Teach the Girls the Value of Money.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 241, 13 October 1886, Page 3

Teach the Girls the Value of Money.

I know that I shall excite the wrath or contempt of the devotees of the higher education of women when I say that it is not neceßßary for every woman to be an accomplished musician., an art student, a thoroughly educated Girton girl; but it is necessary that she should be a woman of business. From the day when her baby fingers begin to handle perce and shillings, and her infant mind is roused to a laudable ambition by the possession of the enormous income of threepence a week, she ought to be taught the true value and wise expenditure of money ; to repay the minutest debt, still better, to avoid incurring it ;_ to observe the, jußt proportions of having and spending, and above all, the golden rule for every one of ua, whether our income be sixpence a week or twenty thousand a year— waste nothing. May not the growing disinclination of our young men to marriage arise partly fretn their dread, nay, conviction—alas ! too true—that so few of our young women have been thus educated, and that, so far from being a helpmeet to tbe man they marry, they are an expense, [a {hindrance, a continual burden ? Without wishing to defend the selfish young bachelor, who waits till he is " in a position to marry"— which means till he has enough of the pleasures of freedom and finds them begin to pall—l often see with pi-y a young fellow who has never had occasion to think of anybody but himself, and never haa done it, lea- ning by hard experience the endless self-Eacrifices demanded of paterfamilias— good for him, no doubt, but none the less painful. Often, whea going out of London, about 9 a.m., I have confronted the train full of busy anxious-look-ing men hurrying into London, and I have said to myself: " I wondor how many of these poor hard-worked f.llows have wives, or sisters, or daughters who really help them,take the weight of life a little off their ehoulders, expend their substance wisely, keep them from domestic worries, and, above all take care of their monoy 1" " But for my wife I should have been in the workhouse," is the secret consciousness of many a man ; and it is a curious fact that while many a woman makes the best of a not too estimable husband, no power on earth can save a man who has got an unworthy or even a foolish wife. He cannot raise her, and he himself will gradually

Lower to her level day by day, What is fine within me growing coirse to Sympathise with day.

Or even if she means well, but is by nature or education what I may term an "incapable woman," he finds himself saddled with not only his own Bhare of the life-burden, but hers. Ihe more generous and tender-hearted he is the more he is made a victim, both to her and to his children, till he sinks into the mere breadwinner of the family, who has his work to do and does it through pride, duty, love, or a combination of all three, usually without a word of complaint—does it till he drops. Men have 0 great deal of error to answer for, but the silent endurance of many middle-aged " family men "towhom—often, alas ! through the" wife's fault—domestic life has been made a burden rather than a blessing, ought to be chronicled by the Recording Angel with a tear, not of compassion, but admiration—enough to blot out any man's youthful sin. It is to prevent this—to try and make of our girls the sort of wives that are likened unto Lemuel's mother : " The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her; she will do him good, and not evil, all the days of her life —that 1 would urge their being taught from earliest childhood some knowledge of business, especially money.— Mrs Muloeh-Craitz in •• Harper's Magazine."