behind them that are beacon lights on the path of endeavor and achievement, and who have made the world better because they lived and worked and attained. See then, after you have finished reading of these rare souls, that you can say any longer, that you don't like biography.

Do you say you can't endure poetry? What! not while you have the grand, heroic songs of Homer, the deep grandeur of Dante, the sublime majesty of Milton, the subtle, sympathetic humanity of Shakespeare, together with the sweet singing of America's Longfellow, Whittier and Bryant.

I have left until the last the one book which comprehends for you the whole world of literature; in it you find history, essay, biography and poetry, all the highest and the best. I mean, the book that you must make your daily guide, your closest companion, your best beloved teacher; the book which must be "the guide to your feet and the lamp to your path"-- your Bible. Following its guidance and its light, you can never go far astray; it will be your helper and comforter through every stress of circumstance, pointing you the way to the broader life beyond. It gives you mental and spiritual strength. It feeds brain and heart, so if it chances that this book combines your entire library you will, if you peruse it properly and study it diligently, be both a great and a good reader.

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THE women who came home from Europe about half a dozen years ago had a great deal to say on their return about the lady guides of London. In fact, they spoke of them with enthusiasm. It seems that some of the clever, educated, independent women of England, feeling the need of earning money, conceived the idea of forming an association of lady guides whose business it should be to show strangers, particularly ladies, about London and its suburbs extending their duties to remoter points, even to the continent, if desired; although the field which they especially undertook to cover was the city itself. In connection with its guides it established a bureau of information for boarding- and lodging-houses, suitable for women who were traveling without men protectors. The idea proved a most happy one, and the women connected with it speedily had all they could do, and their office became one of the most popular points in the city of London, especially for women. In these days of telegraph and cable it takes an idea but a short time to travel, and so eager are women for the new employments that are open to them that they no sooner hear of any experiment in an industrial hue than they go ahead and try it for themselves.

The work in London was reported in New York, when straightway it was taken up and an association formed which is called "The New York Ladies' Guide and Chaperon Bureau." With the establishment of this association, the time has passed when the unprotected woman may look forward to a visit to New York with trepidation. It has issued a circular which it is sending about, and a few quotations are given from it so that the girls who read may have some notion of the work. It is even more far-reaching than the one in London, and has added

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quite a number of new features. The circular informs the public that their guides have a practical knowledge of the history of all important places of interest, and, being armed with the association's badge and credentials, receive a more cordial recognition than the mere stranger. From these advantages and from the varied experience among shops of all kinds, the benefit to be derived is self-evident.

The chaperons, selected with the utmost care, place at the disposal of the young ladies whose mothers or guardians are unable to accompany them, the facilities so often required of going to the theatre or concert. Young ladies are escorted from and to their homes; and school children to and from school. Choice seats are furnished for all places of amusement, carriages are sent whenever desired, direction given to permanent or transient guests for the best hotels and boarding-houses, rooms are engaged in advance, railway and steamboat tickets and berths are engaged, strangers coming to the city are met at the station if desired, and all arrangements made for their comfort during their stay-.

The association also sends out home or foreign excursion parties of ladies under the care of experienced chaperons who attend to all ordinary and necessary details. The circular goes on to say: "The bureau can be used to great advantage by those living in the suburbs, expecting friends whom it is desired they should meet; by telephoning to the bureau a chaperon can be sent who will conduct the visitor from one station to another and save time and money for the patron without discourtesy to her friend. A new and important feature of our work is to provide lady experts to assist in or take full charge of the interior decoration of a house, furnishing it throughout, selecting books for libraries, etc. Elocutionists, pianists and singers supplied for entertainments. In short, there is no aid or service that one woman may be able or required to render or perform for another, that will not be cheerfully undertaken and the best efforts made to give satisfaction."

In order that the bureau might be really of service, the charges were made quite moderate, the following being the schedule adopted by the association:

Guides for shopping and sight-seeing, according to competency, $3.00, $3.50 and $4.00 a day.

Those who act as interpreters, 50 cents to $1.00 a day additional.

Deductions are made for weekly engagements.

Chaperonage to the theatre $1.00. Chaperonage of children to and from school $2.50 a week.

Directing to boarding-house 25 cents. Securing room and board 75 cents.

Securing seats for the theatre for one or more 50 cents.

Physicians and lawyers recommended 50 cents.

Use of the room for changing toilet, meeting parties on business, etc., 50 cents.

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Typewriting 5 cents per folio.

Meeting ladies at station, accompanying young ladies and children, or any brief service, 40 cents an hour.

Shopping orders executed for 5 per cent on the amount purchased.

This circular is issued by an association, but the rules and the scope of work may give a hint to some young woman of what she herself may do. Great success has followed the innovation of the woman guide. It is the latest addition to the forces of a New York hotel. The services of this woman guide are daily in demand. Women of means, who have come to the city with their husbands to see the lions, have generally had a stupid time and have often gone home with out the glimpse of even one lion. Business has kept the husband away all day and the lonely wife has spent her time looking out of the hotel window. Now she pays this young woman guide to show her all over the city. The business is a good one, if it is tiring. One guide said, "A tour of the picture galleries and other points of interest about the city, including a spin through the park with a description of the obelisk and the various statues and pictures in the Art museum and on the drives, cost $5.00; while a day at the shops cost my patron $10.00."

But women with money are willing to pay it.

Not every young woman can undertake the task of entertaining people for this is practically what a guide must do. There are certain indispensable requisites. In the first place, one must be well educated, able to talk well, and understand all the history of places which she is to show. She must be well bred and courteous, possess kindliness and tact, and have some knowledge of human nature. Meeting many different kinds of people, as she must, she will need all these qualifications. In the large cities she must know what is going on at the various theatres and places of amusement, so as to know just where to take her party. She must know the picture galleries, keep the run of the art exhibitions and know the best shops for bargains. All this a bright, quick woman may easily learn, and she may keep her knowledge at her tongue's end and her finger tips.

Having these requisites, with a fund of cheerfulness and good temper and being sure that she is ready to meet any emergencies that may arise, she may start on her work. Of course, she must find a way to gain patronage. She would do well to make friends with the leading hotel people and the best of the shop keepers. She should have cards prepared, stating what she is ready to do, giving as references the name of her clergyman and one or two well-known men or women whose names will carry weight with whoever may see them. She should leave these cards at the hotels and see personally every day that they are distributed to the newly arrived women guests. She should also insert an advertisement in the leading papers, not only of her own city, but in the papers of cities at a distance from her home. She should be at the various hotels at certain appointed

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[image: GUIDES, SHOPPERS AND CHAPERONS]

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hours every day to see if anyone needs her services. All this time friends are speaking for her, distributing her cards, and if she has any acquaintances in outlying cities, she asks them to recommend their friends to her care while in town.

In this way it will not take her long to work up a good business.

It should not need to be said--but alas, the necessity does exist for saying it--a guide must take care to be well and quietly dressed. She must look and be the refined, gracious woman, who for the time is acting the part of hostess, and she must bear in mind that to be anything less than refined in her outward appearance would be an insult to her guest, or to the person who for the time occupies the position of guest. A dark cloth tailor-made gown, with wrap and bonnet to suit, immaculate linen, nice gloves and boots--and your[sic are ready. Wear a bonnet rather than a hat, for a bonnet is always ladylike, while there is an informality about a hat that is not appropriate to the occasion.

You can make your prices from the circular that I have quoted to you, varying them as it seems to you best, although this is a fair list. Of course it is understood that your patron pays your expenses, the car fares, lunches, carriage rates, etc. That is, she may allow you to do it, but you must keep the account and settle the expense at the end of each day.

If you are to meet a woman who is a stranger to you at one of the stations, you may wear the badge which has been adopted by the New York Woman Guides--a knot of blue and white ribbon on the left shoulder. She cannot then mistake you.

Although this chaperon system has been some time in vogue in London, it is comparatively new in New York, and there are many cities in which it does not exist at all. Consequently, this new field is anything but crowded, and there is room for ladylike, educated women who thoroughly understand themselves and the city in which they live. They must be able to see about hacks, plain baggage, find expressmen, and settle all the preliminaries of hotel or boarding-house. In short, they are supposed to be able to do everything for the healthy stranger within the gates that a man could do, and much more besides. This gives you possibly a fair idea of what the duties of the guide and chaperon must be.

As these duties will not probably fill all your time, those of you who under take them may add those of shopping on commission. In this friends living out side the city will be of great service to you. They may influence people to send to you, and thus enlarge your business constantly. When once you are well established, you will probably be able to make such terms with the leading mercantile houses as will induce them to give you a commission on sales in addition to the commission you receive from shoppers, and in this way you may make your income from both sides. You could not attempt such an arrangement in the beginning, for the houses would not enter into it until they found that your

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business was a valuable one and that it paid them to induce you to bring it to them.

You will understand that the successful shopper must be a person of taste, must know the very latest fashions as well as the most recent fads and notions; she must possess good judgment in selection, an artistic eye in matching, and understand the values of materials. I know one woman who makes a good income by shopping on commission and doing nothing else. She not only shops for out-of-town patrons, but she has a set of families in town whose principal purchases she makes. She goes every morning to their houses, receives her commissions, and goes out to fill them. In this case she is paid a certain salary instead of commission on her purchases, because she must report for duty every morning, whether there is anything to be done or not. Each family pays a small stated sum--$2.00 or $2.50 a week and car fares--and with several families, this serves to make a good income. She supports herself well and is educating a daughter at the best schools by her business as a family shopper.

While hardly coming under the head of chaperon, there will perhaps be no better place in which to refer to the scheme which one young woman has of earning an income. She is very fond of children and, in return, they are very fond of her. She has a fund of entertainment for the little ones, is a clever little story teller, knows all sorts of games, has all the nursery rhymes and children's songs at her tongues end, and she goes out by the hour as children's entertainer. She is in demand for children's parties, and many mothers put the planning and entire carrying out of these little entertainments into her hand. She writes the invitations, orders the refreshments, lays out the games, and when the time comes, is on hand to assist the youngsters at their merrymaking. In the houses where she is an habitual visitor, no sort of a time is considered good by the children unless she is in it. She amuses the little convalescents, reading and singing to them and lulling them to sleep by her quiet, sweet ways. She advises mothers about the dressing of the little ones, for she has the most exquisite taste. In short, one of her patrons summed up her list of attainments by naming her "The mother's universal helper." Only the girl who loves children can make a success in this special line, but every neighborhood must have at least one among its young women who can take a place among the mothers of the community in which she lives similar to the one held by the girl just mentioned.

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IN ALMOST every town and village are young women and girls who are anxiously asking what they can do in their own community to earn a livelihood. The big outside world has no attraction for them. They want to keep in the shelter of the home which they love so well and which seems a part of their very life, or there is somebody in that home for whom they must be the homekeepers. Circumstance rather than desire or ambition must be the governing power of their lives. If you would know how large is this army of waiting women you should pass a day at any of the women's exchanges or industrial unions in the large cities and get the superintendent to tell you of the appeals that come daily from Maine to Oregon, from Wisconsin to Florida; and the burden of all the appeals is the same:

"Tell me what I can do at home to earn some money!" I would like just here to tell you how the Boston Union came to be so besieged with applicants. The story will interest you and I am sure some will find a word of needed warning and advice in it. A few years ago the newspapers in city and country, daily and weekly, were filled with advertisements headed "Work at Home." and promising that if women would send either one dollar or two, as the case might be, they would receive instruction for art work which was to be done at home, as well as the outfit for doing it, and that after they had learned they would be supplied with steady work at good prices. You can have no idea how the replies came. Dollars literally poured into the hands of the advertisers. In return, a piece of very coarse velveteen stamped with a pattern and a few needlefuls of silk would be sent, with the directions for working. When this piece of embroidery was finished it was to be returned to the supply company with another dollar, and if it proved satisfactory, permanent work would be furnished.

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In nearly every case there was no return for the last dollar. In hundreds of instances the dollar or two could not be spared, and meant such sacrifices as few of you can understand. Presently this matter came to the notice of the Women's Union in Boston and it set to work to stop the business. It obtained all the evidence it needed and then sent its lawyers to the address given in the advertisement. In most cases no responsible persons could be found, so nothing could be done by law. It then interviewed the proprietors of all the leading newspapers, with the result that such advertisements were refused place in the columns. It couldn't get back the money for the poor women who had already been duped, but it might prevent others from becoming victims. In this way the work of the Union began to be known all over the country and women began to write there for work. Of course the Union could not supply them it could only point out to them what to avoid.

There was something shown by the flood of answers that came to this fraudulent advertising. Not only were there hundreds, yes, thousands of women wanting work, but the majority were anxious to do "art" work of some kind. Honest work that was genuinely practical found little favor in the eyes of the multitude. They seemed to have an idea that anything that was "art," no matter how bad art it was, hadn't the flavor of labor about it. Even if it was work, it was "genteel" work and "ladies" could do it. Now, girls, honestly, isn't that silly and stupid? If one finds it necessary to do anything for money, why not stand up squarely and face the fact and do the work that comes to be done, what ever it may be, in a straightforward fashion instead of dodging about under all sorts of make-believes?

I have already referred to the misuse of the term "ladies," and just here I want to emphasize it. It is incorrect, a mistake in language, to speak of yourself or of any other person as "ladies" in connection with work of any kind. The term "lady" presupposes leisure. In the same way the word gentleman carries a like significance. Now you know very well that the term "gentleman of business" is never used, and you certainly never heard of a "salesgentleman." Aren't the very sounds ridiculous? And yet your man of business is more often than not the polished, well-bred man of society with a position which no one can dispute. You can be well-bred women, even if you are work women. You may be ladies at your leisure. But insisting on the term won't make you so. On the contrary, the very use of the word in connection with work stamps you at once as ignorant, if not ill bred.

And now, if you are prepared to take up your work in true dignified work woman fashion, I have a suggestion to make to those of you who have quick eyes, deft fingers and a true taste. I might also add "an artistic instinct," but I'm getting to be a bit afraid of expressions of that kind. They're too apt to make

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mischief. Still, there is an art side to the occupation I am about to suggest, but it must be taken sensibly and not to the sacrifice of anything else. I know you were expecting something delightfully new, and I imagine I hear a murmur of deep disappointment when I say--dressmaking.

But you must understand that there is dressmaking and dressmaking. It is not the old-fashioned kind that I am about to commend to you, but the new, which has originality, idea and principles about it. The principles are beauty and comfort; the idea is becomingness and health; and all of it combined constitute originality. I dare say you have all read about dress reform, and have grown to have a horror of the term because in the past it has stood for ugliness pure and simple, and for crankiness unadulterated. Well, we won't talk about dress reform any more, but in its place we will substitute the term, "artistic and hygienic dressing;" that describes the new phase of it. This began with Cynthia Bates, when she invented the waist that should take the place of corsets; it was to be adapted to the figure rather than force the figure to be adapted to it. Miss Bates was a wise woman; she saw that invalidism for women was rapidly going out of fashion, and that to be healthful was to be correct. She foresaw the generation of golf playing, canoe paddling, horseback riding, bicycling, mountain-climbing girls, devoted to athletics of all kinds, and she wisely made ready for them. Room to develop, room to grow, was the principle upon which she built her waist. She started no crusade against beauty--wise Miss Bates. "Have everything as pretty as you like," she said, "but above all, be true to nature." Indeed, through all her business Miss Bates has preached the true gospel of beauty. At first women eyed the waists askance; they were suspicious of innovation, but by degrees they became convinced; and the best proof of Miss Bates' success is the large number of patent health waists that have been put upon the market since Miss Bates introduced hers, and the numbers that are sold.

But that was only the beginning, and it was left to another woman to make a rounding-out of the idea of proper dress. If there is anybody in the world that does not believe that a healthful dress can be a pretty one, I only wish that she could see some of the delicious gowns that Mrs. Annie Jenness Miller evolved from that keen brain of hers. They keep close enough to the line of the fashion not to seem queer, but each gown is original and picturesque, having in it the very spirit of graceful and becoming dressing, at the same time it is on strictly hygienic principles. Now there are hundreds of women who would like to adopt this dress plan, but their own dressmakers turn up their noses at it, and it is, as a rule, impossible to get such dresses made.

I venture to say the reason why so few dressmakers take it up is because it does require originality and artistic instinct to make it successful, but the girl or

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woman who is artistic in her feelings and who has a gift of expressing these feelings has here a field open before her that she will find very remunerative. It requires more skill to make dresses in this way than in the stereotyped fashion because so much depends on individual expression.

Here is an open field that is, as yet, practically unexploited. So many others are overburdened with workers, but this invites the workers to come into it. You see I was right when I told you there was dressmaking and dressmaking. One must understand the principles of fitting, be a good needlewoman, have an eve for color combination, and be able to adapt styles to different individuals. The girl with originality may design for her different customers. If she have the ability to do this she could be much more valuable that one who is able only to follow other people's models, and she may command a large price for her work.

There is hardly a town of any size that will not support at least one dressmaker of this kind, and she may either go to her own customers by the day, or she may have them come to her house. Good dressmakers who go out get all the way from $3.00 to $4.00 a day, according to their ability and their originality. These are city prices, of course; but I suppose there is no place where a stylish, competent dressmaker with original ideas and a talent for making her customer look her very best, would have less than the first named price. A girl could thus have a good income and make herself invaluable to her employers. At the same time, she is doing something eminently satisfactory and is exercising her love for the beautiful and refined. With right governing ideas of what is beautiful, it must be a delight to work on the pretty stuff that is used nowadays.

There are other branches of dressmaking to which a clever girl may turn her attention--making over dresses is one. There is a knack in making an old dress look like a new one; and this knack once acquired is worth money to the woman who will take pains to learn it thoroughly. There are plenty of women who are willing to pay to have their old garments utilized. It is an economy which the majority are compelled to practice; the only trouble, so far, has been in having it satisfactorily done. As a rule, the average dressmaker tuns up her nose at the very idea of remodeling, and refuses to take the pains with a gown which she is putting into new shape from old material, that she gives to that one made from an entirely new fabric. Then again, not every dressmaker who is willing to make over is successful in her attempt. It is really a profession by itself--this renovating and making over. Any young woman who will take up this branch alone is sure to do well in any community of size.

A girl went to a town where she was unknown and hung out the regulation sign "Fashionable Dressmaking." It didn't attract one customer. Not a single soul even called to ask her prices. She didn't raise a ripple of curiosity on the surface of that community's life. But that state of things couldn't last. When

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she stopped counting the dollars in her purse because only pennies remained, a thought struck her; it was the inspiration born of despair. She had always been successful in making over her old dresses, so that her friends used laughingly to tell her that her remade old dresses looked better than their new ones. So she took half her remaining money and had another sign painted--"Dresses made over." The old sign was taken down-- this was hung in its place. It hadn't been up half a day before a customer came. In time others came and it was not long before she had built up a good paying business of making dresses over. She learned the most improved process of cleaning, and even brightening old dresses. Somehow everything that came out from under her hand took on new beauty, new freshness and new grace. It was just as her girl friends had said--her madeover dresses did look better than many new ones. She added to her business that of remodeling a mothers old dresses for a young daughter; many was the new Sunday dress for the little girl--that had not even been considered fit to wear even on Saturday before--that went out of her room, which had been worn by the mother for a long time.

And that suggests still another phase for the home dressmaker, one that requires special taste and ability, that of making dresses for growing girls in the awkward age that comes between childhood and womanhood. Many mothers are at their wits' end to know how to dress a girl becomingly, and the dress maker who makes stylish women's clothes almost always fails when she tries to turn out something suitable for the woman's daughter. It would seem an easy thing to do, but any mother would tell you that in nothing did she find so much difficulty as in securing a tasteful and competent dressmaker for her little girls.

This should be a happy suggestion to some Young woman, for nothing can be more delightful than working on the pretty fabrics of which girls' dresses are made, and exercising the taste in devising something new and dainty to form them into. There is such latitude allowed in the planning of these little gowns. Fortunately for the dressmaker fashion forgets to be arbitrary in her laws regarding the dress of children. There is everything that shall suggest originality and picturesqueness from the portraits of the children which Sir Joshua Reynolds painted, to the quaint little figures which have immortalized the name of Kate Greenaway. The one thing that the child's dressmaker must not be, is conventional; she may give free play to her fancy, and the quainter and more picturesque she makes the little girl look whose gown she is fashioning, the more successful she may account herself. She will have steady patronage and an assured income, won, certainly, in a most pleasant fashion.

Was I not right when I told you, girls, that there was dressmaking and dressmaking? Hasn't one of you gleaned an idea that you may use and make valuable from all that I have said?

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LET no girl dream that this question will ever be adequately and conscientiously answered except by her own heart. No time is ever more uselessly employed than in listening to advice on this subject. "The soul's emphasis is always right," declares Emerson. He might as truthfully have added that the emphasis of any soul, the decision of any mind, except one's own is far more likely to work disaster than to bring satisfaction or success.

And satisfaction and success are twin gods which walk together like a man and his shadow.

Every girl wants a career which will bring success. And what is success? To scarcely two people in the world would it be represented by the same thing. "Would you exchange places with that woman, performing her duties and receiving her income?" I asked of a poorly remunerated literary toiler, with whom I was speaking of one of the buyers in a large dry goods establishment, who received as salary several thousand dollars a year. "Never!" was the quick reply. "I should rather write for three dollars a week than to bargain for fabrics and faces at a hundred."

No amount of money, on the one hand, or of literary creation, however largely rewarded, on the other, would have made the work of one of these women truly a success for the other. The shivering, starving, disappointed life of Millet, whose hardships continued till nearly the end of his days, was to the painter of the Angelus a greater success than would have been represented by the Vanderbilt millions, had he been obliged to employ Vanderbilt methods to secure them.

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Think you that to Audubon, to whom to know every bird of the forest by the shade of its feathers or the fibre of its notes was knowledge of utmost importance, the splendid triumphs of Edison would have meant success? And to the master of the lightning what could have seemed less like success than to become accurately acquainted with the habits of birds?

Success is ever an individual thing.

What career shall you choose? The career which has chosen you. The work which means success to you. In this choice lies your only safety, since there is no real dynamic power outside of one's soul.

Most of us have seen a disabled locomotive propelled along the track. It took a dozen men to move it, and then the progress was exceedingly slow, and ineffective. How different were its movements from those of an engine whose motive power came from the boiler!

The talent is the call,'' --a call which can remain unheeded only with the direst results.

Supposing the literary worker, tempted by visions of gain, had attempted a commercial life? or the buyer of fabrics, instigated by thoughts of fame, had undertaken to become a writer? What if Millet had essayed a mercantile career? Audubon to master the secrets of electricity? Edison to become a naturalist? The chances are a million to one that each would have met with complete financial failure, and missed satisfaction as well, because she or he was attempting work which was not born hers or his.

Did you ever try to care for a stranger's child? In two hours probably you were irritated, exhausted, and too impatient to take the measures which might have most effectively assisted in your assumed task. To the mother of the child even the labor of caring for it was dear, and her endeavors to develop it a work of love. It was not born yours; it was born hers.

No one can effectively handle that which does not belong to him. Pythagoras the learned had no wiser rule than this That which concerns me I will attend to. "That which concerns me not I will let alone."

"Well," said a character in one of Sophie May's books, "I have done what I could." "Ah, no," replied her sister, "you have done what you couldn't." This girl had turned away from the things she really could do to advantage, and had written a book, not because she had a talent for writing or anything to say, but because she considered writing "genteel."

Don't let your career be wrecked, girls, as so many careers have been, on the rock of gentility. Remember that work to be really genteel must be genteelly done; that it is not the occupation itself, but the manner of handling it which makes it fine or unfine work. The book which the born milliner writes will not be a fine book. The bonnet which the appointed poet trims will not rank among

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works of art. Many a girl can handle cooking utensils genteelly whose picture would be a bungle. Many a splendid stenographer would distract the neighborhood by her music.

The first rule of life should be, Work according to your ideals.

One day two women, who were driving in a New Hampshire town, rode up to the door of a farmhouse to ask for information about routes. While the lady of the house stood by the carriage, a man was seen approaching whose costume bore but a faint resemblance to anything usually worn by mortals. There was a decided discrepancy in the size of the trousers legs, the shape of the coat sleeves was like nothing in particular, the vest was like no other vest the beholders had ever seen.

"Where," asked one of the ladies respectfully, "does your husband get his clothes?" "I make 'em," was the reply.

"And where do you get your patterns?" was the next question.

"Oh," answered the wife, "I don't bother with patterns. I just glance at Johnson once in a while, and cut." "Life is all a misfit," said a young woman to me one day; a remark which was but the repetition of the same complaint uttered or written in many different phrases by many different people--people who were simply seeking relief by the outpouring of their doubts and fears, or asking comfort and counsel.

After the girl whose life was a misfit had taken her departure, I gave my mind up to the possible solution of the riddle why so many were finding existence inadequate, ineffective, unsatisfactory; and the conviction was forced upon me that the disaster was, in many cases, due to the same cause which clothed Johnson so uncouthly--want of patterns.

Did one of you ever know of anybody accomplishing a satisfactory piece of work without a pattern? Everything, from the largest to the least, that grows under the hand of the sculptor or painter, is formed from a model, which is either actualized or in the mind. The story, the play, the essay, exist in outline before they are written. You could not fashion the simplest gown nor cut the plainest apron without either a material or a mental pattern. If you tried to do this you would inevitably produce a shapeless, and partially or wholly useless thing. The entire world owes its strength, its utility, its beauty, its "every good and perfect gift," to patterns, or ideals.

What is a pattern? Something to fashion after and compare with, is it not? As the sculptor chips the marble he keeps his model constantly in sight. No stroke of the painter's brush is made without reference to his sketch. The author's every sentence is written with his outline in mind. If one of you were cutting a garment you would pin your cloth to the pattern, and be very careful

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that your shears did not go here and there aimlessly, or cut a piece too wide or too narrow, or cut out of proportion or relation to the whole.

And yet many a girl is trying to fashion that most stupendous thing, a character, that most marvelous thing, an effective and noble life, without a pattern. Her shears are running everywhere and nowhere, her chisel is gouging and defacing, or is idle; her picture has no central figure, or no consistency.

Is it not as clear as possible that such a girl should begin at once to possess herself of a pattern? That she should stop her aimless and defacing hacking, and begin to chisel by rule?

And don't hesitate, girls, to set your standard at perfection point. If you never reach it you will get much higher than those whose aims are lower. And write this sentence in your minds in letters of fire that they may brand themselves in, and become a part of your inmost consciousness: You will never be larger than your thought. Little patterns make little productions; uncertain patterns bring forth uncertain results; half- patterns give half-realizations. A perfect thing must have a perfect pattern.

Imagination is nearly always spoken of by the unthinking as a misty and unimportant thing, or is regarded as reprehensible. "Don't let your imagination run away with you," is a sentence which has chilled, if not checked, the enthusiasm of most of us. But imagination is really the master-builder of one's most satisfactory life-structure, and when it "runs away with" one, becomes the most powerful dynamic in the world. What does imagination mean? Imaging; building a thought-pattern, a mental model, an ideal. "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm," asserts Emerson. Imagination is enthusiasm's vital principle, its inward life, its kindling fire. Imagination "ran away with" Peter thee Hermit, and across a continent tramped, with great loss and terrible suffering, thousands of people, following an illiterate and hitherto unknown man who had magnetized himself and his followers by the thought-pattern of the Christ tomb free from Moslem possession. Carthage fell and Rome became supreme because imagination "ran away with" Cato in picturing the destruction of the African metropolis, and kept zeal at white heat till the rival of the Eternal City was demolished. We have the electric telegraph and the submarine cable because imagination took the bits in her teeth and gave Samuel Morse and Cyrus Field no rest till the world- revolutionizing messages were clicked and flashed out intelligible signs. We ride, and cook our food, and light our homes by electricity because imagination got on so unstoppable a canter with Moses Farmer and Edison. The Red Cross and the White Cross movements, and many other things of world-wide worth, came into existence because in the minds and souls of such women as Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale and Jennie Collins imagination refused to be bridled.

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Never be afraid of imagination!

The second rule of life should be, Focus your energies. I believe it is an entirely demonstrable fact that more failures in life have been caused by want of direct aim and concentration than by lack of ability or opportunity.

Through many lands, broad as a lake, majestic as an ocean, flows the Mississippi River, bearing on its bosom many crafts for human transportation and the carriage of freight. What if its volume was dissipated by flowings into smaller rivers, by emptyings into lakes, by drainings into creeks? It would soon lose its majesty, and become a comparatively useless and entirely inadequate body of water. Its might and power lie in concentration of volume and a straight onward flow.

In every life which is to be a success the less must always be sacrificed to the greater. No one can have a Mississippi and all the little lakes and rivers and creeks beside.

It may be urged that there are professions, such as those of time author, the painter, the musician, which can be attained to in a measure which will yield a livelihood only after years of toil, and that in the meantime the poor girl's power must flow out into side-streams, that she may earn daily bread. True But if she keeps her main object steadily in view, keeps working toward it in spare hours by the occasional story or sketch, the sometimes picture, the interspersed hour of music, and by the conscientious performance of her enforced, bread-winning duties, learns consecration, and absorbs whatever knowledge comes by her touch with a side of life different from that which she has chosen as the life--if she does this, she will find these side-occupations not streams flowing from but toward her Mississippi, increasing its volume and augmenting its might.

In no life can any kind of knowledge come amiss. She who writes in the deepest and most comprehensive vein, she who paints the things nearest to reality, she who most potently touches the human heart by her voice or touch on the instrument, is she who has seen most of life, mingled most with the people, felt most the throbbing of human heart-beats. There must be something to write about, something to put on canvas, something to inspirit the music. One must live worthily and widely before her pen or brush or bow can speak intelligently and worthily of worthy and wide things.

Do you say, girls, that I have suggested a hard and strenuous life? Yes, but the work one loves, and which is born hers, hard and strenuous though it may be, is the most satisfying thing which will ever come to her. The world over those who have chosen the careers which have chosen them will bear testimony to this truth. True living and real achieving can never be anything but earnest work, but it may be very far removed from unpleasantness. And if you watch other lives you will learn, as every careful observer must, that one bears far less

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hardship in living the life of soul-whiteness and effective accomplishment than in trailing out a careless, heart-spotted existence, which leads to no desirable goal. The way of the transgressor of any law of holiness, of constancy, of courtesy, is hard. Life everywhere proves this.

The man who seeks for diamonds digs no deeper, fares no harder, waits no later, than he who delves after common stones, but in the end he holds in his hand nothing less than a diamond!

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I SHOULD think you would die!" exclaimed a woman to a friend who for months had dragged along under a terrible burden of work and care.

"I'm dead already," was the reply," only no one can stop to bury me." There was more truth than the speaker knew in this answer.

There was certainly nothing which could be called essentially life in this woman's existence, unless a sluggish flow of blood in the veins could be thus designated. For several years she had been the bread winner for herself and a number of others, always working in a forlorn and blackened old kitchen furnished with few conveniences; cooking, everlastingly cooking, in the same order the same things, each day of the week having its appointed and never varied bill of fare; fare for factory operatives, whose purses could not command, even if their appetites craved, the delicate combinations and dainty frostings which might have interspersed a little poetry even into this lavish prose of cookery. At night she sank early and heavily into bed, to dream, perchance, of pudding pots and stacks of pies, or the oft-repeated "boiled-dish."

The remark has often been made by those who have never come to think of anything but food, drink and raiment as essential to life, that "It makes but little difference how one's living is earned." Never was there less truth in an assertion! It makes all the difference between happiness and misery, between sanity and insanity, between life and death.

This is not mere theory, but scientific fact. The conclusions of the past have been drawn far too largely from material, or outside appearances, without relation to mental attitudes. We are fast coming, with science and psychology as

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authority, to take mental fitness and feeling as the only reliable basis from which to make reckoning and decisions.

The saying that "One's meat is another's poison" is as true of occupations as of food. A thing to be guarded against, even when one's chosen work is her proper "meat," is of partaking too lavishly or exclusively of this meat. Utter sameness of pursuit, long-continued and with its induced tension unrelieved by frequent relaxation and change of sensation, means some degree of insanity; for that which is called morbidness, melancholia and hysteria is often an unrecognized form of insanity. Statistics show that more women have been taken to insane asylums from remote farms than from any other place. The reason is obvious. The long, monotonous hours, filled with every-day-repeated tasks, the few interludes for rest or reading, the scarcity of books, and nothing stimulating to enjoy in the evenings, are conditions literally maddening.

Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz speaks in her able and comprehensive Talks, of employes, who, by being always engaged in performing just a little part of the manufacturing of articles, become that which they are called--simply hands. Brain, imagination, intellect, are in no way called into play, and day by day become more dormant. I have heard of one man thus employed who after a comparatively short time was taken to an insane asylum.

"When I have been obliged to make a large number of duplicate copies of a paper," declared a young woman, "it has been such a relief to my brain to have even one word changed, and which I have been engaged for a long time directing envelopes, to have those of a different color from the ones I had been handling come to me, has often saved me from a nervous headache."

The story is told of a destitute man who asked a philanthropist for work. The philanthropist, having no employment to give, improvised a task by setting the man to removing some bricks from one side of a yard and piling them on the opposite side, and then reversing the process and so on ad libitum. After a day the man abandoned the work, though he was sorely in need of money. Its monotony and meaninglessness drove him distracted.

"I should think she would go mad, she has so many things to think of," is a remark we often hear regarding one with a many-branched occupation. But it is never the person with many things, but the one with little or nothing to think of who is in danger of madness.

The social management of which Bellamy speaks so eloquently in "Equality" would work a wondrous benefit to mankind in that it would, by short hours and the constant transference of each kind of manual labor from one to another, do away with this brain-benumbing, insanity-breeding sameness which pertains to so many kinds of manufacturing.

Another pernicious idea which largely obtains is that one's surroundings

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while engaged in work, so that they be without actual discomfort, are all that can be reasonably desired. The truth is, we shall be a more effective as well as a more sunny and agreeable people when we come to recognize beauty as a health giver, color as a real factor in our lives. One who is obliged by circumstances to lead a monotonous life should take especial pains to render her working place as beautiful as possible. Fresh paint and a prettily colored wall paper will do wonders for a kitchen and the cook's mind, and a few bright prints will heighten the effect.

It is gravitation in the right direction when we grow toward a recognition of things as character-formers, of adjustments as teachers, of colors as instructors. In a course of valuable and interesting lectures, the Hindu scholar, Mr. Virchard Gandhi, teaches that seeing, or even calling before one's vision in imagination, a blue shade produces calmness and coolness; red enriches and warms the blood yellow stimulates mentally and physically. One feels a double assurance that this is true when he remembers that without being aware of any occult law which accounted for his feelings, he has often exclaimed: "Blue is beautiful in summer, but is too cold-looking for winter!" or in winter: "How nice and warm-looking red is!" or in summer: "How hot this red looks!" And did you ever pause before a garden-bed where yellow flowers were growing, or stand near a florist's window where they were displayed without experiencing an added exhilaration No wonder Wordsworth wrote:

"And them my heart with rapture fills,
And dances with the daffodils."

We need only the dictum of common sense to decide that the things which soothe us entertain us satisfy our hearts, are helpful things. Have you not been in rooms where every individual piece of furniture was, in shape and shade, at war with every other piece, and gone away weary, disgusted, belligerent, without perhaps knowing what had caused your soul-ferment? Have you not entered, tired, heated, irritated, into an apartment where every article of furniture was in entire relation of form, and in perfect harmony of tint with every other article, and gone out calmed and refreshed and strengthened? Some years ago a gentleman whose usual taste was so perfect that a departure from it seemed to denote a temporary aberration of the mind, made a visit of several days to some ladies, wearing a suit of a glaring plaid pattern. Those ladies, even after the lapse of two years' time, cannot think of that suit without a shudder. In spite of all the philosophy and reason which they brought to bear upon the case, their friend's unfortunate apparel made his visit far less pleasant to them than it would other wise have been. Some months ago a lady costumed in dainty fashion spent the afternoon with a friend. The work with which she occupied herself during the

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visit was a heavy colored woolen shirt, of coarse material. In vain her hostess mentally protested that her visitor's work made no difference. It remained a fact that it not only spoiled the afternoon for her, but the remembrance of it made her uncomfortable for months afterward. Very foolish in both the hostesses of the man in the plaid suit and the woman with the coarse work? No; very wise, only they did not recognize the wisdom, and blamed themselves for it. The human mind is always crying out for fitness, clamoring for harmony, and is nervous and irritated when these things are wanting. The glaring plaid suit did not fit the character or position of the man who wore it, or the home or tastes of the ladies whom he visited. The coarse woolen work was not in harmony with a hot summer afternoon, a daintily clothed lady who was making an afternoon visit to a cultivated and scholarly woman.

The fact is that we shall not get perfect understanding until we come to realize that beauty and fitness and harmony are not merely things which we like, but which we can do well enough without, but are necessary to health and happiness, since it is being more and more clearly proven that spirit jar and mind irritation and brain disturbance are fruitful sources of nervous diseases, and lead to the shattering of the physical system. Pleasure helps to digest the food, to send the blood properly through time veins, and to keep the brain in equilibrium.

Some hour of the day or evening is usually free to every one. That hour should be given to something which relaxes and stimulates. Entertainment is sometimes spoken of as "childish." That it is childish, that it is something which, for the time being, brushes care aside, and relieves time mind of stress and strain, renders it for the entire mentality that which its name indicates: re-creation.

Avoid monotony, girls, as you would mortal sin. If it does not lead you into mortal sin it leaves you in devastating sadness. "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine."

There are occupations which actually kill the body in a very short time. Were we writing for both sexes we should mention sugar refineries, iron pudding, and many others. For women there are less, but still too many, of these occupations.

The sweat shops have been too widely spoken and written of to need extensive mention here. An occupation which soon dispatches those who engage in it is the preparation of any form of tobacco. The constant absorption of the nicotine through time nostrils and the pores of the skin has the inevitable effect of accumulated poison.

A second fatal employment is working in paint manufactories, where women are largely engaged to solder cans and paste on labels. One who visits a paint factory will note the stifling atmosphere, thick with the odor of chemicals, the slimy lower floors, the faces of the workmen, humid and green with arsenic. The

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choking, lung-destroying odor permeates the whole building, and is breathed in from the open cans which the girls constantly handle.

Paper mills are, also, places where a multitude of women are found, and which are extremely detrimental to health. Many germs of disease lurk in the rags which are brought in, and the glue and other materials used give out a most clogging and disagreeable odor.

Wool-sorting is an occupation which requires that the mouth and nose shall be covered by a bandage, the girls who handle the fleeces being obliged to draw in the air necessary to actual life under the cloth wound around their faces.

I have never, thank God! known of but one woman saloon-keeper in America. She was what might have been expected, dying in body, and in soul already "dead in trespasses and sin."

Many of the department stores are killing places; killing not only by reason of the work, which keeps a girl for almost the entire time on her feet, but because of for the most part sightless corners in which clerks are confined, the inhumanly small wages which afford only mean lodgings, food and tawdry clothing; killing because there is in the positions of their cheap employes nothing to give dignity of feeling or stimulation of thought. Cheap surroundings and cheap remuneration always tend to cheapen character. An occupation which does not give a sense of importance, or of something important connected with it, is an occupation in which lies the indifference which is time soul's demoralization.

Broadly speaking, those occupations which do not give employment to both body and mind, which fail to yield any considerable outlook upon life, which afford no reasonable hope for advancement, which seldom touch with healthy action and allow few opportunities for air and sunshine are the occupations which tend toward bodily and mental death.

"Tis life whereof our nerves are scant,
More life, and fuller, that we want."

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NOT by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but by abandonment and childlike mirthfulness. If you would know aught, be gay before it." Thus runs the gospel according to Thoreau.

A severe life is a dangerous life. A colorless life is a killing life. Monotony is an enemy to morality. Everything must have life movement, change, or it clogs and congests.

The only place in which this clogging and congestion are not recognized as things which must be carefully guarded against is among humanity. Day after day during many years, if, in spite of their vitiating conditions, they manage to live so long, thousands of women in hundreds of cities clean, brush and oil thousands of sewing machines. They know that if this cleaning is neglected the machines will become unfit for nice work, ere long unfit for any work at all. Every day thousands of mill laborers clear thousands of cogs and levers and wheels that smooth and rapid action may not be retarded or rendered impossible. At frequent intervals numerous operators look to the parts of their typewriters or telegraph relays and keys to make sure that nothing congests or clogs them.

And yet in every country there are millions of clogged and congested lives which are never thought of, as such, and with a view to cleansing and clearing, not at all. They are clogged by want of happiness, by the absence of outlook, by the dearth of change and color. Natural depravity may have slain its thousands,

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though I strongly doubt it. That misery of mind and drabness of life have slain their tens of thousands could, I imagine, be easily demonstrated. The insanity which incites to murder, theft, suicide, anarchy, to every evil thing, is, in a vast majority of cases, bred by unhappiness. He who generates happiness to any degree is a public benefactor. I say public because no life is so isolated that it does not, at some point, touch some other life, and impart to it something of its atmosphere and vibrations, and this atmosphere, these vibrations, are in turn passed on to others. Whether it will or no, the race is a human house-that-Jack-built.

Change, color and progression are the trinity which, perhaps, more than anything else make for happiness. Health of body and mind usually comes by the three things, and health is the right hand of accomplishment and the left hand of content.

How, under our present cramping and benumbing social system, shall change and color, as the forerunners of progression and health, be introduced into the lives of the thousands whose bent bodies, misshapen by sewing machines and type machines, by desk work and factory work and farm work, have resulted in bent souls?

It seems patent that physical culture has here a most beneficent field of action: First, its initial requirements necessitate things which are beneficial. It takes one who is wary with seams or with sentences, with the weaving of webs or the watching of clots and clashes, into a lighted room to meet people who will send out to meet her a new magnetism, and whose picturesque garments will, at the outset--for it is now an established scientific fact that color has a decided effect on the nerves-- impart to her a fresh set of sensations, and begin the replacement of sluggishness. Again, the feeling of freedom and gracefulness which the gymnasium garments assure are a most welcome change from the generally begirting and in many cases unbecoming costumes worn by women.

Then follows that which to many souls which have been strait-jacketed by circumstances, environment and atmosphere, seems mere play, but which is to time older person what the kindergarten is to a child--play with far- reaching meaning and results.

So here is answered one eternal and not to be overlooked need of the soul; entertainment and recreation. This recreation, intelligently directed as it is, serves several purposes. In many cases by keeping young women thus happily engaged, it shuts them in from outside entertainment whose insanity and excess might seem for the time being like happiness, but which would resemble the real thing as the flush of fever resembles the glow of health, and whose after effects upon character and life would be like unto the ravages and the lassitude which follow fever in the system.

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[image: PHYSICAL CULTURE]

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And with this picturesqueness, and freedom of limbs, this posing and posturing, there will come, without striving or strenuousness, gracefulness and grace.

A lady told me about a visit she made to a colored man and his wife who lived in the South, and who were formerly her devoted servants. The wife was asked by her former mistress how things were going with her and her husband.

"Eberyting is mighty fine," was the reply. "Wes got along scrumptious. We own de place, 'n de hoss 'n pigs, an' de craps are dat big all de time, an' I jest reckon de Lord done sent you 'long, honey, fer Sambo an' me we jest tink it's time we sperienced 'ligion, an' we donno how to do it, an' dat's a fac'. You c'n tell us, suah."

The lady learned by a series of questions that the two people had been from their childhood in the habit of praying, that they had been honest since leaving her employ, as they were while with her, that they were humane and loving, and at peace with all men. She assured the wife that they undoubtedly already had religion. That through all the years of right living it had been coming to them.

"Well, 'fore de Lord !" chuckled the delighted "mammy," "to tink we wus gittin' pious all de time, an' got 'ligion an' nebber knowed it!"

It is much after the method of these two in getting religion that the physical culture student gets gracefulness and grace. It is an untortured, agreeable and unconscious unfoldment into better things. Before she realizes their existence the results are obtained.

There is a wonderful sympathy between the body and the soul. A slouching body and a slouching character nearly always go together, and whatever lends uprightness in the one is apt to have a corresponding effect upon the other. The girl who stoops, and shuffles and drags, is, almost invariably, from sin or sadness, or both, mentally stooping, and shuffling and dragging.

Emerson declares that "A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face." By a judicious use of physical culture one is almost certain to secure both. By its exercise the unshapely form may surely be changed, and by the drill which sends the blood equally all over the body, purifying the complexion, recoloring the cheeks and lips, bringing brightness to the eyes, supplemented by the helpful and ennobling ideas which every concientious teacher suggests, the face is provided with new beauty and expression. It may be said that surely women who sew, or run sewing machines, or manage typewriters, or do housework, have, at least sufficient arm exercise. Emily Bishop' whose work at Chautauqua has been so notable, and whose admirable book, "Self-Expression and Health," I wish could be owned by every woman, young and old, shall answer this observation. Miss Bishop says:

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"It has been observed that washerwomen, a class which use their arms much, are often corpulent, and otherwise shapeless. Washerwomen do have much arm exercise, but not in readiing upward.

"Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon the fact that indiscriminate exercise is not sufficient to keep our bodies symmetrical, healthy or harmonious in movement. In truth, housework and manual labor in general, as well as brain work, increase rather than diminish the necessity for systematic, nerve-soothing exercise. The restricted mechanical movements that are made day after day in any ordinary labor or occupation, make the body either dull and heavy, or nervous and angular in movement. Labor necessitating mechanical motions forms a large portion of the occupations of mankind, but the deteriorating effect of such work can be counteracted by the freeing and the rhythmical movements of Health and Expression culture.

"Women are not responsible for their features, but they are, in a large degree, responsible for their figures. All cannot, of course, have the height or the size they most admire, but neither of these constitutes a good figure. Proportion, not height nor size, is the characteristic of a beautiful figure, and nearly every one can have a well-proportioned body by paying the price for it; namely, exercise.

"When we grow to an appreciation of the beautiful hues of the normal human figure, we shall earnestly seek to exemplify 'the good, the true, the beautiful' in our bodies; then, full, well-developed chests, delicately poised heads, firm, young muscles will be the rule, and protruding, heavy abdomens the exception." The close application and sedentary habits of most American women have the effect of aging them rapidly. On this subject, also, Miss Bishop speaks works of wisdom:

"What," she says, "is old age? Not the lines of expression on the face, which are the carvings of thought and emotion; not the soft, white hair that is like a halo of purity about the face. It is rather, as relates to the body, loss of elasticity, or vigor, of the power to do certain physical acts that were once as spontaneous as play.

"Can a person avoid growing old? To a great extent, yes. Of course, a person cannot always remain only twenty years old, or avoid being sixty years old ultimately, but he can prevent the marked difference in the physical condition between these two ages. The years will roll ceaselessly by, unheeding individuals, but each individual has the power to determine in a large degree what the effect of those years shall be upon himself. Experience furnishes many proofs in point: a noted danseuse of seventy- five had all the lightness and flexibility of a young girl; a tight-rope walker was expert at eighty; a dancing master was lithe and graceful at seventy-eight. Such illustrations of youth retained by exercise suggest approximate possibilities for all. Years should bring a ripening, enriching

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influence to the mind, but not infirmity to the body. That they often fail to bring the former and do result in the latter is due to pernicious habits, mental and physical.

"There is no point in years when a vigorous, young-feeling and young- acting person must be called old; while others are old long before they reach fifty years. 'As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,' is true regarding the physical as well as the spiritual man. We expect old age and we are not dissapointed; we believe that the years must bring decrepitude, and they do; moreover, we hasten the condition that we expect by allowing bad physical habits to enchain us.

"How can we keep our bodies young? As Bancroft did, as Gladstone has--by systematic exercise."

One great and not to be overlooked benefit to be derived from physical culture is that by it a person learns how to breathe properly. It is a fact that exceedingly few know how to breathe effectively. If from an open window in one end of a house the entering air should zigzag into a side passage, and thence down cellar, and then return to the house by a window opposite to that by which it first entered, its movements would resemble the manner in which the breath circulates through the ordinary pair of lungs. This misdirected air would cleanse only a small part of the house, whereas if sent in a straight, strong, regular draught through the rooms it would displace bad atmosphere, and cleanse and purify. The properly guided breath will go straight through the vital parts of the system, removing foulness, and strengthening and purifying the whole being, physical and mental. Breath is nothing less than life, and if it is not spirit it is closely allied to it. All the expressions that relate to the word breathing and the word spirit come from the same Latin root: spiritus. It was taught by the Greeks, that full, deep inspirations cleansed the soul as water does the body.

Dr. Lennox Brown says:

"Exercise in moderation, regularly aud conscientiously repeated, will increase the breathing capacity, improve the voice, and make speaking easy. It may change, as it has changed, the falsetto of a grown man into a full, sonorous man's voice; it may restore, and has restored, a lost voice. It will certainly turn a greater quantity of dark blue blood into bright red blood; the appetite will increase; sounder sleep will be enjoyed; the flabby, pallid skin will fill out, and get a healthy, rosy color. All this, and more, may be, and often has been, the result of lung- gymnastics carried on in moderation and perseverance."

A word of warning just here. There are a number of books on the market which give rules for breathing; among them one entitled "Nature's Finer Forces," but it is usually dangerous for the uninstructed reader to attempt to follow rules for this exercise without a teacher. Breathing, like electricity and other powerful forces, is very beneficent when rightly governed, but its excessive

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or ignorant use may result, indeed, has resulted, in dire harm. Learn to breathe under a good teacher.

The point of securing an efficient instructor is an important one. If you do not live where you can attend a gymnasium or college, or if your means will not admit of your doing this, go or write to some well and favorably known institution, and ask to be informed concerning a capable and conscientious teacher who will come to you at stated intervals, and teach a class at a moderate rate. Of course, you should first be sure of getting your class.

It will richly pay you to attend to this matter. In the business world, in the social world, the world of art and of letters, the things which physical culture gives, self-poise, dignity, the magnetism of an illuminated face, clear eyes, and pleasing personality, count for much. To find favor in the eyes of the multitude will be a long stride in the way of progression.

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ONE both smiles and sighs when she hears a woman who toils from fourteen to sixteen hours a day with her needle, earning, perhaps, from seven to nine dollars a week, or a clerk who every day stands from eight to six o'clock in a stuffy corner of a stuffy store retailing various cheap articles, with a salary of from three to five dollars a week, speaking of farm work as "drudgery."

"Americans do everything but think," some one remarked not long since; an extreme assertion, for surely many Americans think to splendid purpose, but when one realizes how much multitudes bear for want of a few hours' thought and a modicum of energy and decision, the remark does not seem wholly unjustifiable.

Most needlewomen and store employes could hardly work under more distressing conditions, and through a lull in their employment might starve or become paupers. As farmers, starvation and pauperism would be impossible.

If it is objected that many girls are too delicate for outdoor employment, it may be answered that in numerous cases these girls are too delicate for anything else. Sunshine, air and exercise are three of their most vital needs. Many a consumptively inclined person has become healthy and happy by close daily contact with the soil, the facing of free winds, and plenty of outdoor employment.

Of course the rule holds good here as it does regarding other kinds of employment. No one should adopt farming as an occupation who does not love outdoor pursuits and farm belongings. To any other it would surely mean drudgery, and

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[image: AT WORK IN THE GARDEN]

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slavery as well. But there are thousands who love all outdoors," and any occupation which had to do with country wideness, and green, growing things would be their delight. If these could be weeded out from the city workers much sorely needed relief would be afforded to thousands of other workers as well as to themselves.

The woman farmer is no longer sufficiently unique to be wondered at, sneered at, or smiled at. She is found in many parts of the country, and is, if one may judge from the facts brought to light, as successful in her chosen work as is her brother tiller of the soil.

It will seem surprising if in the near future we do not see communities of girl farmers located near enough together to be helpers and companions to each other. Co-operation would lighten the heaviest toil, and the recreation and relaxation which such a neighborhood would make possible would do away with that which is usually a farm's most objectionable feature--its loneliness.

One can begin her agricultural pursuits with very little land if necessary. A writer on this subject says:

"Americans are only beginning to understand that a small patch of land may be cultivated with great profit. The Japanese immigrants who have settled in California within the last few years have aroused the interests of horticulturists to their method of tillage which has prevailed for ages in Japan They understand the art of getting a bountiful supply from every inch of soil. With three or four acres the Japanese farmer satisfies his every want, keeps clear of debt, and lays up money. With one acre in vegetables he is independent.

"Many a woman has a home with a bit of ground attached, which hardly pays the taxes. She is fretting and struggling to make a little money to live on. The only way she can think of is to sew or teach or find something to do for which she will be paid, however small a sum. Her bit of ground can be made to pay like a bank; if she goes at it right. Let her buy a good book on Market Gardening, study it, and set to work to get the most out of her bit of ground. 'Onions for Profit,' published by a Philadelphia publisher, will give her instructions on that profitable specialty. 'Market Gardening and Farm Notes,' by Burnet Landreth, one of the foremost practical and scientific horticulturists in the United States, will be as good an education in gardening as can be had from a book."

A Chicago paper is responsible for the following story concerning an Illinois widow:

"Her capital consisted of a comfortable house located in a large barren village lot, a stable and one cow. She had three dependent children, and no income. After due consideration and preparation, she had the lot plowed in early spring and, converted it into one large strawberry bed, while around its sides were planted black-cap raspberries. She selected standard reliable varieties, and gave her plant

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good and thorough cultivation. The next spring her plants were strong and thrifty, and in good bearing condition. A compact was made with her grocer, who undertook the sale of the entire crop. When the season was over and settlements made, the widow felt well repaid for all her work and anxiety for her berries had returned sufficient over expenses to provide for all the needs of herself and children till the next spring. Then she secured an adjacent vacant lot on a long lease, at a low rent, and filled it with the increase of plants from her original patch. The question of support was settled. There was no need for her to leave her home to labor, and last but by no means least, she was able to interest and employ her children, to teach them the lesson of self-help and mutual help, and to keep them under her care. In tilling the soil on a large scale women seem to be as successful as in the berry patch."

[image: MISS SARAH A. TAFT]

The success of Kate Sanborn as a farmer has been too widely and interestingly heralded to need more than passing mention here.

About seven years ago there moved about the town of Uxbridge, Mass., a young girl named Sarah A. Taft, to whom life had offered no occupation which was at all congenial to her tastes. Her friends, noting her slim figure, pale face, and the tiny hands which mated feet which number two shoes covered, shook their heads and smiled when she declared that she wanted a farm. After a time she managed to gain her heart's desire in a farm located two or three miles from the

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town of Uxbridge. It was pretty discouraging for the first two years, but knowledge aud experience were being gained, and the third year some profit was realized. Then came numerous evils to the young farmer. Her barn, hay and entire stock were burned, she broke her arm, money was stolen from her desk, and her hired help seemed determined to give her all the trouble they possibly could. But she went straight on, rebuilding, reconstructing, learning by every present failure how to make a future success. One who is so fortunate as to visit "Beechwood" to-day is driven from the station by a healthy-looking young woman whose small, strong hands guide a pair of handsome grays which are harnessed to a luxuriously upholstered double carriage. After drinking a glass of milk which makes one wish that her hostess might become her milk provider, the visitor is shown over a neat farm now mostly given up to hay, small fruits and poultry. Miss Taft has just built a poultry shed 144 feet long, and expects, with her experience with hens, to reap a good profit from poultry culture. Sue has done well with small fruits and milk, all her wares being disposed of in the town. Each succeeding year, since she recovered from the effects of her disasters, has brought her more gain, and considering the time of her trial, she may be considered one of the most successful farmers "in all the region round about."

A newspaper correspondent tells the story of a Southern woman who found sheep-raising profitable. "If," he says, "one has decided to try the sheep venture, as did a Southern woman on time same line, let any priestess of an abandoned New England farm, or a Virginia plantation, or an old Pennsylvania home stead, buy her live stock from some reputable farmer or drover, and pay not more than $3.00 apiece for her ewes. If a small flock of sturdy animals are purchased in September, and turned to grass at once, they will feed themselves and ask no care till the stress of winter comes. Somewhere on the bookshelf should be kept a volume of common-sense advice on sheep-raising, and when in doubt as to what is best to be done counsel should be taken with the author. Under fairly good conditions the drove of eight or ten ewes between January and March ought to be increased to a respectable flock of fifteen or eighteen lambs, and lambs born in January sell in the spring for $7.00 and $10.00 apiece in good markets.

"Because her pasture was not large enough, and because she taught school for a living, and so had no great amount of time to give to her flock, the Southern woman did not let her number increase beyond sixty ewes, but some years she drew as much as $500 from her sheep."

At Greenwich, Conn., Miss Churchill owns and manages a large dairy farm, making a good profit by sending her milk and cream into the country to supply customers.

The three daughters of the late J. D. Gillett, of Logan County, Illinois, manage three farms whose acres aggregate over four thousand acres. These three

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young women, who are finely educated, speak French, and have a taste for art, literature and music, are enthusiastic over farming as a profession for women. The farms now yield four times as much as they did when managed by Mr. Gillett. They are divided into small sections which are tilled by tenants with whom the crops are divided. A lake on this land was drained by digging a ditch a mile and a half long. These women often ride thirty or forty miles a day on their tours of inspection.

Mrs. Taber Willett, the woman who so successfully manages a farm of two hundred and fifty acres at Roslyn, L. I., is described as a small, lithe person, with winning manners, a sweet face, and fine mind.

"I was born a farmer," she declares. "Farmers are born, not made."

"You speak of a new woman farmer, a new woman this, and a new woman that," said Mrs. Willett to a newspaper woman. "There are no new women, but there are new men; for they are beginning to recognize the worth of women, and to acknowledge it. Women are the same as they always have been, only the sudden opening of the world's eyes to their power has given them courage to strike out and conquer new fields. These are my farmer friends," she continued, as she tapped on the glass doors of an immense bookcase, assuring her caller that every reliable work on farming was there, as being acquainted with scientific methods was the only way to farm with profit. On being asked if there was really any profit in farming, she replied emphatically:

"There is just as much profit in farming as ever, and even more, for modern machinery and implements have reduced the work to a minimum. The farm of to-day is just like a great factory, and instead of requiring competent hands to turn out hard work, in many cases it only requires raw hands to see that the wheels go round. About a year ago I had about the largest yard of thoroughbred Guernsey cattle in the State, and I used to make all the butter, and attend to a large share of the milking. There were over fifty of them."

In reply to the inquiry if she believed that women were as capable of managing farms as were men Mrs. Willett replied: "Indeed, I do. Sex makes no difference. Women who work on farms become as healthy and rugged as men. Then they have more patience, and the power to adapt themselves more readily, and their dispositions are such that they grow to love their work in the fields because it brings them nearer to nature, and their work is a constant reminder of the goodness of their Maker. I have done everything that can be done upon a farm, from hoeing potatoes to stacking hay, and there was no task, however heavy, but was lightened by time thought of His touch having been there before.

"Of course, there are plenty of women who could not be successful farmers, as there are plenty of men. If a woman loves farming well enough to make a success of it, she'll manage to get a farm somehow, and whom she does get it you may be sure she'll make it pay."