THE GIRLS' CORNER

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1748, 6 September 1905, Page 26

THE GIRLS' CORNER

fThe Editor will be pleased to insert results of matches, tournaments, etc., and school and college news will be received with pleasure for publication. J WORK UNDER PLEASANT CONDITIONS. All girls who earn their own living know well there is no pleasant way of earning money, nothing save hard wrrk, and earnest endeavour, constant and unending. Some girls are happier than others, though, in their surroundings and most girls will he interested in hearing about the girls and women who work for the National Cash Register Company, whose head-quarters are in the United’ States. The factory is surrounded by a shrubbery with teautifui lawns, and all the rooms where the workers are look out upon fine stretches of scenery. Very large windows help to keep the rooms bright and airy, while ventilation appliances of the very latest kind enable the atmosphere to be changed every quarter of an hour. A3l employees are invited! to enter suggestions and complaints in a book, and prises are given for any useful suggestions that the company accepts. The women are thoroughly well looked after, Liigh-hackedi chairs and foot-rests are provided for the women typists, as well as aprons and sleeves to protect their garments. Rest rooms adjoin the workrooms, Where during the interval for meals girls may lie down, while a nurse is in attendance in case of sudden indisposition. A large well-arranged lunch room, where meals can be obtained at * very small cost, and a good library are included in the building. The women’s deportment issues quarterly an interesting publication entitled “Woman’s Welfare Magazine,” while a resident directress arranges classes on such subjects as art needlework, wood-carv-ing, history, etc., for those who care to attend them. All the employees seem thoroughly satisfied with their lot in life; they work hard, hut not too hard, and under happy conditions, which give them ample scope for self-de-velopment and a happy home life. The company does a splendid and profitable business, and at the same time affords the world a valuable object lesson by showing that it is possible to combine sound commercial dealings with humanity towards the workers. CAREERS FOR WOMEN. Inspectorships are very desirable positions for women, but at present there are few opn'ings available. Very gradually and slowly the number of wcmeninspectors is being increased, and in* time will become a profession, for which women will undergo a precribed training. I notice three recent appointments in Britain. Mrs H. A. Oakeshott, who has done valuable work on the Women's Industrial Council, and in the Industrial Department of the Central Bureau for the Employment of Women, has just been appointed Inspector of Women’s Technical Classes under the London County Council. .

Miss Mildred O'. Power, and Miss Emily T. Slocock have been appointed Ins pec tors of Factories and Workshops under the Home Office. It is not generally known that- there is a vocation open, to girls as typists in the War Office in London, though none but daughters or near relatives of officers are ever chosen for this work. The qualifications for this work are the usual ones in Government service, an applicant must have had a good general education, must he under twenty-five years of age, and must be able to- type correctly about forty-five words a minute. As soon as a girl joins the staff her time begins to count towards a pension, for which she is eligible after ten years’ service, but, of course, the pension increases with the length of service.

The latest of the Government Departments -to* open its doors to women is the Admiralty, which now employs women tracers in the drawing offices of the chief dockyards. Six months’ training in a private shipbuilding or engineering yard is generally sufficient, and is a necessary equipment for entering this branch of service. Women tracers, however are not eligible for pensions, though ■jliis may be altered if the experiment turns out a success. Plans and designs of modem fighting ships become moire and more complex, and the most perfect accuracy and delicacy are required in their reproduction. These are qualifications that women’s bands possess in the fullest degree, so that in time it is quite possible that women may almost entirely monopolise this work. I notice among the birthday honours conferred by the King, the Imperial Service Order has been conferred upon Miss Julia Mary Wood, Principal Lady Clerk in the office of the Crown Agents for the Colonies. When the King established the Imperial Service Order in 1902, the right to confer distinction on ladies who had fulfilled official duties with espe T cial merit: was laid down, and Miss Wood makes the third lady thus honoured. The other two are Miss Mary Constance Smith, the Superintendent of the Female staff of the Savings Bank Department, and Miss M. Brown, Superintendent of the Female Staff of the Clearing House Branch.

THE THREE K’s. Tn the “Nineteenth Century” there is a very interesting reply, to the famous utterance of the Emperor William on (as he imagines it) the limit of woman’s sphere. Hie limits and imagines the limitation to the narrowest, the sphere of women to “The three K’s, Kinder, Kuohe, Kircho,” or in Elnglish “the three (7s, Children, Cooking, and Church.” iMiaa Agnes Grove, in her article, tackles each of the three (7s, and shows that there is no subject in heaven or on earth where one or other of the three subjects does not enter. Taking children first, she shows that a woman ought to know everything about her child, its 'birth, its life, its death, its growth, its* health, its play, its welfare as governed by the State, its happiness as best furthered in the home, and what an amount of knowledge all this entails. Then cooking. If a woman needs to’ know everything connected with human food, what an amount of learning is required. The subjects of dietary, alimentation gastronomy, therapeutics, botany, zoology, mineralogy, dynamics, mathematics, and physics, trades, seasons, imports, taxes, tariffs, and many other questions enter in. And the Church. We should know the origin, methods, and responsibilities of the Church in all ages. We should be alive to the perils of Erastianism to the spiritual life of the Church, hold opinions on the advantage or disadvantage of disestablishment; recognise the relation of Church and State; he eager and able to read the signs of the times as to the prospects of Anglicans, Catholic, or Lutheran Christianity. We should understand “the origin of simony,” and have a mastery of such matters as the Apostolic Sussession. All this and a good deal more is needed for a thorough understanding of the “Church.” If all these vast range of subjects are women’s sphere, how' wise, skilled and highly educated women would be if they all accepted their responsibilities in the regions of religion, the case of children and the feeding of the race. The training would be neither simple nor easy, and certainly not to be left to women on account of their incompetence for higher things. It embraces rather the skilled work of the world, and far from limiting women’s sphere, it is asking rather much from them. LAWN TENNIS. Quite a record crowd gathered at Wimbledon on Saturday, July Bth, to see the challenge rounds contested in the lawn tennis championships. There were Scotsmen, Australasians, Americans, and other nationalities, besides a large muster of past and present champions from all countries. Miss Douglass, the holder of the title, so soon to be wrested from her, looked pale and almost fragile beside the sturdy hardy American girl. As soon as she began to play the effects of the recent accident to her wrist were apparent, and instead of the usual fast, well-placed overhead delivery, there came medium placed “underhands,” which her opponent treated with scant respect, nevertheless she took the first game, but in a few minutes had lost the first set by six games to three. Miss Sutton won three games in the second set, then forfeited two to her opponent, and soon reached the advantage of 5 —2. Then Miss Douglass hooked two games with the aid of several beautiful passes. In the tenth game Miss Douglass made her last effort in two beautiful rallies. The end came with a couple of “outs,” and the set had gone to the American at 6—4. This is the first time that the Ladies’ Championship has gone abroad, and the winner is only eighteen years of age. THE GIRL WITH ASPIRATIONS. Girls who pray when they should he working, who study great lives, and spend the hours in rapt admiration of their heroes and heroines are going the wrong way to win those virtues they desire to attain. What is the noblest thing in life? To do one’s duty. What is my duty? To do the thing that lie® nearest! Once there was a woman, beautiful in, face and figure, who had devoted her life to religious work. She had round her, as such women have, a devoted band of girl-worshippers, who faithfully copied her in conduct, speech, and dress. The cleverest of the group was her most devoted adorer, but after a time she 'relaxed in her fervour and went on her path alone. Her associates asked her why. She gave her answer in perfect humility. “I am not good. I can never be as good as Miss K —-—, but she said one day, I care for nothing except to save my soul,” and it seemed to me that though I am selfish, it is more selfish in another way to think only of my own soul, and to do everything for the sake of my soul.” There was an earnest motive in the girl’s answer. There is more selfishness in aspiring to save one’s own soul, and leaving obvious duties undone; than in performing cheerfully andr ' vyillingly the commonplace work pf daily routine. ; There are girls so intent,pn, building up their own fine characters, /and so concentrated on the culture of their minds that they leave the darning and sewing to mother, and forget to help in the cooking and sweeping, shirking every respon-

sibility. It sounds very nice, perhaps, to pose on a pedestal and lofty height, and look down on the ordinary commonplace people who only do their mere duty, but to these girls I would say “He that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.”