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THERE is one cheery little woman in a large city who has started out to earn her living in a most original way--as an entertainer of invalids and convalescents. So far as is known, she is the only person who makes it a profession to bring even laughter into the house. The little woman is a brave soul who was left a widow with a son to educate, a boy in his early teens. At the death of her husband she found herself possessed of little else than a mortgaged home. Something had to be done, but what it was to be was a most perplexing query.

"I tried everything I could think of," she said, "but I did not succeed in doing anything to speak of. At last I was companion for three months to a woman who was suffering from a severe case of nervous prostration. I kept her mind from her troubles. It came near killing me, but she lived and the physician said it was I who saved her. Then I happened to think it would not be a bad plan to go into the cheering up business for a living. I made the attempt, and have been quite successful. Most of my--what shall I call them--clients?--simply want to talk, and they are happy to get a good listener. I go regularly to see one woman who talks the entire hour on religion. Doubtless she has tired out every one in the family, and they have little patience in hearing the same thing over and over again. All that I find it necessary to do is to listen interestedly and just take the opposite side once in a while to give her a bit of excitement, and she enjoys it immensely. Sometimes I succeed in interesting her in other things, and I consider that quite an achievement, something to be proud of.

"There is an elderly man whom I visit who is perfectly happy if I will only listen while he talks politics. Now I cannot argue on politics, although I am not

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absolutely ignorant on the subject, but I can listen, and I understand enough to object occasionally to some of his views, and so keep him interested. There is nothing like a little well-timed objection to keep a political enthusiast entertained.

"It is surprising how grateful an invalid is for any attention; they are the easiest people in the world to entertain, anything which diverts them, and takes their mind off themselves and their own condition makes them happy, and it is a delight to do this. I am happy myself in the accomplishment of my endeavors. I think one reason why I have been so successful is that I have never bothered any of my clients by asking them what they wanted. If there has been no one to tell me, I have found out for myself. Some want music, and for them I play the piano and sing; others like to be read to, and to others I just talk, telling them what is going on in the world. Of course, I have to read the papers and keep up in current events, and that is good for me, as well as for those for whose sake I do it. Some want me to play games, others want to learn some new stitch in embroidery, knitting or crochet, and these I have to learn in order to teach them. So you see, it is no small task to get ready to play. But the best part is the eagerness with which my arrival is awaited. There is no familiar friend who receives a more cordial welcome than I do. It is worth every bit of bother and thought which you have given to getting prepared for a visit to see the glad smile break over a listless, wearied face as the door opens to admit you to the invalid's room. I wonder more women do not take up this plan of earning money, there is such genuine satisfaction in it."

The unexpected ways are oftenest the successful ways, and many a woman-- yes, and man, too--owes her good fortune to an accident. Not, my dear girls, that I would have you sit around in Micawber fashion waiting for the accident to happen, for it is only when one is active that accidents of this kind occur, but when you are looking for one thing you may chance to stumble over another. If you do, please regard the circumstance as of value, and do not pass it over without taking advantage of it, for this very thing may be your opportunity which presents itself in this unceremonious manner. Just, indeed, as it did to Mrs. Sarah D. Kelly, of Chicago, who is making a living as a scientific packer.

"I have made a good living at this work for more than six years," said Mrs. Kelly when asked about it. "I have managed to support and send to school three children, besides laying up a few hundred dollars in the bank against a rainy day. My story does not differ much, in the main, from that of many another woman left a widow with children to support and no money to do it with. I looked about for work, and approached a man, whom I had known, in the hope of getting into his office. There was no opening, and he frankly told me there was no chance for me in the office, but he said that his wife had been suddenly taken ill and they were to move the next week. If I would not be

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insulted by the proposition, he would be glad to have me go to his house, take charge of the things and see to the packing and moving. I can assure you that I was not insulted, but glad enough of any opportunity to earn money for my children, and I undertook the work readily. When I had finished I was pretty sure that I had found my vocation.

"I had cards printed and distributed them among firms who made a specialty of moving furniture. Then I went to some of the best real estate offices and furniture houses, explained my business and asked them to speak a good word for me when an opportunity offered. But I did not then sit down and wait for my customers; I looked out for myself, and when I heard of a family who expected to move I called and offered my services. Naturally, I met with rebuffs at first, for people had never heard of such a thing, and told me so. But, fortunately for me, there are delicate and busy women, who find it impossible to superintend the packing and moving of their furniture and valuables. These women recognized the convenience of my proposition and gave me work.

"You ask me to tell you how I go about the packing for the average well-to- do family. Pretty much as I do for their richer neighbors. They are expected to find all the boxes and barrels necessary, but when I go through the house if I find there are not enough I order what are needed. I have an index book, and after numbering each end and all four sides of every box and barrel, I enter the numbers in my index book, and under their respective numbers I give a complete list of their contents. Suppose I read you the contents of a box or barrel from this book made out for a family for whom I have just finished storing and packing furniture. They have gone abroad for several years. Box No. 5 is onPage 13, and contains four etchings, one pair of rowlocks, a pair of skates, three games, a box with wedgewood candlesticks, six copies of Harper's Magazine for 1896, two bundles of letters (H. P.), the Pathfinder, Oliver Optic series, and so on, dozens more of miscellaneous articles. This seems a motley collection, but they fitted in, and in that way saved space. When possible, I pack the contents of a room together, but where they do not fit in they must go elsewhere.

"Frail objects should be packed in cotton, excelsior or wrapped in several thicknesses of paper or cloth, then, when possible, put into pasteboard boxes and securely tied up before packing with other articles. Pictures and engravings should be carefully wrapped, first in soft paper, then in several folds of newspapers, tied securely with twine and placed around the four sides of the box. The box should then be packed as firmly as possible with miscellaneous articles, so keeping the pictures in position, and thus insuring their safety. I omitted to say that in placing the pictures in the boxes the glass must face the sides of the box. Books, magazines, pamphlets, and all those things which every housekeeper has stored away, seldom used, yet valued for various reasons and kept from year to year,

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may be used as filling. By this plan everything can be securely packed, and nothing need be left behind."

Mrs. Kelly not only gave her own story, but she kindly gave so much of her methods that any woman who is moved by her example to undertake the work will see the way to do it successfully. There should certainly be an opening in every city and large town for at least one scientific packer.

Another young woman makes a good income as a teacher of athletics. During the winters she has large classes in the various cities, confining herself chiefly to physical culture, pure and simple. She teaches the proper use of the muscles, the correct way of breathing, walking, running, standing, sitting, sleeping, and, in fact, she treats every point of that important study which is so essential to the health and development of every girl. She makes a special point of posturing, as it applies to holding one's self well and walking correctly. There are too many women nowadays who walk badly and sit ungracefully, and the most sensible of them realize the importance of improving in this respect, and they are willing to pay well to be taught.

In the summer she teaches other branches of athletics. Swimming, diving, floating, all the fancy strokes, and turns out graceful swimmers. She takes parties for horseback exercise, teaches cross country riding, and directs the dressing for this exercise. She teaches tennis and golf, in short she is up on all points of athletics which interest women, and is an expert in them. She is well bred, dresses in perfect taste, talks interestingly, and has no end of tact. All these are necessary for the successful teacher in these special branches. This special girl says that there is plenty of room for more teachers along the line which she has chosen, and she says, still farther, that the prices obtained are precisely the same as those paid to a man for the same kind of instruction.

There is a young woman in Buffalo N.Y., who has made a reputation as a window dresser. It would seem as though the decorative taste of women might stand many of them in stead in a vocation like this. Why have not more tried it? It must be a pleasant and attractive mode of gaining a livelihood, and surely the average woman has as much taste as the average man. Why not employ it in this fashion? Here is a suggestion for some girl to act upon.

An English woman has taken up the business of cleaning bicycles. She goes from house to house, so that no one need to take the cycle to a shop for repairs. She carries an assortment of cheese-cloth cleaners of various sizes, well permeated with oil, and bits of flannel to use in polishing. She adjusts handle bars, saddles, tightens nuts, pumps up and fills tires, trims and fills the lamp and puts it securely in place, and tests everything to see that it is firm. She is familiar, not only with all the tools used about a wheel, but with every piece which goes into it, and its proper relation and position with regard to every other piece,

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and understands the mysteries of gearing. She finds herself a very welcome visitor at the houses which she visits at stated intervals, for the new duty of attending to the wheel of her mistress does not belong to the housemaid, nor, in fact to any member of the household staff as yet.

Trimming and cleaning lamps and keeping them in order, and cleaning silver are two branches of labor that some girls might find remunerative. Very few servants know how to take care of the beautiful, decorative lamps which are such an important part of furnishing now, even in houses which have gas or electric lighting. The lamp is an ornament, and, for many purposes, its light is preferable, but it is such hard work to keep it in order, complain the mistresses. Get a dozen or more of these mistresses to let you come daily, for a small consideration, and take care of these lamps. If you have time, you might undertake the silver also, receiving an additional sum, of course, for the service. You need only work during the morning hours, and you would not only solve a vexed question for the house- mistresses, whom you assist out of a difficulty, but you gain a nice little income for yourself.

You may call this a chapter of hints, if you like, only some of you must find one that is worth the taking, or all the work of dropping them will have been in vain, and one does not like to work with no return, it is disheartening.

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SINCE the establishment of school kitchens in connection with the public schools, a new field has been opened up to young women, and it is a field that is constantly broadening and that will continue to develop for some time to come.

And not only are public schools requiring teachers of cooking but communities everywhere are asking for teachers and lecturers on this subject, and every helpful, philanthropic institution into which girls are received, are establishing classes in cooking, and naturally they must have trained teachers.

This movement is a comparatively new one and that is the reason why there are more openings in it than there are in many of the occupations. It is but a few years since the first cooking schools were regularly established and it is only about ten years since they were tried as an experiment in the public schools of Boston, which was the first city to introduce cooking as a regular branch of public school instruction.

And its establishment and its carrying on to success was due to one woman. And to this woman all the women in the United States owe a debt of gratitude. For, although Mrs. Mary Hemenway began her work in Boston, it did not end there. Mrs. Hemenway was a New Yorker by birth, her father being one of the staunch business men of a half century ago. In her young womanhood Miss Tibston was wooed and won by Mr. Augustus Hemenway, of Boston, and after her marriage she was closely identified with the city of her adoption. Mr. Hemenway was one of the famous New England merchants and his fortune was splendid, ranking him among the many time millionaires, and when he died, leaving the use of the larger part of the fortune which he accumulated to his widow, he

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cautioned her against so using her means as to make two persons miserable in the endeavor to give happiness to one. He knew the generous heart she possessed, and he knew also the evils which attended misapplied benevolence, and knowing both these things he gave the word of caution which proved the wise word of direction.

[image: A MODEL SCHOOL KITCHEN]

During the Civil War she was an active member of the Sanitary Commission and her large means made it possible for her to advance the State work most materially. Then she turned her energies to the Freedmen.

It was about this time that she became impressed with the need and value of industrial training in connection with the public schools. She realized, with many others who were engaged in relief work among the poor, that what was most needed among them was a practical knowledge of the best and most economical manner of managing with what they had to do with, and the first step to meet this need was the attempt to establish classes of sewing in the schools.

This attempt was met with the most determined opposition on the part of teachers and committee. One of the principals said, when he heard of the new movement: "Sewing in school! Well, the next we know they will be wanting to set up cook stoves and teach the children to broil a beefsteak." This remark has been recalled many times since it turned out to be a prophecy. And the fulfillment was brought about by the very woman who was,

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more than any other, instrumental in introducing the sewing. To prove to the school committee that the cooking classes were quite feasible and would prove beneficial, she equipped and carried on the first one for two years at her own expense, and, when finally the school kitchens became a part of the school system, she continued for a while to support the first one, so that the committee might have the more means for establishing others, and she also opened and sustained a Normal Cooking School to prepare the teachers for the work which by this time was adopted by other cities.

In precisely the same way she introduced the "Ling" system of gymnastics into the public schools, giving the pupils a thorough physical training under competent teachers prepared for the purpose at the Normal School of Gymnastics, which she instituted and maintained, and which is still supported by a fund which she left for the purpose, and where hundreds of young women have been trained for teachers.

She was one of the foremost in the work of saving the Old South Church from its threatened destruction, using both her means and her influence for the successful attainment of this end. It was her thought that made this historic building the centre of practical education in our national history, and the inculcation of public spirit in the young people who were to be the future citizens of the commonwealth. This she did by the impressive celebration of national festival days, by lectures on American history, by offering prizes for essays on historical subjects to graduates of high schools, and by the various methods, which as "the Old South work" has not only been plainly felt in the community already, but has been followed in other cities of the country.

And yet it must not be supposed that all of Mrs. Hemenway's work has been local: this is by no means the case. Her sympathies were as broad as the land, and her field of endeavor was bounded by the oceans on either side, with a limit the other way of the lakes and the Gulf. She was American to her fingers' ends, and had in her nature no room for mere partisanship. Whatever was for the nation's credit and interest appealed to her. She believed that the future well being of the nation lay in the proper education of the young of all classes and conditions. Education was the key which was to unlock many of the present national difficulties, education in the right direction, which to her meant love of country, loyalty to principle, the divorcing of all personal, private interest from all public questions, and the inculcation of a spirit and habit of industry. She did not believe in a leisure class, but maintained that all should labor for the good of the whole. She set the example herself, not by labor in its lower sense, the toil merely for pay, but in the broadest meaning, the constant thought and work for the uplifting of all humanity, and the amelioration of much useless bitterness and suffering.

She was the firm supporter of General Armstrong in his work at Hampton for the education of the Negro and Indian. Indeed, but for her help the school

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could not have attained the position which it holds. She was an ardent member of the Indian Association, and it was through her interest in the cause of Indian rights that she was first attracted to the work of Mr. Frank Cushing, who was a student of the Zuni Indians, and so enthusiastic a one that he took up his abode among them, and won their confidence and respect while studying their history. In consequence of her friendship for him, she established the Hemenway Southwestern Archeological Expedition, and Mr. Cushing's important contributions to science, founded upon his explorations among ancient ruins in New Mexico and Arizona, were the result. Through Mr. Cushing Mrs. Hemenway secured the preservation of the pre-historic ruin of Casa Grande, in Arizona, and its protection in charge of the United States Bureau of Ethnology.

[image: A GIRLS' COOKING CLASS]

Nor, in her interest for the oppressed of the Indian and Negro nations, was her own forgotten. Recognizing the disadvantage under which the white children of the South suffered for educational privileges after the war, she established, at Wilmington, N. C., a school for white children, placing it under the charge of Miss Amy Bradley, who had been a nurse of the Sanitary Commission during the war, and previous to that a most successful teacher in the North. A beautiful building was erected at a cost of $75,000, and was named by Mrs. Hemenway, the Tibston School, in honor of her father. Competent teachers were supplied, and the school was opened in the midst of the most bitter opposition and

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prejudice. But as people grew to understand the motive of Mrs. Hemenway in placing the school in their midst, the opposition died away, the success of the school was assured, and has continued from that time. Southern girls were educated there, and took the places of the retiring Northern teachers, Miss Bradley still remaining at the head. It is one of the most highly prized of the institutions of Wilmington now, and in that city Mrs. Hemenway's memory is held sacred.

One of the most marked features of Mrs. Hemenway's character was her aversion to anything like publicity. She was personally unknown to the thousands of persons whom she benefited. She had always about her a corps of sympathetic, competent men and women, who carried out her plans and did the work she laid down for them. Of course a woman of her social standing and her means, could not avoid a certain degree of prominence, but as far as she possibly could, she kept her own personality in the background, content to know that she was doing a work which was helping and ennobling all mankind.

She has left behind her a memory whose fragrance shall never be lost, and the country still mourns a citizen who, in the quietest and simplest way, laid the foundation for future loyalty and good citizenship in the hearts and minds of thousands of young men and women. Could any work of achievement be nobler than this?

She also sought by her influence to elevate the idea of domestic labor and bring it up to the plane where it belongs, and her most successful work in this line was the establishment of the school kitchens in the public school work.

The Boston Normal Training School for cooking teachers provides that the teaching shall be uniform, and the course studied is to be adopted in every school. This school has graduated a large number of pupils, and, so far, every one has found a place waiting for her when she graduated. You can see by this that the work is being carried forward as rapidly as teachers can be got ready. The great danger is in beginning the work before you are altogether prepared. There is as much danger in undue haste, as there is in delay. I am not altogether certain that there isn't more. In any important matter like this, it is safe to make haste slowly. No matter how anxious you are to begin this work in your own town, wait until you are trained, and do not fall into the mistaken notion that anybody can teach cooking who can cook. A mistake at the beginning would be fatal, and you could never again awaken interest in the subject if you once fail.

In regard to the training school, its demands, and its accomplishments:

In the first place every applicant for admission must be acquainted with the theory of teaching, and it is considered a great point in her favor if she is the graduate of some normal school. She should possess that particular qualification for the work--a genuine liking for it; and she should determine to devote herself to it to the exclusion of all other branches and be a power in her line of teaching.

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[image: PUBLIC COOKING SCHOOL]

There is no use in taking up any work in a half-hearted way; and if a pupil does not show herself disposed to do her best in the school, her continuance in the class is not encouraged. The teachers very soon discover if a student is lacking in the ability to do the work, and if there is any doubt of her ultimate success as a teacher of cooking she is kindly advised to turn her efforts in some other direction.

That is fair treatment certainly, and kindly too. For the whole future of a girl may be spoiled by allowing her to make a failure when good advice, honestly given, might have turned her in the direction of success. And that is why we should be so glad of the interest and care that the managers of this particular school give to the pupils.

When a student has taken the course, passed the examination, and received her certificate, then she may feel that she is well equipped for the work, for no certificate would be given her had she not won it, you may be sure. The course of study includes, beside cooking, lessons in chemistry by the most competent teachers, and with the practice lessons in both branches, there are frequent lectures by well-known specialists.

The salary of the teacher is the same as that of any grammar school teacher, and the hours of work are the regular school hours. Sometimes, when a town is not large enough to take a teacher's entire time, it will combine with an adjoining town, and the two will employ the same teacher.

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Besides the teaching in the public schools, there is the teaching of independent classes, and of private schools. The Lasell Seminary, in Auburndale, Mass., which is one of the most progressive schools for girls in the country, has a regular course in cooking, ranging from the simplest to the most intricate. It has a prize for bread-making, and there is a spirited contest for this prize every year.

Miss Maria Parloa, who is, without doubt, the best known and most capable of all the lecturers and instructors of cooking in this country, is one of the pioneers as well. She has amassed a snug little property by her work, and she is still in greater demand than any other lecturer. Mrs. Sarah Rorer, of Philadelphia, and Miss Maria Daniell, of Boston, are also successful and well-known teachers.

These teachers form classes, and also give demonstration lectures, for which they get well paid. If a girl is fond of cooking, can impart her knowledge and has patience for detail, she may make a successful teacher, and earn a good income; but she must work for it.

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AS OUR ideas in education are advanced and become incorporated in the school system, new opportunities for those desiring to teach arise, and so a fresh avenue for endeavor is opened.

The development and growth of the kindergarten is a case in point. Where, twenty years ago, there were not a score of kindergarten teachers in the whole country, there are now hundreds, and the demand for them still continues as the different communities make the kindergarten a part of the public school work.

When the kindergarten was first introduced into this country it was as a private school, and the experiment was tried only in the large cities and among people of wealth. The mass of people regarded it as absurd to send such tiny children to school as those this new school took under its special care, and even physicians inveighed against it, and talked about crowding the brains of the little ones, and predicted dire results--which predictions, by the way, have never been fulfilled.

The idea of bringing the kindergarten to this country belonged to a Boston woman--Miss Elizabeth Peabody. Miss Peabody was the sister-in-law of Horace Mann, who was so prominent in educational matters during the early portion and the middle of this century, and who was specially identified with the education of the deaf and dumb. So Miss Peabody was always living in the atmosphere of progress, in educational affairs. She was also the sister-in-law of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the American novelist, the writer of the most remarkable stories that any American author has given to the world; and she was the chosen friend of

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Emerson. You can easily see that she must have been a remarkable woman to win and hold a friendship like that.

During a visit to Germany, Miss Peabody became deeply imbued with the spirit of Frederic Froebel, and she saw in his methods of teaching, or rather of directing and leading the minds of the little children, the best basis for all education. On her return she talked and wrote on the subject, until the time became ripe for the introduction of a teacher. First one came from Germany to establish a training school to prepare teachers for this new work, then another came, when there were training schools both in Boston and New York.

The wealthy people, and the more cultivated classes took the idea very readily, and for a number of years these were the only patrons, because to send a child to a private kindergarten was a somewhat expensive matter.

But Miss Peabody was not satisfied with this state of affairs. She wanted the children of all the people to have the same opportunity that a portion of them already had. She labored earnestly to have the school committees take favorable action on the kindergarten, and make places where the smaller children could be kept from the pitiful surroundings, which so many of them knew as home, and given some brightness and cheer to lighten their little lives.

But school boards are slow to become convinced, they are the reflection of the public whom they represent, and Miss Peabody had times of almost discouragement, but she would rally and work with new determination.

When it became apparent that nothing could be done, for the present at least, through the public schools, Miss Peabody then turned her attention to the establishment, through private means, of free kindergartens in the poorer parts of the city of Boston. In this effort she was met generously and heartily by Mrs. Quincy Shaw, of Boston, who did at once what Miss Peabody desired, and established several free kindergartens in Boston, Brookline, Jamaica Plain and Roxbury, paying all expenses out of her own private income. Mrs. Shaw was the daughter of Professor Louis Agassiz, of Harvard, and her mother was from the Carey family, of Cambridge, who have always been identified with every progressive movement in education and sociology.

Mrs. Shaw supported these schools for many years, until the city, recognizing their worth, and the strong influence for good which they exerted, decided to incorporate them into the public school system, and now the city supports them as it does all the other public schools. The movement has gone outside of Boston, and many of the towns and cities of New England support the kindergartens.

New York has taken the same step, and in many of her cities the kindergarten flourishes as a part of the school system.

The women of San Francisco, headed by Mrs. Leland Stanford and Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, have established the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association, and

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are supporting free kindergartens all over the city. From the inception of the order, until her sad death, Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper was the head of the Association, and she gave her most devoted care to it. She, a newspaper woman, beloved of every one, was the chosen almoner of the charities of the richest women of San Francisco, and she made the very best use of the means that were placed at her command. One of the early San Francisco kindergartners was Kate Douglas Wiggin, whose fascinating books, especially "The Bird's Christmas Carol," and "Timothy's Quest," have made her name a household word wherever sweet, choice literature is appreciated. The work done by the kindergartens of San Francisco is a marvelous work, and full of interest, and the teachers are among the most charming and refined young women of that city.

St. Louis stands well to the front in the kindergarten work, and the other Western cities are following closely.

So you see, here is a work that is growing, and will grow with the future growth of the communities of the country. Teachers will always be needed, and the renumeration is fairly good.

But not every one can be a successful kindergartner. Simply because some girl may think it an easy and a pleasant way of gaining a livelihood, it is no reason why she may expect success in it.

In the first place, much depends upon the personality of the girl. She must be attractive. By that I do not mean merely pretty, for I have known-- and, no doubt, you have known also--pretty girls who have not been attractive when you came to know them. I mean girls with refined natures, good manners, high moral sense; cultivated girls, who win admiration and compel respect. There must be character to the girl who wishes to be successful in this line of work, and this strength must be allied to gentleness. She must really love children, attract them and hold them, after she has won them. She must be patient, tactful, cheerful and firm.

She needs to have a pleasant voice, both for speaking and singing for so much of the kindergarten work is done in song, that this is an absolute necessity. And she must also have a good education.

It is not so easy to gain entrance to a kindergarten training school as it was in the earlier days. The supply of teachers has been so much increased that now it is possible to choose who shall become teachers. A girl must be able to pass a certain examination, which is rather rigid, or she must bring a certificate from a high or normal school. In some training schools the latter is demanded, and no pupil will be received unless she has graduated from a regular normal school.

The course of study is by no means easy, and in the best and most thorough training schools it covers a period of two years. Until quite recently one year

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only was given, but with the additional requirements has come the need of additional time.

Not only are the methods thoroughly taught, but the science of pedagogy is considered, and the pupils have to write abstracts, essays and stories, as well as do practical work in some of the schools. The girl who studies kindergartening may make up her mind that she will not have time for anything else during her two years, but that it will mean constant application. But when she gets through she has a profession that is one of the most beautiful in the world, and that will be, not only an assured income to her, but a constant source of pleasure; that is assuming, of course, that she has a natural aptitude and love for it. In any other case she would better not attempt it, for she will, if she does not fail altogether, become only a common-place teacher, and so find herself frequently out of position as well as always out of place.

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WOMEN have invented nothing but flat-iron holders and stove lifters and fruit strainers, or other things similar in size and importance," was the remark which recently fell upon my ears.

"So?" I said. "I think you will be willing to withdraw that statement when we have looked a little while at the facts of the case. There are several industries, each of which has added millions to the wealth of nations, and immeasurably to the comfort and well being of individuals, which were made possible by women inventors."

Every large cotton mill owes its existence to the invention of the cotton gin, and the cotton gin was evolved and primarily produced by Catherine Littlefield Greene, wife of the Revolutionary officer, General Greene.

The Greenes moved from Rhode Island to Mulberry Grove, on the Savannah River. The General died soon after the removal, leaving five children and a much embarrassed estate.

It was during the winter of 1792-93 that there was gathered in Mrs. Greene's parlor a little group, whose conversation turned upon the subject which was then largely engrossing the attention of nearly every planter in the South: the toilsome and profit-destroying process of separating cotton and its seeds, and the fortune which would come to him who should invent a machine for the accomplishment of this work. To clear the seeds from a pound of cotton kept one person busy for an entire day. Every evening found the entire family of most planters busy with the uncongenial task of separating

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seeds from cotton. It was only thus that the staple production of many a plantation could be made to yield maintenance for those who were dependent upon it for support.

Mrs. Greene had taken into her home as boarder, Eli Whitney, a young man who had gone South to teach in a private family, but who, on reaching his destination, had found his place supplied, and had thereupon decided to study law. She proposed to Mr. Whitney that they should construct the much- needed machine. He agreed, and the work was begun, Mr. Whitney proceeding according to Mrs. Greene's idea, and under her immediate and constant supervision.

The first model, which was supplied with wooden teeth, did not perform the work satisfactorily, and Mr. Whitney was about to give up the experiment in despair, when Mrs. Greene suggested the substitution of wire teeth. With this change the machine wrought wonderful results. So perfect was it that all subsequent cotton gins have been, in all essentials, modeled after it. Instead of one pound, three hundred pounds of cotton could now be cleaned in a day, and the South, which had been languishing in poverty and discouragement, or emigrating to more hopeful fields in search of work, took heart of grace, and found employment at home, while all over the world manufactories sprang up, the price of cotton cloth went down, and a complete commercial revolution was inaugurated. Cotton became king because of a woman's thought.

When Mrs. Greene became Mrs. Miller, she took, through her husband, a partnership with Mr. Whitney in the manufactory of gins.

One who realizes how a woman known to be an inventor would have been looked upon in the year of our Lord 1792, and for years afterward, will not marvel that Mrs. Greene did not proclaim herself maker of one of the most wonderful machines of her own or any other age. Had she done so, the ridicule and scorn of every man and woman who knew her name would have been heaped upon her. She would have been looked upon as a monstrosity of unwomanliness and presumption. A Lucy Stone, or a Mary Somerville, or a Mary A. Livermore might have braved all this. That Catherine Greene did not, has deprived her sex of an honor and an example which were lost to it by her age's manner of thought, or lack of thought.

China, a country which supports such an overwhelming number of people, must long ago have been blotted out of existence but for two things--rice and silk.

Silk fabrics were first invented by the Empress Si-lung-chi, between three and four thousand years ago. Cotton was unknown to China till about eight hundred years ago, and the inhabitants of that country were almost universally clothed in silk. Even now more than half the garments of the empire are made from this material.

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Silk was introduced to the notice of Europeans during the reign of Alexander the Great, and has since formed a most important article of trade between China and the European nations. Soon after its introduction into Europe a woman of the island of Cos, called Pamphila, invented the art of unweaving it and remanufacturing it into a fabric so fine that it was spoken of as "woven wind," and yet sufficiently firm to allow of its adornment with embroidery and threads of gold, and to retain beautiful colors. Thus we came to have silk gauze.

More than forty years ago it was estimated that France received from silk an annual profit of over seven million dollars, and the value of the raw material each year is over twenty-five million dollars.

The education, the arts, the entire prosperity of the nation hinges on its revenues. This being true, the importance of that which a woman inventor did primarily for China, and through China for all the world, can scarcely be overestimated.

Whenever we see one of the mammoth straw shops which give employment to thousands, and place befitting head-gear within the reach of all, we should, if we knew the history of the straw bonnet's evolution, think that here, and in the myriads of other manufactories scattered throughout the country, we have the concrete results of a woman's invention.

In 1798 Miss Betsey Metcalf, of Providence, R.I., sat herself down to form from straw a bonnet which should resemble the costly imported Dunstable concoction which she had seen displayed in a shop window, the latter species of hat being much too expensive for the usual New England purse. The maiden succeeded well in her task, and at once straw hats begun to be manufactured.

Twelve years after the making of that trial bonnet it was estimated that the value of straw bonnets manufactured annually in Massachusetts alone was over half a million dollars. Massachusetts now produces over six hundred thousand straw hats and bonnets annually, and the city of Philadelphia manufactures over five hundred thousand dollars' worth of straw headgear each year.

The Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry still preserves a fac-simile of this initial straw bonnet originated by Miss Metcalf.

The invention of engraving is claimed by several different nations, but the weight of testimony is in favor of the twins, sixteen years old, Alexander and Isabella Cunio, who lived in Ravenna, Italy, in the thirteenth century. This brother and sister made a series of pictures representing scenes in the life of Alexander the Great, which were executed in relief on blocks of wood, and published by the sister. It is supposed that the engraving was printed by placing the paper on the block and pressing the hands upon it.

One has only to fancy the riches which the want of engraving would have withheld; the copies of great paintings, the illustrations of books and periodicals,

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the reproductions of geological and ethnological discoveries, the temples and shrines and obelisks and monuments too far afield for poverty to compass a sight of them, but with which the man of humblest means may become acquainted through their many likenesses--one has only to fancy this to realize something of the world's debt of gratitude to Isabella Cunio.

Many countries derive an immense revenue from the manufactory of lace. Lace making is the bread-winning trade of over two hundred thousand women. Valenciennes, Chantilly, Lisle, Alencon blond and Alencon point are all pillow laces--and the art of pillow lace making was invented by Barbara Uttman, of Annaberry, Saxony.

About the time this art was invented the mines were less productive than usual, and the embroidered veils which were made by the peasant women were in less demand. Multitudes were out of employment, and great want prevailed. Lace making provided work for thousands, and brought back comfort and happiness to a whole community. The industry spread rapidly, country after country taking it up. Many cities are famous for the variety of lace which they make. Caen and Bayeux are noted for their silk mantles, veils, scarfs and laces. Who does not know Alencon by its point lace? or Mirecourt for its elegant designs in thread lace? In Devonshire, England, seven or eight thousand girls are employed in making Honiton lace.

Lace is the universal ornament. It beautifies the infant's frock and droops over the bosom of the mother. Priests and popes, kings and courtiers, generals and statesmen have found it fitting to embellish their attire. It adds richness to the apparel of the bride, and is handed down from mother to daughter, from friend to friend as dower most precious.

In our own day and country women have been busy inventing many small articles without which life would be harder and labor more wearisome. From October 1, 1892, to March 1, 1892, over seven hundred patents were granted to women. To Lucretia Lester, Cuba, N.Y., a patent for fire escape; to Margaret Knight for a sole cutting machine; to Mary E. Cook for a railway car stove; to Mary F. Blaisdell for a combined trunk and couch.

Miss Cora L. Turner has invented and patented a boiler especially adapted for securing great economy in storage of fuel, and for this reason likely to be of immense service in vessels, rendering it possible to make longer voyages without renewal of fuel.

Miss Turner's father had during his life endeavored in vain to render this idea practical. It was after his death that the daughter took it up and carried it through to a successful issue.

"How to Obtain Letters Patent" is the title of a book which gives many valuable hints to would-be inventors. This book declares that although great

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inventions bring more fame, little ones are more profitable. It states that the invention of a certain kind of ink brought its inventor sixty thousand dollars, and a chimney spring was worth fifty thousand dollars annually to its originator. We hear of millions being made by the invention of a shoe clasp, an envelope fastener, and many another equally small and seemingly insignificant things; and these are the kind of articles that women are constantly evolving.

In a paper entitled "How to Invent," in the book referred to, the author says:

"The readiest way to invent is to keep thinking. Inventors should cultivate habits of observation. Examine things about and see how they are made, and how improved."

If "genius is eternal patience" as has been declared, then women should be successful as inventors, for nothing requires more patience than invention. The dreaming tendencies of woman, also, should be a factor in her success as an inventor. Nothing is ever mentally discovered in the noise; everything photographs itself on the imagination "in the silence." Edison says that "women have more fine sense about machinery in one minute than most men have in their whole existence." If one has "fine sense" about one delicate thing why not about others?

The day is probably not far distant when we shall see as many important inventions by women as by men. While it is true of all important callings that "there is always room at the top," it is particularly true of invention, for even our male Morses and Edisons and Wattses do not by any means jostle each other.

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[image: MRS. VAN LEER KIRKMAN, President Woman's Department, Nashville Exposition]

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THE number of women who are successfully managing large business houses or manufacturing concerns in the United States is not large, but it is annually growing. Those women who have taken such positions have usually been forced into them, in a way, but they have almost invariably proved successful.

Miss Helen A. Whittier, for instance, who is president of two of the largest cotton manufactories in America, did not go into the work from any desire to work, nor did she climb the ladder of success, step by step, as so many women have to do. Her father was the principal owner and manager of the Whittier cotton mills of Lowell, Mass. Just as age came stealing upon him, his only son was taken from him by death, and Miss Whittier, realizing how much he needed such assistance as only one could give who shared his interest, then went daily from a luxurious home into his office, taking many burdens from his shoulders, and gradually learning the details of his immense business. At his death she was left the principal heir, and with no near male relative who could take her father's place in the business office. Consequently she kept her hold on the position, and was soon elected by the stockholders as president. For several years now she has attended to the details of this cotton mill, and in 1895, built and set in operation the second one in Atlanta, Ga. She is said to be the only woman president of a big cotton factory in this country. She is a finely educated and highly refined woman, mistress of all the so-called "accomplishments," and

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president of one of the largest woman's clubs in the country. Miss Whittier, with her gentle, quiet ways and wonderful business ability, is a fine example of what the true American business woman may become.

[image: MISS HELEN A. WHITHER]

In a similar way Miss Amanda M. Lougee became the head of a large rubber "gossamer" manufactory at Hyde Park, Mass. She was "silent" partner with her brother for some years. At his death she decided to look after the business herself, rather than to entrust it to strangers, or sacrifice what she had put into the business. She began in 1879 with the rubber- gossamer works, and has since developed the manufacture of double texture clothing, mould work, electrical tape, etc. She employs two hundred and seventy-five men and women, and occupies besides a factory at Clarendon Hills, three floors of a large block in Boston, with offices in New York and Chicago. Probably most men who deal with "A. M. Lougee, Treasurer," do so in utter ignorance that they are dealing with a quiet little elderly woman.

Mrs. Harriet G. Minot is another woman who successfully runs a factory, hers being a large woolen factory in Vermont, which came to her from her father as a losing venture. She left her pleasant home in Somerville, Mass., and went to the little country village among the Green Mountains, remaining for several years, studying the best ways of improving her machinery. The result is, that she makes the finest blankets in the world to-day, although they are sold under the

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private label of a large New York concern--who pay handsomely for the privilege! Almost nobody in the world knows that Mrs. Minot's blankets are her own manufacture.

But she does more than that. She owns four of the principal bakeries in Boston, and she personally sees that they are properly managed. She is up at four every morning, and sometimes gets in town before her employes open the shops at six o'clock. She hires all her own help and attends personally to the pay-roll and its duties. She is one of the busiest women in the world; but if you were to see her at her club, at home, or in society, with her sweet face and ladylike charm of manner, you would never dream you were beholding an up-to-date business woman of the period!

Miss Charlotte Bates, of whom mention has been made before in these pages, has built up a very large business in the manufacture of reform underwear. In fact she has made a comfortable fortune; and, best of all, she has used it to establish and maintain a home for little destitute children. Her "Ella Reed Home," at Sharon, Mass., was opened by no less important a personage than the late Phillips Brooks, bishop of Massachusetts; and he called this one of the most beautiful of all charities. Just think what a pleasure it must be to make a pleasant home for motherless little children, and to feel that you are doing it with your "very own" money.

Mrs. Nellie Russell Kimball, of Dunkirk, N.Y., has demonstrated the good results of industry and business calculation. Six years ago, in the beginning of her widowhood, she decided to continue the business left by her husband, this being a coal and wood yard situated near the shore of Lake Erie, entirely away from the active portion of the town. She was a young woman, had just recovered from a long illness, and did not feel equal, in any way, to the work before her, but she went bravely on. Under her excellent management the business has grown and is now large and thriving. In addition to a good local trade, she has the contract for supplying all the coal used by five dredges employed by the government for cleaning the harbor. This contract calls for about three thousand tons. She has to "coal up" two of these dredges every evening. She is her own and only bookkeeper, weighs every ton of coal sent out from her yard, hires and discharges the men and gives personal attention to the care of her horses. She is kind and pleasant to all who work for her, whether man or beast.

Her days are filled with work, which begins at 7.30 a.m. and ends at irregular hours in the evening. She is bright and cheerful and seems to be as happy as she is busy. Quite recently she has added a farm of eighty acres to her business cares.

Mrs. Emma Colman Hamilton is the owner of a large coal and wood yard in the same city. She also sells drain pipe, fire brick, tiles, cement, etc., has a

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trusty man in her office, but oversees her books and the business generally herself. Besides this she was president of the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union for three years, when she resigned on account of business and family cares. She was one of the principal workers in organizing the Dunkirk Library, which has been a decided success. She is interested in everything that benefits humanity, a broadminded, progressive woman, loved and respected by all who know her.

Mrs. Ella H. Eddy is founder, owner and manager of one of the most successful manufacturing plants in Worcester, Mass. She manufactures fine overgaiters and leggings, lamb-wool soles and machine buttonholes in shoes and clothing, and has a trade in these several productions as far west as Minnesota, and south to Alabama and Florida. She employs her own salesmen, who cover every important trade centre in the country. Bicycle, riding and hunting leggings and overgaiters for men and women are made in especially large quantities. She has a large machinery equipment and some twenty employes.

Another capable woman has made great success as manager of a New York wood- carpet establishment, and is in receipt of a five-thousand-dollar-a-year salary.

Many instances in New York could be cited where women have succeeded as business managers. A notable one is that of a young gentlewoman who is not only the working manager, but the real owner, of a large and successful photograph establishment, although her name does not appear. This is on Fifth avenue. The young woman commenced at the bottom round of the ladder, and step by step rose to the top. She first was paid ten dollars per week, then twenty, and so on until she received fifty dollars per week. Subsequently she was offered a share of the business, in order to retain her valuable services. When the proprietor had "made his pile" and wished to retire, the young woman had saved enough money from her salary to purchase the business, which she still runs successfully. As an outside investment, this woman photographer has recently built a splendid apartment house. It is original in design, and one of the novelties on the facade, introduced by the architect, is a portrait bust of this same clever and charming young woman.

Some people attribute such a career as this to luck--"blind luck, I tell you." I think there is another name for such a career. The result is gained, I know, by simple, but sure, winning methods--industry, frugality, fidelity to employer, tact, good judgment, and downright cleverness. Let us "give credit where credit is due" and "render unto Caesar,"--you know the rest.

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MANY young women, particularly those who have been brought up in a political atmosphere, turn naturally to government service when the question of bread-winning is put before them. This, perhaps, is natural, for certainly the government does offer many desirable positions which women can fill and fill well, and which are paid at a fair price for the labor performed and the hours observed. Within a few years, owing to the development of the civil service, it has not been so easy a matter to obtain these positions, and only women of education who were able to pass the severe examinations have been considered as candidates. Although a political pull is not without value, and, indeed, may be said to be almost necessary, yet it by no means possesses the power which it did in the days preceding the civil service examinations. After one has passed the examinations successfully, she who brings to her support some Congressman or other officials, is likely to be the first chosen, but a creditable passing of the examination is the first point to be gained.

It is surprising to note the number of positions, civil and governmental, which women are filling. Not only are they clerks in the departments at Washington, and in like capacity in the capitols of the States, but they are also post mistresses, notaries public, deputy constables, legislative engrossing clerks, supervisors and superintendents of schools, overseers of the poor, county clerks, examiners in chancery, and members of boards of education and charity. The latest position of public trust to which a woman has been appointed is that of inspector of streets. Mrs. A. E. Paul, of Chicago, has just been appointed to

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[image: MRS. A. EMMAGENE PAUL]

attend to the work of cleaning the down-town business streets of Chicago. It was through her efforts that women were first employed by the authorities of that city to look after its house-cleaning. Mrs. Paul has given up all social attachments and other pursuits, and devotes all her energy to the work of cleaning and keeping the down-town streets. There is sentiment in Mrs. Paul's devotion to this most trying work. She is a widow, and when her only child died of diphtheria several years ago, she resolved that the deadly and disease-laden atmosphere of the city must be purified. So earnest and determined has she been in this work that the city authorities, seeing her fitness for the task and her devotion to it, put the work into her hands. It is to her the work of salvation for other mother's little children, and it will be done in no perfunctory manner, but in such a way as to prove to every one who sees it that a woman can do for the public thoroughfare what she accomplishes for her own home, if the opportunity is but given her. To one who stops to think of the matter there is nothing surprising about this. Women have been the most devoted members of the village improvement societies which have wrought such changes in the rural districts, giving of their time, their substance and their thought to bring about the desired results. They care for the physical cleanliness of their town almost

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as much as they do for its moral purity; indeed, to the average woman, the old saying that cleanliness is next to godliness is an important article in her civic as well as her personal creed.

Rumors have gone abroad of late to the effect that women are being crowded out of government service. If one may judge by figures, that rumor is entirely erroneous. It probably sprung up from the fact that during the last Cleveland administration Secretaries Carlisle and Smith openly announced that no woman's work could possibly be worth more than $1200 a year, and then proceeded to follow their announcement by the wholesale cutting-off of the heads of the higher salaried women. Fortunately, this sadly prejudiced opinion did not obtain in other departments and the women were left in their positions, although there were much quaking and terror lest the example of the Secretaries of the Treasury and the Interior should be followed by some of the others.

Recent appointments seem to show that the confidence in the ability of women has been more firmly than ever established, some of the most arduous and important positions having been filled by them. A gentleman resident in Washington, Mr. Rene Bache, has gathered some valuable statistics and facts which will show just what positions are possible to women in the government at Washington. The Indian Bureau is offering just at present the best chances. The available places reserved for women under the Department of the Interior are numerous and well paid. Cooks at the schools and agencies, for example, get $500 a year, and are obliged to do no menial work. Their business is simply to teach the young Indian women how to cook in civilized fashion. It is the same way with the laundresses and seamstresses in that service, who receive from $400 to $500 a year, with the prospect of promotion to the office of matron. Such appointments are well worth having, notwithstanding the fact that the Indian schools and agencies are mostly scattered over the far West. For these institutions matrons were appointed during one year, one each from North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon, and the positions in question are worth from $500 to $600 a year. They are the only offices under government which are accessible to the married. For it is a fact, that the wife of any superintendent of an Indian school or agency is always a preferred candidate for the place of matron there. The Indian service calls also for a great many teachers; of these forty-three were appointed during the year which ended on the first of October, 1897. They get from $550 to $660 a year; two of them stationed at Fort Belknap, Montana, and Fort Louis, Colorado, are obliged to give instruction in vocal and instrumental music, besides the regular school branches.

The war which opened so many branches to women, as well as made bread- winning a necessity for hundreds, opened also the government offices. General Spinner, of the Treasury Department, was the first to employ them. A few were

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taken as an experiment. To-day the personnel of the Treasury Department is half made up of women who do practically all of the money counting and ever so much more of the responsible work. There are, in all, about 15,000 women in the employ of the government in national offices, and of this number 6100 are in Washington. Of the rest 7500 are postmistresses and post-office clerks scattered over the country. The number of women in state and city positions equals, if not exceeds, the number in the national government, and this makes a large army employed in public positions and paid out of the public funds.

Only a few years ago all the women in government employ were on a level of mediocrity so far as status is concerned; they were all in subordinate positions. At present it is otherwise. There are women in places of authority in government service. One of them is chief librarian in the Bureau of Public Documents. Two mere girls were appointed only the other day to very responsible offices, as translators of French and Portuguese in the Bureau of American Republics at $1600 a year each. The women experts engaged in reading illegible addresses at the Post Office Department could not be replaced by equally competent men, and the same is true of the women who dissect and identify the paper money damaged by all sorts of accidents, which comes to the treasury for redemption.

Women are even invading the domain of science. One of the appointments during 1897 was that of a female "agrostologist" from Tennessee at $900 a year. This term, being translated, signifies an expert in grasses, the study of which has been taken up by the Department of Agriculture. Already in government service there are women botanists, women ethnologists, while the most accurate living artist in the representation of insect life is a woman attached to the Bureau of Entomology.

Women, no more than men, shrink from hardships in their search for employment. The government Bureau of Education recently applied to the Civil Service Commission for four women teachers to go to Alaska. The Commission, doubting whether candidates would be easily forthcoming, sent a circular query to the ten highest names on its list. To its great surprise, nine out of the ten replied, they would be glad to go, and of these the ranking four were selected.

The number of women typewriters and stenographers is slowly increasing, ten having been admitted during the year 1897. These get from $600 to $900 a year. The Patent Office has a woman linguist at a salary of $720, whose business it is to translate French and German patents, in order that the patent examiners may know about foreign inventions. Another translator is employed in the Department of State, where she draws $1200 a year. In her examination she stood at the head, with a much larger percentage than any of her rivals. The requirements included half a dozen languages as well as a knowledge of other things which might have troubled a Cambridge senior wrangler. She answered

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everything correctly, and although failing to get the position in the Department of War for which she was trying, she stepped at once into a superior position in the Department of State.

Vanceburg, Ky., and Allegheny, Pa., have each of them a woman deputy sheriff. Miss Florence Klotz, of Allegheny, is a young girl only eighteen years of age, but she serves warrants, summonses and subpoenas with all the authority of a male constable. Miss Klotz's father is an alderman whose regular constable was an old man who had an inconvenient way of being sick or invisible when he was wanted for duty. On one of these occasions the despairing alderman pressed his daughter into service. That settled the matter. The girl constable proved to be the pluckiest, quickest and most reliable one in town. Her first mission was to serve a subpoena on a farmer living four miles out of town. Miss Florence put on her bicycle dress, mounted her wheel, and went after her man. When she came back tired, muddy, but triumphant, she found a crowd in front of her father's office to welcome her. "I served them, papa," she exclaimed, and then, girl-like, she cried, even though she was constable. Before she went into the constabulary, she wheeled through Allegheny County, taking orders for her father's candy manufactory. In one case Miss Klotz acted as counsel as well as constable. A butcher had kicked in the door when he found his hallway locked up by the baker, who, with his family, occupied the rest of the house. The locking was by the order of the landlord who demanded that it be done at 10 p.m. Miss Klotz brought her man to court, also served a score of subpoenas for witnesses, arranged the details of the hearing, cross-examined the witnesses, and finally had the case dismissed on her own recommendation that each of the parties be furnished with keys. The costs were divided, and the young lawyer-constable smiled with delight as she counted over her share. She says she doesn't know what she would do if she ran against an ugly customer, but she declares, with a snap of her black eyes, that she would get him. She is the pet of the municipal court, and if she ever sent word for help the entire retinue of clerks, heads of departments, and underlings, would turn out to the rescue of Constable Florence.

Miss Lillie Fountain, the deputy sheriff of Lewis County, Ky.,is a young woman whose first experience as bread-winner was as school teacher. She then became an attendant and teacher in the State School for Feeble- minded, and left that to undertake the duties of her present office. She is especially successful in dealing with the insane, and her first work in her new position was to take a trip of ninety miles, carrying a woman to the Insane Hospital of the State. She has the respect and confidence of all with whom she is associated, and is already much relied upon by the superior officers.

The women lighthouse-keepers are the modern heroines of real life romance. Grace Darling and Ida Lewis were the pioneers of their calling; and the latter,

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who is now known as Mrs. Wilson, is still in charge of Lime Rock light in Narragansett Bay. But there are others of efficiency and courage, whose lights shine for them while their names rest in the obscurity of government records. There are no less than thirty women lighthouse-keepers in the employ of the United States. Some of them have been in the service forty years, or almost since the present organization, which dates back from 1852. Mrs. A. C. Murdock, the keeper of the light at Rondout on the Hudson River, and Mrs. Nancy Rose, keeper of the light at Stony Point, were appointed in 1861; Julia F. Williams, at Santa Barbara, Cal., in 1865; Mrs. Maria Younghaus, at Biloxi, Miss., in 1867; and Mary J. Succow, at Pass Manchac, La., in 1873. These female slaves of the lamp are notably careful and conscientious in the discharge of their duties, and it is remarked that they endure the lonesome, monotonous life of the light- keeper better than men. The salaries range from $400 to $1400, and the keepers have comfortable houses, with fuel, lights and provisions furnished by the government.

[image: MISS HARRIET P. DICKERMAN]

In state and municipal offices many of the clerical positions are held by women, and in one case at least, a woman has been appointed State Librarian. For some years Miss Harriet P. Dickerman was at the head of the Corporation Bureau in the Department of State in Massachusetts, taking the position on the death of its previous incumbent whose chief clerk she had been. By the civil

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service rules she was next in the order of promotion, and the fact of her being a woman did not influence her appointment. She continued in that position, filling it most creditably, for a number of years, when she was transferred to the Archives Department.

In Michigan a woman has been appointed Game Warden for Grand Traverse County. During May of 1897 the State, Game and Fish Warden's Department prosecuted 109 alleged violators of the law, and convicted 96, growing out of 149 complaints. All but three of the convictions were obtained for violation of the fish laws, and the majority of these cases were established by Mrs. Neal. The duties of Game Warden are to keep a sharp lookout for violators of the game and fish laws. As Grand Traverse County is densely wooded and has many lakes, Mrs. Neal will be kept busy in seeking out and bringing to justice violators of the law. She handles a gun like an expert, rows a boat, and is a skillful woodsman and knows every inch of the country she has to patrol. She usually makes a trip over the entire county once a week. When out after the violators of the game law, she rides over the country on horseback, and when she comes to a lake, secures a boat and with a steady, swift oar, she rapidly covers her territory made up of water.

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THE professions of architect and civil engineer are two in which, until recently, it would probably have been impossible to find successful women workers. Even now the number is not great, but the success of those who are now at work in those lines shows that this work for women is perfectly feasible.

When one speaks of women as architects, the name of Miss Sophia B. Hayden, of Boston, comes into mind as the designer of the superb Woman's Building at the World's Fair at Chicago, in 1893. Even if the beautiful building, looking out on the lagoon where Venetian gondolas floated, is only a dream now, its memory will always remain as a proof of what women architects can do. The artistic designs of the interiors of several of the separate rooms in the same building also showed what women designers could do.

Two young women who have won success as architects are Miss Mary N. Gannon and Miss Alice J. Hand, of New York. Both came to that city as students at the School of Applied Design, and graduated in the Class of 1894. In the same year they entered the competition for the plans of a hospital in San Francisco, and received the award. This hospital is now completed and in running order, and is pronounced by physicians a model of sanitation, convenience and architectural beauty.

Miss Gannon, when asked about her work, and how other young women could learn it, said: "One can never master the intricacies of architectural drawing except under the instruction of practical architects. Theoretical training amounts to but little; but practical knowledge, the most important thing, we acquired at the school. Of course, one must have a thoroughly good mathematical knowledge, and a love for art is necessary.

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[image: WOMAN'S BUILDING, NASHVILLE EXPOSITION]

"We make our own measurements, and having made an exhaustive study of the different building materials in the market, we know just how much everything should cost, and can give a correct estimate of expense with every plan. We not only draw our designs but superintend the building in person, except in New York, where an engineer is always chosen for that purpose. Among other buildings which we have put up was one of those at the Atlanta Exposition, and a pretty little Dutch cottage at Asbury Park, called Gretchen Cottage, in honor of Margaret Bottome, of the King's Daughters. We have also built a number of suburban cottages and several in the Catskills and at the seashore.

"A point upon which we are determined is that we will not cut rates. The cheapening in all the departments of work undertaken by women is deplorable, and causes men in the same professions to discourage women, whom they correctly hold responsible for the lowering of wages. This is why men as a rule are opposed to women usurping the professions usually considered as the prerogative of men. From the beginning we decided that if our work was equally meritorious with that of men in the same line, we should demand equal recognition, although we were women. The best architects encourage and praise our efforts. It is from the insignificant and unsuccessful ones that the opposition comes; those who are not sure of themselves criticise us and are afraid of us as competitors."

Miss Gannon and Miss Hand have made a special study of the tenement house problem. Having finally decided that they could not properly understand

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the conditions which confront people who live in tenement houses unless they lived in one themselves, they hired two small rooms in a moderate class tenement house, had their laundry done there, bought their provisions at the same shops their neighbors did, and in fact lived just like them. Of what they learned, Miss Gannon, writing not long afterward in Godey's magazine said:

"We discovered that the rental paid for these miserable rooms was greater in proportion than that for rooms in the better quarters of the city; that enormous prices were charged for gas and fuel. The conditions were unsanitary, the ventilation poor, and there were no bathing privileges. The poor overworked women were obliged to bring buckets of coal up four and five pairs of stairs, do their laundry work and cooking in a kitchen without light and ventilation, and inhabit with their families an apartment where privacy was impossible.

"After gaining a thorough insight into the habits of these unfortunates, Miss Hand and myself set to work to improve the sanitary conditions of the tenement houses. Our plans have been approved not only by philanthropists, but by practical business men. We believe it is possible to erect buildings for the poor, which shall be healthful, beautiful, and homelike, and where light, ventilation, and every convenience shall be provided at no greater cost than in the miserable tumbledown tenements that families are now obliged to occupy, and that, moreover, they will be profitable to those who invest their money in them. This is in no wise a purely philanthropic scheme, but is intended to provide healthful homes for working men's families who must live in the crowded districts of New York. The tenement house as it stands to-day is a reproach to the humanitarianism of this enlightened century. It is a crying evil, and one which should be redressed without delay."

Miss Marian S. Parker enjoys the distinction of being a practical woman civil engineer. Miss Parker, when asked to tell how she came to take up this branch of work, said, "At first I thought I would study architecture, because plans and designs had always had a great attraction for me. Then as I became more and more interested in mathematics I came to believe that some work involving that branch of science would be more to my liking. Civil engineering seemed to be just the thing, and so when I was fifteen years old I began in earnest to study for that.

"I had no trouble in getting the education. My father is a graduate of Ann Arbor, so I naturally decided to go there, especially as that school is coeducational. I prepared myself, was examined, and was admitted to the regular course in civil engineering, just the same as if I had been a man. I have no doubt some of the faculty, and perhaps some of the students, thought it strange, but no one expressed any unfavorable opinions or discouraged me. I could not have been better treated than by the professors and the men in my class. I took the regular

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course, except that in the senior year I took architectural work instead of surveying, because I thought that would do me the most good.

"I was fortunate in getting a position easily. I had expected to have to encounter a great deal of prejudice, but this was not the case. I was offered a position with the same salary that is given to men doing the same work, and the same chances of advancement. Two weeks after I had graduated I was at work."

As in the case of Miss Gannon and Miss Hand, Miss Parker has had her attention attracted to the subject of model tenement houses, and she has done a great deal of work in designing and building these. The sufferings which the women in the poor houses in the slums of the cities have to encounter seem to appeal especially to other women, and it is only natural that women who have learned how to do things should desire to plan some way to help these unfortunate people.

Asked what she thought would be the necessary qualifications for a woman wishing to take up the same work, Miss Parker replied, "First of all to make a success of such a career, a woman must be thoroughly and naturally fond of mathematics. Not merely algebra, and the like, but applied mathematics. Civil engineering is really the application of pure mathematics to construction. Then, too, a woman must be willing to work with all the little intricate and complex details that are part of mathematical service. She must be careful, accurate and patient.

"The whole system is made up of trifles, to be sure, but if every trifling detail is not exact and perfect, serious accidents may occur."

In the office where Miss Parker is engaged she has her desk, table, and high stool, just the same as the other assistants do. For a year and a half she was employed upon the construction of a large hotel, then in process of building. She worked on all parts of the structure, detailing and designing, and making the shop drawings. The shop drawings are the plans for the workmen to follow, and must be absolutely correct, even to the smallest fraction of an inch. The work is of a difficult nature and involves great responsibility. Estimating the amount of materials necessary is another detail which she is often called on to calculate.

The women who are finding congenial and profitable employment as designers is greater than in either of the two classes just referred to. As designers of fabrics, carpets and wall papers it is only natural that they should excel. The usual way in which a woman fits herself for such work is by attendance upon some art school. Whether manufacturers would accept young women or girls, as some of them accept boys, and pay them a trifle while they are learning to design is a question. At any rate, without the advantages of being in the midst of such

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work the processes have been mastered by women, and acceptable designs produced. And so scientific education is helping women to "find their places," as Huxley expresses it. To these pioneers in new fields other women look to see proved their abilities, and disproved the old-time theories against the limitations of the sex.

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FOR some reason or other not so many women have adopted the legal profession as have taken up medicine or even the ministry. It seems strange that this should be the case since law, in certain of its forms, is specially adapted to the attention of the woman student. This is specially true of the departments of probate and realty in which the work lies mostly outside of the court room. The knowledge of law should be much more general among women than it is, so that they might be able to protect their own interests and avoid being drawn into many of the pitfalls which are laid for their ignorant and unwary feet. So important, indeed, is this knowledge considered that some of the leading girls' schools, notably the Lasell Seminary at Auburndale, Mass., has every year a course of lectures on the common law given by some leading member of the profession. The president of the school, Mr. C.C. Bragdon, tried the first course as an experiment about the year 1886. The course was given by Mr. Alfred Hemenway, the law partner of Governor John D. Long, now the Secretary of the Navy, and proved so interesting and so helpful that the students begged for a continuation the next year. It has been a feature of the school curriculum ever since and during the later years the lectures have been given by Miss Mary A. Green, a lawyer of Providence, R.I., who was admitted to the bar in 1888. She studied law in order to be independent in transacting the business of a private estate, and she graduated from her class in the Boston University as second in a large class of men, her diploma being

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enhanced in value by the magna cum laude to which only a student is entitled by a high average standard in the studies of the entire course. An exceedingly delicate constitution has prevented Miss Green from engaging in active court practice, but her work has been of a literary character and in assisting other lawyers. She has had published in one of the legal magazines a paper on the extreme technical points of law, which is one of the most valuable of its kind. She is a thorough French scholar and has translated for the Chicago Law Times a work of Dr. Louis Frank, of Brussels, "La Femme Avocat," a history and criticism of the course of women in law in ancient and modern times. In addition to her lecture work at Lasell she gives every year courses of lectures before Women's Clubs and Young Women's Christian Associations. She is warmly regarded by the other members of the bar with whom she is associated, who cannot say too much in praise of the ability of this serious, physically frail young lawyer.

Mrs. Alice Parker Lesser was admitted to the bar in California the same year in which Miss Green was admitted to the bar of Massachusetts. She practiced for a year in that State, then came to her Eastern home and sought admittance to the Suffolk bar. Although Mrs. Lesser, who was then Miss Alice Parker, received her legal education in California, she was an Eastern girl, born and educated in Lowell, Mass., the only child of Dr. Hiram Parker, a leading homeopathic physician of that city. Being left an orphan, not needy, but with a desire for more and more practical knowledge, she at first, through the influences with which she was surrounded, was inclined to become a physician; but her health failed, she was obliged to give up her studies, and she went to California to recover; but there she was given up to die and plans and preparations were made for the final return and disposition of her body--not a very cheerful prospect. Destiny had a different road for her. She suddenly took a turn for the better, and in that wonderful climate her improvement was very rapid, and in a very short time she was seen riding horseback and became a keen huntswoman. With returning health and having her own property to care for, she began the study of law for her own convenience, but its infatuation seized her and she determined to make it a life profession. While Mrs. Lesser is fearless and firm, she has the modesty of true womanhood and is unobtrusive in all her ways. So accustomed had she been to a sexless deference to her abilities, and to being the acknowledged comrade in law, she was unprepared for the different sentiment which prevailed in Boston toward the woman with a defined purpose of a life of usefulness on the basis of value for value received--in other words, toward a woman in a professional and commercial sense. Mrs. Lesser has a good practice, and as a counselor-at-law, is not only grave and judge- like, but her keen wit, dry humor and eminently social nature make her one of the most entertaining of women. While in California, Mrs. Lesser, then Miss Parker, was made referee--that is, a lawyer in prominent

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standing appointed to hear cases in place of the judge and submitting testimony to him--a legal office that does not exist in the New England States, but equivalent there to the Master in Chancery.

[image: MRS. MYRA BRADWELL]

The pioneer lawyers of the United States were Mrs. Belva Lockwood and Mrs. Myra Bradwell. Mrs. Lockwood fairly fought her way through opposition. State after State refused to admit her to the bar even after she was fully qualified and passed the most rigid examination. Mrs. Bradwell was the wife of Judge Bradwell of Illinois, and studied with her husband from genuine love of the profession. She was appointed editor of the "Court Register" of the State, a position which she held until her death. Mrs. Bradwell went abroad as representative to several congresses, and was an expert in international law. Her only daughter is also a lawyer, and after her admittance to the bar was married to a young Chicago lawyer, with whom she is in legal, as well as domestic, partnership.

Mrs. Carrie Burnham Kilgore was the first woman lawyer in Philadelphia. She was a school teacher and began to study law in 1875, when such narrow prejudice existed against woman receiving the benefit of a university course, that accompanying the refusal of her application for admission to the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania, was the courteous observation of the dean, that the time for him to resign would be when negroes and women were admitted. Mrs.

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Kilgore persevered sixteen years before she became a recognized member of the bar.

A woman of Bucharest, Roumania, has been given the degree of LL.D. She is held in high esteem in her own country. Her marvelous talents developed early, and at the age of seventeen years she gained her B.A. degree and went to Paris where she studied law for five years, passing brilliant examinations through this period, until in 1889 she received the degree of LL.D., taking the first prize in the final examination. Her treatise entitled "The Legal Position of the Mother in Roumania" was considered the most comprehensive work of the kind that had ever been written, and its five hundred pages showed an extraordinary acquaintance with both ancient and modern law. Soon after the bestowal of her degree Mlle. Bilcesco petitioned the legal authorities of Bucharest to permit her name to be placed on the roll of advocates, a demand which was agreed to unanimously.

Mrs. Anna C. Fall is another successful Massachusetts lawyer, being a partner of her husband in his Boston office, and having an office in Malden of her own.

Miss Amy Acton and Miss Alline Marcy are the two women who have entered the profession purely and simply to make a living out of it. They are working as a man works, just for money, while most of the others are doing it for pure love of the profession. Miss Marcy occupied an important position with the Massachusetts Title Insurance Company for some time, and is now in the State House at Boston in the Realty Department, her special work being that of looking up titles. She is one of the best authorities on the subject in the State. Miss Acton is at Dayton, Ohio, in the legal department of one of the large manufacturing concerns. She is practically the head of the department, and attends personally to all details of contract and other legal work. She draws a handsome salary.

One of the early lawyers was Mrs. Clara H. Nash, who was admitted to the bar in Maine in 1872, and Mrs. Marilla M. Ricker, who does not attend strictly to law, but devotes much of her time to political writing.

In New York, Miss Nellie Robinson has recently won two cases in the Court of Special Sessions, and is being talked about as a rising young lawyer. On being asked whether she would advise girls to become lawyers, she said she would not, unless they were seriously in earnest and felt a special calling for it. "It is," said Miss Robinson, "a hard life. The nervous strain of court practice is wearing even to men, and women are much less able to endure it. I would certainly advise girls to study law as part of a valuable practical education, but I would discourage them from attempting court practice unless it is necessary. It is useless to deny that there is a prejudice against woman lawyers. I mean among the men in the profession. When I first began to practice I had the

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feminine idea of the social courtesy extended by men to women, and I thought everything was going to be perfectly lovely; but I found out my mistake. If I wanted to win, I had to fight tooth and nail. I did it, but it isn't every woman who would be physically able to endure the strain."

A young woman recently graduated at the Union College of Law in Chicago. She is entirely blind, and during the lecture course her mother was her constant companion and read from the text-books to her. Miss Lilian Blanche Fearing was one of four students whose records were so nearly equal that the committee appointed to award the scholarship prize decided to divide it equally among the four. The blind girl has already been admitted to the Illinois bar by the Supreme Court, at Springfield, and is said to give great promise in her profession.

Mrs. Ella Knowles Haskell, the assistant attorney-general of Montana, differs from Miss Robinson regarding the profession of law as a suitable one for woman. She says: "I think the vocation of law is a good one for women who are willing to work early and late in the interests of their clients, and who will give attention to details, no matter how unimportant they may seem to be. A women taking up the profession of law should have a logical and a reasoning mind, a good education, and should have already learned the indispensable lesson of how to concentrate the entire mind force on the work at hand. She should also possess a good share of sound common sense. With these qualifications, a woman should succeed in law as well as a man, but when we think of the great number of men who never attain success, we must not be surprised if women, bright and clever though they may be, should also fail."

Mrs. Haskell graduated at Bates College, Lewiston, Me., in 1880. She then began to read law with the view, first, of being able to attend to her own business affairs; gradually she became more absorbed in the study, and after three years went to Helena, Montana, where she continued her studies in a law office. She was soon able to pass an examination for the bar, and then arose an obstacle which taxed her best efforts to surmount. Women were not allowed to practice, and she introduced and worked for a bill which, after great opposition, passed the legislature, and she was permitted to appear in court as a full-fledged attorney. She is the only woman lawyer in Montana and she has earned large fees. One was for $10, 000. In 1893 she was nominated on the Populist ticket for attorney-general of the State, and the election was so close that for three weeks it was not known who was the successful candidate. It proved, however, to be General Haskell. Immediately after his election he appointed Miss Knowles as his assistant, and in less than two years they were married.

Other women have graduated from the law schools who have studied simply to be able to manage their own business affairs; in fact, it has become quite the custom for rich women who have large estates to take a course in law that they

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may better understand the value of their property and its wise administration. Among the women who have studied for this purpose are Mrs. Theodore Sutro and Miss Helen Gould, of New York. So far as she possibly can, every woman should know the points of law which will be of service to her should she be left either to settle an estate or to manage a business.