On the Training of Girls.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1815, 25 July 1891, Page 2 (Supplement)

On the Training of Girls.

Did girls get from childhood tbe same business training as boys, and were it clearly understood in all families that it is no credit, but rather a discredit, for woman to hang helpleEfl on the men instead of doing their own work, and, if necessary, earning their own living, society would be tho better for the change. Men would find out that the more they elevato women tha greater use they get out of them. I?, instead of a man working himself to death for his unmarried daughters, and then leaving them ignominioualy dependent upon male relations, he educated them to independence, made them able both to maintain and protect themEelves, it would Bave him and them a world of unhappiness. They would cease to be either the rivals or the slaves of men ; and become, as was originally intended, their co-mates, equal and yet different, each sex supplying the other's deficiencies, and therefore fitted to work together, not apart, for the good of the world, What this work should be individual capacity alone must decide. There are so many things which women cannot do that men would be wiee as well as just in letting them do whatever they oan do. As clerks, book-keepers, secretaries, superintendents of hospitals, and similar institutions, they would, if properly trained, be quite as capable as men. But any career which young maidens are put to which is likely to unfit them for their natural destiny, as mothers of the men and women to be, must be injurious to the future of the world.