A CAREER FOR WOMEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18888, 22 December 1924, Page 15

A CAREER FOR WOMEN.

"There is no future for highly educated women in England. They simply are not wanted."

This challenging remark was made to me a few days ago by h man who is widely acquainted with the demand which exists for professional women workers writes Barbara Dane. He added that, with the exception of the scholastic, legal, and medical pofessions. women with university degrees are finding their talents and their training are wasted. "Every year the universities are turning : out women graduates who. so far from ! obtaining highly paid positions, are glad i to get work at £3 a week," he consumed. I

"University training in the case of men has long been recognised a.s utterly insufficient in itself as a qualification for earning a living: to-day our women graduates are beginning to realise that while three years Nat Oxford or Cambridge may be an interesting and valuable experience for a woman, it is by no meanS- the key to a career.

"Women will always be. needed in the most honourable profession of nursing; they are needed in greater numbers than ever before in business. In ypars to come I believe the skilled household worker will be more highly paid than the struggling woman doctor, and that is the day for which women should prepare themselves. For none of these careers is tho education of the scholar necessary." It is certain that men are. realising more vividly than before that the comfort and efficiency of a homo depend on its scientific equipment and on tho skill of its staff of workers.

Tlio tendency in furturc, T think, will be to employ fewer but better household workers. Some highly interesting experiments in this direction have already been made.

One householder who used to employ eight, servants now employs iour, two of whom lor duty at 7 a.m., leaving after eight hours' work, to be succeeded by two equally highly skilled vrompn, who continue the routine of household duties until 11 p.m. All four women are high school girls who are experts in household science. i They live out, they are better paid than secretaries, teachers, or most professional women. The employer gets the highwater mark of efficiency in all his household arrangements, he saves space in his house whicli otherwise would have to be devoted to the servant's wing, and he also saves-money because women who ;;re trained in domestic economics know bow to cook and work thriftily. The women thus employed are well paid, they ur« independent, they have freedom, and the prospect of careers that will last long after middle age. I do not suggest that such an arrangement would be suitable in every hoine. but the fact that it has been tried with great success points to changing conditions in English home life. Does anyone imagine . that every oualifted woman doctor is working for high remuneration, or thfct every woman barrister is making a good living ? No I woman, however clever, who enters either law or medicine can be assured of a living-, hut the day is quickly coming when the skilled domestic worker is going to be certain of a living for as long as she V»- able to work.