WHEN A MAID IS THIRTY-FIVE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 57, 4 September 1909, Page 7

WHEN A MAID IS THIRTY-FIVE.

' ' It often happens that at thirty-five a woman must suddenly face the problem of earning her living," says a woman writer in one of tha most prominent of the American illustrated papers. " She does not fear work, she does not tremble at the prospect of disappointment, hard lines, even suffering ; but when she stops to consider her age she falters. Perhaps she is a ' back number,' she meditates. rr I hat is where she makes a mistake," says this writer. "Any employer will assure h6r that his most valuable woman workers are beyond the thirty mark. Few unmarried women have really graduated from the kittenish period. Many find their daily excitement in telephone messages, and consider their chosen occupation merely as the gangway over which they hope to trip to the ship of matrimony. The good worker is the serious worker. Youth, knowing everything, is seldom willing even to try and learn, while the maturer mind realises that a whole life-time is but the briefest education in the great affairs of mankind. Alas, the young seldom understand that there is in work itself a certain delightful pleasure. The ability to learn a trade or to become familiar and expert in a profession is the same at thirty-five as at twenty. In fact, ability is not a matter of years, many or few, but rather of the mind's mood and its receptive qualities. The older woman may not learn quite so quickly, but she will no doubt learn more thoroughly ; she wi}l apply herself more diligently, and will have a more tactful business address than the youngsters competing with hei. Another problem that sometimes frets her is : does Cupid consider her a '. down and outer ' ? She wonders about that. Has she gone beyond the time limit for marital honours? Oh, silly lady, how she tnlks, without faith in herself, yet all the little arts of femininity are hdrs. She not only knows herself very well, but she also knows men, too, and understands what willing slaves they are to bright companionship, genuine sympathy, and unselfish affection. The young girl may have a pack of wild, flighty, ardent admirers at her heels, but fine, thoughtful men bestow their sentiment and appreciation upon an older woman."