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A BUSINESS field which women are exploring with success is that of advertising. They are becoming advertising agents, taking the position in establishments in charge of the advertising department, and above all, are finding large remuneration in writing special advertisements for manufacturing firms. The last named is an especially attractive employment for the bright girl with a quick brain and a happy faculty of expression. So clever have women proven themselves in this special line, that hardly a manufacturer having goods toward which he wishes to attract attention, fails to avail himself of their ability. The story is told of two sisters left dependent upon their own exertions, without an idea what they should do. One was a skillful amateur artist, but there were so many just as clever as she that she failed to meet the recognition she desired. Her sister wrote verses which she sent to all the leading magazines; they came back to her with a despairing regularity. Almost at their wits' end, and too discouraged to attempt attracting the notice of publishers any more, they were almost giving up the battle, when one of them noticed an advertising card hanging in a railway car, on which some doggerel verses were printed.

"I could write much better verses than those," she said to her sister.

"And I could make a prettier picture," said the other.

"Let's try our luck at it," said the first one.

The result was eminently satisfactory to themselves, so they took picture and verses to a firm whose advertising cards they frequently noticed. The firm was pleased; they not only accepted the sample that was submitted to them but they gave them large orders for other work. Elated by their success in this direction, they went to still other firms soliciting patronage, and now they have all they can

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do, and support themselves handsomely with a work which they find as pleasant as it is profitable.

"It may not be quite so fine as doing verses and pictures for Harper's and The Century but what's the use of doing pictures and verses and sending them to these magazines when they won't take them, as long as we are sure of a well- paving and always open market for our wares elsewhere?"

"But," said the sister, "they do get into Harper's and The Century after all, for if they are not in the body of the magazine, they are counted among the prettiest and most attractive of the advertising pages, and what is better than being the best in any place where you happen to be?"

It is by no means an uncommon thing to see articles inserted in periodicals of various kinds, with the name of some well-known writer attached--articles calling attention to the virtues of some new food product, some novel invention to ease the housekeeper, some fabric which is being introduced into the market, some new toilet appliance, or some one of the hundred and one things which modern living counts as a necessity and which is invented to meet a newly discovered need. If any of you in the innocency of your heart have supposed for a moment that either the writer or the periodical was bringing this something new to public notice out of sheer kindness, please disabuse yourself of that notion at once. The writer was handsomely paid for the article in question, and the publisher of the newspaper even more handsomely rewarded for the use of his column. There is hardly a magazine writer of note who does not take this means to add to her income, and if the truth be told, this class of writing pays very much better than literature pure and simple.

The number of women engaged in this work is increasing all the time. The patent medicine proprietors are among the men who avail themselves most constantly of this sort of service. One clever woman does nothing but interview men and women who have taken a certain treatment, and writes up these interviews for her employers to use both in circulars and as advertising in the newspapers. This work does not take nearly all her time, for she is a house keeper--one of the old-fashioned kind, one who looks well to her household, and assuredly doesn't eat the bread of idleness--and she makes on an average $100 a month outside of her hotel and traveling expenses. She says it is a most delightful life, taking her about in various communities, bringing her in contact with pleasant people, and giving her a larger income than she could earn in any other way with the same amount of expenditure of physical and nervous force.

One of the largest houses in Milwaukee, Wis., employs a woman as advertiser. She has charge of all the advertising and catalogue work of the firm that employs her. Miss Annie M. Rose began her business career as stenographer for the largest dry goods house in Rochester, N. Y. It was the policy of the head of

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the firm to have every letter that went out of the house typewritten, and so the heads of all the departments dictated their correspondence to Miss Rose. In this way every order for their large business went through her hands, and as she was of an intelligent, progressive turn of mind, she familiarized herself with every detail of the business. In course of time she was made the head of the mail order department, which is one of the most extensive in that part of the country. On one occasion a branch house in the southern part of the State was to be started, and Miss Rose, who had been the "advertising man" in the Rochester house, and felt that her long and varied experience had made her just as capable of managing the concern as were any of her brother workers, said to the head of the firm:

"Why don't you send me to----- to take charge of the store?"

The answer was a laugh, and "Why, you're a woman." That settled the matter.

She saw that, no matter what her capabilities, because she was a woman, she had reached the limit of her possibilities in that house, at least, and she determined to try her fortunes elsewhere.

Her next position was that of private secretary for Mr. Warner, the proprietor of patent medicines that bear that name. The knowledge that she had acquired made her determine to try her luck as an advertiser, and she took that position for a house in Chicago. This she retained until the opening of the World's Fair, when, with the doubt of a woman's capabilities, which still troubles some masculine minds, the firm felt they must have a man in charge of the work.

It gives one a bit of malicious pleasure to be able to say that Miss Rose' s masculine successor is said not to have been a success.

She then became a newspaper woman on the staff of the Chicago Herald:after that she had the charge of the advertising department of the Chicago Inter- Ocean. From there she went to Milwaukee to take the place that she now occupies. In regard to her own work she says: I believe in truthful advertising. I don't believe in the brass band style of work, and I do not endorse prevarication in any degree. When those who read the announcement of a certain honest firm, that it has marked a particular line of goods to half-price rather than carry those goods over to another season, they know they can depend on the word of that firm that those goods are worth the original price. That advertisement will pay. The public is not quite so easily fooled as some people imagine. An advertiser must also adopt the style that takes best in the town or city where she is working."

When asked if the work was remunerative, Miss Rose smiled and said It is, for men." Doubtless her modesty would prevent her making a personal matter of the question of salary, but one may be sure that she would not have gone from position to position if one better and higher than the one which preceded it, had not her compensation kept pace with her advance.

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[image: MISS M. B. CAFFIN]

The Woman's Journal, the paper founded by the lamented Lucy Stone and now carried on so ably by her talented daughter, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, was put on its feet financially by its woman advertising agent. The late Mrs. Susan C. Vogl occupied this position for many years, and she brought the paper into prosperity by her able endeavors. She kept in harness until her death. She made herself friends by her genial cordiality; she was true and honest and her every statement could be relied upon. Men used sometimes to say that they would give Mrs. Vogl advertisements when they would not give them to any one else. It was Mrs. Vogl's sunniness that won every time, and her genuine good will to everybody.

There are several advertising firms in the various cities of New England composed of women and they do very good business. They have a large number of patrons and control several news papers. They are evidently making money for everything about them bears the stamp of prosperity. One woman has undertaken railroad advertising, and she has done so well that her story is worth the telling. For some time she controlled the advertising along the line of the New York & New England Railroad, and no one could advertise without making terms with her. She left this position to take a larger one, with headquarters in New York.

When the Chicago fire occurred she was a happy young wife, living in the midst of luxury, for she was the petted daughter of rich parents and the cherished

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wife of a still more wealthy man. This young couple had everything before them to make life bright and pleasant--riches, social position, youth, a lovely home, a dear little girl--it seemed as though nothing was wanting, but the fire came and swept away everything: the home, the property, all; and left them with little beside their youth, their baby and their willing hands. If that had been the end! But the husband fell ill from exposure at the time of the fire, and died, leaving the young wife and baby to face the world alone. They had something left, but not enough to live as the wife would like, and there would be the child to educate; so she came East and went to work. She had friends in plenty and those who were ready to give her a home and render labor unnecessary, but she was an independent body and proposed to work out her own destiny. She tried one or two things, going a step in advance every change she made, until the advertising opportunity came to her. It was a large undertaking, but it found a woman ready to meet it, and not only ready, but entirely able. She undertook the work and made a great success of it. She had an office in Boston where she made her contracts, attended personally to them, for she quickly found that her own judgment was better than that of any one she could obtain, and the terms were sure to be more satisfactory if she made them herself. From Boston she went to New York, where success still attended her.

She is a capital business woman and no man ever attempts taking unfair advantage of her simply because she is a woman. Throughout all, she has retained the same refined, charming personality that characterized her when she was a purely society woman; and she is so evidently the gentlewoman that men become more gracious when in her presence, recognizing the womanly element even in the most intricate of business problems. Her little daughter has grown to gracious, sweet womanhood under the careful mother's eye and is housekeeper and home companion in a dear little cosy apartment in a fashionable quarter of the city where she is surrounded by the friends who have stood by her all through her career.

It is the presence of women of this kind in the business world that makes it a desirable place for other women. It is the influence of women like this that makes it easier for others when they are in the world, and it is an example like hers that should be regarded by the women who are to become business women.

There is one thing this woman does not do that I would like to emphasize. She does not consider it necessary because she has her way to make in the world, and because she has to make it in the business world, to copy the dress and manners of the men whom she meets. She is essentially womanly in dress and manner; she is content to be a woman and to keep to a woman's ways. She wears as she should, simple tailor-made gowns at her office and about her business, but there is no suggestion of mannishness about them. Her bonnets are becoming,

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and her hair prettily arranged. All the trifling accessories of the toilet are attended to and she is as fresh and as dainty in her office attire as she is in her pretty dresses at home.

If only every girl who is setting out to make her own way could be imbued with the idea that she would get on better and win more genuine respect from those she comes in contact with by keeping her refined femininity than by aping men in dress or manner, a valuable lesson would be learned. Boldness is not independence; self-assertion is not success. Be content to be what you are, and assume nothing else. Gain respect for your sex by the respect that you will for yourself, by your honest, fearless, but sweet and true womanliness. You will find your influence will be more far reaching than if you try to be in manners and conversation like the men with whom you are associated. The world likes a womanly woman, and this you can be, no matter how far afield you go in the world of personal endeavor.

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LOOKING back over a quarter of a century, it is not only interesting, but surprising to note the strides which woman has made in the world of work. It ought, indeed, to be a source of profound gratification that women generally have proven equal to all the demands made upon them in these new fields of endeavor, and are taking the departure from former habits and ideas with freedom and strength, while still and inherent traits of womanhood. They have shown themselves fully capable of wise action in emergencies and of holding their end of the line in all faithfulness and power. They have won golden opinions in positions of trust and are more and more sought for as their fitness is recognized. Men freely admit that they prefer women as clerks, as stenographers, and even as accountants.

"I am utterly lost," said a business man the other day; "I have lost my bookkeeper; she has been with me nearly six years, and during all that time I have never had any trouble with an account; she has had hardly a day's absence except during her regular vacation, and I have come to depend on her like my own right hand. She leaves me because she's going to be married; had it been a question of position or salary, I should never have let her go. I don't know how to look out for some one to take her place."

"Yes, it's got to be a woman; I don't want a young man; they are not so reliable nor so painstaking."

It is only the trained worker of whom all this can be said. Presumably, there are among women a class of incompetents who are not willing to take the

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trouble to learn thoroughly any line of business, but are satisfied with what money they can earn by doing things in a slipshod, half-hearted fashion. This class is naturally growing smaller, however, and women are learning that, unless they are equipped, they do not get the places they seek, or having gotten them, they don't succeed in keeping them.

Now a young man would hardly venture in business without some idea of what he was going to do, and he would expect to spend some time at learning the profession which was to give him a livelihood. Why should a girl think to come at once into a position that it would take a boy some time and a good deal of hard work to attain.

The truth is, girls until recently have not taken the idea of business as seriously as boys do; it has not been considered the one great thing for them--the life-work, which they are to carry on indefinitely. And yet it may be. No girl can tell when she begins, at what time she may leave off, and at any event, to make success sure for herself and the way easier for other girls to come after her, she should see to it that she does her work earnestly and thoughtfully. You and I are not doing our work alone for ourselves; there is something beyond individual interest even if we refuse to recognize it. Our success or our failure is not ours alone; it is that of every other woman who shall come after us, working along the hues in which we have worked. What we do makes it either more difficult or more easy for them. We cannot afford to be selfish in our way of regarding this question, and to think that it makes no difference how we do, since it is our loss and gain. If it were ours alone we might, but it is that of every other woman worker. Earnestness and determination are necessary to success, no matter in what line our work may be done.

But I started to make a suggestion, and in preaching my little bit of a sermon the thought has been almost overlooked. A business that women are taking up, and are succeeding well in, is that of real estate brokerage. There are several who have attained moderate wealth in its pursuit, while I have yet to hear of one who has met with failure. It certainly has no features that women would find difficult or unpleasant. The New York Real Estate Exchange has one woman member, Mrs. Agnes Murphy Mulligan, who has won distinguished success as a land appraiser and real estate agent. Mrs. Mulligan studied law in order to be better qualified to deal in real estate, and so expert is she regarded in her particular profession that she is often called upon to adjust values when the parties in an important deal fail to agree. She appraises land for many wide extending rail road corporations, and, to use her own phrase, is often kept "actually too busy to eat." Mrs. Mulligan has fifteen clerks in her office who also keep the wires working, and sometimes she is unable to give personal attention to her more important clients, among whom are many of the largest land owners of the

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metropolis. She is of Irish blood, but her people have been in this country for more than a century. She first went into business to attend to her father's affairs when he was stricken with illness. She is still a young woman, being only a little past thirty, and although possessed of wonderful acumen and sound knowledge of business values, she is proud of being a happy wife and happy mother.

One of the first women to take up real estate brokerage as a business was Mrs. Carrie Lacoste, of Malden, Mass. She kept a fancy goods store, but her health failing, she was compelled to get some business which took her out of doors, and some friends gave her some houses to manage for them. She sold her own business and managed so successfully with the estates in her hands that others gave her opportunities, and she soon found all she could do. It was a saying in Maiden that none of Mrs. Lacoste's houses ever remained a long time unlet and that she had a faculty of securing most desirable tenants.

Still another to make a success in this business was Mrs. Woelper, of Boston. Mrs. Woelper was a Southern woman, born in New Orleans of Northern parents. Her husband was connected with one of the New Orleans newspapers, but he died very early in their married life and she found that she must look out for herself. Through the exertions of her husband's newspaper friends she was given a position in the post-office in New Orleans as an expert in deciphering illegible writing--a position of great responsibility.

But she could not endure the office confinement and all the time her heart was going to New England, the birthplace of her ancestors, where she had passed many happy days during her girlhood. She had a small property in New Orleans and she managed it so wisely that it yielded her a good return. She liked the work of looking after it, too, and when finally she made up her mind that she would give up her position and go North she also made up her mind that she would go into the real estate business. To think and to act were simultaneous and she speedily found herself in Boston where she took an office and began to advertise. She had a few friends and they helped her what they could, but the greater part of her work was done by sheer and untiring effort.

At first very few people knew that E. G. Woelper stood for a woman when they saw it signed to advertisements of estates that were to be let, and not long after she was established and was doing a good business, a business man who knew her happened into the office of another real estate agent. On asking casually about business, he was told that it was very brisk and that he--the real estate man--and that fellow Woelper, "seemed to have the most of it."

"Do you know Woelper?" was the query of the amused visitor.

"No, I don't, but from all the indications I should say he was a hustler," was the reply.

"Well, you ought to see that fellow," said the friend.

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"Why, particularly?"

"Well, as a matter of interest to you, it happens that that fellow Woelper isn't a fellow at all, but a clever, bright woman, and a pretty one too."

To say the real estate man was surprised would be putting it very mildly; he was simply overcome.

From nearly every city comes the report of women who have formed corporations to deal in real estate, and we all know that more than ever women left with property on their hands are managing for themselves instead of placing the property in the hands of men to manage for them. This shows at least that a woman finds nothing in this business that she may not do with propriety and success. It is a hard work and carries a weight of responsibility with it, but it is pleasant, profitable and healthful. It compels the person who follows it to be a good deal in the air, and thus keeps her well in spite of herself. To be successful, a woman must have business ability; she must have that tact which shall enable her to meet people pleasantly and adapt herself to their situations and their moods. She must have a knowledge of the market values of buildings and of lands; she must understand the laws that relate to the government of real estate, of proving titles, of conveying mortgages, and all the other business technicalities. She must be well up in the science of drainage and ventilation, so that she may be able to judge of the sanitary conditions of a house; but this knowledge is not alone necessary for the woman who is to become a dealer in real estate; every woman in every community should understand thoroughly the laws of sanitation in order that she may protect herself and her family against the dangers that come from bad drainage and poor ventilation.

There is nothing in all this that any bright woman may not learn, and learn very readily. None of the women who have adopted this business have found any difficulty whatever in acquiring all the knowledge needed. They did not gain it all at once; it has come by degrees as the need of it has been felt. And it has come naturally without severe mental strain. In fact, as one of these women said in speaking of her experience, "It comes almost unconsciously; sonic way or other you find yourself knowing just the thing you ought to know without being quite sure when or where the knowledge was acquired."

Women are adaptable, very much more so than men, as a rule, and since this is true there is no reason why they should not succeed especially well as real estate brokers, as one of the greatest needs in the business is that of adapting themselves to the persons with whom they come in contact. They must be as deeply and as truly interested in the man or the woman who has a small place for sale, or who desires to purchase a cheap house, as they are in those who have the larger commissions for them. They must be as interested in finding the suitable, responsible tenant for the inexpensive cottage or flat, or the suitable abode for the family of

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limited means, as they are in looking up the tenant for the more pretentious estate, or finding a home for the man or woman of abundant means. It is the plan of the successful business woman that every customer shall bring another, and she works with this end constantly in view. And, girls, those of you who propose to go into business of any kind, that is a good plan to go on.

Said the proprietor of one of Boston's largest stores to a friend after he had reproved a clerk for carelessness and inattention to a customer and had been met with the excuse that all the woman wanted was a paper of needles:

"It isn't the value of the sale; it's the fact of the sale. A woman comes here for a paper of needles, a paper of pins, or any small article; if she is made to feel that it is a pleasure to serve her she's coming again; not only will she come herself but she will send others. If I lose her custom because the needles or pins are given her as though she had insulted the store by making so petty a purchase, it's a pretty expensive paper of pins or needles for me; I don't care to pay the price." That's true of all business transactions. If it is made pleasant the result is sensibly felt, and if unpleasant the result is even more apparent and not satisfactorily so. If this is borne in mind the girls who read this will have learned one good lesson in the economics of business, and a most important lesson which will stand them in stead all the way through. It is, indeed, the underlying principle of all business success.

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WHILE it cannot yet be claimed for women that they have in large numbers invaded what has been popularly supposed to be a province sacred to man-- the banking house--nevertheless enough of them have within the last few years been called upon to occupy the positions of cashiers and tellers to make it quite proper to include this among the list of possibilities for the girl who has business talent and finds that she must win her own way in the world.

Most of the women who have occupied these stations in the past have come into them through accident or some stress of circumstance beyond their control. One of the first women to be chosen as a bank official was Miss Grace J. Alexander, of Winchester, New Hampshire. This pretty little town in the Ashuelot valley, like many another country town, finds that its young men as soon as they are fitted for business seek occupation in the cities or go West in search of the fortune which they feel sure awaits them. So it has been found difficult to obtain educated, ambitions young men for the home position. Miss Alexander was chosen to fill a vacancy in the National Bank as teller until such time as a man could be found who was fitted for the position. But as time went on Miss Alexander so fully demonstrated her own special fitness and so won the confidence of all with whom she came in contact, that nothing more was ever said about looking for the man, and she has occupied the position ever since. A few years ago some of the leading business men of Cheshire County were desirous of establishing a savings bank at Winchester, and at a meeting of those interested it was unanimously voted that if, in addition to her duties as assistant cashier of the National Bank, Miss Alexander would undertake to act as treasurer of the proposed savings bank, it should be established.

"For," said one of the men, "if Grace Alexander undertakes it we won't have to bother our heads with the affairs of the bank. We just know we've got

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an honest official. I'd trust that woman before any man in the State of New Hampshire."

[image: MISS GRACE J. ALEXANDER]

The savings bank became an established fact, and to this day Miss Alexander holds the two positions. She attained her position, not through accident nor special stress of circumstance, but because she simply demonstrated her eminent fitness for it. The First National Bank of Indianapolis, Indiana, has a woman as cashier--Mrs. Sarah Frances Dick, who is also a director in the institution and has demonstrated in every way her ability to fill with perfect satisfaction the important function. When she became assistant cashier she was then Miss Sarah McGrew, and she took the position to assist her father, who at that time was the cashier. This was in 1873. In 1881 the bank was reorganized, her father was promoted to the presidency and she became cashier. In the meanwhile she had been married to Mr. Julius Dick, one of the most influential merchants of Huntington, Indiana. She has since filled the position in a manner that is entirely satisfactory to the bank directory.

Mrs. Dick received her education in the common schools of Indianapolis, and afterward took a course in the business college at Dayton Ohio. She is quick and accurate in her accounts, and writes a bold round hand. In the handling of money, both coin and paper, she is very expert and rarely makes a miscount. She disposes of a mass of business with a dispatch that puzzles her men associates. She writes all the notes, drafts and deposit certificates of the bank, counts up the interest on the collections, cashes checks, discounts paper, and attends to a lot of work that ordinarily requires the work of several persons. In one day recently she handled fifty-four thousand dollars in small accounts, involving six hundred transactions in three hundred and sixty minutes, with an average of thirty-five seconds to each transaction.

In California Mrs. Mary Costa has just taken the position of cashier in the bank at San Jose. Her husband is the principal owner in the bank but that does not detract from the fact that she fills the position as well as any salaried employe.

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Mrs. Costa is a born and bred American and a native of San Jose. Her girlhood went on in a country town a few miles from that city, and her education was at the district school such as California at that time maintained. After marriage her business instincts began to assert themselves and presently she became the secretary of her husband, and was soon his principal business assistant. As she grew in business knowledge she became more and more fascinated with the detail, and from the embryo financier she became fully fledged and an adept in the mysteries of the various transactions in which her husband engaged.

Out in that far Western world a bank, such as the new cashier officiates in, has a multitudinous amount of detail to consider. It is not only difficulties in English that have to be met, but in this particular institution she has to confront financial sorrow in Italian, with an occasional experience in German and French. To understand how to handle an emergency that arises under the auspices of one's own tongue is not so difficult a task, but when you have to meet it from the standpoint of other countries it is decidedly different, and there is where Mrs. Costa demonstrates her eminent fitness and capacity.

The Rev. Russell H. Conwell in speaking before women in 1891, on how girls and women can make money, gave the statistics of the number of women engaged by the banking houses of Boston and New York, and compared it with the number employed in 1880, showing an increase of over two hundred per cent. It is probable that during time present decade this percentage will be largely increased, especially if among the banking employes are counted, as in all fairness they should be, the stenographers, typewriters and confidential clerks of the bank officials.

The employment of women in private banking houses is much more common than in the national and savings banks, and yet, while in the large cities very few are found filling positions, in country places it is by no means an uncommon thing to find a young woman officiating in the local bank.

It is not in this country alone that the services of women have been found of value by bank directors, but as the result of long and careful experiment, the governor of the Bank of France has now entrusted the work of detection of forged bank notes and of debentures with altered numbers entirely to a special corps of women clerks. He declares that the keen sensibility of their finger tips enables them in handling the notes to distinguish the difference, however slight, between the forged and the real article. The means adopted for bringing to light the falsified numbers on debentures are rather more elaborate, and consist mainly in the distinction of the difference in the symmetry of the figures, and of the ink used, magnifying glasses being used for the former, and chemical preparations for the latter. It is claimed that the women are more careful and more correct than men, and that they rarely fail in their work of detection.

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Bankers have been very materially assisted by the invention of Miss Jennie Wertheimer of Cincinnati, who has made a fortune by the introduction of this happy thought of hers: Three years ago she hit upon a scheme of commercial paper which would effectually exclude all possibility of raising amounts on checks, forging names, or otherwise tampering with its face value. The persevering little woman spent many days, as well as long night vigils, to perfect her system. She patented a private check system for the benefit of bankers, and a plan of commercial paper to make attempts at forgery futile. The principal feature of her invention lies in the firm and composition of the draft. From the top of the note to the name in favor of whom the amount is made out the paper material has the usual thickness. But from that point it becomes as thin and transparent as tissue paper. At the same time the paper preserves its strength and durability. If the note has been tampered with in any way it will be shown by holding the paper up to the light. Miss Wertheimer sent to thirty paper manufacturers throughout the United States before she could get one able to work out her idea. She has been offered the interest on eighty thousand dollars for the period of twenty years, and at the expiration of that time the property is to be turned over to her. Possibly Miss Wertheimer should be classified among the inventors, but her work has been so directly a help to those in the banking business, and was so evidently the out growth of some experience in banking affairs, that it has seemed better to include her in the list of women whose interests and labors are in banking.

Not all girls can be successful as these women have been in a line of business which calls for so much judgment in financial affairs, but then, neither can every man. There must, for success, be a general business talent, and with this, inflexible honesty, absolute accuracy, quickness and correctness at figures, and a knowledge of the money and stock market. Unless one possesses a natural business gift it will be worse than useless to attempt to enter this business. But, having the talent, it is worth while to fit ones self to enter a banking house by first taking a thorough course in some good business college. Even then, the opportunity for which you long will not come to you so readily as it would were you a young man. This is one of the cases in which sex militates not against success--for in almost every case the woman banker or bankers assistant has proven successful but against the opportunity. Whether it is because men engaged in banking business are more conservative than other classes of men who employ skilled clerical labor, or because they have been so long in the habit of considering young men as the only possible candidates for positions, one cannot judge; but whatever may be the reason, the fact remains that very few women are called to such positions. It may be the fault of the girls themselves. The possibility of the bankers career may not have presented itself. It wouldn't be strange if that were the case, for women have been so accustomed to hear themselves set up as

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examples of bad financiering and have so often been told that they knew nothing about the value of money, that they really have come to believe this; and that, in spite of the fact that in household affairs and in the handling of their own modest income, they have proven their ability to make their expenses come within the limit of their income--all economic achievement which is the dominating principle of all business success.

And now, since the way is open, it only remains for the brave, ambitions girl to set her daring feet within it. As yet, the path is not very well trodden, but enough have gone before her, blazing their way through the forests of prejudice and tradition, to make it safe for her to follow.

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THE soliciting of insurance and the management of insurance business, as a legitimate and practical work for women, has recently come to attract widespread attention. At first this work was almost wholly restricted to life insurance, hut following the successful work done in that direction the women agents are extending their hues to embrace fire risks also. Nearly all the prominent life insurance companies now have a woman's department, efficiently directed by a woman manager. Such positions as these, demanding unusual executive ability, and commanding more than generous salaries, must of course be comparatively few in number: but the field now opening to woman for soliciting life insurance and placing fire risks and for managing local agencies, is almost unlimited.

Miss Carrie Kirtley, the manager of the woman's department of the Mutual Life at Louisville Ky., at the Business Woman's Congress in Nashville, Tenn., in 1897, read a paper on "Life Insurance as an Investment and Field of Work for Women," in which she said:

"Taking the insurance field as a place of work for women, or insurance as a real business, I believe that it is the coming work for the intelligent, energetic women of the South as it is of the North, East and West. Some time ago a periodical published a list of the best income--earning women in the United States. Among those named were two Vassar graduates who are soliciting insurance. A woman's department is now a feature of nearly all the State agencies--intelligent women are sought and offered good pay, if successful. All the better classes of women are solicited. The teacher saves a part of her salary to take care of her

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when her duties grow too arduous. A ten-year policy gives her an annuity, which takes the place of her salary. The clerk, bookkeeper and stenographer buy policies that are to mature during their lifetime. The business woman insures that her business may not suffer a shrinkage at her death, and that her credit may be better. She holds no stronger collateral than a policy in a good company. The wealthy woman protects her estate and buys investments in life insurance where there is little fluctuation in steady earnings, or she buys a policy such that a certain sum be paid to her heirs, or to her estate, during a certain number of years."

While it is true that many of the women who are entering upon the insurance business to-day do so from choice, it is probably equally true that the majority of those who began the work in years past were influenced to take it up by force of circumstances. It has often happened that the sudden death of a husband and father, leaving his wife to provide for the family, has led her to seek, in the insurance agencies which he had managed, the means to furnish that support. If she has acquired some knowledge of her husband's business and shows promise of ability, the companies often appoint her to succeed him as their agent. In many other cases a bright daughter, fresh from school and anxious to do some thing, has gone into the office "to help father." As time passed she has mastered details and developed ability until when her father died, or became too old to continue the business, the companies which he represented have been glad to make his daughter his successor. Such cases are growing more numerous every year.

Successful women insurance agents have been at work longer than most people are aware. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company recently published an article of considerable length, speaking in the highest terms of the efficient work done by three women in its employ, and showing by comparisons with the work of men, how well the women held their own in industrial insurance. These women were Mrs. Louisa Wood, of New York, who has been in the employ of the company for twelve years, taking up the work upon the death of her husband: Mrs. Hattie M. Gifford, of Syracuse, N. Y., who has been at work for the company for fifteen years; and Mrs. Edith McGregor, who seventeen years ago, when her husband's health failed, began to do his work, and after his death continued it. Of these three women the company's article goes on to say: "The spirit of resolute determination which has actuated them in their work, the pluck with which they have removed the barriers to their progress, the courage and fortitude with which they have met every difficulty and overcome every discouragement, furnish an object lesson from which a moral may be drawn with profit by many of the so-called sterner sex."

Mrs. Louisa A. Starkweather, the superintendent of women's agencies at St. Louis, for the Mutual Life of New York, is perhaps as well known and as successful

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as any woman in the business, but every insurance register now gives the names of scores of women fire and life agents. The widow of Mr. Emil Fischer, of Indianapolis, is successfully carrying on his business. Miss Georgia Todd, of Kansas City, Mo., has recently been appointed agent for the Royal Insurance Company. Miss Clara Goodspeed, of Joliet, Ill., has just succeeded to a profitable business which her sister, recently deceased, had built up. Mabel M. Hobart, of Hingham, Mass., since her father's death, has managed the agencies which he represented. Mrs. F. W. Cheney, of Manchester, N. H., is the manager of the woman's department of the Mutual Life agency there for New Hampshire and Vermont. When Mr. C. G. Stevens, of Clinton, Mass., retired from business at an advanced age, his daughter, Miss E. K. Stevens, took charge of the several agencies which he had managed. These are only a few of many. The Insurance Register, of Boston, for instance, shows the names of a large number of women insurance brokers doing business all over the city and suburbs.

Among women workers in the insurance journalistic field Miss Emily A. Ransom, of Boston, holds a unique position, being associated with her father, Mr. C. M. Ransom, in editing and publishing the Standard, a weekly insurance newspaper. While of the sixty or so insurance publications in the United States there are several owned by women, as a part of estates left by their husbands, the Standard is, so far as the writer has been able to learn, the only insurance paper actively managed by a woman, and containing a special woman's department. Miss Ransom is an authority upon questions pertaining to her work, and by invitation read a paper on Life Insurance for Women at the Women's Congress of the Atlanta Exposition. Writing at that time Miss Ransom said:

"According to the best information obtainable, the American life insurance companies have to-day about $50,000,000 of insurance on the lives of women. Allowing $2000 per policy, it follows that about 25,000 of the women in these United States have made provisions for their own future need or that of others. Women it is remembered that there are in this country about 4,000,000 women of insurable age, it will readily be seen that the solicitors who shall undertake to place before them the benefits of life insurance will find a plenteous harvest ready to be gathered. In this connection I would suggest that while the proper study of mankind is man, the proper solicitors of life insurance among women are women, and to- day we find many of our sex adopting this business and working most acceptably side by side with the male solicitors. Twenty-one women carry insurance to the amount of $100,000 several are carrying $75,000, and some fifty are insured for $50,000 each. One woman carries $300,000, one $15, 000 and another $135,000, while four carry insurance to the amount of $125, 000 each. While these amounts may seem enormous, they sink into insignificance when compared with the insurance carried by men, as, for instance, Mr. John

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Wanamaker, of Philadelphia, who, if he should die to-morrow, would leave insurance to the amount of nearly $2,000,000."

In this connection it is interesting to know what some prominent women in various lines of work think of life insurance for women. The Insurance Press, of New York, recently collected and published in pamphlet form the opinions on this subject of a number of well known and successful women, from which some extracts are here made.

Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin, president General Federation of Women's Clubs, says:

"It is just as necessary for a woman to have her life insured as it is for a man, and how any other idea could prevail it is difficult to understand. It is a great mistake to suppose that the mother does not contribute as much to time finance of the home as the father.

"A great deal has been written about the feeling of security of a man in dying to know that his life was insured, and women would be equally comforted in reflecting, as they leave the scene of their active labors, that their children were provided for. In fact, the same arguments which apply to render it necessary to insure the life of a man apply to that of a woman, with a few others added. I regard it no less the duty of a woman to insure her life than a man and think in the near future many will do so.

Mrs. Mary Lowe Dickinson, president of the National Council of Women, general secretary of the International Order of the King's Daughters and Sons, says:

"Women the world over must, it seems to me, welcome better facilities and better conditions for life assurance for women, as a new factor in the agencies that protect and further her welfare. The reasons why woman should not benefit by these provisions are difficult to understand, while the reasons why she should benefit thereby are so plain that 'he who runs may read.'"

Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford says:

"I believe heartily in life insurance as a safeguard of the family, and the friend and protector of women."

Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, attorney and solicitor, and secretary of the American Branch of the International Peace Bureau, says:

"Life insurance for women is desirable for widows and spinsters. To such a good life insurance might provide a burial fund, opportunity to create a worthy charity, a fund for their own old age, or one to provide for children or relatives in a manner that could not be otherwise obtained. To them it is worth considering."

From Octave Thanet, the well-known writer:

"Life insurance is as valuable to women who have families to support as it is to men in the same case. It is, in fact, more valuable, since the wage- earning and

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money-accumulating capacities of women do not equal those of men. Many a mother of little children, whose husband is dead, has less sleep than she needs because of the black thoughts that come of her little ones' future, should she die. To such a woman I can imagine no greater boon than a sure dependence in the shape of life insurance for enough to take care of her children until the older ones shall be able to take care of the others."

Miss Laura S. Watson, principal Abbot Academy, Andover, Mass., says:

"In these days when hundreds of thousands of women are supporting not only themselves, hut parents, children, and even husbands, what wiser means for providing against the day of misfortune than that which most men deem wise for themselves--life insurance?"

Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, M. D., says:

"I consider that life insurance is alike a protection against ill-health and a prolonger of life itself. When the care of children and others devolves upon a woman, the consciousness that if she were taken away the dependent ones would still be cared for, or (in case of her own old age) that her endowment policy or annuity would provide for her, would give her freedom from that anxiety and worry which is often the cause of sickness and premature death."

Dr. Phebe J. B. Wait, A. M., dean of the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women says:

"My advice to women, married or single, is: Insure, and then hold fast to the policy, even though sometimes other things have to be gone without thereby."

Mrs. Annie Jenness Miller says:

"I firmly believe in life insurance for women, and I prove my faith by carrying policies of considerable size. As an investment for women, the plan is as good as for men, and it is particularly good for the working- woman who has others dependent on her. The knowledge that a yearly investment in the shape of premiums, which she can arrange to meet by judicious management, will insure beloved ones against suffering, in case of accident to her, will remove a great haunting fear from her daily life."

Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller, dean of Womnans College, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., says:

"I shall be glad if any word of mine can add weight to the arguments in favor of life insurance as a protective investment for women, and induce them to avail themselves of its opportunities instead of risking their earnings in doubtful speculations."

"Mrs. Ruth MeEnery Stuart says:

"It goes without saving, does it not?--that life insurance is quite as important for women who have families dependent upon them, as it is for men in like

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circumstances. When the removal of a mother would mean the withdrawal of a family's living, manifestly that mother would do well to insure.

With all this accumulation of evidence in favor of insurance for women, is it not fair to argue that they would prefer to deal with women both as medical experts in their examinations for insurance and as writers of their policies? Since so many are already in the field, there is no reason why others should tint follow and why it should not be made one of the regular avocations which girls may take up in order to win a livelihood.

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POSSIBLY some of you girls who prefer romance to reality may feel inclined to turn up your noses at this chapter. but I assure you you will find very much of interest and profit in it, all will be paid by a careful study of the statistics which it contains. Figures aren't always interesting, to be sure, but a study of them is almost certain to he helpful, and this is submitted to you that you may know for a fact what women already are doing in the world of labor, and the many opportunities there are for you in whatever field you may think you will excel.

The detailed table of occupations just issued from the Census Office gives many interesting facts in relation to the entrance of the American woman into various branches of trade and industry, and also throws light upon her advent into the professions.

The totals of the occupation tables were published a year or two ago, and from them it was learned that the number of women engaged in the gainful occupations increased between 1880 and 1890 nearly 48 per cent, while the number of men engaged increased about 28 per cent. During this period professional women increased 75 per cent, and those engaged in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits nearly 63 per cent, while in trade and transportation time increase was 263 per cent and over--two and a half times as great as in 1880. These were figures to make one think and they naturally awakened curiosity as to what particular professions, trades and industries women had selected as a means of earning a livelihood.

To satisfy this curiosity and reply to the inquiries the Census Bureau made a comprehensive inquiry as to the occupations in which women find a means of

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support and usefulness. The inquiry included also the comparative work and wages of men, women and children. The information elicited is just given to the public.

Broadly speaking, it would appear that the American woman, like her British kin beyond the sea, has taken a dip into every occupation. The advance of woman has been complete, and, with the exception of the United States army and navy, there are no blanks. She labors in the field and dairy and thrives as a farmer, planter and overseer. She goes forth in a boat and braves the wind and sea in fishing, and drags the bed of the ocean for oysters. She may be found in lumber camps, doing duty as wood- chopper and lumberman and even as a raftsman woman has tried her hand, and is not afraid to own up to the census man. With pick and dynamite she quarries stone and delves into the earth in search of time common minerals and the precious metals.

In the professional world woman has made here appearance in every occupation save that of marshaling armies and conducting war. Her progress in professional life has been as marked as in trade and industry. Here we have it with all the authority of the government official:

                                                    1870     1890 
Actors,                                              692     3,949 
Architects,                                            1        22 
Artists and teachers of art,                         412    10,815 
Authors and literary,                                159     2,725 
Chemists, assayists and metallurgists,                          39 
Clergymen,                                                   1,143 
Dentists, draughtsmen and inventors,                  13       305 
Engineers (civil, mechanical electrical and mining,            124 
Journalists,                                          35       888 
Lawyers,                                               5       208 
Musicians and teachers of music,                   5,753    34,518 
Officials (government),                              414     4,875 
Physicians and surgeons,                             527     4,557 
Professors and teachers,                          84,047   246,066 
Theatrical managers, showmen, etc.,                  100       634 
Veterinary surgeons,                                             2 
Other professional service,                            8       479 
Totals                                            92,257   311,687 

Isn't that an interesting story told in figures? A story of advance, of endeavor, of actual accomplishment. It is full of suggestion to the bright girl who needs only a hint to set her in the way in which success will be found.

Beside all the old occupations, we find women planning houses and decorating them; in the chemical laboratory; administering gas and pulling teeth; designing

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and inventing; and grappling with the difficult problems of civil engineering. They are on the road as theatrical agents and managers, and in the roll of veterinary surgeons, administering to the ailments of dumb animals. Notice, if you please, the increase of newspaper women--that is much better term than journalists--from 35 in 1870 to 888 in 1890, and as authors, from 159 to 2725. There are six times as many women on the stage in 1890 as in 1870; three times as many professors and teachers; ten times as many women government officials; nine times as many women physicians and surgeons; more than forty times as many women lawyers; six times as many women musicians and teachers of music; twenty-five times as many artists and teachers of art; while the number occupying the pulpit has increased from 67 in 1870 to 1143 eleven years later. Summed up, we find all army of over 300,000, or about one-third of all persons engaged in professional services in the United States, to be women. This is not only a large actual increase, but, relatively to the men, the number of women is greater than in 1870.

Turning from this brilliant advent into professional life, we will follow Woman's progress in what the dry tables of the census office generally term domestic and professional service." Beside the old stand-by occupations-- lodging houses, and servants--we find the nineteenth keepers, laundresses nurses and servants--we find the nineteenth century woman pushing into heretofore unheard-of avocations; as a barber, her dexterous fingers lightly remove man's grizzly beard; 19 women brave the wilds of forest and mountain as hunters, trappers, guides and scouts; while, more singular still, perhaps, 28 evince no fear of ghosts and spirits in the somewhat mournful occupation of sexton. There are three times as many women hotel keepers as in 1870; nearly twenty times as many janitors; while entirely new occupations have been discovered for women as engineers, watchmen and detectives, under which last head 279 are returned.

It is in trade and transportation that woman has made her most tremendous record in these years. Over 200,000 intelligent, industrious, capable women have found a sure and honest way of making a living. As bookkeepers, clerks, typewriters, stenographers, cashiers, telegraph operators. women have found a profit able field of labor and occupation for which they are as well fitted as men, if not better. In the largest class--bookkeepers, clerks and saleswomen--the increase has been phenomenal. As agents and collectors, the number of women has increased from 97 to 4875. There are five times as many women returned as merchants and dealers, and over thirty times as many under the head of "packers and shippers"--aggregating in 1890, 6520 women. From 355 operators in 1870, women telegraph and telephone operators increased to 8474 in 1890, and probably number over 10, 000 now. Women seem to flourish and increase and multiply in trade, transportation, as bankers and brokers, commercial travelers, dairymen,

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peddlers, weighers and gaugers, as bank officials; yet as sailors, undertakers, auctioneers, boatmen and pilots, they have met with no success.

In manufacturing and mechanical pursuits women have found new and important industries and have not been slow in availing themselves of the opportunity thus offered for bread-winning. The census shows five times as many women bookkeepers, nearly four hundred times as many engaged in making boots and shoes, seven tunes as many employed in box making, as there were in 1870. In 1890 clock and watch making gave employment to nearly 5,000 women, and in 1870 to only 75. The increased demand for confectionery of all kinds brought the number of women employed in that industry from 612 to 5674. About one-third was added to our cotton operatives. The tremendous increase in dressing the women and children of our country may be studied in the fact that our army of dressmakers, milliners and seamstresses multiplied more than five tunes in the period mentioned. Pottery, photography, lithography all now give employment to nearly 10,000 women. The printing office, the rope and rubber factories, the shirt, collar and cuff manufactories, the silk mills, are employing more than 50,000 women.

In the industries American women are literally taking a hand in all branches. As blacksmiths they ply the hammer on the anvil and make the sparks fly. They bind books, and make bottles as contractors, they build houses. They work in all the metals, including gold and silver. They cut stone, lay brick and plaster walls. And one woman has returned herself to the census man as a well digger.

A study of the figures given above not only suggests the intense fight for existence which has been going on for the last quarter of a century and has made it necessary for the women of the family to do something for themselves, but it likewise brings out the fact that they have not been slow in taking advantage of opportunities afforded them for a wider range of employment. While they have taken up some peculiar occupations, time satisfactory feature of the inquiry lies in the fact that they have made greatest headway in the occupations which are best fitted for them, namely, the professions and trades and many branches of manufacture. Upon the whole, the 4,000,000 women bread-winners of the United States may be congratulated on the headway they have made on the road to independence, and still more are they to be congratulated at the reputations they have won for themselves as workers. In almost every case those who employ women speak of their honesty, their sobriety, and above all their extreme faithfulness. They obey not only the letter, but the spirit of the unwritten rules that are set for the guidance of every employe. With these qualities, it is no wonder that women have come so well to the front and that the positions which they occupy are constantly increasing in importance.

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AFTER all, this is the vital question: With what sort of a weapon will you ward off the attacks of the blood-hound Poverty, which Dame Fortune is pretty sure to set on everybody's track sooner or later, that she may try his mettle, and learn what manner of spirit lie is of? In times like these, when men's hearts are failing them for fear, when riches are saved the trouble of "taking to themselves wings" by the faithless cashiers and bookkeepers who are adepts at furnishing these flying implements, and, above all, when labor is coming to be king, the question "What will you do?" has fresh significance.

After all, it doesn't so much signify what you do as that you do it well, whatever it may be. Think a moment. Will you be led to say, "The good old ways are good enough for me," and so drop into the swollen ranks of teacherdom, or rattle away on a martyrized piano, and then set up for a musician, though you have not a particle of music in throat or finger- tips? Or will you stay at home and let papa support you until you grow tired of doing nothing and expecting nothing, and proceed to marry some man whom you endure rather than love, just to get decently out of your dilemma?

Nay, I do you injustice. Few girls who breathe the free air of our Eastern mountains and Western prairies will be so cowardly. I will venture--that when you marry, you will seek not a name behind which to cover up the insignificance of your own; not a "good provider," to feed and clothe one who has learned how to feed and clothe herself; not a "natural protector," to shield you in his plaidie, the gallant, gallant laddie, from the cauld, cauld blast; but you will seek that rarest, choicest, most elusive prize of man's existence, as of woman's--namely, a mate.

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In less enlightened days, your ideal woman composed the single, grand class for which public prejudice set itself to provide. She was to be the wife and mother, and she was carefully enshrined at home. But, happily, this is the world's way no longer. The exceptions are so many, that not to provide for those exceptions would be a monstrous meanness, if not a crime. And the provision made in this instance is the most rational-- indeed, the only rational one which it is in the power of society or government to make for any save the utterly incapable--namely, a fair chance for self-help. Clearly, to all of you I am declaring a true and blessed gospel, in this good news concerning honest independence and brave self-help! Clearly, also, no one is wise enough to tell who, in future years, shall need a bread-winning weapon with which to defend herself and perchance also the helpless ones between whom and the world there may be no arm but hers. But it is a principle in public as well as private economy, that the wisest foresight provides for the remotest contingency and thus, in its full force, all that I have been saving applies to every woman who may read these pages. Suppose that many of you, dear girls, are destined to a downy nest, instead of a strong-winged flight--what then? Will the years spent in making the most of the best powers with which God has endowed you be worse employed than if you had given them to fashion and frivolity?

Thus far I have been trying to impress upon you the reasons why you should cultivate individuality and independence in word and deed. I have claimed that each one of you has a call to some specific work, indicated by God's gifts to you of brain, or heart, or hand. But if you acquire, let it be that you may dispense: if you achieve, that others may sun themselves in the kind glow of your prosperity. People who spend their strength in absorbing are failures and parasites. It is alike the business of the sun and of the soul to radiate every particle of light that they contain. And so, having made sure of your light, strength and discipline, strike out from the warm and radiant centre of a self-poised brain and heart, into the lives about you, and you will find that "What is good for the hive is good also for the bee." "Self-culture" is much in vogue nowadays, and has for its high priests some of the most incisive minds of this or any age.

But self-culture stops in the middle of the sentence I would fain help you to utter. It says. "Make the most of our powers;" it does not say "for others' sake as well as for your own." It claims that if we set the candle of our gifts upon the candlestick of modern society, its life will inevitably radiate according to its power of shining, and thus, while brightening ourselves we shall have done our utmost toward lighting up the general gloom. But self-culture forgets that a candle is no type of you and me. We are human spirit-lamps, whose rays should be directed and intensified by the blow-pipe of all unceasing

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[image: LADY HENRY SOMERSET]

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purpose; for we are all so made that unless we will to light up other lives, we can never do so to the limit of our power.

Now, then, young women who are ready for work, the memory of my own early aspirations leads me to add: I desired financial independence--that is, to bear my own weight. I said, "Grant me a place to stand," and sought a lever by which I might help to move the world. If this describes your mental outlook, let us confer together concerning your vocation.

There is none nobler than that of a teacher or a professor in an institution for the higher education. But these ranks are overcrowded, and without decided talent, some experience or rare influence, you risk much in making choice of teaching as your field of labor.

Journalism is difficult. Literature, without the highest order of talent, is hopeless. Lyceum lecturing has passed its prime and the most gifted and famous alone can win in that arduous field. Public reading as an avocation for women is as much overcrowded as the legal profession is for men. In music, vocal and instrumental, there is an absolute glut of the market, save for the highly endowed. Moreover, in all these lines the standard is rising so steadily and to such a height that mediocrity, once endurable, is now hopelessly condemned. To be a fourth or even a third-rate musician is to have failed outright. To paint daubs and call them pictures is a positive sin. To murder the modern languages by false accent and atrocious grammar hath not forgiveness in this world. But behold, all these things are d one daily by droves of young persons who are blindly or ignorantly resolved upon the unattainable.

This inventory includes most of the higher occupations save one, and that is the well-nigh boundless field of practical philanthropy. There is a welcome from the best, for women, on the moral battlefields of this busy age. Soldiers are needed; new recruits eagerly sought. No class of workers outrank women in opportunity, dignity, or the rewards that a sincere heart prizes most. To be sure, wealth cannot be won here, but a moderate income, sufficient for current needs, is certain to all faithful and efficient workers. A noisy fame is not to be attained, but a thousand homes will be your own and ten thousand hearts will bless and shelter you.

Growth of brain, heart and conscience is nowhere more certainly assured. There is no one-sided development, as in purely intellectual work, but thought and sympathy go hand-in-hand. It is a home-like place for a woman's soul to dwell in, this golden harvest field of Christian work.

I might enumerate the societies for Home and Foreign Missions, Indian Reform, Associated Charities, and many other attractive lines of work, but my present object is to win your attention to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union as the most promising field of labor and reward that can be named for

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women, young or middle-aged or old. Let me tell you something of its history and aims as I gave it in "How to Win":

The National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, with its fifty auxiliary State and eight Territorial Unions, besides that of the District of Columbia, is the largest society ever composed exclusively of women, and conducted entirely by them. It is now organized in every State and territory of the nation, and locally in all important towns and cities. Great Britain, Canada and Australia are also organized, and we have organized a World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

This society was founded through the agency of the National Woman' s Christian Temperance Union of the United States in 1883. The National Union was organized in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1874, and is the sober second thought of the great Woman's Temperance Crusade which swept over the country during the winter, and whose influence extended to lands beyond the sea. Scarcely was the organization of the National Society completed when the question arose, Why not have aim International Woman's Christian Temperance Union? At the Detroit Convention, held in 1883, the president urged, and the Plan of Work Committee recommended the appointment by the Executive Committee of a commission on a Plan of Organization of a World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and in the same year Mrs. Mary Clement Leavitt received her appointment as pioneer missionary for the proposed organization. Through her untiring labors during the intervening years, supplemented by those of other missionaries who followed her later, and of individual workers in various nations, unions have been organized in more than forty countries and provinces. Mrs. Margaret Bright Lucas, of England, the first president, was elected in 1886.

The chief National Auxiliaries are those of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, South Africa, Japan and the Hawaiian Islands.

The first delegated Convention of the World's Union, held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, Mass., U. S. A., in 1891, adopted the following Declaration of Principles and form of Constitution and By-laws:

We believe in the coming of His Kingdom whose service is the highest liberty because His laws, written in our members as well as in nature and in grace, "are perfect, converting the soul." We believe in the gospel of the Golden Rule and that each man's habits of life should be an example safe and beneficent for every other man.

We therefore formulate, and for ourselves adopt, the following pledge, asking our brothers of a common danger and a common hope to make common cause with us, in working its reasonable and helpful precepts into the practice of every-day life:

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"I hereby solemnly promise, God helping me, to abstain from all Alcoholic Liquors, as beverages, whether distilled, fermented or malted; from opium in all its forms, and to employ all proper means to discourage the use of and traffic in the same."

To confirm and enforce the rationale of the pledge, we declare our purpose to educate the young: to form a better public sentiment; to reform, so far as possible, by religious, ethical and scientific means, the drinking classes; to seek the transforming power of divine grace for ourselves and all for whom we work, that they and we may wilfully transcend no law of pure and wholesome living; and finally we pledge ourselves to labor and pray that all these principles, founded upon the Gospel of Christ, may be worked out into the Customs of Society and the Laws of the Land.

To this end we plead with all good women throughout Christendom to join with us heart and hand in the holy endeavor to protect and sanctify the Home as that temple of the Holy Spirit which, next to the human body itself, is dearest of all to our Creator; that womanhood and manhood in equal purity, equal personal liberty and peace, may climb to those blest heights where there shall be no more curse.

We ask all women like-minded with us in this sacred cause to wear the white ribbon as time badge of loyalty to lift up their hearts with us to God at the moon tide hour prayer: to take as their motto, "For God and Home and Every Land." and to unite with us in allegiance to the foregoing declaration of Principles and to the summary of our plans and proses, as embodied in the Preamble of our Constitution adopted in Faneuil Hall, Boston, U. S. A., November 11, 1891.

A great petition has been circulated in all parts of the world against legalizing the sale of opium and alcohol, and in favor of aim equal standard of personal purity for both sexes. This petition has been called "The Polyglot," because translated into and signed in so many different languages. Over seven millions of names, either by signature or endorsement, have been secured to it. Time length of the petition is 7000 yards. It is the largest petition ever presented on behalf of any object, and is the most international in its proposed reforms. Every prominent nation has had a share in signing it, and in due time it will be presented to all the leading governments. The Polyglot has recently been photographed, and it is hoped all White Ribboners will order copies from the W. W. C. T. U. Secretary. Catholic and Protestant, Gentile, Jew, Hindoo and Mohammedan have found in the Polyglot Petition a common ground of faith and works.

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At the Women's Temple, Chicago, is located the Woman's Temperance Publishing Association, a stock company, whose directors, stockholders and business manager are all women. This house sends out about 135,000,000 pages annually. The Union Signal, the official organ of the Union, has a large circulation in all parts of the world.

The Woman's Temperance Hospital, located at 1619 Diversey avenue, Chicago, demonstrates the value of non-alcoholic medication.

The general officers of the World's W. C. T. U. for 1897-98 are as follows: president, Miss Frances F. Willard; vice-president-at-large, Lady Henry Somerset; secretary, Miss Agnes F. Slack; assistant secretary, Miss Anna A. Gordon; treasurer, Mrs. Mary E. Sanderson.

The first round-the-world missionary was Mrs. Mary Clement Leavitt, of Boston. The second, Miss Jessie A. Ackerman, of California.

As a general estimate (the returns being altogether incomplete), we think the number of local unions in the United States about ten thousand, with a paid membership of one hundred and fifty thousand or more, and a following of three hundred thousand, besides numerous juvenile organizations. This society is the lineal descendant of the great Temperance Crusade of 1873- 74, and is a union of Christian women of all churches, for the purpose of educating the young, forming a better public sentiment, reforming the drinking classes, transforming, by the power of divine grace, those who are enslaved by alcohol, and removing the dram-shop from our streets by law.

In the order of evolution, the departments of work are embraced under the following general classification: (1) Organizing; (2) Preventive; (3) Educational; (4) Evangelistic; (5) Social; (6) Legal.

Twenty-three years of constant study and experience have enabled us to reduce to a science the methods by which these departments have been made successful. These can be learned by active co-operation with the local society in your own town; by reading our weekly paper, The Union Signal (Chicago) "Do Everything" (our handbook) and by studying our national minutes and other practical helps, to be had by addressing Mrs. Kate L. Stevenson, Headquarters National W. C. T. U., Chicago. For history of the origin and growth of this great movement, and some knowledge of its leaders, I refer you to my own book entitled "Woman and Temperance." (Same address.)

Hundreds of women have already become experts in this branch of social science and religious activity. As organizers; national, State, district and country, they are kept constantly busy, and their income is provided by those for whom they labor. As local and State officers, salaries are often paid, but not as a rule, and in but one office of the national society. Nearly all these workers have learned to speak acceptably in public without manuscript or notes. They are

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quiet, well-mannered, sensible women, who would compare favorably with the same number of teachers, artists, or musicians. Among the noted speakers and workers of the W. C. T. U. in the last twenty-three years since the Crusade have been Mrs. Mary T. Lathrap, Mrs. Mary A. Woodbridge, Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, Rev. Anna Shaw, Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, Mrs. Katharine Lente Stevenson, Mrs. Sallie F. Chapin, Mrs. Clara C. Hoffman, Mrs. Frances J. Barnes, Mi-s. Helen M. Barker, Mrs. Louise S. Rounds, Mrs. Frances E. Beauchamp Miss Belle Kearney, Mrs. S. M. I. Henry, Mrs. Helen L. Bullock, Mrs. Ella A. Boole, Mrs. Jennie F. Willing, Miss Anna A. Gordon, Mrs. Helen G. Rice, Mrs. J. K. Barney, Mrs. Addie Northam Fields, Mrs. Lucy Thurman, Miss Elizabeth W. Greenwood, Mrs. M. B. Ellis, Mrs. Caroline F. Grow and other women who devote their entire time and talent to building up this greatest of all women's societies.

The White Ribbon Women have founded a publishing house and a hospital, the latter for the purpose of demonstrating the advantage of non-alcoholic medication. The Women's Temple in Chicago is universally known as the head quarters of the Association, Mrs. Matilda B. Carse is its founder.

Indeed, the majority of our leaders have, at some time, been teachers, but found the profession of Gospel temperance workers broader, just as independent, and no less beneficent. By the efforts of societies the teaching of physiology and hygiene, with special reference to the effects of alcoholic stimulants and narcotics, has already been introduced by law into the public schools of almost every State, and by time action of Congress into all the territories and the District of Columbia. Kindergarten (with temperance adaptations) is one of our departments. also kitchen garden, both departments, helping to prepare those who teach in them for the home cares, which later on, will come to most of our young workers. As corresponding secretaries of local unions, as private secretaries, clerks and accountants, many are supporting themselves and helping the greatest of reforms; others, as organizers of Young Women's Christian Temperance Unions and Juvenile Societies. In our delightful Flower Mission there is great promise for willing hands, while our temperance, literature and press departments offer the widest field for cultured brain and skillful pen. As lecturers in our departments of heredity and hygiene many a young lady physician has added to her power, while girls who would gladly have studied for the Ministry have found the door wide open in our Gospel temperance meeting, and credentials furnished by our department of evangelistic work. The White Ribbon movement throughout the world stands pronounced for the ballot for women. This has been chiefly brought about through the influence and work of its president, who began the agitation in 1876. In 1886 she urged the adoption of the department of purity and was made its superintendent. This

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has now developed into a great movement attached to the W. C. T. U.; Dr. Mary Wood Allen, of Ann Arbor, Mich., is the present superintendent.

Dear younger sisters, think about these things. They are "true, pure, lovely, and of good report." Talk them over in your literary society, your Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, your quiet hour with loved ones at home. We want you, and perhaps you have need of us. Before long we shall establish a training school with model Woman's Christian Temperance Union, model juvenile society, kindergarten, kitchen garden, etc. If you should apply in sufficiently large numbers I am confident some wealthy temperance friend would help us to a "local habitation" for this use, but we have already begun with summer training schools at several pleasant summer resorts. Lake Bluff is one of these, near Chicago, on the shore of Lake Michigan. Having been so many years a teacher, before enlisting in this grand Woman's Christian Temperance Union work, I have long meditated sending out this invitation to "sweet girl graduates" and any others to whom it might be like a friend's hand pointing to a safe and helpful avocation.

May our blessed Master lead you wisely to decide the question of your work "for God and home and native land."

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[image: AN ERRAND OF MERCY]

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I BELIEVE--indeed, this is one of the chief articles of my creed of living--that no one was sent into this world without a work to do; there is nothing without its mission in time whole catalogue of created things, and it is not likely that we, "made in the image of God," and "only a little lower than the angels" will be exempt from our share of usefulness. What the special life-work of each may be, depends entirely on surroundings and opportunities. Each one must decide for herself what her duties are, and in what manner she can perform them to the best advantage.

Golden opportunities present themselves every day to all, if they only would use them, but either they do not see them, or in their careless indolence they pass them by not attaching the proper importance to them. The trouble is, girls, nearly every one is inclined to "despise the day of small things," and wants, if she is to work at all, to do something grand and startling out of the common course, that will astonish the world; and in her lookout for the grand opportunities that so seldom come, she may lose many ways of doing real good. Not all can be representative women or do grand, heroic deeds, but each one can work quietly and unostentatiously, carrying the deeds of kindness into every-day life and making herself better and every one around her happier by the influence of a consistent, lovely, unselfish life.

But because you have a work to do and life is earnest and you are to be in earliest with it, you need not go through it with knit brows, as though you were puzzling over some perplexing question in mathematics. Not a bit of it! You should carry so much sunshine in your hearts that it will shine through your eyes and brighten your faces. The world needs all the sunshine it can get, and you

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have got to help make it. Clouds will come sometimes, as a matter of course, but they need not come as frequently as they do if you would not let them; you often make your own clouds, let trides annoy you, grow impatient and fretful at small troubles and render yourself and everybody else uncomfortable by your unhappy mood. Clear away the clouds--you can do it by a little patient endeavor and some consideration for the comfort of others.

Less of self and more for others, and your work is well begun; after that, once fairly started on time upward way, your progress will be easier; you will find your field of labor extending before you are aware that you have begun your task, and with each day's duties will come new love and interest in your work.

You must have aims, each one of you, not clearly defined, perhaps, vague and but half realized, it may be, yet there notwithstanding, latent in your mind and only waiting opportunities to form themselves into some tangible shape and show you clearly in what particular channel your life- work lies. Even to the most aimless of you there comes a time when you recognize the fact that there is something beyond your every-day life with its petty annoyances and wearying trials, and you long to do some act that shall raise you above time present level of your life. No life is perfected without some grand motive power, some definite end which you wish to attain. Otherwise it would not be living, but mere existence-- something which animals have in common with you, but which is in no whit beyond animal life; nay, it is rather below it; for they use to their best the powers that are given them, while you willfully let run to waste the energies and talents that belong to you, either through indifference, or because you are too lazy to exert yourselves, and do not care to do more than you are at present accomplishing, which is nothing at all; worse than nothing; for you cannot stand still--you must either advance or recede, grow or dwarf.

There are girls--I hope you who read are not among them--who have every gift that one could ask bestowed upon them, yet treat them as indifferently as if they were things to be thrown carelessly one side, and who live on as if life held nothing beyond the present moment, their to- morrow nothing grander or greater than their to-day. One looks at such girls and wonders; they are anomalies. One feels sorry for them and grieves over their wasted lives; they must sometimes have a longing for something that is more satisfactory, a perception that there is a height that they have not yet attained, a possibility that by and by may become a living reality, and they may glow with a desire to attain this in their better moments. But this desire is only a flash; it goes out again when blown upon by the cold breath of their social surroundings, and it may be a long, wasted time before it is rekindled.

But while there is this class of girls, there is another at time other extreme--girls who want a career, who long to become bright lights in the world, to do

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something that shall make them famous forever--who cannot comprehend what a vast amount of good can be done in a quiet, unostentatious way, but think every attempted work of philanthropy or reform must be begin and carried on with a blowing of trumpets and beating of drums, a sort of advertisement of their work, List as the side shows at the country fair draw their spectators in numbers proportioned to the noise they make at the entrance. These girls are in advance of the others, for a thing is better overdone than not done at all, though they too are sadly at fault. The danger is, that these girls, finding themselves falling far short of their mark, and seeing others succeed quietly where they fail noisily, get disgusted, and fall out of the ranks of the workers, crying out that they are not appreciated! The simple truth is, they were working for the world's approval, entirely ignoring the fact that the truest reward was the approval of their own consciences and the trusting, restful belief in the approval of that Higher Power, for whom their work should be done.

It is satisfactory to do something grand enough and brilliant enough to win the applause of the world and make it acknowledge you and your achievement, but as I have told you already, you cannot all be representative women; yet none the less can your lives be filled or your influence felt. What you are, more than what you do or say, gives others their ideas of you, and when they see a life full to the brim of charity, good-will and gentleness, recognize a soul whose aspirations are pure and noble, they feel that they are the better and the happier for coming so in contact with that beautiful life. It may be the name is never breathed beyond the little circle of home and friends. To those who do not know the wearer, it would signify nothing; yet there are those to whom it is a perpetual song of praise, a never-ending hymn of thanksgiving. It is never seen in the list of the reformers, yet none the less does she who bears it do her own quiet work of rescue, reformation and redemption. To stranger eyes there may be no glory of sainthood throwing a halo around the beloved head, but those who know her best see the aureole shining there. Is not her work as complete, her life as grand a success, as though her name were trumpeted to all the world?

To you all a life like this is a possibility, something to which you may attain. It cannot be reached at once, but you might get a long way toward it while you are folding your hands and lamenting your inability to do what some one else has done before you, whose life-work lay in quite a different direction from your own. Girls, you whose brains have turned with all sorts of impracticable, quixotic schemes, stop dreaming of impossibilities, and instead of being mere castle-builders, become actual workers and do not think because you cannot be Joan of Arc, Madame Roland or Florence Nightingale, that there is nothing for you to do. There may be a moral heroism in overcoming yourself, greater than any you have ever read in the pages of history. It may be known only to God and yourself;

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yet whose approval would you rather have than His? Is there anything beyond that to care for? Can the world's praise heighten your pleasure or give more depth to your satisfaction?

And you who do not care, please give the matter a little thought. Your lives do not satisfy you. There is a longing for something better than has yet been brought you. Mere existence is not sufficient. You cannot feel that you are fulfilling the grand plan of your being. How shall you do it? First of all, let every one try to make her own life so sweet and sunny that her influence will be felt on all around, and after that, the other opportunities will come as fast as you can use them. They may not be large ones, but whatever they are, take them up and do them faithfully, because being set to your hand, it is for your hand to do them.