Occupations for the Rich : Part 1

Girls and Women
by Harriet E. Paine

(Page 6 of 19)

In one of George Eliot's letters she says that her chief hope from the higher education of women is that they will do much unproductive labor which at present is either badly done or not done at all. But she thought it would be unbecoming in her to say much publicly on that subject, for she could not fail to know that her own genius set her apart from other women and gave her a definite work to do.

For those who have simply many good powers without any dominating one the case is different. The poor must use their gifts to gain bread; but if they do not make their occupation the medium of higher work, they are no better than the idle rich. The rich, instead of being excused from work by circumstances, are the more bound to work, because they can choose what is best in itself.

Where a girl has many equal gifts it may be well sometimes to have several occupations; but it is usually best to choose some one form of daily employment as the nucleus of her life, and to persevere with that till she accomplishes something.

Most girls would choose to devote themselves to some charity. I will spoke of that in another chapter. Here I wish to say something of occupations which can be followed only by those who are rich enough to dispose of their own time, and which, though at first they may not seem to be of much use to others, are indirectly among the most powerful factors in the progress of the world.

In New England, at least, girls often stay in school till they are twenty, and by that time they have learned the elements of chemistry, physics, botany, zoology, physiology, geology, and astronomy. If they have learned these thoroughly, the variety of studies is an advantage, as one science throws light on all the rest. Yet of course they have learned only the rudiments of any of these subjects, and if they try to carry them all on after leaving school they can hardly do very good work in any.

Suppose a girl decides that chemistry is the most fascinating of the group. Then let her make a special study of that. She will know enough of the other sciences to use them when she needs their help, or she may wish to study minerals or plants or animals chemically. If she is rich, she should to carry on her study with special teachers till she reaches a point where she can do original work. Then, let her have her own little laboratory, and give some hours every day regularly to experiments. "Original work" sounds terrifying to most girls; they think it requires genius. It does take genius to gather the results of experiments into laws.

But as I have elsewhere suggested, the experiments must all be first tried; and many a girl is neat and skillful and accurate enough to do all the drudgery necessary, leaving the man, - or woman, - of genius free for the higher work. True, it takes genius to know what experiments to try. But a girl who has had special teachers is sure to know one among them who is doing original work, and who wishes the days were twice as long that he might try more experiments. Let her ask him to trust some work to her. She may make some discoveries herself, but at any rate she will do work which is needed.

I call to mind a case in point. A young lady had a great taste for drawing, as well as a good scientific mind. She became acquainted with a physician who was making original studies in the microscopic germs of disease. They worked side by side. The physician detected the animalcules and plants and crystals with the microscope, and explained to her how he wanted them represented. She was intelligent enough to understand his explanations and skillful enough to make the drawings. His own drawings were too clumsy to convey his idea, but with her help his observations were made available for others.

Suppose a girl enjoys botany. I know a woman who has made lichens the study of a life-time. This has been a source of high culture as well as of pleasure to herself, for, as she says, this is the most intellectual family of plants, and no one can study their structure without being brought face to face with profound questions. Moreover, this study has opened her eyes and those of her friends to much beauty; for until we begin to look at lichens we are often conscious of hardly more than a dull wall of rock or the dead gray wood of old buildings, when in truth every inch of their surface is decorated with rich forms and delicate colors. She won a certain measure of fame by the discovery of a new lichen, but she did better than that, she made one of the finest collections in the United States for a local city museum, so that the fruits of her labor were therefore accessible to future lichenists; and she gave much needed help to geologists in investigating fossil lichens.

Local collections of any kind are valuable. A young lady who superintends the making of one in the town or village where she lives will learn much herself, and she will attract many other young people to pursue an innocent and healthful pleasure, so becoming a power in the community. There are few such collections now in existence, and any girl living in a small place who has a taste for science may act as a pioneer. She can begin modestly with a single case at her own house, or, better still, at the public library, and she will be surprised to see how fast the museum will grow, and how useful and delightful it will be.

If a woman likes to experiment with plants, let her study botany at the Harvard Annex. There she will learn how many questions in vegetable physiology are awaiting investigation. Darwin studied one twining plant after another till he discovered the rate of motion for each. Dr. Goodale tells us how to trace the motion of ordinary growth. But think of the myriads of plants which have not yet been examined, any one of which is likely to yield suggestive results.

Copyright, 1890 by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., All rights reserved.