FOR COMPETENT WOMEN ONLY.

Mataura Ensign, 9 November 1908, Page 2

FOR COMPETENT WOMEN ONLY.

* Tim days of the untrained woman have passed, and nowadays the woman who has her own living to l-arn must provo herself worthy the hire. There was a time not so wry long 11 tin when the girl thrown suddenly on iier own resources turned almost instinctively to teaching (says an Australian paper). No matter how meagre her own education might haviylyeii, she always thought herself quite competent to teach little children. Hut nowadays it is admitted that the youngest children .need the ' most skilled teaching, and only those with university u.r pollege. training have any eliauee ot IKtsitious in schools. There still remains the position of governess, hut each yoar parents require more from the teachers of their children.

Allot hoi- [wsition which was sometimes open to the girl of no training, it she had influential friends, whs that ol private secretary. Any girl who could write legibly and neatly' considered herself fitted for such a "liico ladylike billet." But the private secretary oi to-day needs more attainments than good 'penmanship. She must be a competent stenographer and typist, wust have a knowledge of other languuges than her own, must understand the care of books and papers, be able to ferret out elusive tacts from books of reference,' and keep notes. Nursing, ol course, lihb become one of the most skilled of the professions, and now even the charity worker has to study the theory of socioligy and scientific philanthropy before she can take up work in any while a matron of any charitable institution must be an expert in half a dozen different things before she is considered worthy of the position. In housekeeping we know that much is being done to make domestic work a science. The housekeeper of the future will be aide to discuss with ease such subjects as bacteriology ill its relation to household sanitation; and in America there is now a training' school for wives, or at least a school where girls are taught the art of being a wife. In the trades, too, the untrained woman is doomed. With industrial and technical colleges springing up all over the world, factory heads will not bother with a kindergarten of 'prentice hands. The school will supply the skilled worker, and the unskilled will have to go. No matter what may lie a girl's station in life, no matter how wealthy she may be, she should always Imi prepared to fight for herself if occasion should arise. Sho need not go out into the world to compete with those who work to live, but she should be thoroughly trained in some art and profession, so that if she were over in need she would not make one of the poor rtelplcss odd women, hut could turn with confidence to a means of livelihood.

And parents who neglect this training do their girls a grievous wrong. Whatever may be one's opinion about work for women, there is no denying the fact that the aruiv of skilled workers is marching onward with an everincreasing force, and will earry all bfr> fore it.