Part 11 (1/2)

2. That a single s.e.xual misstep has ruined thousands upon thousands of girls' lives;

3. That ignorance or the one misstep has led thousands to a permanent life of shame;

4. That such a life means, sooner or later, sorrow, impaired or destroyed health, disgrace, and early death to its woman victims;

5. That the social evil destroys the efficiency and the moral worth of men;

6. That it sets free deadly disease germs to permeate society, causing untold misery among the innocent,

then, and not until then, can they be taught

1. To recognize and fear animal instinct unrestrained by higher motive;

2. To guard their own instincts;

3. To hold men to a high standard of social purity and to help them attain it.

Nor does this teaching necessitate morbid consideration of the subject. It will, in fact, in many cases clear away the morbid curiosity and surrept.i.tious seeking after information in which untaught girls indulge. Skillfully and delicately taught this knowledge as an important and serious part of woman's work, girls will be sweeter and more womanly for the knowledge of their responsibility to society and to their unborn offspring.

Schools that attempt such a course for girls are finding their chief difficulty in discovering people properly endowed by nature and properly trained to teach it. To give such work into any but the wisest hands invites disaster. To make it a study of the physical basis of s.e.xual life is disaster in itself. Service, through making one's self a pure member of society, and through helping others to keep the same standard--this must be the keynote of the teaching, an education toward social efficiency and social uplift.

CHAPTER X

THE GIRL'S WORK

The adolescent girl, already the product of a general training which has aimed at all-round development of body, mind, and spirit, is now ready for the specializing which shall place her in tune with the world of industry and help her to make for herself a permanent and useful place in society. Henceforward the girl's training must face her double possibilities. She must not be allowed to have an eye single to making an industrial place for herself; nor can those who educate her fail to see the double work she must do.

Any consideration of the subject of girls' work outside the home or work in the home for financial return must begin with a general survey of the field of industry, discovering what women have done and are doing, together with the effects of gainful occupation upon the character and efficiency of women.

The United States Census reports for 1910 give the following figures:

Number of Females Ten Years and Over Year Engaged in Gainful Occupations 1880 2,647,157 1890 4,005,532 1900 5,319,397 1910 8,075,772

It is thus seen that gainful occupations for women have increased greatly in the thirty years covered by the report. At present 21.2 per cent of all females, or 23.4 of all over ten years of age, are engaged in work for wages. Further tabulation brings out the fact that, whereas the age period from twenty-one to forty-four shows the largest percentage of men employed in gainful work, women show the largest proportion of their numbers so employed during the age period from sixteen to twenty. Evidently the girls are at work. The figures follow:

MALES TEN YEARS AND OVER FEMALES TEN YEARS AND OVER Age Period Per Cent Age Period Per Cent 10-13 16.6 10-13 8.0 14-15 41.4 14-15 19.8 16-20 79.2 16-20 39.9 21-44 96.7 21-44 26.3 45 and over 85.9 45 and over 15.7

Compare with these figures the following table:

AGES AT WHICH WOMEN MARRY[7]

11.2 per cent, or 1/9, of all women marry before 20 47.3 ” ” ” 1/2 ” ” ” ” ” 25 72.4 ” ” ” 3/4 ” ” ” ” ” 30 83.3 ” ” ” 5/6 ” ” ” ” ” 35 88.8 ” ” ” 8/9 ” ” ” ” ” 45 92.1 ” ” ” 11/12 ” ” ” ” ” 55 93.3 ” ” ” 14/15 ” ” ” ” ” 65 93.8 ” ” ” 15/16 ” ” ” ” ” 100

It will be observed that since the percentage of women at work decreases after twenty, the number of women who marry and presumably become homemakers is very largely increased.

These figures would seem to indicate that girls go to work early, that as yet industry does not largely prevent marriage, and that marriage does in many or most cases stop women's industrial careers.

Inquiry as to what women are doing in the industrial world elicits important facts. It would seem that Olive Schreiner's ”For the present we take all labor for our province” is very nearly a bare statement of attested fact. The Census report includes 509 closely cla.s.sified occupations. Women are found in all but 43. Even allowing for the inaccuracy of such figures, and pa.s.sing over the occupations which take in only an occasional woman, it is seen that ”woman's sphere” can no longer be arbitrarily defined. The following facts and figures for women give us food for thought:

Farm laborers (working out) 337,522 Iron and steel industries 29,182 Chemical industries 15,577 Clay, gla.s.s, and stone industries 11,849 Electrical supply factories 11,041 Lumber and furniture industries 17,214 Steam railroad laborers 3,248