A REAL CAREER FOR EDUCATED WOMEN.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 16152, 29 November 1924, Page 13 (Supplement)

A REAL CAREER FOR EDUCATED WOMEN.

“There is no future for highly educated women in England. They sunpiy are not wanted.” This challenging remark was made to me a few days ago by a man who is widely acquainted with the demand which exists for professional women workers (writes Barbara Dane in tho, London Daily Mail). He added ■’ at. with the exception of the scholastic, legal, and medical professions women with university degrees are finding that their talents and their training are waited.

“Every year the universities are turning out women graduates who, so far from obtaining highly paid positions. are glad to get work at £3 a week," he continued. “University training in the ca«a of men has long ben recognised as utterly insufficient in itself as a qualification for earning a living; to-day our women graduates are beginning to realise that, while three years at Oxford or Cambridge may be an interesting 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 o r nursing, they are needed in greater numbers than ever before in business. In years 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 the education of the scholar necessary.”

It is certain that men are realising more, vividly than ever before that Ihe comfort and efficiency of a homo depend on its scientific equipment, and on the skill of its staff of workers. The tendency in future, I think, will bo to employ fewer but better household workers. Some highly Interesting experiments in this direction hare already teen made. One householder who used to employ eight servants now emplovs four, two of whom arrive for duty at 7 a.m., leaving after 8 hours’ work, to be succeeded by two equally highly skilled women, who continue the routine of household duties until 11 p.m. All four women are high school girls who are experts in household science. They live out, they are hotter paid than secretaries, teachers, nr moot professional women. The employer gets the high-wrtcr mark of efficiency in all tiis household arrangements, he saves space in his bouse which otherwise would have to be devoted In tlm servants’ wing, and he alsossansv n s money because women who arc trained in domestic economics know how to cook and work thriftily.

The'women thus employed ace well paid, they are independent, they have freedom, and the prospect of careers that will last long after middle age. [ do not suggest that such an arrangement would in- suitable in every home, but tin- fact that it lias been tried with great s iceoss points to changing conditions in English home life.

Does anyone imagine ihat. ev-’’y qualified woman doctor is working for high rcimiroration, or that every woman barrister is making a good living? No woman, however clever, who enters either law, or medicine can be assi.r-d of a living, but the -lav is quickly reining when the skilled domestic worker is going to be certain of a living for a long as she is able to work.