THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 ENDOWED BY THE 
 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 SOCIETIES 
 
 HD6137 
 
 .b68 
 
HINTS ON 
 
 V 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 10002694648 
 
 SELT-HELP; 
 
 C 
 
 A 
 
 [4 v-^41^ 
 
 BOOK FOE YOUNG WOMEN. 
 
 BY 
 
 ' JESSIE BOUCHERETT. 
 
 “I would wish to impress ou young people who are beginning life, as I did, 
 dependent on their own exortionS, the absolute need of concentrated m- 
 dustry; a definite purpose, and, above all, conduct dictated by common 
 sense.”— Lady Morgan. 
 
 LONDON: » 
 
 JARROLD AND SONS, 12, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
This book is due at the WALTER R. DAVIS LIBRARY on 
 the last date stamped under “Date Due.” If not on hold it 
 may be renewed by bringing it to the library. 
 
 RET 
 
 DUE ■ 
 
 RET 
 
 due ■ 
 
 (pte 1 . 
 
 L 2000 
 
 
 
 /iW 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 
TO THE 
 
 PRESIDENT, VICE-PRESIDENTS, AND COMMITTEE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 fax xrf 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY. 
 
 VICE-PRESIDENTS. 
 
 RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON. 
 RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD. 
 RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 
 VICE-CHANCELLOR SIR WILLIAM PAGE WOOD. 
 
 COMMITTEE. 
 
 E. Akroyd, Esq, 
 
 Mrs. Aldridge. 
 
 Edwin Arnold, Esq. 
 
 *Mrs. Bayne. 
 
 Miss Jessie Boucherett. 
 Stephen Cave, Esq. M.P. 
 
 *W. Strickland Cookson, Esq. 
 ♦Miss Isa Craig, 
 
 •Miss Crowe. 
 
 The Lady Elizabeth Cust. 
 Mrs. Dalrymple. 
 
 •Miss Davies. 
 
 The Lady Alice Des Voeux. 
 Sir F, Goldsmid, Bart., M.P. 
 ♦Hon, Victoria Grosvenor. 
 
 Mrs. Richard Hoare. 
 
 Lord Houghton. 
 
 Miss James. 
 
 ♦Hon. Mrs. Locke King. 
 Hon. Arthur Kinnaird, M.P. 
 ♦Mrs. Lankester. 
 
 ♦Miss Lawrence. 
 
 Rev. C. Mackenzie, M.A. 
 Mrs. Wykeham Martin. 
 
 Rev. Francis Pigou, M.A. 
 Hon. Mrs. H Ponsonby. 
 
 *W. Bayne Ranken, Esq. 
 Hon. W. Spring Rice. 
 
 Mrs. P. A. Taylor. 
 
 Also to those who kindly afforded assistance to the Society in its 
 early days, but who, from various causes, are no longer on the 
 Committee. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The object of this little work is to convey instruction 
 to young women on the Conditions of Industrial Success, 
 in an easy and popular manner, and to illustrate the 
 subject by examples of successful industry in persons of 
 their own sex. 
 
 It is a subject on which women generally have little 
 knowledge, and the ill effects of this ignorance are 
 shown in the large number of those who, when compelled 
 to try to maintain themselves, fail in the attempt. 
 
 These failures are not confined to one class only, but 
 extend to all, from the gentlewoman, who, by the mis¬ 
 fortunes of her family, is unexpectedly thrown on her 
 own exertions for support, to the labourer’s daughter, 
 who has been brought up in the knowledge that she 
 would have to earn her bread by manual labour. 
 
 To begin with the failures of the highest class. 
 
 The Governesses’ Benevolent Institution .had, on the 
 
VI. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 31st of December, 1861, 102 annuitants on the chari¬ 
 table fund, 22 in the Asylum, and 142 applicants for 
 annuities. 
 
 The Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy has a long 
 list of aged single women, daughters of clergymen, de¬ 
 pendent on it for support. 
 
 In London and elsewhere there are numerous chari¬ 
 ties to assist distressed gentlewomen—Homes for Poor 
 Ladies, half self-supporting, half kept up by subscrip¬ 
 tions ; and Kepositories, where fancy work, executed by 
 the same class, may be purchased by the benevolent. 
 Yet, numerous as are these charities, they are still in¬ 
 sufficient for the task before them, as the report of 
 every one which has come before me testifies; for each 
 speaks, either of deserving cases left unaided from 
 want of funds, or else complains that the assistance 
 which can be afforded is inadequately small. In one 
 case it is stated that a poor lady-worker for a repository 
 actually died of want. Workhouse visitors tell us that 
 in the wards it is not unusual to find women who have 
 known “ better days,” and evidently belong to a higher 
 rank than ordinary paupers. 
 
 In the lower ranks, too, sad failures occur. The oft- 
 told tale of the shirt-maker,— ■ 
 
 “ Sewing at once, with a double thread, 
 
 A shroud as well as a shirt,” 
 
 has lost its force by repetition, yet is not less true or 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Vll. 
 
 less terrible now, than when Hood wrote his famous 
 song. 
 
 That much of this misery arises in all classes from 
 ignorance of the necessary conditions of industrial 
 success is my belief, and the belief of others who have 
 studied the subject. 
 
 One common cause of failure is the impression pre¬ 
 valent among both parents and daughters of every class, 
 that unskilled female industry is of value ; thus in no 
 class are sufficient pains taken to prepare girls for their 
 future avocations, and not until too late is it understood 
 that a willing heart is of small avail in earning a live¬ 
 lihood, if united to unexercised brains and unskilful 
 hands. 
 
 It is my object to combat this and other false notions ; 
 to set forth under what circumstances a woman may hope 
 to succeed in supporting herself, and when she must 
 
 ft 
 
 necessarily fail; what will conduce to her success, and 
 what bring on a failure. 
 
 In the Appendix are given the addresses of several 
 institutions, where girls and young women may be 
 taught various useful employments, suitable to different 
 ranks and degrees of education. From these addresses 
 well-taught and specially-trained young women may 
 
 I 
 
 also be obtained by those who require their services. 
 I have given,, too, some hints as to the description 
 of persons required in the Colonies. It has been my 
 
Vlll. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 object to write a useful yet readable book. If I have 
 attained to any degree of success, I am bound to ac¬ 
 knowledge that it is greatly owing to tbe assistance I 
 have received from the perusal of Mr. Smiles’ book for 
 young men on “ Self-Help,” from which I have often 
 quoted, and have taken many valuable ideas. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BENEFITS OF SELF-HELP. 
 
 Old Fable.—Arab Proverb.—Saying of the Marquis of Spinola.— 
 Better to know one thing well than many imperfectly.— 
 Powers of Eeasoning.—Superiority of Persons who engage 
 in Active Life.—Something to be Learnt even from 
 Failure . . . . . : 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PEBSEVERANCE.—BUSINESS HABITS. 
 
 Success generally deserved.—Buffon’s Saying on Genius.—Eosa 
 Bonheur.—Story of an energetic Wood-engraver.—Of a 
 Hairdresser.—Mr. Smiles’ Schoolfellow.—History of a 
 Saleswoman.—Good Sense.—Punctuality and Method.— 
 Self Control . . . . . ' i 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CHOICE OF A BUSINESS, AND EMIGRATION. 
 
 Overcrowded Professions to be avoided.—Difficult to turn into 
 a new Track.—Employments for Women.—Female House 
 
 PAGB 
 
 —8 
 
 1—22 
 
X. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Decorators.—Photographic Artists.—Nurses.— Law Sta¬ 
 tioners.—Clerks.—Bookkeepers.—Saleswomen.—Shopkeep¬ 
 ers.—Girls should Learn their Lathers’ Trade.—Cooks.— 
 
 ‘' Maidservants. — Dress-makers’ ill-health. — Payment of 
 Needlewomen.—Emigration.—Description of Persons wanted 
 in the Colonies.—Surplus of Educated 'Women.—Cause of the 
 Surplus.—Superfluous Women objects of Compassion 23—47 
 
 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 DUTY AND INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 Duties reciprocal.—Obedience to Parents.—Duty of avoiding 
 Temptation.—Improvidence of Parents.—The Doctrine of 
 Probabilities—Dangers of Dependence—Eichter on Daughter- 
 full Houses ..... 48—55 
 
 ' CHAPTER V. 
 
 MONEY : HOW TO WASTE IT—HOW TO KEEP IT. 
 
 Mr. Smiles’ View.—Dr. Johnson’s Opinion.—Use of Money in 
 aiding Parents.—Duty to secure the Continuance of Power 
 to help Parents after Marriage.—Settlements.—Lending 
 Money to be avoided.—Limits of Self-sacriiice.—Post-otfice 
 Savings’ Banks.—Life Annuities.—Evening of Life . 56—74 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SELE-RESPECT.—EXAMPLE.—INFLUENCE. 
 
 What Self-Respect is not.—What it is.—Its Fruits.—Incon¬ 
 sistent with Jealousy.—Influence a Legitimate Object of 
 Desire.—Good Conduct the surest Means of Obtaining it.— 
 
 Not conflned to Persons of High Station.—John Pounds, 
 the Cobbler.—Sarah Martin, the Dressmaker.—Mum Bett, 
 the Slave.—Mrs. Chisholm.—Influence should be used to 
 Encourage Self-help .... 75—92 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XI. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BENEFIT SOCIETIES FOR WOMEN. 
 
 Female Benefit Societies in France.—Plan of a Man’s Benefit 
 Club in England.—Direct and Indirect Benefits to be ob¬ 
 tained from these Societies . . .93- 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I 
 
 HEAD-WORK AND HEART-WORK. 
 
 “ With Brains, sir.”—Look, and Try, and Think.—Mr. Hutton 
 on the Capabilities of Boys and Girls.—A Schoolmaster’s 
 Oration.—Want of Education a Cause of want of Em¬ 
 ployment.—Necessity of making up by extra Exertion for 
 inferior Instruction.—A Reason in Everything.—People 
 should take Pride in their Work.—Frenchwomen.—French 
 System of Education.—“ Ouvroirs.”—Importation of French 
 Works of Female Industry.—Heart-work.—How to Help 
 our Working Women.—Necessity of Distinguishing between 
 different Classes in Schemes of Assistance.—The right Spirit 
 for Workers.—Endurance.—Obedience.—Gentleness.—Good 
 Manners.—Head and Heart should Help each other.— 
 Public Spirit.—Fellow Feeling.—Self-help not Selfishness. 
 
 112 - 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 Addresses of Female School of Art and House-decorators 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 Addresses of Nurse-training Institutions , , 137- 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 Office where Law Copying may he learnt , ; 
 
 PAGE 
 
 -111 
 
 •136 
 
 137 
 
 -141 
 
 142 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 Commercial School for Young Women 
 
 142 
 
Xll. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Cooking Schools 
 
 APPENDIX E. 
 
 Emigration Offices 
 
 APPENDIX F. 
 
 APPENDIX 0. 
 
 Homes for Young Women in London 
 
 APPENDIX H. 
 
 Needlewomen’s institution 
 
 PAGE 
 
 , 142 
 
 . 142—143 
 
 . 143—144 
 
 144 
 
HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 ^enejits of 
 
 Let us, then, be up and doing, 
 
 "With a heart for any fate, 
 
 StiU achieving, still pursuing, 
 
 Learn to labour and to wait.— Longfellow. 
 
 The ideas of many young women with regard to self-help 
 seem to be much on a level with those of the farmer in 
 the old fable of “ The Lark and her Young.” Indeed, 
 the story is so much to the purpose, that I will relate it 
 for the benefit of those readers who may not happen to 
 be acquainted with it. 
 
 “ Once upon a time, a lark made her nest in a hay- 
 field, near a footpath. When her young were hatched 
 she went out every day to fetch them food, directing 
 them meanwhile to keep quiet, and listen to everything 
 that was said by the passers-by, that they might find out 
 when the grass was to be cut. 
 
 “ One day, on her return, the young ones cried out, 
 
2 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 with much excitement, ‘ 0 mother! we must at once 
 leave our nest, the grass is to he cut directly, for the 
 farmer passed hy this morning with his son, and said, 
 that as the grass was ready and the weather fine, he 
 should send out to call his friends and neighbours to 
 come and help him to make hay, and they are going to 
 begin to-morrow.’ ‘ Do not fear, my children,’ said the 
 old bird, ‘ there is no need for us to move yet, the grass 
 will not he cut to-morrow;’ and, accordingly, they 
 remained undisturbed. 
 
 “ Some days afterwards, the young larks again called 
 out in a^arm, ‘ 0 mother! the time has now, indeed, 
 come when we must fly ; for the farmer has been again, 
 and said that as his friends and neighbours had failed to 
 assist him, he should now send to his relations and call 
 on them to help him to cut the grass to-morrow.’ 
 ‘ There is no danger yet,’ replied the mother. A few 
 more days passed, and again the young birds told their 
 mother, ‘ The farmer has been here, and says that as 
 both friends and relations have failed him, he will set 
 about cutting the grass himself to-morrow morning.’ 
 ‘Now, indeed,’ said the old hen, ‘we must remove; as 
 long as he trusted to others to help him there was little 
 chance of the hay being made, but now that he talks of 
 helping himself there is the greatest danger.’ Ac¬ 
 cordingly they at once removed into another field, and 
 next morning the grass was cut; but meanwhile the 
 weather had changed, the sky was overcast, and presently 
 a heavy rain came on, which spoiled the hay.” 
 
 The fate which overtook the farmer is very apt to 
 befall those young women, also, who trust that some one 
 
BENEFITS OF SELF-HELP. 
 
 3 
 
 else will provide for them: sometimes they hope that 
 their friends and relations will leave them a comfortable 
 income; sometimes that a good marriage will present 
 itself, and save them the trouble of working for them¬ 
 selves; and so, instead of being “up and doing,” they 
 sit at home and wait, and time passes by, and too often 
 it happens that their friends and relatives do nothing, 
 and the good marriage does not present itself, or, if it 
 does, is not agreeable to their taste, and is rejected, and 
 so at last, when their parents die, they find themselves 
 unprovided for; meanwhile youth, the best working time, 
 has passed away, and when, at last, they do begin to try 
 to earn their bread, they find themselves unable to 
 do it, their hay is spoilt, and their life, which began so 
 cheerfully, ends in sadness and sorrow, and in vain 
 regrets for the lost opportunity. An Arab proverb says, 
 “ A sped arrow, a spoken word, and a lost opportunity, 
 can never be recalledand the truth of this they find 
 to their cost. 
 
 Yet, to those who have health and strength, the ne¬ 
 cessity of working is no great misfortune; for they who 
 engage in a life of action are generally happier than they 
 who are condemned to idleness. 
 
 The Marquis of Spinola asking Sir Horace Vere what 
 his brother died of. Sir Horace replied, “ He died, sii*, 
 of having nothing to do.” “ Alas,” said Spinola, “that 
 is enough to kill any of us generals.” It is not, 
 however, generals only who suffer from this complaint, 
 as it is common enough for people of all sorts to fall into 
 low spirits and had health if they have no active 
 occupation. 
 
4 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 But to obtain success,—and by success I mean tlie 
 power to earn an independent livelihood in youth, and a 
 provision against old age,—willingness to work is not the 
 only quality necessary ; several other qualifications are 
 wanted, and of these thoroughness and accuracy are the 
 chief. The value of knowledge consists not in its 
 quantity, but in the uses to which it may be applied. 
 The phrase in common use as to the “ spread of 
 knowledge” at this day is no doubt correct; but it is 
 spread in such thin layers as to be of little practical use, 
 and the number of those is rapidly increasing who know 
 a little of everything and nothing well. 
 
 Such persons have not inaptly been likened to a 
 certain sort of pocket knife which some people carry 
 about with them, and which in addition to a common 
 knife, contains a file, a chisel, a saw, a gimlet, a screw¬ 
 driver, and a pair of scissors, but all so diminutive that 
 the moment they are needed for use they are found 
 useless. This universal superficial knowledge and 
 
 special ignorance is commoner among women than men, 
 in consequence of the inferiority of the education they 
 receive; for women are generally taught a smattering of 
 several sciences and accomplishments, but nothing is 
 really mastered; and this is doubly injurious, because 
 they not only remain ignorant of what would have proved 
 useful to them in future life, but they acquire a habit of 
 inaccurate and ineffective working. Young women 
 should, therefore, be on their guard against this pro¬ 
 pensity, which, natural to all, has been in them artificially 
 
 * This comparison and the anecdote about Spinola are taken 
 from “Self-Help,” by S. Smiles. 
 
BENEFITS OF SELF-HELP. 
 
 5 
 
 fostered and developed: they should endeavour, by careful 
 self-training, to cure themselves of this defect. 
 
 One thing well understood, one art carried to perfection, 
 is worth twenty pieces of imperfect knowledge. For 
 instance, the tradesman’s daughter, who writes well and 
 is quick at accounts, will be more useful in her father’s 
 shop, or better able to get a situation elsewhere, than 
 another who writes ill and does accounts wrong, but has 
 some knowledge of French and a notion of painting in 
 water-colours and playing on the pianoforte. Yet painting 
 and music, when carried to excellence, are capital pro¬ 
 fessions. Excellence can, however, only be attained by 
 great study. Two or three hours a-day must be devoted 
 to the practice of these arts for some years before much 
 skill is attained, and really first-rate musicians and 
 painters spend at least five hours a-day in playing 
 and painting. Whoever, therefore, wishes to excel 
 in one of these pursuits, should devote herself to 
 that only and leave the other alone, as no woman can 
 have physical strength enough to enable her to study 
 both effectively. If the object in learning is only 
 amusement, a slight knowledge of both may be 
 obtained, enough probably to afford pleasure to the 
 performer and her friends; but unless she possesses 
 unusual abilities, the proficiency thus gained will never 
 enable her to earn a shilling, except perhaps in teaching 
 beginners. Besides accuracy and thoroughness, another 
 qualification is necessary to success; indeed, without it, 
 it is difiicult to be accurate or thorough. The foundation 
 of all excellence is the general power of reasoning, 
 added to which must be the skill obtained by long 
 
6 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 practice in the particular branch to which we intend to 
 apply ourselves. 
 
 Knowledge is one thing, the power of making use of 
 it is another, and no knowledge can he said to be useful 
 until its possessor can apply it to practical purposes, 
 and to do this he or she must be able to reason. People 
 with strong memories, but deficient in reason, may 
 know multitudes of facts, which they will never be able 
 to make of the least service to them. Cardinal 
 Mezzofanti had a wonderful memory, and could speak 
 fifty languages; but he never made the least use of his 
 learning, and for any service he was to the world might 
 just as well have been ignorant. Talleyrand, a witty 
 and distinguished Frenchman, said of him, “He can 
 speak fifty languages, but cannot say anything worth 
 hearing in one of them.” Keason is the master, memory 
 the servant; a very useful servant if well directed, but 
 otherwise of small utility. To give an illustration. A 
 person may remember that the sun rises in the east and 
 sets in the west, yet may not be able to guide himself 
 in the least by this knowledge, nor even to tell in what 
 direction he is travelling. Or, a woman may have 
 learned everything in the arithmetic book about square 
 root, yet be puzzled to find out how many yards of 
 carpeting she wants for her parlour flour, or how many 
 strips of paper for the walls. Thus, there may be 
 knowledge without the capability of applying it. On 
 this account, for the sake of rendering knowledge useful, 
 the power of reasoning should be sedulously cultivated. 
 
 Self-reliance, when founded on self-knowledge, is an¬ 
 other valuable quality, but when not so founded it partakes 
 
BENEFITS OF SELF-HELP. 
 
 7 
 
 somewhat of the character of self-conceit, and is often 
 mischievous. True self-knowledge can only he obtained 
 by experience; it is, therefore, advisable to allow young 
 people as much liberty of action as is consistent with 
 prudence, that they may make attempts on a small scale, 
 achieve little successes, and sustain little defeats, by 
 which they will learn the strong and weak points of their 
 own characters, and so prepare themselves for real life. 
 
 Want of confidence is, perhaps, a greater obstacle to 
 improvement than is generally imagined. True modesty 
 is quite compatible with a due estimate of one’s own 
 deserts, and does not demand the abnegation of all 
 merit. 
 
 The celebrated divine. Dr. Butler, defines humility as 
 thinking truly of one’s self, putting a just estimate on 
 one’s own powers, not in thinking less well of one’s self 
 than one really deserves. A just estimate of one’s own 
 merit cannot be attained without trial; and thus it is 
 that people who do nothing often have such an unduly 
 high opinion of themselves; never having tried to do 
 anything they have never failed, and, therefore, are apt 
 to despise others who have tried and failed, though, 
 perhaps, if these boastful persons were to try, they would 
 make a still greater failure. 
 
 Thus, effort and action produce a just estimate of 
 our powers: those who are inclined to think too well 
 of themselves find their mistake by experience, while 
 those who think too poorly of their merits are agreeably 
 surprised by success in their undertaking. On this 
 account, if on no other, a life of action is more im¬ 
 proving than a life of idleness. There are, doubtless, 
 
8 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 many conceited young women who deceive themselves 
 by thinking too highly of their abilities; yet more, I 
 believe, fail from want of confidence in themselves and 
 faith in their own powers. 
 
 It has been observed by Mr. Smiles that half the 
 failures in life arise from stopping one’s horse when 
 about to jump; and Dr. Johnson was accustomed to 
 attribute all his success to confidence in his own 
 powers. It is often the case that the reason why so 
 little is done is that so little is attempted. We do not 
 succeed simply because we are too much depressed to 
 try. One step forward would help us, but that one 
 step we do not take. The right plan is, to do our duty 
 and try our best, leaving the result with Grod. If we 
 fail, we fail; but it is more honourable to try, and fail, 
 than never to have tried at all: and even from a failure 
 we may learn something which may enable us to succeed 
 another time. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 —business labife. 
 
 By patient toil great deeds are done; 
 
 By waiting long the victory’s won; 
 
 Wisdom is learn’d by errors past, 
 
 And failure brings success at last. 
 
 It is a great point to begin well, for the proverb “Well 
 begun is half done ” is true. Its truth lies in this, the 
 person who is cheered by a little success at first is en¬ 
 couraged to persevere. The success is, perhaps, worth 
 but little in itself, but its moral effect in preventing 
 despondency is worth much. The great highway of 
 human welfare lies along the old road of steadfast well¬ 
 doing, and, if all other circumstances are equal, they 
 who are the most persistent and work in the truest spirit 
 will invariably be the most successful. 
 
 “ Fortune has been blamed for her blindness, but she 
 is not as blind as men are. Those who look into prac¬ 
 tical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of 
 the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side 
 of the best navigators. 
 
 “Success treads on the heels of every right effort; 
 
10 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 and though it is possible to over-estimate the merit of 
 success to the extent of almost deifying it, as is some¬ 
 times done, still, in any worthy pursuit it is creditable 
 to succeed. Nor are the qualities necessary to win 
 success at all extraordinary; they may, for the most 
 part, he summed up in these two—Common Sense and 
 Perseverance. 
 
 “ Grenius belongs to few, and is not necessary in every¬ 
 day life, though even genius does not despise the exercise 
 of these common qualities. The very greatest men have 
 been among the least believers in the power of genius, 
 and have shown themselves as wise and persevering as 
 successful men of a common sort. Some have even 
 defined genius to be common sense intensified. A dis¬ 
 tinguished teacher and president of a college spoke of it 
 as ‘ the power of making efforts.’ Buflfon, the great 
 naturalist, said of genius, ‘ It is patience.’ ” ''i" 
 
 Kosa Bonheur is a remarkable instance of the success 
 attendant on genius joined to perseverance and firmness 
 of character. She was born in 1822, the daughter of a 
 poor Parisian drawing-master, and during her early years 
 displayed no particular genius, though an old friend 
 of her father’s, with whom she was a favourite, used to 
 augur from her vigorous and resolute character that she 
 would, some day, turn out a remarkable woman. 
 
 When twelve ^years old, she was apprenticed to a 
 dressmaker, a profession that was utterly distasteful to 
 her, as her chief pleasure was wandering about in the 
 open air. At last, distress of mind and confinement 
 
 j 
 
 * From “ Smiles’ Self-Help.” 
 
PERSEVEKANCE.-BUSINESS HABITS. 
 
 11 
 
 made her ill; her father, therefore, broke off the arrange¬ 
 ment, and took her home. Soon afterwards, she was 
 sent to school, where, however, she showed aptitude for 
 nothing but drawing. 
 
 On leaving school, she was left a good deal to herself, 
 and employed her time in modelling figures of animals in 
 her father’s studio, and in copying his paintings. It 
 occurred to her, that by this means she might be able, 
 some day, to support herself, perhaps attain to what had 
 always been her secret ambition, to he something; so she 
 worked hard all day, and day after day. Her father, 
 amazed at her progress, and perceiving her talent, de¬ 
 voted himself seriously to her instruction, and after 
 taking her through a course of preparatory study, sent 
 her to the Louvre to copy the fine pictures there, as a 
 discipline for her eye, hand, and judgment. 
 
 It was remarked that she was the first to enter the 
 gallery in the morning, and the last to leave it in the 
 evening. “ I have never seen an example of such appli¬ 
 cation and such ardour for work,” remarked the Director 
 of the Louvre, in speaking of her. At last, her copies 
 began to sell; she got but a small sum for each, but felt 
 it delightful to be able to relieve her father of some part 
 of her support, and she worked hard that she might make 
 more copies. 
 
 At this period she was only sixteen. years old, so she 
 had wasted no time. One day, having made a study 
 of a goat, she was so pleased with her success, that she 
 determined to devote herself to painting animals. Too 
 poor to procure models, she went out daily on foot into 
 the country to sketch the sheep and cows. 
 
12 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 With a bit of bread in her pocket, she used to start 
 early in the morning, laden with her painting materials, 
 and having found a subject to her mind, would seat her¬ 
 self on a hank or under a tree, and work till evening, 
 coming home at nightfall, after a walk of many miles, 
 browned by the sun and wind, or soaked with rain and 
 covered with mud; but rejoicing in the lessons the day 
 had furnished. Eosa Bonheur used also to go to the 
 enclosures where the animals are kept previous to being 
 sent to the slaughter-houses, overcoming alike her natu¬ 
 ral repugnance to such a vicinity and to placing herself 
 in contact’with the crowds of butchers and drovers who 
 were standing about. There, seated on a bundle of hay, 
 she would sketch from morning till night; but such 
 was the respect her simple earnestness in art occa¬ 
 sioned, that an uncivil word was never spoken to her. 
 When at home, she kept a pet sheep on the leads, out¬ 
 side her attic window, that she might always have a 
 model to copy from. At last, this hard work was re¬ 
 warded, for, in 1841, when nineteen years of age, she 
 exhibited three paintings of animals which were much 
 admired. From this period, she exhibited in all the 
 Paris exhibitions, and won several bronze and silver 
 medals. At last she won the gold medal, a great dis¬ 
 tinction, and, what was still more delightful, was able to 
 relieve her father from all pecuniary embarrassments by 
 the sale of her pictures. 
 
 In 1853, she exhibited her famous picture' of the 
 “Horse Market,” the preparatory studies for which had 
 occupied her during eighteen months. This picture sold for 
 £1600, and has been resold for much more, and from 
 
PEESEVERANCE.-BUSINESS HABITS. 
 
 13 
 
 that time her reputation and fortune were made. She 
 is now very wealthy, and is recognized as the best 
 animal-painter of the day in Europe. Her success has 
 benefitted not herself only, but others of her own sex, 
 for, until lately, women were not admitted to study at 
 the Eoyal Academy in England, there being, probably, 
 an impression on the minds of the gentlemen who man¬ 
 aged it, that it was useless to teach women, as they 
 could never excel. Kosa Bonheur’s success dispelled 
 this notion, ahd not long ago, women were admitted as 
 pupils; so, some years hence, we also may hope to have 
 a distinguished female artist among us. It is much to 
 the credit of French liberality, that they have for several 
 years admitted female artists to study at the Louvre 
 under the Director; had they not done so, Kosa 
 Bonheur, deprived of good instruction, might never 
 have become a great artist, and people would have con¬ 
 tinued to believe that women were incapable of painting 
 well. No amount of good teaching, however, could 
 have made her win her present position, unless she 
 had possessed courage and perseverance to surmount 
 obstacles to success, and diligence to study at every 
 opportunity. 
 
 Great success like this can only be attained by ex¬ 
 traordinary talents ; but success enough to produce 
 happiness can usually be attained by simple means 
 and the exercise of ordinary abilities, if united to in¬ 
 dustry and perseverance, and, above all, to courage and 
 energy. 
 
 Miss B-had a slight knowledge of wood-engraving, 
 
 by which she wished to earn her living. Some friends 
 
14 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 undertook to pay tke expense of her instruction and 
 lodging in town; so she came up to study, and studied 
 hard, getting up at five in the morning to practise. She 
 had both perseverance in learning, and in doing the 
 work, and energy, when she had learned, to go about and 
 get orders, without which her previous labours would 
 have been wasted; this is a point on which women often 
 fail. They should always hear in mind that industry in 
 learning is seldom of use, unless they have courage and 
 energy to go from employer to employer, exhibiting 
 specimens of their work, and soliciting orders; and this 
 rule does not apply to wood-engraving only, but to many 
 other arts and handicrafts. 
 
 . Miss B-’s energy met its reward. She began to 
 
 earn much earlier than usual, even with men, and has 
 good prospects of success. She is now married, hut 
 as her work can he carried on at home, she fully intends 
 to go on with it.>i= 
 
 Another young person, M-— N-, has shown 
 
 even greater perseverance and courage. Early in life, 
 her relatives wished her to set up a small day-school; 
 but this she resisted, having no vocation for the employ¬ 
 ment, and, instead, persuaded a friend of hers at York 
 to teach her hair-dressing and cutting, and something of 
 the general trade; then she went up to town to get 
 finishing lessons. 
 
 Having thus attained to a knowledge of her business, 
 
 * It is not at all desirable that married women should engage in 
 work which takes them away from home. This is the rule; but, of 
 course, there are exceptions. 
 
PERSEVERANCE.-BUSINESS HABITS. 
 
 15 
 
 she went about to country houses and villages canvassing 
 for orders,, and succeeded in establishing a connection 
 sufficient for her own support. As she was skilful in 
 her work, the business increased, till it became too 
 large for herself alone, and she took both her sisters 
 into it. All three earn a good livelihood, and help to 
 
 support their grandmother into the bargain. M- 
 
 N- comes up to town every year to study any 
 
 changes that may have taken place in the fashion of 
 hair-dressing, and to renew her stock in trade. 
 
 When going her rounds in the country, she wears a 
 large clean white apron, with pockets, and long white 
 cuffs up to the elbow, beneath her cloak. She goes 
 out in the evening to dress ladies’ hair for country 
 balls, and will go ten or twelve miles if she hopes to 
 find a good new opening; and besides this, she makes 
 circuits through the country to little towns and villages, 
 giving notice that she is coming, that she may serve 
 her scattered customers. Thus, by energy and indus¬ 
 try, this meritorious woman has established herself 
 and sisters in a good profitable business, and set an 
 example which may be imitated with advantage. No 
 extraordinary ability was required to do this, only such 
 talents as hundreds of other women possess, united to 
 a love of independence, and a spirit of enterprize and 
 industry. 
 
 Nor ought persons unendowed with remarkable ca¬ 
 pacity to rest content in dependence on the kindness 
 of others for support. Every one ought to be able to 
 say, as a famous German writer did, “ I have made as 
 
IG 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 much out of myself as can be made out of the stuff, and 
 no man should require more.” * 
 
 Society has a right to expect thus much from every 
 one, and none should he drones but those who are in¬ 
 capable of becoming anything better. It is the duty 
 of every man and unmarried woman to provide for 
 themselves according to the best of their abilities; and 
 what Dr. Arnold, the famous Rugby schoolmaster, said 
 of boys, is true also of girls—that the difference be¬ 
 tween one boy and another consists not so much in 
 talent as in energy; and it was his observation, that 
 those who became afterwards the most successful men 
 were not the cleverest boys, but the most hard-working 
 and energetic. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Smiles says that, “when a boy, he stood 
 in the same class with one of the greatest of dunces. 
 One teacher after another had tried his skill upon him 
 and failed; corporal punishment, the fool’s cap, coaxing, 
 and earnest entreaty proved alike fruitless. Sometimes 
 the experiment was tried of putting him at the top of 
 his class, and it was curious to note the' rapidity with 
 which he gravitated to the inevitable bottom, like a lump 
 of lead passing through quicksilver. The youth was 
 given up by many teachers as an incorrigible dunce, 
 one of them pronouncing him ‘ a stupendous booby.’ 
 Yet, slow though ho was, this dunce had a sort of dull 
 energy of purpose in him, which grew with his muscles 
 and manhood; and, strange to say, when at length he 
 came to take part in the practical business of life, he 
 
 * “ Self-Holp.” 
 
PERSEVERANCE.-BUSINESS HABITS. IT 
 
 was found heading most of his old companions, and 
 eventually left the greater number of them behind.” 
 The last time Mr. Smiles heard of him he was chief 
 magistrate of his native town. 
 
 I myself knew a similar instance in a girl who used 
 / 
 
 to attend the village school I sometimes visited, where 
 she was thought dull by her companions and teachers, 
 and occupied a low place in her class. After leaving 
 ■ school she learnt dress-making, but becoming tired of 
 that or not succeeding in it, she determined to become 
 a saleswoman in a shop. To prepare herself for the 
 position she spent ten shillings in taking lessons in 
 arithmetic, for though she had learned at school, she was 
 not perfect in it. Then she went to a town where she 
 got a situation in a small shop at low wages. The 
 following year she got a better situation in a large shop, 
 and attracted the attention of the owner by her good 
 conduct. In a short time he made her head manager 
 and book-keeper of a branch establishment he had, 
 where she received a high salary, and the respect due to 
 a person in a position of trust. For several years she 
 held this situation, and ended by marrying very respect¬ 
 ably, having doubtless a good sum of money laid by to 
 begin housekeeping. 
 
 It sometimes struck me that when this young person 
 returned to her native village for a holiday, her former 
 companions must have felt surprised to see the success 
 of the girl they had thought dull, while they who had 
 thought themselves clever were so completely beaten 
 by her in the race of life, and were still pursuing 
 
18 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 comparatively unimportant and ill-remunerated employ¬ 
 ments. Her success was, in fact, owing to moral causes. 
 She began by acknowledging her ignorance and taking 
 lessons to improve herself; then she was contented to 
 begin with low wages and an inferior situation. Finally, 
 her diligence attracted her master’s attention, and when 
 placed in a position of trust she continued careful and 
 painstaking. 
 
 A conceited, proud, or careless person would have 
 failed in the same position, and her success was due 
 not to the presence of great abilities, hut to the ab¬ 
 sence of had qualities from her moral nature; and the 
 absence of had qualities goes a long way towards form¬ 
 ing good sense, which is perhaps more a negative than 
 a positive quality. Persons who are not guided by 
 vanity, or temper, or jealousy, or a love of amusement, 
 will he guided by reason, and to he guided by reason is 
 to possess good sense. “ Good sense,” a French writer 
 says, “ is more valuable than any other science or ac¬ 
 complishment that can be learned under the sun; ” and 
 any one can possess good sense who chooses to do so, 
 because with God’s help, they can prevent themselves 
 from being guided by evil feelings. This is the wisdom 
 promised “to the simple.” “If any of you lack wis¬ 
 dom, let him ask of God, that giveth liberally and 
 upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.” * 
 
 When called on to make an important decision, such 
 for instance, as to determine her course of life and the 
 trade or profession she is to enter upon, a young woman 
 
 * James’ Epistle, chap. i. 5. 
 
PERSEVERANCE.-BUSINESS HABITS. 
 
 19 
 
 should not decide hastily; she should take time to con¬ 
 sider, and lay the case before Grod, asking Him to give 
 her wisdom to decide right, and to help her to drive all 
 had motives from her mind which might lead her wrong. 
 Then let her reflect calmly on the subject and decide, 
 and having decided, let her embark with energy in the 
 undertaking and go on with perseverance, remembering 
 the text, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it 
 with all thy might,” and constantly trying to free her¬ 
 self from had feelings of every sort, that she may never 
 fall under their dominion, but may always continue to 
 be guided by good sense; for good sense is nothing 
 but reason, freed by God’s grace from evil motives and 
 passions. 
 
 Sometimes a silly girl, whose reason is obscured by 
 idleness, seems to think that attention to order, 
 punctuality, and method, may be excused her on account 
 of her sex, and that she is less to blame than a man 
 would be, for failing in these particulars. Such an idea 
 is a complete bar to success in life. 
 
 On many points a woman can seldom or never come 
 up to a man’s standard, but there is nothing to prevent 
 her from equalling him in these essentials, and as she 
 cannot be useful in various other ways, in which he can, 
 she ought to endeavour to make up by increased 
 attention to these important details. A woman can do 
 nothing well, which requires severe physical toil, but her 
 want of strength is no excuse for making awkward 
 figures and blots in account-books, or for unpunctuality 
 or want of politeness to customers. 
 
 A woman may sometimes be excusable for failing 
 
 c 
 
20 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 through lack of knowledge or intelligence, as her 
 education may have been defective, hut to fail through 
 want of care or painstaking is inexcusable. The girl 
 wdio fails thus does a serious injury to all other working 
 women, for by her folly she creates an unfavourable 
 impression against them, and acts as a warning to 
 employers not to engage persons of her own sex. 
 A woman should not, however, rest content with 
 inferiority in intelligence or knowledge; for though 
 such inferiority may be excusable, may not perhaps 
 be at all her own fault, she will always find it intensely 
 disadvantageous. She should, therefore, endeavour 
 to supply her deficiencies by procuring instruction 
 before she begins on her work, unless, indeed, she 
 intends to be contented with a low salary; for if she 
 does not come up in these respects to the ordinary 
 standard of men, she will never be able to obtain a 
 high one. 
 
 Women sometimes fail on another point. Their 
 nervous system being excitable, they are apt to betray 
 irritation at small vexations. This infirmity happily 
 does not affect all women, or even the majority, but 
 they are more liable than men to become its subjects, 
 and ought therefore to guard with extra care against it. 
 Of all powers, that which increases the most with 
 exercise is self-control, and also there is no power so 
 easily lost by neglect. A calm manner gives a great 
 advantage; it is an element of success; and to a 
 considerable extent it may be obtained by an effort, or 
 rather by a continual series of efforts, till at last it 
 becomes habitual. Calmness always gives the im- 
 
PERSEVERANCE.-BUSINESS HABITS. 
 
 21 
 
 pression of superiority, for it is one of tlie signs of 
 strength of character. 
 
 A woman who observes these rules, has good health, 
 and avoids entering on a profession which is already 
 over-crowded, will seldom fail of success. 
 
 * Women so often fail from want of health, that a few observations 
 on the subject will not be misplaced, 
 
 , A girl’s health is often injured by her being sent to school too 
 young. Until a child is six or seven years old, the less it studies and 
 the more it plays, the better. A tendency to curvature of the spine is 
 frequently induced by sitting for hours on benches without backs, and 
 is increased by sleeping always on the same side at night. Children 
 will sleep with their faces towards the light, if only a glimmer comes 
 through the window, and, therefore always lie on the same side; this is 
 remedied by changing the pillow from the head to the foot of the bed 
 every night, as is now commonly done in well-regulated nurseries. 
 
 When girls are grown up, they usually suffer from want of air and 
 exercise, unless they have to go out as servants, and then they get 
 too much work. Sometimes, in the same house, two girls are suffering 
 from very different causes. The daughter of the house is out of 
 health from want of exercise, while the poor servant-maid is injured 
 by too hard work; if the former was good-natured enough to help 
 the latter, she would be often rewarded by recovering her own strength 
 and appetite, for household work in moderation is very wholesome, as 
 it strengthens the muscles of the arms and chest. 
 
 Young women are apt to stay at home, except in very fine weather, 
 for fear they should spoil their clothes; but if they would put on 
 woollen petticoats and tuck up their gowns, as the fine ladies do in 
 Belgravia, they might go out without soiling anything, and a walk 
 in rain under an umbrella is much better than no walk at all. An 
 hour’s brisk walking a-day is the least exercise a girl living at home 
 should be contented with, and she will be the better for more, probably. 
 When out in a situation she should make a point of getting at least 
 half-an-hour’s run before beginning the day’s business, if it is of a 
 sedentary kind, for air and exercise are the best preservatives of health 
 and the only safe medicines. Tight lacing is a common cause of ill- 
 health. Girls fall into this habit gradually, and are ignorant of the 
 harm they are doing themselves. While still growing, a girl wifi, have 
 
22 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 her gown let out everywhere except round the waist, which remains no 
 bigger at eighteen than it was at fifteen, though every other part has 
 grown larger. The pressure has increased so gradually that she has 
 become used to it, and protests, with sincerity, that her clothes feel 
 quite loose. The test of the truth of this protest is, whether she 
 can lie down comfortably on her side while dressed; unless she can, 
 she is too tight. Also, if she feels relief on taking off her clothes, 
 or if she measures smaller round the waist when dressed than when 
 undressed, in either case she is hurting her health—perhaps hurting it 
 seriously. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 ®hoii;c flf a Jusitti!.?s, and Emigration.* 
 
 “We sincerely hope that a new system may be instituted at once, 
 and that we may no longer see women who, like men, must needs 
 often turn to labour for their bread, condemned, unlike men, to the 
 ranks of one miserable and hopeless calling, or left with the single 
 alternative of becoming, according to their positions, either distressed 
 needlewomen or distressed governesses.”— Times^ Nov. 8, 1859. 
 
 “ Obvious are the means of righting the labour market,—on the 
 one hand by systematic emigration, and on the other hand by opening 
 up new occupations adapted to women, and they must be such occupa¬ 
 tions as shall leave the woman—a woman still ;”—JJltimate Civilization, 
 by Taylor. 
 
 The choice of the occupatign to be followed must mainly 
 depend on the social position, education, and opportunities 
 of each individual, hut some hints may be useful as 
 applying equally to all. 
 
 Those professions should be avoided which are already 
 over-crowded. This is a truism; yet, strange to say, 
 this plain rule is little considered by young women 
 starting in life; for though it is obviously bad policy to 
 embark in an underpaid employment, it is also difficult to 
 get out of the beaten track. 
 
 * Part of this chapter has appeared in the “Englishwoman’s 
 Journal.” 
 
24 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 Perhaps no profession is more overcrowded than that 
 of the teacher. One reason for this seems to be that 
 there is no other profession open by which gentlewomen 
 can earn their livelihood without loss of caste, and many 
 prefer poverty to a loss of social position. It is im¬ 
 possible not to sympathize with this feeling; but while 
 we sympathize we must also deplore it, because of the 
 misery it occasions. Poor professional men often engage 
 in a painful struggle to save the means by which their 
 daughters are to be trained as governesses, and if enough 
 can be afforded to give them such a thorough education 
 as shall secure them good situations and high salaries, it is, 
 probably, the wisest course that can be pursued. But 
 if a second-rate education only can be afforded, then 
 uncomfortable situations and a low salary are sure to fall 
 to the daughter’s lot, and the policy of the proceeding 
 becomes more than doubtful.* 
 
 Would it not, under such circumstances, be wiser 
 to bring them up to some less genteel but better 
 remunerated employment, or, to some humble depart¬ 
 ment of their father’s own profession ? A poor solicitor 
 might, for instance, teach his daughter to copy law 
 papers, and set her up as a law stationer at a very small 
 expense, and, once established, she would be able to 
 keep on the business even after her father’s death. 
 
 * This is peculiarly the case with regard to nursery governesses, of 
 whom there is such an extraordinary surplus that it is scarcely possible 
 to get a situation, and as young persons are always preferred, it becomes 
 after thirty almost absolutely impossible. The salary diminishes as the 
 nursery governess grows older, which is contrary to all other profes¬ 
 sions. Of all employments this is the worst, except needlework. 
 
CHOICE OF A BUSINESS, AND EMIGRATION. 25 
 
 In the same way, an artist would have a good opportunity 
 of starting his daughter as a wood-engraver, and so on. 
 
 Another reason for the overcrowding of the teacher’s 
 profession is, that young persons often enter it who are 
 not gentlewomen by birth, for the sake of social advance¬ 
 ment ; just as men sometimes go into the Church or the 
 army in order to become gentlemen by profession. 
 
 . But, if any other employment is open to them, the 
 young women mistake their own interest, for the satis¬ 
 faction of being considered a lady can hardly make 
 up for the many privations of a governess’s life. Trades¬ 
 men’s daughters often have the chance of engaging in 
 commercial pursuits, and would do well to take advantage 
 of any opportunity that occurs. This does not apply to 
 persons who have a taste for teaching, as those who 
 have a strong vocation for any profession are pretty sure 
 to succeed in it. I speak only of ordinary women who 
 have no particular vocation, and are equally ready to 
 enter whatever employment seems to offer the greatest 
 personal advantages. 
 
 The long list of pensioners at the Governesses’ 
 Benevolent Institution, and the still longer list of 
 candidates for pensions, shows what a bad trade teaching 
 is.'!^ 
 
 * I am acquainted with two sisters, gentlewomen by education and 
 manners, and perhaps by birth, too, who keep a bookseller’s shop and 
 circulating library, and drive a prosperous trade. The position of 
 these ladies is certainly more comfortable than that of an ordinary 
 governess. It appears to me to be also more dignified than the 
 condition of the poor lady-pensioners aforesaid, and not to fall far 
 short of the seldom-attained position of the teacher who has succeeded 
 in realizing an independence. 
 
26 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 Those, however, who intend to become teachers should 
 endeavour to prepare themselves well for the position, 
 both for their own sakes and that of their future pupils. 
 
 The Cambridge University Local Examinations, now 
 open to girls, offer an excellent opportunity for prepara¬ 
 tion. Those who pass will receive certificates, and these 
 certificates will he of great value as an assistance in 
 obtaining good situations. Their money value will be 
 great, for those who get them can ask higher salaries 
 than others, besides which they will confer social con¬ 
 sideration and respect. It is not necessary to learn 
 Latin or Greek in order to pass. A good English 
 education, with a knowledge of one foreign language, 
 modern or ancient, and either music or drawing, is all 
 that is required; these branches of knowledge must, 
 however, be thoroughly learned or no certificate will be 
 granted. 
 
 Parents who intend their daughters to be teachers, 
 should send them to a school where young ladies are 
 prepared for these examinations. 
 
 Dress-making is another over-crowded employment, 
 and for much the same reason; dress-making being to 
 persons in a certain position of life, what teaching is to 
 those of the rank above them, viz., the most genteel 
 occupation within reach. The wages of first-rate hands 
 seem to have fallen about one-half in the last twenty 
 years, and inferior workers have of course suffered in 
 proportion. Yet, though everyone knows that there are 
 far too many dress-makers, girls of the middle class 
 beginning life seldom think of becoming anything else; 
 they hope to succeed better than others ; a few do well. 
 
CHOICE OF A BUSINESS, AND EMIGRATION. 27 
 
 they think, and why should they not be among the few ? 
 Now, if a young person has no choice but to become a 
 dress-maker, she is right enough to enter on her work in 
 a cheerful spirit, and to hope for the best; but if she 
 can avoid entering this employment, it is certainly her 
 interest to do so; and this is especially the case if she 
 is a physically strong person; for needlework, being a 
 sedentary employment, requiring little strength, is 
 peculiarly well suited to the feeble, but is injurious to 
 the muscularly strong, who require active exercise. 
 Nature here, as in many other instances, has pointed out 
 the proper division of labour, and punishes those who 
 infringe her rules by destroying their health. 
 
 It will, perhaps, be as well to mention some other 
 employments for women. Professions connected with 
 literature and the arts need not be spoken of, as all who 
 possess sufficient taste and talent will be sure to enter on 
 these agreeable avocations; but I may observe that a new 
 branch of art is being opened to women—that of house- 
 decorators. {See Aj)pendix A.) A lady of my acquaint¬ 
 ance has had part of the woodwork of her house decorated 
 by them, with coats of arms and mottoes connected with 
 her husband’s family. 
 
 Wood-engraving has already been mentioned, and I 
 am told by the superintendent of the Female School of 
 Art that as fast as the pupils become proficient they 
 obtain employment. 
 
 Photography is a good employment for women, though 
 it can seldom be well learnt without a regular apprentice¬ 
 ship, and the cost of materials before a person can set up 
 for herself amounts to at least £40, 
 
28 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 Another good employment is the tinting of photographs. 
 Any woman with an ordinary knowledge of painting in 
 water-colours, whether portraits or flowers, could do it 
 with a little practice. To make the photograph take the 
 paint, it must first he washed over with gum-water, or 
 silica,* which is better, and left to dry. The flaws must 
 be covered with white paint; moist colours should be 
 used. Some knowledge of art is required, to choose 
 harmonious colours for the dresses and backgrounds, and 
 of course the better the artist the more highly finished 
 and the prettier the picture will he, hut many women 
 have sufficient knowledge and skill to attain to the art if 
 they would buy a dozen common photographs to practise 
 upon. It is an easy accomplishment, and as most people 
 are discontented with their own photographs, and would 
 like to have them improved, an artist of this kind would 
 probably find plenty of customers. 
 
 Much success cannot, however, he expected unless the 
 beginner can afford to spend a pound or two in advertise¬ 
 ments. Work will then probably flow in, and if the 
 artist is a good one, her paintings will recommend her; 
 hut whenever work falls slack, recourse should again he 
 had to advertisements. 
 
 Photograph printing is also a good trade. Advertise¬ 
 ments are of no use here. Persons who wish for 
 employment, must take specimens of their printing round 
 to photographers and ask for work. 
 
 * Silica, or glass medium, as it is sometimes called, can be procured 
 from Miller’s, 56, Long Acre. It is stated that by means of this 
 material, plaster walls become easy to paint on, which opens a wide field 
 to housc-decorators. 
 
CHOICE OF A BUSINESS, AND EMIGEATION. 29 
 
 A medical college for women has lately been opened. 
 This is so new an institution that its success cannot he 
 decisively spoken of. Several ladies have become pupils, 
 and ^ further particulars can he ascertained from the 
 Hon. Secretary, 4, Fitzroy Square, London. W. C. 
 There are said to he four hundred lady doctors in the 
 United States, and there appears every reason to expect 
 that the experiment will he equally successful here. 
 
 Nurses for the sick are scarce, many women of doubt¬ 
 fully sober habits being employed in that capacity 
 through the difficulty of obtaining better. But this 
 noble profession is suited only to persons possessing 
 strong nerves and superior intelligence, as well as good 
 health, and requires a peculiar cast of mind, combining 
 force of character, good temper, and the power of being 
 contented with little gaiety and amusement. Only a 
 select few can therefore be fitted for it; but those who 
 feel themselves suited for this employment could not 
 engage in a more useful and honourable career. Mid¬ 
 wifery is a good trade in large towns, and would be a 
 still better one if educated women engaged in it. 
 
 A list of institutions, where women are taught mid¬ 
 wifery, and trained as nurses, is given in Appendix B., 
 with their terms. In a few of them, arrangements are 
 made for receiving persons of superior station. The pay 
 of nurses in some of these institutions is good, and 
 occasionally retiring pensions are given. 
 
 The pay and treatment of nurses in government 
 hospitals for soldiers is, however, better than in any 
 private establishment, as the hours of work are much 
 shorter, and good retiring pensions are provided. 
 
30 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 Application should be made to the Lady Superintendent, 
 Military Hospital, Netley, Southampton. 
 
 The copying of law papers, or law stationery, as it is 
 usually called, is a very good profession for women, who 
 unite a tolerable education to natural intelligence. 
 Persons now engaged in this trade who were once daily 
 governesses, have expressed a decided preference for 
 their present employment. The average earnings of a 
 clerk are from twelve to fifteen shillings^ a week, hut very 
 skilful hands can make more, and the head of an 
 establishment realizes a far larger profit. Those wishing 
 to learn the trade can be taught. (See Appendix C.) 
 But it would be useless for anyone to try to set up for 
 herself, unless she was assured of the patronage of two 
 or three solicitors. Probably, however, solicitors have 
 poor female relatives, like other people, and would be 
 glad to provide for them in such a creditable and lady¬ 
 like manner. The head of one of the establishments is 
 the daughter of a solicitor. 
 
 It is needless to speak of clerkships in telegraph 
 offices, as these situations are so sought after that there 
 are far more candidates than vacancies. The kind- 
 hearted gentleman, J. Lewis Kicardo, Esq., M.P., who 
 first caused girls to be taught this trade, is recently dead, 
 and women may well mourn his death, for in him they 
 have lost a most efficient friend. 
 
 A good many young women are employed as assistant 
 clerks in post offices, and sometimes in private business 
 offices, to copy letters, &c. A good handwriting is the 
 chief requisite; the power of making money calculations 
 quickly and correctly is also needed, a point in which some 
 
CHOICE OF A BUSINESS, AND EMIGRATION. 
 
 31 
 
 women almost always fail, owing to their superficial and 
 inaccurate education, and which, if they are wise, they 
 will remedy by self-teaching, or by taking lessons in 
 arithmetic, before they attempt to obtain a situation of 
 the kind. Sometimes they are employed as book-keepers 
 in shops. These situations are tolerably well paid. 
 Several young women taught in a school in connection 
 with the Society for the Employment of Women, have 
 obtained situations as clerks and book-keepers, and given 
 satisfaction to their employers. Several tradesmen have 
 been so well pleased with the clerks first engaged that 
 they have since engaged others. 
 
 Saleswomen in shops are generally well paid; it is a 
 position that requires much bodily strength, because of 
 the number of hours they have to stand; a good 
 knowledge of arithmethic is also necessary, as indeed 
 it is in almost all employments, but those of ill-paid 
 drudgery. A good temper, or at least the power of 
 self-control, are also requisite, to secure invariable 
 courtesy towards the customers. The slightest want 
 of politeness towards customers, even if they are them¬ 
 selves unreasonable and rude, is a breach of honesty 
 towards the owner of the establishment; for if customers 
 are offended they are likely enough to withdraw to some 
 other shop. No one, therefore, should enter on this 
 employment who does not possess entire self-command. 
 
 In all cases where a father with daughters keeps a 
 shop, they should learn to serve in it, unless indeed he 
 has already made his fortune, and can leave them com¬ 
 fortable independent incomes; for a daughter thus 
 ti'ained will always he able to earn her bread, and if 
 
32 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 she have no brother, or if he enters some other pro¬ 
 fession, she will then be able to succeed her father in 
 the business, and will know how to carry it on.' This 
 is sometimes done, but not so often as it ought to be, 
 and the custom seems to be confined to some particular 
 trades, for which there appears no reason. If women 
 have commercial ability enough to carry on the trade of 
 bookseller and baker, why should they not also be 
 grocers, drapers, silkmercers, hairdressers, &c. ? One 
 trade is probably not much more difficult to learn than 
 another, and the bookselling trade, which women often 
 engage in, is perhaps as difficult and complicated as any. 
 It is to be feared that this arrangement would be objected 
 to by the daughters themselves, partly from a love of 
 idleness, and partly because of the idea that to become a 
 tradeswoman is less genteel than to be a nursery 
 governess; the silly girls not perceiving that an in¬ 
 dependent position is, if not as dignified, at least much 
 more comfortable than that of a teacher, and that 
 whatever superiority a nursery governess may have in 
 point of gentility is more than counterbalanced by the 
 solid advantage on the other side. 
 
 If girls would learn their father’s business, it might 
 then, in cases where there is one son and one daughter, 
 be left to them as joint partners, as is often done when 
 there are two brothers. But whether this was done or 
 not, the knowledge acquired behind her father’s counter 
 would enable her to get good situations in other shops. 
 A girl should always consider it a great advantage to be 
 taught her father’s trade, as she then learns under his 
 protection, *is sure to be well taken care of if ill, and not 
 
CHOICE OF A BUSINESS, AND EMIGRATION. 
 
 33 
 
 to be overworked. A photographic artist at Brighton 
 has brought up his four daughters to his own business, 
 and it is said the whole family are prospering. Such 
 examples should be more frequently followed. The 
 daughters are thus provided with a comfortable mainten¬ 
 ance, and their father on his deathbed will have the 
 comfort of reflecting that he has secured them from the 
 evils and dangers of poverty. 
 
 There are several other handicrafts requiring skill 
 rather than strength, in which women might very well 
 engage, though they seldom do, and which they should 
 beg their fathers as a favour to teach them. 
 
 From whatever cause it may proceed, it is certain that 
 a lack of spirit and energy is often to be seen in women; 
 they seem to be willingly helpless and contentedly 
 inferior, as if they thought that God had made them so, 
 and it was not their own fault. For example, I once 
 went into a shop kept by a widow, in which there stood 
 a weighing-machine where people were in the hahit of 
 getting weighed. I told the mistress I wanted to be 
 weighed; she replied she did not understand the machine 
 herself, but her “young man” would soon be back. 
 Now the woman could have learnt the use of the machine 
 by half an hour’s study, but would not take the trouble, 
 and thus left herself at the mercy of her assistant, for as 
 all the heavy packages of groceries were weighed by it, 
 it was perfectly in his power to cheat her. 
 
 This quiet acquiescence in ignorance and helplessness 
 is melancholy to observe, and unhappily such instances 
 are not uncommon. 
 
34 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 In France, women have far more energy, and constantly 
 undertake the whole management of shops. 
 
 At Dieppe they carve ivory brooches and other orna¬ 
 ments, and send them to England, where great numbers 
 are sold, by which they must reap a little harvest. 
 Why should not English women pursue this easy and 
 pleasant trade ? 
 
 Great quantities of ladies’ shoes are also imported 
 from France, made by women, and sold at a very low 
 price. English shoemakers should teach their sisters 
 and daughters the handicraft, for why should foreigners 
 enrich themselves while our own women starve ? 
 
 For persons who have not had a superior education, 
 and who have no chance of learning a handicraft, 
 cooking is by no means a contemptible employment. , 
 
 Formerly women could only become cooks by first 
 becoming scullery and kitchen maids, and working up 
 thi’ough a long course of drudgery; but now, by means 
 of the cooking schools established in London, a person 
 can at once begin at the top of the profession, and thus 
 cooking becomes a trade fitted to a much higher class of 
 persons than it used to be. (See Appendix E.) 
 
 Cooks’ wages are never low, and are sometimes very 
 high; they may be said to range from J616 a-year to £60, 
 according to the skill of the performer. These cooking 
 schools will also be useful to women who belong strictly 
 
 * Women in France also work as jewellers; polishing, setting, 
 and imitating precious stones. This is probably the reason why 
 French trinkets are so cheap and pretty. They are beginning to do 
 mosaic work like the Florentines. In Switzerland women make 
 watches, clocks, and spectacles. 
 
CHOICE OF A BUSINESS, AND EMIGKATION. 35 
 
 to what are called the labouring classes, for many of 
 them have not sufficient strength to go through the 
 apprenticeship otherwise necessary in farm-houses and 
 such like hardworking places, to prepare them for service 
 in gentlemen’s houses; but now, by paying a fee, they 
 can be taught to cook, and can at once be made capable 
 of taking good places. 
 
 There is another plan by which this useful profession 
 might be made accessible to numbers now excluded from 
 it. At present, families are generally supplied with 
 cooks from the kitchens of people who keep larger 
 establishments than they do ; thus the duke’s kitchen- 
 maid goes to the squire as cook, and the squire’s 
 kitchenmaid becomes cook to the village doctor or 
 clergyman. But as there are many more small than 
 large establishments, the supply is insufficient, and 
 though nobody goes without cooks, women who know 
 very little about cooking are often engaged, and ill- 
 dressed dinners are the consequence.* 
 
 This might be remedied by introducing the apprentice 
 system common on the Continent. It now often happens 
 that a cook does not choose to teach her kitchenmaid 
 much. Perhaps she is afraid that she might he engaged 
 in her own stead if she grew skilful, or perhaps she is 
 simply ill-natured,’ and does not choose to take the 
 trouble, and so the poor maid gets little instruction. 
 But if the cook was allowed to take an apprentice and 
 to receive a fee for teaching her, she would take pains 
 
 * Teaching cookery will not cause a larger number of women to be 
 employed, as nobody now goes without a cook; it will only improve 
 the quality of the dinners. 
 
 D 
 
86 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 to teach, and at the end of a year or two, would send 
 her out an accomplished cook. This system works well 
 abroad, and there does not seem to be any reason why it 
 should not in England. It would cost the mistress of 
 the house nothing but the food of the apprentice, and the 
 use of an extra hand in the kitchen would be worth that. 
 The cook would be glad to receive a fee, the apprentice 
 would be glad to learn, the kitchenmaid would hear the 
 instructions the cook was giving the other girl and pick 
 up a little knowledge by this means. Thus all parties 
 would be benefited, and the race of cooks multiplied and 
 improved. Two grades of cooks would then exist; 
 those who began as scullerymaids and gradually worked 
 up from the lowest ranks, and those who became cooks 
 by purchase, paying a fee to learn. These latter would 
 belong to a higher class than the former, and be more 
 fit to become housekeepers.^ 
 
 Industrial schools will be of use in enabling many girls 
 to become servants who would otherwise have found it 
 impossible, for gentlefolks will not engage untrained 
 girls; they must, therefore, get their training either 
 in industrial schools, or in hard places where the work 
 is severe, and the pay only just enough to supply them 
 with clothes. 
 
 Parents hardly seem sufficiently aware what a benefit 
 these schools will confer on their daughters, by enabling 
 them to avoid hard places. If a young creature, 
 whether a horse or a human being, is over-worked in 
 
 * This plan is pursued in several London clubs. The head cook will, 
 on receiving a fee, take assistants who wish to be taught the higher 
 branches of the business. 
 
CHOICE OF A BUSINESS, AND EMIGRATION. 37 
 
 * 
 
 its youth, it cannot recover entirely, and never becomes 
 as strong and healthy as it would otherwise have been. 
 Horse-flesh is so very valuable, that no one would 
 think of setting a two-year-old to pull a cart, because of 
 the injury that would be done it; but it is not thought 
 necessary to take so much care of girls, who are sent 
 out to work hard while still growing, to their great 
 future injury. 
 
 Some spirited ones, who will not give up soon enough, 
 break down under it at once, and return home, perhaps 
 to die, perhaps to be delicate for life, which for a working 
 woman is the worst fate of the two. The very strong 
 can stand this early hard work, but girls of average 
 strength are hurt, and the weakly cannot bear it at all. 
 But where industrial schools are established, this evil 
 can be done away with, for girls taught in them will 
 be able to get tolerably good places at once, and the 
 knowledge of this will compel harsh mistresses to be 
 more considerate to the poor young girls whom they 
 employ; for if they treat them ill, they will be unable 
 to get any servant at all, as the girls will go to the in¬ 
 dustrial school to learn their business, rather than take 
 a place where there is danger of being over-worked; 
 and in these schools they will learn much that is 
 valuable besides. Habits of truthfulness and tidiness 
 will be inculcated, and in many cases much that is evil in 
 example may be avoided by keeping away from the 
 wretched places to which girls are often compelled to go, 
 to learn to be servants. 
 
 When once a girl has learnt enough of her business 
 
88 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 to be able to take a place in a gentleman’s family, the 
 life is far from disagreeable. There is plenty of com¬ 
 panionship to promote cheerfulness, and, if a woman is 
 careful, the wages are generally sufficient to enable her 
 to save a competence for her old age. Some people 
 complain that maids’ wages are too high; a most 
 unreasonable complaint, for surely a person who works 
 hard has a right to earn enough to keep her out of the 
 workhouse in her old age; and it does not appear to 
 me possible that this should be done under £14 or £15 
 a-year,'i« and even then it can only be effected by great 
 economy. So far, then, from maids’ wages being too 
 high, they are, in my opinion, almost lower than is 
 right; and ladies who endeavour to force them down 
 commit a great injustice. The wages of an ordinary 
 woman with no particular skill ought to be sufficient 
 to enable her to provide for her old age, and those 
 who have skill besides, such as cooks and ladies’ maids, 
 ought to be paid for it over and above. 
 
 Still compared to other employments for women, the 
 profession of a servant is a good one. But some may, 
 perhaps, think that a needlewoman’s life would be freer, 
 and prefer it on that account. It is true that it is freer 
 in some ways, but the freedom is often dearly purchased. 
 In dressmaking establishments the hours of work are 
 fearfully long, frequently lasting from eight in the 
 morning till eleven at night, with only the necessary 
 intervals for meals. No time for taking a walk on week 
 
 * A girl learning her business has, of course, no right to such high 
 wages, but only experienced women. 
 
CHOICE OF A BUSINESS, AND EMIGRATION. 39 
 
 days, and no holiday but Sunday. This discipline soon 
 destroys the health, and a girl with a strong constitution 
 is often the first to fall ill. 
 
 Those, however, who prefer this trade in spite of 
 its drawbacks, should take care to sew pretty well 
 before, they are apprenticed, or they will not give 
 satisfaction. Parents who intend their daughters to 
 be dressmakers should send them to schools where 
 needlework is made a great object, that they may start 
 with every advantage. It is hard on the head of a 
 dressmaking establishment to be provided with an 
 apprentice who cannot sew tolerably, and such incapacity 
 is likely to make her not a little severe towards the 
 unfortunate girl. 
 
 Plain needlework done at home is so ill-paid, that 
 almost the worst kind of servant’s place is preferable 
 to this employment. The following is a list of the 
 usual prices paid for needlework by the great shops 
 and the contractors. 
 
 Ordinary gentlemen’s shirts lOd. a piece (it takes 
 twelve hours to make one); common men’s shirts from 
 4^d. to 3d., one firm gives only 2^d. (two shirts may 
 be made in ten hours); for heavy corduroy trousers, 
 6d. (a pair can be made in twelve hours); great coats, 
 7d. or 8d. 
 
 No class of needlework (except dressmaking) can be 
 named which is not paid at the same inadequate rate, 
 and thirty thousand women live by this trade in London 
 alone. Thus the better class of workers receive lOd. 
 a day, the inferior 8d., and the lowest 6d., out of which 
 
40 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 thread has to be found. Life on these terms is not life, 
 but a slow death. 
 
 No one can live long on the diet necessitated by a 
 
 I 
 
 remuneration of 8d. or 6d. a day, when lodging, clothes, 
 fire, and candles have to be found as well. A strong 
 person may perhaps exist for a year or two, then a 
 cold or some slight ailment turns to consumption or low 
 fever, and she dies, and is entered on the death-rate 
 as dying of these diseases, but the real cause of death 
 was the previous low living, and want of the comforts 
 of life. 
 
 That women do so die instead of earning their living 
 
 * To show there is no exaggeration in this statement, the following 
 cases are given from the Eeport of the Needlewoman’s Institution; 
 it will he seen that in some instances less is earned than is stated in the 
 text. 
 
 “ Cases of previous low-paid labour among applicants for work at the 
 Society;— 
 
 “E. W, T. had worked for one shop five years—commenced at 
 5 A.M., worked till 11 p.m. Earned from 2s, 6d. to 6s. a-week, 
 according to the season. 
 
 “Mrs. M., bootbinder. Earns from 2s. to 4s. a-week for thirteen 
 hours’ daily labour. 
 
 “M. B., widow, thirty years a needlewoman—no other means of 
 support. Makes shirts at 3|d. each, six button-holes in each. Can do 
 two a-day; finds her own cotton, light, and fire. 
 
 “H. K., works fourteen hours a-day at button-holes. Earns 4s. 
 a-week. 
 
 “ J. C., an oiphan and friendless, worked for four months for a con¬ 
 tractor at army braces; began at 7 a.m. and worked till 8 p.m.; 
 allowed half-an-hour for meals; when asked if that was time enough, 
 replied, with tears and sobs, ‘Long enough, ma’am, for a crust of 
 bread; I’m only paid 2d. a dozen, and can’t earn more than 2s. 
 a-week.’ Had been a servant till iU health broke her down. Had 
 lived five years in one situation.” 
 
CHOICE OF A BUSINESS, AND EMIGRATION. 41 
 
 by wickedness is very true, and much to their honour; 
 that with the doors of a comfortable prison open 
 to them if they steal, they should not steal, speaks 
 highly for their good principles; they are as truly 
 martyrs as those who perish for their religion by the 
 hand of the executioner; in truth, their trial is longer 
 and more severe, for who would not find it easier to die 
 a public and speedy death, supported by the admiration 
 of friends and sympathizers, than to perish slowly and 
 obscurely as these poor creatures do ? That many fail 
 in the ordeal is but to say that only a small percentage 
 of the human race are fit for martyrdom. 
 
 All who are wise will avoid this profession; not that 
 needlework is in itself a bad employment, on the 
 contrary, it is a very good one, but because such 
 numbers crowd into it, that the competition drives the 
 payment down to a point below that at which life cannot 
 for long be sustained. 
 
 All who have good feeling, all who love their neigh¬ 
 bour as themselves, will, if they have a chance, turn 
 to some other means of earning a livelihood, that their 
 unhappy sisters who have no other opening, no way 
 of escape, may have more room to struggle, and a 
 better chance of obtaining tolerable terms from their 
 employers. 
 
 There is an opening of which greater advantage 
 might be taken than is now done; that opening is 
 emigration. The colonies afford a wide field of well- 
 paid labour to certain classes of women. Domestic 
 servants of all kinds are wanted, especially cooks, not 
 the very best kind, but quite common ones get £30 and 
 
42 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 d640 a-year, dairy-maids’ wages are still higher, and 
 laundry-maids about the same. Maids of all work, in 
 England a despised race, there find themselves valued 
 and well-paid. This is true of all the Australian 
 colonies, but wages vary, and particulars of this sort 
 must he ascertained at the Emigration Ojffices. (See 
 Appendix F".) Government will often pay the passage 
 for able-bodied women, hut a small sum, £1 5s. I 
 believe, is required for the outfit. It is said that women, 
 from an unwillingness to leave their country, often delay 
 in applying for a passage, till they are penniless, 
 thinking they can go at any time; then they find that 
 this sum is required, and not possessing it are compelled 
 to remain at home. Women should remember this,, and 
 apply in time. Governesses are seldom required, the 
 supply already coming up to the demand. 
 
 The Government Emigration agent in Victoria, writes 
 on January 2nd, 1862, “No demand whatever exists 
 for the superior sort of emigrants, such as governesses 
 and milliners,” and a Melbourne paper of several months 
 later, June 17th, 1862, confirms the statement. How¬ 
 ever, in some of the colonies a few governesses are 
 occasionally required, music being always an essential 
 qualification; and nursery governesses, who would not 
 object to help in household work, are in great demand, 
 and seem, from the accounts of those who have gone 
 already, to find the situations there agreeable. Such 
 persons and other educated women who may wish to join 
 friends, can obtain advice and assistance by applying to 
 the Middle Class Female Emigration Of&ce, 12, Portugal 
 Street, Lincoln’s Inn. 
 
CHOICE OF A BUSINESS, AND EMIGEATION. 
 
 43 
 
 There is a great want of mid wives, monthly and sich 
 nurses, in the colonies generally, and specially in New 
 South Wales. A lady, long resident at Sydney, says, 
 that the pay of a monthly nurse is from £10 to £20 
 a month, besides presents; there is such a scarcity 
 that most unfit persons are frequently employed. This 
 lady is of opinion that a sensible woman who could 
 leech, apply blisters, dress slight wounds, &c., would 
 find herself in great requisition, and be exceedingly well 
 paid. Good handicrafts women, too, would probably 
 find employment, such as ladies’ shoemakers, hair¬ 
 dressers, and makers of hair ornaments. These persons 
 should take with them a box of tools, and materials, with 
 specimens of their manufacture, which they should 
 exhibit from house to house, asking for orders. 
 Upholsterers, too, would be likely enough to make a 
 good living; but these ‘ last suggestions are my own idea 
 only, I have no information on the subject. There are 
 too many needle-women already. 
 
 Some months ago a proposal was made to send 
 educated women in considerable numbers to the colonies, 
 and a subscription was opened for the purpose. The 
 public was appealed to, and money came flowing in, 
 till a letter appeared in the Times from the Government 
 Emigration Board, signed S. Walcott, which checked 
 the stream. Mr. Walcott stated his belief that such 
 persons were not wanted, and advised the benevolent to 
 hold their hand, till the truth could be ascertained from 
 the colonies. The colonial answers are conclusive. 
 Canada, speaking through her emigration agent, Mr. 
 Buchanan, says: “There exists but a very limited 
 
44 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 demand in this province for the class of women in 
 question, and that the present introduction of such a 
 class into Canada would he attended with consequences 
 far from advantageous.” Mr. Buchanan goes on to 
 request the Emigration Commissioners that they will 
 he pleased “to discountenance the emigration to this 
 country of any grade of women higher than the domestic 
 servant.” 
 
 From Australia we hear in the Melbourne Argm, 
 “There is no article, perhaps, in the labour market of 
 less demand than governesses. There is no market, 
 perhaps, where the value of educated women is less 
 appreciated than in Melbourne.” An agent of Adelaide 
 confirms these statements, and information from the 
 other colonies is all to the same effect. 
 
 Now, if this little history of the proposed emigration 
 of educated women were not tragical, it would be 
 comical. England so anxious to send them away, the 
 colonies so afraid of having to receive them; England 
 says to them, “Why don’t you go to the colonies? you 
 are not wanted here, you are burdensome to us, and 
 we will gladly pay your passage to get rid of you.” 
 
 The colonies hearing this indignantly exclaim, “ For 
 mercy’s sake, don’t send us such useless creatures! 
 We want men to fell our woods, cultivate our land, 
 tend our sheep and cattle, and women to cook our 
 dinners, and wash our clothes, hut as to educated 
 women, we don’t want them, and we won’t have them; 
 if they come they will he worse off than at home, for 
 we have no workhouses to put them in.” The injured 
 attitude the colonies assume is amusing; they seem to 
 
CHOICE OP A BUSINESS, AND EMIGEATION. 45 
 
 regard the offer of a few hundred educated women 
 to refine and improve them, as a fearful threat, and 
 resent it, as people generally do resent suggestions that 
 are intended for their improvement. But in fact all 
 this is very sad, it is no joke to the poor creatures 
 concerned, and it shows clearly how out of order some 
 part of our social system must he, that such numbers 
 of good respectable women should be at a discount, and 
 of no use anywhere, a burden on every spot of earth, 
 which people try to shift from one another, and which the 
 inhabitants of each hemisphere wish were safely 
 deposited in the other. 
 
 Possibly there may be several conducing causes to 
 this strange state of things, but one in particular seems 
 to me to stand out so clearly as the chief culprit, that I 
 cannot refrain from calling attention to it. These 
 educated women whom nobody wants, are educated in a 
 general way, but are not trained to any special trade or 
 calling. They know a little French, music, and drawing, 
 but nothing well, nothing professionally. If these women 
 had devoted all their powers since they were fourteen 
 years old, to any one thing, leaving out all the others, 
 they might have learned to excel in it, and been, able to 
 live by it. If one girl had learnt music exclusively, she 
 might now have been able to play at concerts, and have 
 been giving lessons at 10s. per hour; if another had 
 devoted herself to painting only, she might have been 
 able to live by selling pictures; or, if she had given 
 herself up entirely to languages, she might have been 
 able to earn her livelihood by translating books, or 
 have been a foreign corresponding clerk in an office; 
 
46 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 Dr, if she had only learnt writing and arithmetic, and 
 learnt them well, she might have been an ordinary clerk 
 or shopwoman; or, if her father had brought her up 
 to his own trade, she might he making ladies’ shoes, or 
 riding-habits, or wigs, or selling groceries, or tuning 
 pianofortes, or gilding picture frames, or doing a dozen 
 other things, instead of living a burden to herself, her 
 friends, and her country. Poor creatures, the sins of 
 their fathers are visited heavily upon them ! for they are 
 not to blame for the had training they received as 
 children and young girls. 
 
 I believe the real cause of all this misery to he the 
 neglect of parents to apprentice their daughters to some 
 trade or handicraft, as regularly as they do their sons. 
 There is no reason Avhy one sex should he more neglected 
 than the other, for no father would think of declining to 
 put his son to a trade, because an uncle might perhaps 
 leave him a fortune; neither ought he to think of not 
 apprenticing his daughter, because she may perhaps 
 marry, for as the Melbourne Argus truly says, “the 
 number of marriageable educated women in the world is 
 out of all proportion to the number of educated men, 
 who are prepared to marry them.” If women were quite 
 positively certain to marry before their father’s death, the 
 present system would not he so had, hut as they are not, 
 it is wicked and cruel, and based on a fallacy. Some 
 day the contrary principle will be universally admitted. 
 In course of time newspapers will take up the subject, 
 leaders will he written, and lectures given on the duty of 
 parents to their daughters ; clergymen will preach about 
 it, and tracts will he distributed, and then it will he 
 
CHOICE OP A BUSINESS, AND EMIGRATION. 47 
 
 recognized that a father who cannot leave his daughter a 
 fortune, ought to teach her a trade, that she may he able 
 to earn an honest livelihood; and the man who fails to do 
 this will be thought less well of by his neighbours. 
 Then the position of women will begin to improve, and 
 this superfluity of helpless, miserable creatures will 
 gradually diminish till it ceases to exist. 
 
 Meanwhile, the only advice I can offer to the already 
 existing superfluous women, who are too old to he 
 apprenticed, is, that those who are fitted for it should 
 become sick nurses, and that those who are not, hut 
 possess health and strength, should learn cooking and 
 go into service, either here or in the colonies. I fear 
 they will consider this a degradation; hut I do not see 
 what else there is for them to turn to, and it is less 
 degrading to live by honest work than to depend on 
 charity. To those who have not strength for this, I can 
 recommend nothing; but the British public should 
 remember that they are worthy objects of benevolence, 
 for they are suffering, and suffering severely, more from 
 the faults of others than from their own, and they belong 
 to a class to whom life in a workhouse is more than 
 usually irksome and painful.* 
 
 * A Society established in London, at 19, Langham Place, for 
 promoting the employment of women, helps these poor creatures, by 
 teaching them handicrafts and finding situations for them. It does some 
 good, and would do more if its funds were larger. Post-Ofiice Orders 
 are payable to Miss Sarah Lewin, the secretary. The Society is also 
 useful in detecting impositions, often attempted by advertisers, who 
 offer to teach any woman some easy art on receiving a sum of money, 
 and promising her employment in it afterwards. As a rule these offers 
 are not to be trusted, though there may be exceptions. Before sending 
 money the Secretary should be consulted. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Qtttg and 
 
 How happy is he born, and taught, 
 
 ' That serveth not another’s will; 
 
 "Whose armour is his honest thought, 
 
 Ari d simple truth his utmost skill. 
 
 This man is freed from servile hands, 
 
 Of hope to rise, or fear to fall; 
 
 Lord of himself, though not of lands. 
 
 And having nothing, yet hath all.— Wotton. 
 
 Oh! what a world of vile, ill-favour’d faults, 
 
 Look handsome in three hundred pounds a-year. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 A class (women) which needs all the safeguards that consciousness 
 of independence can supply to protect them from moral dangers. 
 
 A. Houston. 
 
 It is not easy to define wliat duty is, but one thing seems 
 pretty clear—that duties are reciprocal. 
 
 Thus a parent, who provides for his offspring in their 
 helpless childhood, has a right to expect that they will 
 in return provide for him when old age has made him 
 helpless. If they have the means of so doing and fail 
 
DUTY AND INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 49 
 
 to do it, they are undutiful. But if a parent deserts his 
 child, and leaves it on a doorstep to the mercy of the 
 passers-by, and some one should take it up, bring it 
 home, and provide for it till it can work for itself, then 
 the duty of that child is transferred to its chance 
 protector; it will be bound to obey him in its childhood, 
 and to help him in his old age, as if the adopted father 
 had been the real one. 
 
 Thus duty partakes strongly of the nature of grati¬ 
 tude, and gratitude is a kind of justice—a return for 
 favours received, the payment of a debt incurred. A 
 duty performed calls for duty in return. If, therefore, 
 a father has provided for his daughter in her childhood, 
 'she is bound to give him her obedience till she reach 
 years of discretion, and this not grudgingly, but with 
 goodwill and contentment, as she would pay a just debt. 
 If a father has laid by a snug fortune for his daughter, 
 and wishes her not to go out into the world to push her 
 fortunes, but would rather she remained at home to 
 amuse him and cheer him in his age, he would not be 
 unreasonable in asking her so to remain, even if it was 
 her wish to go out, for to lay by his fortune he must 
 have deprived himself of many pleasures, many luxuries, 
 
 ' perhaps many comforts; and for these sacrifices she 
 ought to make some return. Care must, however, be 
 taken to ascertain that the fortune thus saved is sufficient 
 to provide for her according to her station in life, for 
 if it is not, she must of course go out and work; as 
 a woman should never run the risk of being driven into 
 temptation through poverty. Her duty towards God is 
 greater than that towards man, and if her father wishes 
 
50 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 to place her in a situation of temptation she is hound to 
 disobey him. Even when there is no probability of 
 future poverty, the knowledge of a good trade is some¬ 
 times useful. 
 
 When the celebrated Madame de Genlis was compli¬ 
 mented on the variety of her accomplishments, she 
 replied that she prided herself more on knowing twenty 
 different trades, any one of which would procure her a 
 living. 
 
 When ruined and driven into exile by the French 
 revolution she found the use of this knowledge, for she 
 supported herself by the work of her own hands and 
 head for several years. Yet, when she learned these 
 trades, there did not appear to be any likelihood that 
 she would ever have required to earn her bread by their 
 exercise. Madame de Genlis was the daughter of a 
 merchant, the wife of a nobleman, and held a post of 
 importance about the royal family of France, but it was 
 her principle that every man and woman, whatever their 
 rank, ought to know how to maintain themselves in case 
 of unexpected misfortune. When, therefore, she was 
 appointed governess to the young princes and princesses, 
 the children of the king’s cousin, she taught them 
 trades. One of the princes became an excellent car¬ 
 penter, and another when in exile earned his living as a 
 teacher in a school. This prince afterwards became 
 King of France, under the title of Louis Phillippe, but 
 he was never ashamed of having worked for his living, 
 for he had been brought up to believe that usefulness is 
 always honourable. 
 
 She also taught the princesses trades, and besides. 
 
DUTY AND INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 51 
 
 took them to the hospitals to learn how to dress wounds, 
 as she considered such knowledge to be becoming to 
 women in all stations. If such principles were adopted 
 in England a great improvement would soon he visible, 
 hut here the custom is widely different. 
 
 Parents, from a mistaken feeling of tenderness, are 
 often too anxious to prevent their daughters from going 
 out into the rough world. Sometimes a kind father says. 
 
 Why should my daughters go out to work ? As long 
 as I live I will provide for them, they shall never come 
 to want while I can work.” This is very pretty, 
 hut the good man forgets he is mortal, that he may die 
 at any moment, and that even if he lives to he seventy, 
 his daughters, being younger than himself, will probably 
 survive him. But, perhaps, he is sure that before he 
 dies some one will marry them. Now he has no right to 
 feel sure, because there is no certainty in the matter. 
 The majority of women do marry, so he has a right to 
 think it probable that his daughters will, hut he is not 
 justified in leaving their future well-being to a probability. 
 He does not leave his own maintenance in old age to a 
 probability. On the contrary, he carefully saves for it, 
 buys, perhaps, a government annuity, and would feel 
 wretchedly uneasy if it was only probable that he would 
 not spend his own old age in the union workhouse. He 
 should do by his daughters as he would have wished his 
 own father to do by him, either providing them with a 
 sufficient income out of his savings, or if this is not 
 possible, having first given them the best education in 
 his power, he should apprentice them to some trade, and 
 send them out to learn to work for themselves while they 
 
 E 
 
52 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 are still young, and he has still a home to offer them in 
 case of illness or casual want of employment. Then by 
 the time he dies they will have risen in their professions, 
 have saved money, and will be well able to maintain 
 themselves without his help. The result of not so 
 doing, but of trusting to probability, is well described by 
 a workhouse visitor. ‘‘If we compare the male and 
 female wards of the same workhouse, we shall usually 
 find among the latter a preponderance of cases of 
 reduced respectability and blameless destitution. There 
 are two or three women for every man in the same 
 predicament. And why ? Not assuredly because women 
 are less thrifty than men, less industrious, or less 
 careful of their resources. Quite the reverse. As an 
 experienced friend once remarked to me, such an event 
 as a woman becoming bankrupt through her own fault 
 had never occurred to his knowledge; yet women are 
 driven by hundreds from comfortable homes to spend 
 their last days in the workhouse, because the men who 
 have assumed to provide for them have failed to do so, 
 and because no means are open to them to provide for 
 themselves.”* 
 
 I may here remark that employers are unwilling to 
 take apprentices or untrained assistants after the age 
 of twenty-four, and in many trades and handicrafts 
 they prefer much younger ones. The sooner girls start 
 therefore to learn their business the better; they must 
 at least begin early enough to become experienced and 
 expert hands before they reach the fatal age of five-and- 
 twenty, at which period employers object to engage them, 
 
 * “Workhouse Journal,” for September, 1861, page 483. 
 
DUTY AND INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 53 
 
 on the ground that they are too old to learn, or at least 
 that they no longer learn with the facility of younger 
 people. 
 
 A friend of mine who keeps a very miscellaneous 
 register office for women, told me that she had com¬ 
 paratively little difficulty in finding places for the young 
 girls on her hooks, but that the older ones troubled her. 
 “Oh! my poor women of thirty,” she cried, “I wish I 
 could get places for them.” Another bad result of 
 trusting a woman’s future maintenance to the probability 
 of her marrying is, that it places her under a temptation 
 to marry some one whom she does not like. If she 
 does not marry she must end her days in the workhouse, 
 so, if the man she likes does not propose, she is under 
 a great temptation to accept the man to whom she is 
 indifferent. Now, if she told the poor fellow honestly 
 that she did not care a straw about him, he would beg 
 to decline the honour of her alliance, so she is under 
 the necessity of deceiving him; and as to deceive him 
 during the time of courtship only would not answer, for 
 if he found out the truth after he was married he would 
 be terribly angry, she must continue to lead a life of 
 hypocrisy, and deceive him all his days, thus steeping 
 her soul in deceit. 
 
 The first prize in life is a happy marriage, the second 
 a life of independence, the third and worst fate an 
 uncongenial marriage. The pursuit of the second prize 
 in no way prevents the winning of the first, for the 
 second best can at any time be exchanged for the best 
 whenever the opportunity occurs, but the possession 
 of the second-best fate almost secures against having to 
 
54 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 endure tlie third and worst. Kichter, in a passage 
 translated by Carlyle, says, speaking of these interested 
 alliances, “Oh! my heart is more in earnest than you 
 think; the parents anger me who are slave-brokers; 
 the daughters sadden me who are made slave negresses. 
 Ah 1 is it wonderful that those who in their West Indian 
 market-place must dance, laugh, speak, and sing till 
 some lord of a plantation take them home with him; 
 that these, I say, should be as slavishly treated as they 
 are bought and sold ? Ye poor lambs ! And yet ye, 
 too, are as had as your salemothers and salefathers. 
 What is one to do with his enthusiasm for your sex, 
 when one travels through German towns, where every 
 heaviest purse, every longest-titled individual, were he 
 first cousin to the Devil himself, can point with his 
 finger to thirty houses and say, ‘ I know not; shall it 
 be from the pearl-coloured, or the nut-brown, or the 
 steel-green house that I wed ? open to customers are 
 they all.’ How, my girls, is your heart so little worth 
 that you cut it like old clothes, after any fashion, to fit 
 any breast, and does it wax and shrink then like a 
 Chinese ball, to fit itself into the ball-mould or marriage 
 ring-case of any male heart whatever ? ‘ Well, it must 
 
 he, unless we would sit at home and grow old maids,’ 
 answer they, whom I will not answer, but turn away 
 from scornfully.’’'H 
 
 Now, if the damsels who dwelt in these queer-coloured 
 German houses were possessed of independent incomes, 
 or knew how to earn their own livelihood, this scorn is 
 
 * “Extra leaf on daughter-full houses,” by J. Eichter. 
 
DUTY AND INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 55 
 
 well merited; otherwise it is unjust, and they are rather 
 deserving of compassion, for what would Richter have 
 them do ? What can they do, but cheat some simple- 
 minded man into the belief that they are attached to 
 him, and so persuade him to support them ? 
 
 It has been said that courage is the first virtue, 
 because without it none of the others can be exercised; 
 much the same may be said of independence, without 
 which the best intentions, the purest sentiments, the 
 noblest motives are unavailing. It is, therefore, the 
 first duty of every woman to secure her own indepen¬ 
 dence, if it has not already been secured to her by her 
 parents; for without it she cannot tell how low she may 
 sink, or what sins she may be driven to commit. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Pottijn.—goto to Waste it^ouj to |i){ep it. 
 
 Not for to hide in a hedge, 
 
 Nor for a train attendant; 
 
 But for the glorious privilege 
 Of being independent.— Burns^ 
 
 Neither a borrower nor a lender he, 
 
 For loan oft loses both itself and friend, 
 
 And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 It is observed by Mr. Smiles, in his book on “ Self- 
 Help,” that “Although money ought by no means to 
 be regarded as the chief end of man’s life, neither is 
 it a trifling matter, to be held in philosophic contempt, 
 representing, as it does, in so large a degree, the means 
 of physical comfort and social well-being. Indeed, 
 some of the finest qualities of human nature are ulti¬ 
 mately related to the right use of money, such as 
 generosity, honesty, justice, and self-sacrifice, as well 
 as the practical virtues of economy and providence. 
 On the other hand there are their counterparts of 
 avarice, fraud, injustice, and selfishness, as displayed by 
 
MONEY.-HOW TO WASTE IT.-HOW TO KEEP IT. 57 
 
 inordinate lovers of gain; and the vices of thriftlessness, 
 extravagance, and improvidence, on the part of those 
 who misuse and abuse the means entrusted to them. 
 
 Comfort in worldly circumstances is a position every 
 man is justified in striving to attain by every worthy 
 means in his power. It secures that physical satisfaction 
 which is necessary for the culture of the better part of 
 his nature, and enables him to provide for those of his 
 own household, without which, says the apostle, a man 
 is ‘ worse than an infidel.’ Nor ought the duty to he 
 any the less indiflerent to us that the respect which our 
 fellow-men entertain for us in no slight degree depends 
 upon the manner in which we exercise the opportunities 
 which present themselves for our honourable advance¬ 
 ment in life. The very effort required to be made to 
 succeed in life is in itself an education, stimulating 
 a man’s sense of self-respect, bringing out his practical 
 qualities, and disciplining him in the exercise of 
 patience, perseverance, and such-like virtues. The 
 provident and careful man must necessarily he a thought¬ 
 ful one, for he lives not merely for the present, hut 
 with prudent forecast makes arrangements for the 
 future.” 
 
 Every one of these observations applies to women 
 as well as to men, and Mr. Smiles’s remarks on the 
 whole subject of money, making and spending, are so 
 excellent, that I shall continue to quote them, only 
 begging my readers to add mentally the word “woman” 
 wherever “man” appears. 
 
 “ Economizing one’s means with the mere object of 
 hoarding is a very mean thing, hut economizing for the 
 
58 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 purpose of being independent is one of the soundest 
 indications of manly character.” Manly here means 
 honest and brave, and in that sense it is a good thing 
 when women are “manly.” “When practised with'the 
 object of providing for those dependent on us it assumes 
 quite a noble aspect. It is the exhibition of one oi 
 the best forms of self-help.” Francis Homer’s father 
 gave him this good advice on entering life:—“ Whilst 
 I wish you to be comfortable in every respect, I cannot 
 too strongly inculcate economy. It is a necessary virtue 
 to all; and however the shallow part of mankind may 
 despise it, it certainly leads to independence, which is 
 a grand object to every man of a high spirit.” “Every 
 man,” continues Mr. Smiles, “ ought so to contrive as 
 to live within his means. This practice is of the very 
 essence of honesty. For if a man do not manage 
 honestly to live within his own means, he must neces¬ 
 sarily be living dishonestly upon the means of somebody 
 else. Those who are careless of personal expenditure, 
 and consider merely their own gratification, without 
 regard for the comfort of others, generally find out the 
 real uses of money when it is too late. Though by 
 nature generous, these thriftless persons are often driven 
 to do very shabby things; they dawdle with their 
 money as with time, draw bills upon the future, antici¬ 
 pate their earnings, and are thus under the necessity 
 of dragging after them a load of debts and obligations, 
 which seriously affect their action as free and indepen¬ 
 dent men. The loose cash, which many persons throw 
 away uselessly and worse, would often form a basis of 
 fortune and independence for life. These wasters are 
 
MONEY.-HOW TO W'ASTE IT.-HOW TO KEEP IT. 59 
 
 their own worst enemies, though generally found among 
 the ranks of those who rail at the injustice of the 
 world. But if a man will not be his own friend, how 
 can he expect that others will ? Orderly men, with 
 moderate means, have always something left in their 
 pockets to help others, whereas your prodigal, careless 
 fellows, who spend all, never find an opportunity for 
 helping anybody. 
 
 “ The proverb says, that ‘ an empty bag cannot stand 
 upright,’ neither can a man in debt. Debt makes 
 everything a temptation. It lowers a man in his own 
 self-respect, and renders him a slave in many respects, 
 for he can no longer call himself his own master, nor 
 boldly look the world in the face. It is also difficult for 
 a man who is in debt to he truthful, hence it is said 
 that ‘ lying rides on debt’s back.’ The debtor has to 
 frame excuses to his creditor for postponing the payment 
 of the money he owes him, and also probably to contrive 
 falsehoods. It is easy enough for a man who will 
 exercise a healthy resolution to avoid incurring the first 
 obligation: but the facility with which that has been 
 incurred often becomes a temptation to a second; and 
 very soon the unfortunate borrower becomes so entangled 
 that no late exertion of industry can set him free. The 
 first step in debt is like the first step in falsehood, 
 almost involving the necessity of proceeding in the same 
 course, debt following debt, as lie follows lie. Haydon, 
 the painter, dated his decline from the day on which he 
 borrowed money. He realized the truth of the proverb— 
 ‘ Who goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing.’ The written 
 advice he gave a youth on entering the naYy was as 
 
GO 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 follows:—‘ Never purchase any enjoyment if it cannot 
 be enjoyed without borrowing of others. Never borrow 
 money; it is degrading. I do not say never lend, but 
 never lend if by lending you render yourself unable to 
 pay what you owe, but under any circumstances never 
 borrow.’ ” 
 
 Dr. Johnson held that early debt is ruin. His words 
 on the subject are weighty, and worthy of being held in 
 remembrance. “Do not,” said he, “accustom yourself 
 to consider debt only an inconvenience, you will find it 
 a calamity. Poverty takes away so many means of 
 doing good, and produces so much inability to resist evil, 
 both natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous means 
 to be avoided. * >!c ^ 
 
 Let it be your first care, then, not to be in debt to any 
 man. Kesolve not to be poor; whatever you have, 
 spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happi¬ 
 ness ; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some 
 virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult. 
 Frugality is not only the basis of quiet, but of benefi¬ 
 cence. No man can help others that wants help himself; 
 we must have enough before we can spare.” 
 
 These observations of Dr. Johnson’s ought to he laid 
 to heart by every working woman; he explains so well 
 that the use of money, as soon as our own necessary 
 wants are provided for, is beneficence; and he also shows 
 so clearly that we must not attempt to help others, until 
 we have enough for ourselves. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be useful to enter somewhat more 
 into detail on these points, and to try to mark out how 
 far a single woman is bound to help her own family. 
 
MONEY. HOW TO WASTE IT. HOW TO KEEP IT. 61 
 
 Her parents are, of course, her first duty. If by 
 misfortune, or even by their own fault, they fall into 
 poverty in their old age, she must not desert them. 
 The care they bestowed on her childhood, must now 
 be bestowed on them. If the daughter be alone in the 
 world, with no brothers or sisters to help her, the whole 
 weight of the charge falling on her, may prove too much 
 for her strength: in that case, though hound to support 
 them if in her power, she may be compelled to make 
 them over to the parish authorities; hut even then, her 
 care for them ought not to cease, and she should not fail 
 to provide them with such little luxuries and pleasures as 
 her means may afford. If there are several brothers 
 and sisters, they are all bound to contribute their share 
 towards the support of their parents, according to their 
 salaries and incomes. 
 
 A son ought not to say that he has a wife and 
 family to provide for, and that, therefore, he must be 
 excused from contributing. He had a father and 
 mother before he had a wife, and ought not to have 
 taken one, if so doing was likely to prevent him from 
 helping to support his parents. 
 
 A married daughter should contribute if her husband 
 will allow her, but not otherwise, as what a man earns, 
 or possesses, ought to he spent only according to his 
 wishes, and with his full knowledge and consent. 
 
 If she possessed money of her own before she married, 
 the obligation is, of course, stronger; she is then 
 positively bound to assist them; but it may not always 
 be in her power to do so, as, unless some provision was 
 made to the contrary at the time of her marriage, the 
 
G2 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 law gives the husband power over his wife’s fortune and 
 earnings, so that she cannot dispose of the least part of 
 them even to assist her parents. On this account it is 
 the duty of every woman with money, who has an old 
 father or mother, or a crippled and helpless brother or 
 sister dependent on her, or who may possibly become 
 dependent on her, to keep her fortune in her own 
 power, which is done by having a legal paper drawn 
 before the marriage, settling it on herself, for her own 
 sole use, and by appointing trustees to see that the 
 arrangement is carried out, which any lawyer will know 
 how to do correctly.* Otherwise, a daughter might find 
 
 * The money must be invested in the name of the trustees, who 
 will receive the interest and pay it over to the wife, who can then spend 
 it according to her own wishes. The marriage settlement of the 
 Princess Alice, now Princess of Hesse, is an instance of this arrange¬ 
 ment. The clause runs thus:—“Her Britannic Majesty promises to 
 secure to her royal highness the Princess Ahce Maud Mary, from the 
 time of her marriage to her royal highness’s decease, the annual sum of 
 £6000 sterling, to be paid quarterly to commissioners named for that 
 purpose by her Britannic Majesty, to be by them received for the sole 
 and separate use of the said Princess, notwithstanding her married 
 state, and which annual sum of £6000 sterling, so payable quarterly, 
 the said Princess shall not have power, either separately or conjointly 
 with his Grand Ducal Highness the Prince, to alienate, mortgage, or 
 receive or direct to be paid by way of anticipation; but the same shall, 
 from time to time, as the same shall become due, be paid and payable 
 into the proper hands of the said Princess alone, upon her own sole 
 receipt, or to such person or persons to whom she shall by writing 
 signed by herself alone, from time to time, as the same shall, become 
 due, direct and order the same to be paid, or whom she shall otherwise 
 authorize to receive the same on her sole behalf.” In making this 
 settlement the Q,ueen sets a noble example to all other parents. The 
 opinion of the late lamented Prince is also here probably represented, 
 that married women are the happier for an independent income. In aU 
 
idONEY.-HOW TO WASTE IT.-HOW TO KEEP IT. 63 
 
 herself in the painful position of wishing to help her 
 parents, yet being unable to do so, her own fortune 
 earned, perhaps, by their toil, being no longer at her 
 disposition. When a woman has no one depending upon 
 her, she is, of course, under no obligation to make this 
 arrangement (though she will be wise to make it); but 
 she ought not to fail to do so, if the happiness and 
 comfort of some poor helpless being rests on her having 
 the power to aid them, for though three men out of four 
 would willingly assist their wives’ parents and helpless 
 relations under such circumstances, the fourth might 
 not consider himself bound to do so, and much misery 
 might be the consequence. Parents also ought to make 
 the arrangement for their daughters, as it is always 
 wrong to trust, without reservation, the happiness* of a 
 fellow-creature, much more of a daughter, to what is 
 called “ the goodness of human nature,” for the simple 
 reason that human nature is not perfectly good, and if 
 perfect confidence is placed in it, it is apt to fail under 
 the temptation thus put in its way. The goodness of 
 human nature when not assisted by strong natural 
 
 cases where it is wished to leave money by will to a married woman, it 
 should he specified that it is for her “sole use,” otherwise the husband will 
 get it instead of the wife, and trustees should be named to see that this 
 direction is carried out. A lady of my acquaintance was, in consequence 
 of the omission of a relative to take this precaution, reduced to extreme 
 poverty in her old age, and if it had not been for the kindness of another 
 relative, who gave her a small annuity, she must have appealed to 
 charity, or have gone to the workhouse, her husband having spent every 
 shilling belonging either to himself or to her before he died, although 
 she had a large fortune besides the legacy, and he himself a large 
 professional practice. 
 
04 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 affection, (and it is well known that affection changes,) 
 is about as insecure a basis for happiness as can well he 
 imagined. If human beings were perfectly good, they 
 might he perfectly trusted; hut as they are only 
 partially good, they ought to he only partially trusted. 
 
 Among the highest classes, some arrangement to 
 protect the wife’s interests is invariably made. No 
 man of rank would approve of a marriage for his 
 daughter in which her interests were not protected by 
 settlements; nor, indeed, would the daughter think of 
 marrying a man who had so little regard for her as 
 not to suggest them, that is, without having her own 
 fortune, or an equivalent for it, sometimes if the hus¬ 
 band is rich, with an addition to it out of his own 
 property, but at any rate, her own fortune, tied up, so 
 that the capital cannot he spent, to serve as a main¬ 
 tenance for her after his death, in case she should he 
 the survivor. 
 
 Besides this, the interest of her fortune, or a part of 
 it, is usually, though not invariably, settled on her to 
 be spent as she pleases during her husband’s lifetime; 
 and this allowance, which is called pin-money, belongs 
 sacredly to her, and cannot be touched even by her 
 husband’s creditors. 
 
 Often has this pin-money, together with the settle¬ 
 ments, proved the means of saving a whole family 
 from beggary, for when a foolish man has run through 
 his own fortune, he is thus prevented from doing the 
 same by his wife’s, and her pin-money serves to support 
 the family, and keeps them out of the workhouse. ' 
 
 It is much to he regretted, that this plan is not 
 
MONEY.-HOW TO WASTE IT.-HOW TO KEEP IT. G5 
 
 generally adopted in all classes; it is a pity tliat an 
 arrangement, which so greatly conduces towards the 
 happiness of women, and is so advantageous to the 
 whole family, should be confined to one class of the 
 community only. Probably, the cause is a wish to 
 avoid law expenses ; but, in truth, the tenth part of a 
 woman’s fortune would often be well spent in securing 
 the remainder to her own use, if only on account of 
 the domestic harmony and absence of bickering which the 
 arrangement produces. Even when husbands are 
 prudent and trustworthy, a small independent income 
 is found to be a great comfort to married women; it 
 averts many a matrimonial dispute, and thus has a strong 
 tendency to increase married happiness and domestic 
 affection. 
 
 Lord Brougham, and several other eminent lawyers, 
 are anxious that a law should be enacted, which would 
 have the effect of giving settlements and pin-money, 
 without legal expense, to every married woman with 
 property of her own. Probably, this law will at some 
 distant future time be passed, but until it is, every 
 careful father and mother ought to provide their 
 daughters with these resources, if they give them a 
 fortune, in spite of the expense, whenever the arrange¬ 
 ment is possible, for, in consequence of neglecting this 
 precaution, sad misery is often inflicted. 
 
 To return to the obligations of a single woman 
 towards her family. The claims of crippled or helpless 
 brothers and sisters are, of course, as strong on single 
 women as on married ones, and, to their honour, are 
 seldom disregarded; indeed, claims which are sustained 
 
66 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 by early affection are generally well observed. Often 
 is a poor struggling woman the support of an idiot 
 sister or suffering brother; and to these sacred claims 
 is often sacrificed the hope of earning a competence 
 for her own old age. In that sad record of suffering, 
 the list of candidates for pensions from the Governesses’ 
 Benevolent Institution, case after case is recorded of 
 candidates who have saved nothing, having supported 
 a blind sister” or “a crippled brother;” and in every 
 class of workers, the same glorious instances of self- 
 sacrifice probably occur, though they pass unrecorded 
 in other professions. 
 
 But though self-sacrifice, under such circumstances, 
 becomes one of the highest and noblest virtues of our 
 nature, there are other cases in which it ceases to be 
 a virtue at all, and becomes a weakness: for, like all 
 other virtues, it degenerates into a fault, unless subject 
 to the principle of justice. To help those who cannot 
 help themselves is just, hut to sacrifice one-self to help 
 those who ought not to require aid, is unjust and weak. 
 Our rule of conduct is given in Scripture, “ Let him 
 who hath two coats, give to him who hath none.” Yet 
 often is the rule disregarded by women, who strip off 
 their only coat to give to him who hath two already. 
 
 The Governesses’ list of candidates again shows this. 
 Often the record appears “ lent all her savings to her 
 brother,” or “nephew, who became bankrupt.” When 
 women are asked by their relations to lend them money, 
 to embark in a “ perfectly safe business, which is sure to 
 return a high interest,” they should remember that if the 
 statement was true, and the speculation was really a 
 
MONEY.-HOW TO WASTE IT.-HOW TO KEEP IT. 67 
 
 good one, business men, who understand the matter, 
 would be glad to invest their money in it, and there 
 would be no necessity to come borrowing. Yet the 
 relation who says this, has probably no intention of 
 cheating the woman whose money he fain would borrow; 
 he believes in the speculation, and embarks his own 
 money fearlessly in it. He holds up his single opinion 
 against that of all other business men, who tacitly 
 express their dissent from his views, by declining to 
 adventure their money with him; and he expects his 
 female relatives to have as much confidence in his 
 judgment as he himself has, and will probably resent a 
 refusal to lend as a personal affront, and a quarrel is / 
 likely enough to ensue. A woman thus urged should 
 firmly decline, good-temperedly if possibly, but at any 
 rate firmly; and if a'quarrel be the inevitable result of 
 a refusal, she must make up her mind to quarrel; for it 
 is better to quarrel than to he ruined. If the idea 
 enters her mind that she ought to yield, because self- 
 sacrifice is a woman’s part, she should remember what is 
 said on this subject by a m^an whose learning and 
 position make him very high authority.* ‘Ht is no doubt 
 true that we should all be prepared, when necessary, to 
 make great sacrifices of our feelings and interests to 
 promote the good of our fellow-creatures. But that any 
 one portion of humanity should be more particularly 
 called upon than another to perform this act of self- 
 immolation is, it seems to me, a most absurd and 
 
 * Arthur Houston, Professor of Political Economy at Dublin 
 University, “ On the Emancipation of Women from Industrial 
 Disabilities,” page 11. (Longman,) 
 
 F 
 
68 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 abominable doctrine. It is one of which those who are 
 called upon to make the sacrifice must feel the injustice, 
 and at which they must repine, unless where the vanity 
 of martyrdom—not so uncommon a vanity as may be 
 supposed—buoys them up under the trial. It is a 
 doctrine, too, which can have no other effect on the 
 remainder of humanity than to feed their arrogance and 
 minister to their selfishness. Self-sacrifice, to be 
 beneficial, must be a mutual duty.” 
 
 Women who give up what is just from this mistaken 
 notion, are either trying to make themselves into 
 heroines, or else, which is the more common case, they 
 are cowards who yield, from the fear of offending, that 
 which in their hearts they had rather withhold. But 
 such concessions, for the sake of peace, are not always 
 likely to answer their purpose, if another distinguished 
 man is to be believed.* He says, “Never lend money 
 to a friend unless you are satisfied that he does wisely 
 and well in borrowing it. Borrowing is one of the most 
 ordinary ways in which weak men sacrifice the future 
 to the present, and thence it is that the gratitude for a 
 loan is so proverbially evanescent, for the future 
 becoming present in its turn, will not be well satisfied 
 with those who have assisted in doing it an injury. 
 By conspiring with your friend to defraud his future self, 
 you naturally incur his future displeasure. * * 
 
 * * * * To withstand solicitations 
 
 for loans is often a great trial of firmness; the more 
 especially as the pleas and pretexts alleged, are generally 
 
 * H. Taylor, in “Notes on Life,’' p. 26. 
 
MONEY.-HOW TO WASTE IT.-HOW TO KEEP IT. 69 
 
 made plausible at the expense of truth. * 
 
 The refusal which is at once the most safe from 
 vacillation, and perhaps as little apt to give offence as 
 any, is the point-blank refusal, without reasons assigned. 
 Acquiescence is more easily given in the decisions of a 
 strong will, than in reasons which weak men, under the 
 bias of self-love, will always imagine themselves com¬ 
 petent to controvert.” 
 
 The lady in whose school I was educated retired from 
 business late in life, with a good fortune, acquired by 
 her own exertions, intending to pass the evening of 
 her days in rest and comfort. Unfortunately she was 
 induced to entrust her whole fortune to a promising 
 nephew. He lost it all, and she was reduced to such 
 distress that she had to appeal to the charity of her 
 former pupils. She ended by obtaining a situation as 
 companion, and is now dead. The fate of this poor 
 lady ought to serve as a warning to all other women who 
 have laid by money. 
 
 Post-office savings’ banks are the best places for a 
 woman’s savings. They receive to the amount of thirty 
 pounds a-year, and few indeed are they who can save 
 more; these few will do wisely to deposit the thirty 
 pounds there, and only risk the remainder in some other 
 investment. Then, when work is past and the time for 
 rest has come, a Government annuity can be bought 
 with the money which has been placed in the savings’ 
 bank. The interest on these annuities, being for life 
 only, is very high and is perfectly secure, the Govern¬ 
 ment being responsible for its payment, so that nothing 
 but a revolution, or the conquest of the countiy by a 
 
70 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 foreign force, could prevent it from being paid. A 
 woman of fifty-five may obtain an annuity of d610 for 
 £140 5s. lOd. An annuity of £20 would of course cost 
 twice as much. The older the person buying the 
 annuity the less it would cost. At sixty it would be 
 £122 los. In many cases it may be well, however, to 
 hold back a small portion of the savings, and not 
 invest all in the annuity, because on the death of the 
 annuitant the principal goes to the Government, and 
 few people would like to be able to leave nothing behind 
 them. Some relative, or friend, or faithful servant may 
 have claims which it would be unjust and unkind to 
 disregard. 
 
 Government annuities can now be bought at most of 
 the chief Post Offices. This is a great accommodation 
 to the public, and an especial comfort to single women, 
 retired governesses, and old servants. 
 
 The Governesses’ candidate list shows another very 
 common way in which single women spend their earnings. 
 The entry frequently appears, “has saved nothing, 
 having educated her orphan nephews and nieces.” 
 The women who thus spend their earnings intend to do 
 what is right, and therefore deserve our respect, but 
 they have mistaken the means. To give an expensive 
 education to nephews and nieces is wrong, when the 
 aunt is thereby compelled to depend on the aid of a 
 charity, or to come upon the rates; for then she has in 
 fact educated her nephews and nieces out of other 
 people’s pockets, and it is the rate-payers and sub¬ 
 scribers to the charity who pay for their education, not 
 herself. Thus, she commits an injustice towards the 
 
MONEY.-HOW TO WASTE IT.-HOW TO KEEP IT. 71 
 
 public. Neither is her kindness towards her nephews 
 and nieces well judged, nor has it the effect of adding^ 
 to their happiness, but the contrary. It is evident that 
 the education bestowed upon them has not enabled them 
 to earn comfortable incomes, or they would scarcely have 
 left the aunt to whom they are indebted for it to the charity 
 of strangers; and it is probable that their education, 
 though procuring it has ruined their aunt, has barely 
 afforded them the means of living. The nephew is, 
 perhaps, a clerk, earning a hundred a-year, yet obliged 
 to dress and live like a gentleman, or perhaps a shopman 
 earning eighty ; when, if his aunt had caused him to be 
 apprenticed to a handicraft, he might have been earning 
 ten or twelve shillings a-day in the colonies as a 
 carpenter or stonemason; and in British Columbia, and 
 some other colonies, the wages are much higher than 
 this. Thus, he would be a far richer man, able probably 
 to help his aunt, and his life would be passed in the open 
 air, taking active exercise, instead of in a close office or 
 shop, from which his health is sure to suffer, even if the 
 confinement does not lead to habits of drinking and 
 dissipation, as it so often does; he would also be a free 
 man, able to please himself and be his own master in 
 all things, instead of being under the obligation not to 
 marry, a condition to which shopmen are usually 
 compelled to submit by their employers. The case 
 with a niece is equally strong. The education she 
 receives, though expensive,does not probably enable her 
 to become anything more than a second-rate governess, 
 earning a small uncertain salary; but if she had been 
 apprenticed to a good trade, or taught cooking in thd 
 
n 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 best style, she might have earned as good wages, and 
 from not being expected to dress like a lady, could have 
 saved more. This education would cost hut a tenth part 
 as much as a general one, and would- make the niece a 
 much happier woman, less polished, and less learned, 
 but richer and freer. It is a mistake to bring people up 
 to refinement, when the refined get worse paid than 
 unrefined workers. It is unwise to spend money in 
 giving an education, the only effect of which will he to 
 disqualify the pupil for earning a good livelihood. The 
 vague general education which has no effect, except in 
 giving refinement, is very much worse than useless ; for 
 refinement without the power of earning one’s bread only 
 increases the evil of the position by making it the more 
 acutely felt. 
 
 Some women, however, reduce themselves to an old 
 age of poverty and dependence, by means less creditable, 
 and without the excuse of natural affection. There is a 
 dreadful ambition abroad to be “genteel;” appearances 
 are too often kept up at the expense of future comfort, 
 and though we are not rich, yet we cannot be contented 
 without seeming so. “We must be respectable,'^ observes 
 Mr. Smiles, “ though only in the meanest sense, in mere 
 vulgar show. We have not the courage to go patiently 
 onward in the condition of life in which it has pleased 
 God to call us; but must needs live (and dress) in some 
 fashionable state to which we ridiculously please to call 
 ourselves, and all to gratify the vanity of that un¬ 
 substantial genteel world, of which we form (or wish to 
 form) a part. There is a constant struggle for front 
 places in the social amphitheatre, in the midst of which 
 
MONEY.-HOW TO WASTE IT.-HOW TO KEEP IT. 73 
 
 all noble self-denying resolve is trodden down, and many 
 fine natures are inevitably crushed to death.” 
 
 How many a woman who might have lived happily 
 by going on with her father’s shop, has thrown away 
 ■ this comfortable reality from the vague notion that some 
 other occupation would be more “ genteel,” and has 
 thus exchanged easy circumstances and independence, 
 for dependence and poverty ? 
 
 I need not describe what other evil effects arise from 
 this silly ambition to dazzle others with the false ap¬ 
 pearance of great worldly success—we perceive them 
 around us in bankruptcy, poverty, and waste; but 
 perhaps the most melancholy result of all is to see a 
 youth and middle age of frivolity and extravagance, 
 followed by an old age of penury, discontent, and de¬ 
 pendence. When we see how happy women are who 
 have achieved independence and earned for themselves 
 a snug little income, and observe with what consideration 
 and respect they meet in their own families, one regrets 
 to see the means of procuring so much quiet content¬ 
 ment thrown away. Few positions to which a woman 
 can attain, are happier than that of a single woman with 
 enough for herself to live on comfortably and a little to 
 spare for her friends. She meets with the genuine 
 respect her successful exertions in life deserve, and if 
 she is of a friendly disposition, and willing to lend a 
 helping hand to the rising generation where help is 
 merited, she will meet with affection and gratitude as 
 well as respect. Such a calm pleasant evening to life 
 is surely an object worth trying for. A youth of work 
 and independence, and an old age of kindliness and 
 
74 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 usefulness, surrounded by the respect of contemporaries, 
 wbo know our bistory, and the affections of the young 
 who have benefitted by our assistance, is not a bad prize 
 to draw in the lottery of life. 
 
 “Jog on, jog on, with, cheerful heart, 
 
 With Heaven’s smile beaming o’er us. 
 
 To cheer us in our daily work. 
 
 And light the path, before us. 
 
 “ Then strength wdl be a strength indeed. 
 
 And labour a sweet pleasure: 
 
 And doing what is fair and right. 
 
 The greatest earthly treasure.”— Broome, 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 
 But where ye feel your honour grip 
 Let that aye be your border: 
 
 Its slightest touches, instant pause, 
 
 Debar all side pretences; 
 
 And resolutely keep its laws, 
 
 Uncaring consequences.— Burns. 
 
 Lives of great men all remind us 
 We can make our lives sublime; 
 
 And departing, leave behind us 
 Footprints on the sands of time.— Longfellow. 
 
 Speak gently, it is better far 
 To rule by love than fear; 
 
 Speak gently, let not harsh words mar 
 The good we might do here.— Hymn. 
 
 It is not easy to define self-respect. Perhaps it is not a 
 very bad definition to say that it consists in believing 
 that God has given one a noble nature, and in a determi¬ 
 nation to do nothing unworthy of that nature. But 
 though difficult to describe what it is, it is easy to show 
 what it is not. It is not vanity, for vanity is ever 
 seeking for applause and admiration, which self-respect 
 
76 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 forbids. It is not conceit, for conceit makes people 
 think themselves cleverer and handsomer than they really 
 are, which self-respect does not. It is not pride, for 
 pride is quick to take offence, and self-respect is slow. 
 Yet pride is somewhat allied to self-respect: perhaps 
 pride is self-respect, mingled with and spoilt by vanity, 
 till half its good qualities are destroyed, or changed into 
 bad ones. Yanity, however, has no relationship whatever 
 to self-respect. They are deadly foes, and can scarcely 
 exist in the same disposition. In fact, one is sure to be 
 smothered and crushed down by the other till its power is 
 hardly felt; and a character will be great or small, strong 
 or weak, imposing or frivolous, according to which of the 
 two opposing qualities gains the victory, and becomes the 
 ruling power of life. 
 
 Vanity in everything refers to the opinion of others, 
 what they will say or think, wondering whether that 
 action or this observation will meet with applause or 
 disapprobation. Thus a vain character is seldom con¬ 
 sistent, for sometimes it will seek to please one set of 
 people, then another, and different means must be used 
 for each; so it is ever changing, ever varying, and from 
 lack of perseverance seldom excels. But self-respect 
 refers to no one, and goes its own way, contented if it 
 secures its own approbation and the respect of its fellow 
 men and women. Yet it is not conceited, for its require¬ 
 ments are high, and it will never be satisfied till it comes 
 up to its own standard of excellence. I have read an 
 anecdote which well illustrates the power of self-respect 
 in a child. His companions laughed at him for missing 
 an opportunity of stealing some apples, when there was 
 
SELF-EE SPE CT.-EXAMPLE.-INFLUENCE. 
 
 77 
 
 no one to see him; “But,” said he, “some one ivas 
 there to see me : I was there to see myself!” 
 
 Self-respect is ever willing to learn, for it wishes to 
 improve, and is not ashamed to own that it is ignorant. 
 Vanity would be also glad to learn, that it may adorn 
 itself with knowledge; hut then it cannot learn, without 
 first betraying that it is ignorant, and that it could not 
 endure. Vain people will deny a fault v/hich they know 
 thej'’ have committed to hide it from the world, hut 
 habitually self-respecting men or women will confess a 
 fault or error if they are convinced they have committed 
 it; for to have done so is, they feel, unworthy of them, 
 and they will make reparation as far as possible by con¬ 
 fession, without considering what bystanders may think, 
 for, till they have done so, they cannot forgive themselves 
 or regain their self-respect. This good quality, which 
 more than any other will preserve those possessing it 
 from mean faults, is in the power of every one to acquire, 
 for in good truth God has endowed each one of us with 
 a noble nature, or at least with the germ of a 
 noble nature which if we choose to cultivate, and do 
 not allow to he overrun and smothered by that vile weed, 
 vanity, will grow into a great tree hearing good fruit. 
 
 One of the good fruits it will produce is peace, for 
 self-respect is not quarrelsome ; it will not dispute where 
 it is in the wrong, and it will he careful never to advance 
 unjust claims, preferring rather to give up a just right, 
 than to enforce a doubtful one. Neither has self-respect 
 any tendency towards insubordination, for self-respect is 
 ever ready “to give honour where honour is due,” and 
 to obey lawful authority. It has been remarked that 
 proud women make the most obedient wives. This is 
 
78 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 readily to be believed, for by pride is here meant self- 
 respect ; and self-respect forbids to break a promise, or 
 to evade it, though it will not rashly make one. All 
 employers have lawful authority over the employed, as 
 long as they keep to the terms of the agreement; a self- 
 respecting person will therefore carefully obey her 
 employers, and punctually carry out their directions, 
 unless, indeed, they break their agreement, and then she 
 will manfully resist them. The senseless “ Uppishness,” 
 to use a vulgar but expressive word, sometimes seen in 
 young girls towards their employers, has nothing to do 
 with this quality, but is allied to vanity, as its usual 
 object is a false display of spirit, to produce an effect on 
 beholders; and such displays are not unfrequently 
 followed by an abject submission, entreaties for pardon, 
 and tears. But a self-respecting person will never draw 
 the sword except in a just cause, and when peace can no 
 longer be maintained without a sacrifice of principle ; and 
 then she will be ready to sheath it again whenever fair 
 and just terms of agreement are offered. 
 
 Self-respect is a great foe to jealousy, that child of 
 vanity still meaner and more contemptible, because 
 more malignant, than its parent; for self-respect, valuing 
 itself highly and knowing its own worth, is not sorry to 
 see others valued and honoured also. Jealousy is not 
 only mean, it is foolish; for the race of life is long, and 
 the best runner is sure to win at last, not the fastest 
 runner always—for a fast ruimer may fall, or go on the 
 wrong side of the post and have to come back again— 
 but the best, the steadiest, the most enduring, who takes 
 care not to fall, and to keep in the right course. Though 
 
SELF-EESPECT.-EXAMPLE.-INFLUENCE. 
 
 79 
 
 others may get the start at first, such a runner is sure to 
 win. Whoever feels himself to he such a runner may 
 make sure of the prize, but if the best runner does not 
 happen to be one-self, hut some one else, why should we 
 be angry at his success ? It is right and just that the 
 most meritorious should get the prize, and the person 
 who grumbles at losing it is unreasonable. 
 
 The world is seldom unjust in its estimate of character, 
 though individuals often are. Not, indeed, that in¬ 
 dividuals even are unjust to striking merit—that is 
 acknowledged everywhere—but to obscure, yet real 
 merit. Thus, in a small circle, a meritorious person 
 may be overlooked and undervalued. It is not that 
 the individuals composing it mean to he unjust—for 
 every one intends to he just, when his own interests 
 are not concerned—but because they are stupid, and 
 cannot perceive merit unless it is very obvious, and 
 also perhaps because they are deluded into admiring 
 some brilliant imitation which for a time they mistake 
 for the real thing. 
 
 When this is the case, let the undervalued person 
 move, if possible, into a fresh circle * but if the same 
 phenomenon renews itself, if worth is again left lan¬ 
 guishing unnoticed in a corner, let a suspicion enter 
 the head of the unappreciated individual that she is 
 not so very worthy after all, and that she only meets 
 with the treatment she deserves. There is a French 
 saying, “ Tout le monde a raison ,“ All the world is 
 right;” and if a person is continually finding herself 
 undervalued, why, then, the simple fact is, that she 
 overvalues herself, and that the other people are right. 
 
80 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 So, instead of complaining, let her set to work to make 
 herself what she wishes to he thought. 
 
 If another is more valued and considered than one¬ 
 self, either that person is really the most meritorious, or 
 else the delusion will in time be dissolved—the gilding 
 will wear off with use, and the brass will he discovered. 
 In neither case is it wise to complain. Sometimes 
 people whose exterior is unprepossessing, and whose 
 manners are harsh, may he unjustly disliked at first; but 
 if their qualities within are really valuable, they will, 
 before long, be appreciated as they deserve. We musi 
 remember, however, that there are rough pebbles as well 
 as rough diamonds, and that bitter chestnuts have a 
 prickly outside as well as sweet ones; so we must not 
 fancy ourselves to he^ good, because we know we are 
 disagreeable. Even when concealing a sweet and 
 valuable kernel, these rough outsides are disadvantageous 
 to their owners; for, though intimate associates may 
 become aware of the good underneath, acquaintances 
 cannot possibly guess at its existence, and a feeling of 
 dislike may spring up which it will take years to remove. 
 Therefore, these inconvenient disguises should he got rid 
 of as quickly and decidedly as possible, for why should 
 we allow our good to be evil spoken of unnecessarily ? 
 Why “mar the good we might do here” by making 
 ourselves purposely unpleasant ? 
 
 And now, I will say a few words on influence, taking 
 it for granted that influence is a thing generally desired. 
 Good people must wish for it when they see so much 
 misery and wickedness around them; for how can they 
 help desiring to possess the means of putting a stop to 
 
SELF-RESPECT.-EXAMPLE.-INFLUENCE. 
 
 81 
 
 it ? Bad people wish for it, that they may have plenty 
 of companions in their wicked courses. Only a few very 
 selfish individuals are indifferent to it; because, not 
 being sociable, they do not want companions, and not 
 being good-hearted, they do not mind seeing other 
 people make themselves miserable by their folly, or by 
 their vices. 
 
 Thus, the great majority of the world wish for in¬ 
 fluence, and it is a legitimate object of desire, not for its 
 own sake—not for the petty gratification of being able to 
 persuade people to give up their will to our own, but for 
 the noble purpose of leading them to act wisely and 
 uprightly. 
 
 The learned Dr. Butler said, “ Duty and interest are 
 perfectly coincident, for the most part in this world, and 
 in every instance if we take in the future.” Now, who 
 that believes this sentence can fail to wish to lead others 
 to believe it, and also to act up to the belief ? Let us, 
 then, inquire what kind of persons those are who can 
 acquire influence. Yain people, though they so much 
 wish to obtain it—not to exercise it, but for display—can 
 seldom, if ever, attain it, for they seek after the opinion 
 of the circle around them, that they may follow it, and 
 those cannot lead who must always be following. 
 
 Self-respect and self-control, are the two great re¬ 
 quisites in a leader, and they generally go together, as 
 those who respect themselves will be careful not to lose 
 their self-control; for what is less to be respected than a 
 human being in a state of violent anger or fear ? 
 
 Most of all, example gains influence. 
 
82 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 Whoever persistently behaves well will be respected, 
 and her words will come with weight. 
 
 A clever dissembler may gain respect for a time, but 
 hypocrisy is sure to be found out before long, and, as a 
 general rule, it deceives no one even for a moment. 
 
 Sincerity, to put it on the lowest ground, is, like 
 honesty, the best policy, for it v^ns respect, even if it 
 sometimes gives offence ; but an upright life, a course of 
 good actions, both great and small, is the real talisman 
 for gaining influence that never fails. But this sincerity 
 and perfect uprightness of life is not a thing easily 
 attained. It will not be established by a simple effort of 
 will, though such an effort will help us to attain it. In 
 no instance is it truer that “Pride goes before a fall ” 
 than in this. 
 
 Persons who are convinced it is impossible for them to 
 do a shabby thing, or commit a mean action, are some¬ 
 times surprised into it, or are induced to commit it, by 
 others in whom they have confidence, without perceiving, 
 till too late, the real character of their behaviour. This 
 is liable to befall all inexperienced people ; and women, 
 generally, are inexperienced in anything that relates to 
 business, so they should be specially on their guard. 
 
 The great preservative against such a fall is not to 
 be over-confident, but to watch our own conduct carefully, 
 and to pray God continually to keep us from everything 
 mean and base. 
 
 No one who possesses the moral qualities requisite for 
 obtaining influence, is so low in social station, so poor, so 
 ignorant, as to be without it; and as God often chooses 
 weak instruments to work with, great deeds have some- 
 
SELF-RESPECT.-EXAMPLE.-INFLUENCE. 
 
 83 
 
 times been done by very little men and women; deeds 
 that will live in history, and have made their mark on 
 time. 
 
 One of such deeds was the work of John Pounds, the 
 cobbler, at Portsmouth. As he sat in his room in a back 
 street, mending shoes, he used to watch the little ragged 
 boys of the neighbourhood at play. He saw and heard 
 how ignorant they were, and how wicked they were in 
 danger of becoming—their parents being too poor, or too 
 careless to send them to school, or teach them anything 
 good. 
 
 At last, he was moved to take pity on them ; but what 
 could a poor cobbler do, a man who had to work for his 
 bread, and had no money to spare ? Why, he called to 
 them, and said he would teach any boy to read who 
 wished it, without charge, as he sat at his cobbling. One 
 or two came, and he taught them to read out of his old 
 Bible; then more came, till presently his room was full. 
 Now and then, a starving boy would come, who had had 
 no food all day, and then he would give him a potato— 
 all he could spare. 
 
 He taught them, above all, the duty of honesty, and 
 many a lad who would have proved a thief, grew up 
 an honest labourer in consequence of his teaching. 
 Altogether, 500 boys passed through his school, and at 
 length the story got known ; people came to look at 
 his ragged pupils at their lessons. An artist took a 
 picture of the scene, engravings were made from the 
 picture, they were sold about the country, and one was 
 hung up in a little inn. It chanced to meet the eye of a 
 famous Scotch preacher. Dr. Guthrie; he asked the 
 
 G 
 
84 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 story, was struck with the idea, and, as he himself said, 
 felt ashamed that he should have done so little, compared 
 to this poor cobbler. 
 
 So he set to work, and preached that in every tov/n 
 schools for ragged children ought to he opened, at which 
 no fee should he paid, no tidy clothes required, and 
 where some coarse common food should he provided for 
 the very famished. The scheme spread, and now, in 
 almost every great town in England and Scotland, such 
 schools have been established, and have proved the 
 means of rescuing thousands of poor children from 
 ignorance and vice. These schools are now considered 
 very important, and are discussed in the Houses of 
 Parliament, and able men of rank and learning dispute 
 about the best method of conducting them, hut they all 
 arose out of the cobbler’s stall at Portsmouth, and 
 humble John Pounds was the author of the movement, 
 and set the example which Queen, Lords, and Commons 
 are following. Dr. Guthrie said of him, ‘‘When the 
 day comes when honour will he done to whom honour is 
 due, I can fancy the crowd of those whose fame poets 
 have sung, and to whose memory monuments have been 
 raised, dividing like a wave, and passing the great, the 
 noble, and the mighty of the land, this poor obscure old 
 man stepping forward, and receiving the especial notice 
 of Him who said, ‘ Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the 
 least of these, ye did it also to Me.’ ” 
 
 Women, also, have taken their part in the improve¬ 
 ment of their fellow-creatures. Sarah Martin, the 
 daughter of a working mechanic, was horn in 1791, in 
 a small village three miles from Yarmouth. Her 
 
SELF-EESPECT.-EXAMPLE.-INFLUENCE. 
 
 85 
 
 parents dying while she was very young, she was taken 
 care of by her grandmother. 
 
 She received her education at the village school, was 
 afterwards apprenticed to the dress-making trade, and 
 then earned her living by going out to sew in neigh¬ 
 bouring families. Often, on her way to and from her 
 work, she passed the jail, which w^as placed just outside 
 the town, and always thought with pity of the poor 
 creatures within, and even when as young as nineteen, 
 began to wish she could he admitted to read the Scrip¬ 
 tures to them, and to help them to be less wicked and 
 miserable. 
 
 Some nine years afterwards, the opportunity for doing 
 so occurred. A woman from her neighbourhood was 
 committed to prison for child-murder; Sarah went to see 
 her, and thus relates the interview:— 
 
 “ When I told her the motive of my visit, of her guilt, 
 and her need of God’s mercy, she hurst into tears and 
 thanked me.” 
 
 Her reception proved her fitness for the task: she 
 found she possessed powder to move the prisoners, and 
 visited them as often as she could find time ; she taught 
 the women to sew and knit, and the men to make boys’ 
 caps, for, till then, they had been quite idle, and all who 
 wished to learn, she taught to read. 
 
 Old men, who had grown grey in crime, might he seen 
 reading out of children’s primers. Violent and depraved 
 women grew submissive and gentle under her influence, 
 and would learn verses of the Scripture by heart at her 
 bidding, and all these operations, he it observed, were 
 carried on with no authority save what was derived from 
 
8G 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 the teacher’s own innate force of character. But, 
 successful as were her prison ministrations, she feared to 
 he obliged to give them up, for they occupied almost all 
 her time, and she had her own livelihood to earn. 
 
 Some inhabitants of the town, who respected her 
 exertions, and saw how much good she had elfected, 
 made a representation to the Government in behalf of 
 the prisoners, and in consequence Sarah was given a 
 small salary of £15 or £20 a-year, just enough to live 
 on, and so she went on with the good work she had 
 begun, and added other good works to it, teaching in 
 the evenings at a large school for factory girls, and 
 visiting the sick in the workhouse. 
 
 Thus she lived for many years, and so happy was she 
 made by her useful life, that persons passing her lodging 
 at night, often heard her singing merrily to herself, as 
 she was preparing for rest. She died in 1842, aged 
 fifty-two years. After her death, the journal she had 
 kept in reference to the prisoners, and some other 
 records of hers, were presented to the public library at 
 Yarmouth, and are there preserved. Her life has often 
 been written in detail; but the best memorial in her 
 honour is the improvement in the jail, which has never 
 fallen back into its old neglected state. So her useful¬ 
 ness extends beyond the grave, and her work still lives, 
 though she has gone to her rest. 
 
 A still greater efi’ect for good was produced by another 
 woman, in a yet humbler sphere of life, and by one who 
 could neither read nor write. 
 
 Elizabeth Freeman, or ‘‘Mum Bett,” as she was 
 generally called, from her silent habits, was bom about 
 
SELF-EESPECT.-EXAMPLE.-INFLUENCE. 
 
 87 
 
 1742, in tlie neighbourhood of New York, in America. 
 She was a negress, her parents being natives of Africa, 
 who were kidnapped and carried off to he sold as slaves. 
 When ten years old, she and a younger sister were sold 
 -away from their father and mother by their owner, to a 
 gentleman who lived in the State of Massachusetts, in 
 which it was then lawful to keep slaves. Here she lived 
 for many years, till one day the lady of the house, in a 
 fit of passion, struck at the younger sister with a heated 
 kitchen shovel. Mum Bett interposed her arm, and 
 received the blow, the scar of which she bore to the day 
 of her death. She resented the outrage and left the 
 house. 
 
 But Mum Bett was only a slave, and her master 
 appealed to the law to have her sent hack. She, on her 
 part, called on Mr. Sedgwick, a kind and clever lawyer, 
 and asked him if she could not claim her liberty under 
 the law. He inquired what could put such an idea into 
 her head ? She replied, that the Bill of Eights declared 
 all mankind to be born free, and that, as she was not a 
 dumb beast, she must be free also. When asked how 
 she had learnt to reason thus, she answered, “ By biding 
 still and minding things; ” for it was a favourite theory 
 of hers, that people might learn much by keeping still, 
 and minding what went on around them. On being 
 requested to explain herself further, she said, that when 
 waiting at table, she had heard gentlemen talking over 
 the Bill of Eights, and the new Constitution of Massa¬ 
 chusetts, and had thus learnt that all people were 
 declared to be born free and equal, and so resolved she 
 would try whether she did not come in among them. 
 
88 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 The framers of this law had never intended to include 
 black men; they had only meant to declare that white 
 people were, by nature, free; but as they had said 
 nothing about negroes, and had not excluded them, it 
 gave a chance of obtaining freedom, which Mum Bett 
 had been acute enough to perceive. Mr. Sedgwick 
 undertook her cause, and won it. She obtained her 
 freedom, and a sum of money as compensation for her 
 services since she was twenty-one. “ What shall I do 
 with all this money of yours ? ” inquired Mr. Sedgwick. 
 “Fee all the lawyers well; pay ’em handsomely,” said 
 she, “ and keep the rest till I ask for it.” 
 
 This was wise and generous, for by paying the lawyers 
 handsomely, she would encourage them to help any other' 
 slave in the same position. A selfish person would have 
 paid no more than she was compelled, and kept as much 
 as she could for herself; but Mum Bett thought of the 
 rights and interests of others, as well as of her own. 
 Her example was followed by many slaves, and from the 
 day of her emancipation, more and more negroes claimed 
 and received their liberty under the Bill of Eights, till at 
 last, slavery was abolished in the State of Massachusetts. 
 Thus, a poor ignorant woman was a chief instrument in 
 obtaining freedom for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of 
 her fellow-creatures. By her courage and sense, she 
 abolished more misery and created more happiness than 
 ten thousand pounds spent in charity could have done.* 
 
 * This story is from “ Ectrospect of Western Travel,” by Harriet 
 Martineau, page 104. 
 
SELF-RESPECT.-EXAMPLE.-INFLUENCE. 
 
 89 
 
 These examples have been chosen to show how much 
 good may be effected by persons possessed of no external 
 advantages whatever, and with no help but that afforded 
 by their own sense and good feeling; but persons 
 possessed of higher qualifications and advantages have it 
 in their power to effect yet more. Mrs. Fry, being 
 wealthy, well-educated, and belonging to an influential 
 family, did on a large scale what Sarah Martin did on a 
 small one, and reformed not one jail, but many. 
 
 Mrs. Chisholm, in our own time, has been the means 
 of giving happiness to hundreds. Feeling acutely for the 
 sufferings which women often have to undergo to earn 
 their bread in their restricted field of labour at home, she 
 raised money by subscription to hire a ship to take some 
 away to the colonies, and when she had collected a 
 shipload, she went out with them to make sure that they 
 were well treated on the voyage. When they had 
 arrived, after as many servants had been engaged as 
 were wanted in the towns, she hired waggons for the 
 rest and took them into the country, dropping a girl or 
 two at every farmhouse, the country people being sadly 
 in want of servants, till at last all had got situations, and 
 she returned with an empty train of waggons. This 
 voyage and journey she repeated many times, so that 
 numbers of poor women are now in Australia, earning 
 good wages, or perhaps comfortably married, who would 
 otherwise have been struggling for bread in England. 
 Yet Mrs. Chisholm had not many advantages. She was 
 never rich, and possessed no influence but what she won 
 by her kind heart and a hand ever ready to help. Her 
 health having failed, she has given up her voyages, and 
 
90 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 having become a widow she is now living in Australia, 
 where she has to support herself, and where she must 
 often meet some of her former emigrants, who, it is to 
 he hoped, show her the gratitude she deserves. 
 
 It is sometimes said that though women are often very 
 charitable to individuals, yet they are too narrow-minded 
 to devise or carry out a scheme to help whole classes of 
 sufferers, because they feel pity only for misery that is 
 actually before their eyes, and have no compassion for 
 that which is out of their sight, even though they know it 
 to exist. A poet, and a female poet too, says,— 
 
 “None of these things 
 Can ■woman understand. You generalize— 
 
 Oh, nothing! not even grief. * * # 
 
 * * A red-hair’d child 
 
 Sick in a fever, if you touch him once, 
 
 Though hut so little as with a finger-tip. 
 
 Will set you weeping; but a million sick— 
 
 You could as soon weep for the rule of three 
 Or compound fractions. Therefore this same world 
 By you uncomprehended, must remain 
 By you uninfluenced. Women as you are— 
 
 Mere women—personal and passionate.” 
 
 Now, whether this be true or not as a rule, there are 
 certainly many exceptions. Neither Mrs. Fry nor 
 Sarah Martin had any acquaintance with the prisoners 
 before they went among them, nor could Mrs. Chisholm 
 have had a personal interest in each of the many hundred 
 girls she took out with her; she pitied them as a class, 
 and helped them as a class. 
 
SELF-RESPECT.-EXAMPLE.-INFLUENCE. 
 
 91 
 
 I am inclined, therefore, to think the poet’s accusation 
 untrue, and that the reason why women so seldom 
 succeed in doing good on a large scale proceeds more 
 from ignorance of business than from want of the 
 power of generalizing. Still the fact remains true, 
 that persons, who can form a plan for helping a class, 
 do much more good than those who give away shillings 
 and sixpences in assisting individuals; and of all plans 
 for helping people, those are the best which enable them 
 to help themselves. 
 
 I am far, however, from wishing to depreciate alms¬ 
 giving, as there are many cases of distress in which 
 such help is much wanted. To provide persons with 
 employment and other means of self-help is to cure the 
 disease of misery. Almsgiving is a palliative only, but 
 the cure is of such slow process, that often the patient 
 would die before it could take effect if it were not for the 
 palliative. 
 
 Still, we must never fancy that almsgiving can cure 
 misery, for as it is of the nature of moral evil it can 
 only be cured by enabling those afflicted with it to fight 
 against and cast it off for themselves. The best plan, 
 however, is to guard against its approaches while it is still 
 far off, by diligent and vigorous “ self-help.” 
 
 At this moment a plan for helping working women to 
 help themselves is much wanted. It is a plan that can 
 only be carried out by working women, and I cannot 
 help hoping that, if I succeed in showing how great 
 its advantages would be, some of my readers may have 
 sufficient knowledge of business to put it into execution. 
 
92 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 By a working woman I mean a woman wko maintains 
 herself by her own honourable industry, to whatever 
 sphere of life she may belong, and the plan to which 
 I allude is that of forming benefit societies for working 
 
 women. 
 
CHAPTEE Vn. 
 
 for lotomiftt. 
 
 “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” 
 Gal. yi. 2. 
 
 Benefit societies for men have existed for many years 
 in all parts of the country, hut societies for women are 
 less numerous and seem to be chiefly confined to the 
 northern and western counties, though here and there 
 one is to be found in other districts. 
 
 Benefit societies are said to be French inventions, and 
 to have been imported into this country by the persecuted 
 protestants, who took refuge here after the revocation of 
 the edict of Nantes. There are a great number now in 
 France for men and several for women. 
 
 M. Simon, a French writer of celebrity, gives an 
 account of these clubs for women in a book called 
 “ L’ouvriere,” (“ The Working Woman”) as follows :— 
 
 “ Although the number of members in all France does 
 not exceed twelve thousand, the result may he considered 
 conclusive. The societies have been well managed, the 
 meetings have passed quietly, and the receipts have 
 exceeded the expenses,—an indispensable condition of 
 success. The number of honorary members is less 
 
94 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 considerable in tbe societies for women than in those for 
 men, a circumstance much to be regretted,' but which 
 will probably disappear when the principles of these 
 female societies are better known and more fully ap¬ 
 preciated. Ladies can in no way do more good at a less 
 expense than by assisting these institutions, which serve 
 as protections to the health and morals of young girls 
 and single women. A poor woman who belongs to no 
 society does not send for the doctor till the illness has 
 become serious. That alone is an injury, not only to 
 the sick person, but also to the public health. Societies 
 would put an end to that; they would also suppress 
 the most frequent cause of want, that is, being out of 
 work from illness, and they would supply the place of 
 a family to single women. Now, the causes of women 
 falling into bad courses, are first want, and secondly 
 loneliness.” 
 
 M. Simon further tells us, that the first society for 
 women was founded at Grenoble in the year 1822; and 
 as there were 140 when he wrote in 1861, they must 
 have spread pretty rapidly. If similar societies were 
 spreading with equal rapidity in England, women would 
 have cause to congratulate themselves, for there is not 
 a class of “ breadwinners ” to whom these societies would 
 not prove a comfort and support. From the highly 
 educated and well-salaried governess,'*' down to the 
 poorest maid-servant! or agricultural labourer—all would 
 
 * A sick fund might perhaps be added to that admirable Charity, 
 the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution. 
 
 t A benefit club might be established with advantage in connexion , 
 with every Register office for servants, the servants paying contributions 
 
BENEFIT SOCIETIES FOE WOMEN. 
 
 95 
 
 feel the benefit of these institutions. At present, when 
 illness conies, there follows loss of employment, a rapid 
 consumption of scanty savings, then the pain of falling a 
 heavy burden on family or friends, and finally, in some 
 cases, an appeal to private charity, or perhaps a bed in 
 the workhouse infirmary. 
 
 I have said enough to show how desirable it is that 
 benefit societies for women should be established in all 
 parts of the country, and now proceed to treat of the 
 practical work of establishing them; but on this point I 
 speak with diffidence, for not having had a share in 
 establishing one myself, I cannot give my own experience, 
 but can only quote from books or the experience of 
 others. Still, the information I can give may be of use. 
 
 Benefit societies may be established under very 
 different rules, but some principles apply to all alike. 
 A society would hardly be safe which contained less than 
 fifty members. From seventy to two hundred seems to 
 be about the best number, as that is enough for security 
 without becoming difficult to manage. The average number 
 in Frenchwomen’s clubs is eighty-five. In all cases 
 members must subscribe for at least three months before 
 receiving any benefits, and it is usually better to require 
 a subscription of six months. The reason is that if 
 there was no fund in hand to begin with, a sudden 
 epidemic might cause bankruptcy at once. The sick 
 
 and receiving sick allowances in proportion to their wages. Women of 
 education could not confer a greater boon on their poorer sisters than by 
 taking the necessary trouble for the establishment and management of 
 these societies. Unfortunately, ladies, though often generous of their 
 money, are seldom inclined to take trouble. 
 
96 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 allowance should also, without exception, be very con¬ 
 siderably smaller than the salary or wages earned while 
 in health. If it is the same, or nearly the same, idle 
 members will be tempted to pretend they are ill in order 
 to obtain it; or if they do not positively resort to decep¬ 
 tion, will be inclined to fancy themselves in worse health 
 than they really are. Thus, the educated worker who 
 earns a pound a week jought to receive no more than 
 fifteen shillings as sick allowance, and on the same 
 principle the field labourer who earns only five or six 
 shillings a week should • receive no more than four 
 shillings. 
 
 Another rule should b^ observed— i.e^ the woman whose 
 work is partly domestic, partly away from home, should 
 not receive the full sick allowance when too ill to do her 
 out-door work, but not too ill to do her home work. She 
 should then receive the half allowance only. Thus, if a 
 person who receives her board and lodging in return for 
 acting as companion or housekeeper to some relation or 
 friend, and earns money besides by daily teaching or 
 some other occupation away from home, should become 
 too ill to teach, but is still able to continue to act as 
 companion or housekeeper, she should receive the half 
 allowance; but if too ill to keep her situation as house¬ 
 keeper or companion, she should receive the whole 
 allowance. 
 
 Also, if the wife of a day labourer, whose usual 
 occupation is taking care of her children, but who some¬ 
 times goes out to work, should fall ill and be unable to go 
 out to work, but is still able to perform her domestic 
 work, she should receive the half allowance, but if too 
 
BENjif’IT SOCIETIES FOR WOMEN. 
 
 97 
 
 ill to do her household work she should receive the whole 
 allowance. Experience has shewn the necessity of this 
 rule, for when the full allowance is given, women, whose 
 occupations are partly domestic, have proved themselves 
 apt to give way to the slightest indisposition, and thus 
 subject the club to much unnecessary expense. 
 
 The chief consideration on starting a club is, what 
 amount of monthly contribution is required to obtain the 
 requisite sick allowance. The following table, which has 
 received the approbation of the eminent actuary, Mr. 
 S. Brown, of the Guardian Assurance Office, will assist in 
 deciding this point. Benefits and contributions to cease 
 at sixty years of age. 
 
 A monthly contribution of 
 
 Class 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 will secure 
 
 1 
 
 0 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 7 
 
 99 
 
 0 
 
 15 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 9 9 
 
 0 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
 0 
 
 8 
 
 9 9 
 
 0 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 0 
 
 5 
 
 99 
 
 0 
 
 4 
 
 per week for 26 weeks 
 
 
 If the illness lasts longer than twenty-six weeks, the 
 allowance must be reduced to one-half; if it lasts longer 
 than fifty-two weeks, it must be reduced to one quarter, 
 which will be continued for the remainder of the illness. 
 
 Extra yearly payments must also be made according to 
 age, as follows. 
 
 Class 
 
 Under 20 
 
 20 to 25 
 s. d. 
 
 25 to 30 
 
 30 to 
 
 s. 
 
 35 
 
 d. 
 
 35 and upwards 
 
 s. d. 
 
 1 
 
 Nothing 
 
 2 
 
 0 
 
 4 
 
 0 
 
 6 
 
 0 
 
 8 
 
 0 
 
 2 
 
 9 9 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 0 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 0 
 
 3 
 
 9 y 
 
 1 
 
 0 
 
 2 
 
 0 
 
 3 
 
 0 
 
 4 
 
 0 
 
 4 
 
 y y 
 
 0 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 0 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 99 
 
 0 
 
 5 
 
 0 10 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 ‘8 
 
98 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 If extra yearly payments are found inconvenient and a 
 uniform system, without distinction of age, is preferred, 
 it appears obvious that the yearly payment made between 
 thirty and thirty-five should be divided into twelve parts, 
 and one part added to each monthly payment. Thus the 
 monthly contribution of 2s. 2d. to secure £1 a week, would 
 be increased to 2s. 8d. and so on. This, however, is only 
 my own suggestion; Mr. Brown has not sanctioned it. 
 It should be observed that the sick allowance is calcu¬ 
 lated to cease at sixty; if it is desired to continue it for 
 life, higher monthly contributions must be made. 
 
 I do not know how much higher the contribution ought 
 to be ; an actuary must be applied to for that information. 
 If the monthly contributions are thought too high, they 
 may be lowered by reducing the number of weeks during 
 which the full sick allowance is given, and granting it for 
 only twelve or sixteen weeks. I cannot undertake to say 
 in what proportion it ought to be reduced. 
 
 The government of the club must depend on the 
 amount of education and intelligence to be found among 
 its members. 
 
 Clubs for the educated classes may be entirely self- 
 governed, those for the uneducated would require the 
 supervision of honorary members; but some share of the 
 management should always remain with the ordinary 
 members, or public spirit will be liable to diminish 
 among them. The b6st way of obtaining a good con¬ 
 stitution, would be to read over the rules of two or three 
 successful well-managed clubs, whether for men or 
 women, and adopt the plan which appears the best, with 
 
BENEFIT SOCIETIES FOE WOMEN. 
 
 99 
 
 such modifications as may be required. Some rules, 
 however, apply to all. 
 
 Great care should he taken to secure the club fund 
 from dishonesty. To effect this, the Secretary should he 
 required to give security, and no larger sum should be 
 allowed to remain in her hands than that for which she 
 has given security. Anything more than this should he 
 paid into the Post Office Savings Bank, out of which it 
 should he impossible for anyone to draw any money 
 without the signature of three trustees, who must he 
 persons of great respectability. 
 
 Every club to he successful must accumulate a large 
 fund during the first years of its formation, for the 
 reason that young people are less liable to illness than 
 old ones, therefore, while the members are young, they 
 pay more than is required for their immediate wants ; 
 this money accumulates, and the interest arising from it 
 will be found necessary when the members are old. The 
 amount of illness to be expected in a woman’s club, and 
 its gradual increase as old age approaches is shewn in 
 the following table from the government returns.* 
 
 The average amount of sickness per annum to each 
 person, expressed in days. 
 
 Age. 
 
 Females. 
 
 20 
 
 8.22 
 
 25 
 
 8.03 
 
 30 
 
 9.00 
 
 35 
 
 10.28 
 
 40 
 
 10.09 
 
 45 
 
 11.27 
 
 50 
 
 13.15 
 
 60 
 
 20.66 
 
 * Mr. Glenfindlaison’s report. 1853. Page xxvii. 
 
100 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 On account of this increase in illness as life advances, 
 it is necessary to prevent old persons from joining the 
 club, for if the club has not made a profit upon them 
 while young, it cannot afford a loss upon them when old. 
 
 In order to encourage persons to join while young, a 
 sliding scale of entrance fees ought to be established 
 according to age—very low—or nothing for members 
 under twenty-five, more considerable between that age 
 and thirty, very high between thirty and thirty-five, and 
 almost prohibitory between thirty-five and forty. After 
 forty no one ought to be admitted, and persons known to 
 have chronic bad health must be excluded also. 
 
 When a club has not many honorary members, but is 
 intended to be really self-supporting, this rule must be 
 strictly adhered to, or bankruptcy will ensue. 
 
 Various modes exist in the different clubs by which 
 sick members apply for the allowance, and though this 
 seems unimportant, experience shows that much depends 
 on it. 
 
 It is not unusual for the sick member to send for the 
 club doctor, and ask him for a certificate of illness, and 
 this certificate being sent to the secretary, procures a 
 week’s allowance. 
 
 Another plan is for the sick member to send for an 
 ofiicer of the society, called a steward or visitor, who, if 
 she thinks fit, gives an order for the doctor, and another 
 for the week’s allowance. If the member is refused the 
 allowance, and thinks herself aggrieved, she may com¬ 
 plain to the committee which meets every month. The 
 first plan is the simplest, and avoids disputes; but in 
 some instances it appears to lead to extravagance, as the 
 
BENEFIT SOCIETIES FOR WOMEN. 
 
 101 
 
 doctor, if an easy-going good-natured man, will give 
 certificates too readily without a sufiiciently careful scrutiny. 
 The steward, having the interests of the club at heart, is 
 usually stricter. The accounts of two clubs are now 
 before me, and in that where the doctor’s certificate 
 secures the allowance, the amount of illness paid for has 
 been for some years almost double that of the club, 
 where the allowance is given on the order of the steward. 
 When the former plan is followed, the doctor should at 
 least be appointed by the managing committee, not 
 elected by the members, and a very careful doctor 
 selected. 
 
 When the members of a club are very poor, fortnightly 
 contributions are more easily paid than monthly ones. 
 If a member does not pay her contribution for three 
 months, she should be considered to have withdrawn, 
 and be entitled to no sick allov»^ance unless she pays up 
 all at once. 
 
 In clubs for wealthier persons, the contributions might 
 be.payable quarterly, and a member not be considered as 
 withdrawn under six months’ cessation of subscription. 
 
 In all cases members who have removed to a distance, 
 should be required to pay only once in three months, and 
 should receive their allowance on the certificate of the 
 doctor who attends them, together with that of the 
 clergyman of the parish, or some respectable householder. 
 
 The expense of a club doctor is usually three shillings 
 a year for each member, for which he is bound to furnish 
 medicines gratis. This necessitates an extra expense of 
 threepence per monthly contribution. Some clubs do 
 
102 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 not employ a doctor, but when it can be afforded, the 
 attendance of a doctor is doubtless a great benefit. 
 
 In many cases a sum towards funeral expenses is also 
 provided by the club. The monthly contribution of one 
 penny secures one pound five shillings for the funeral. 
 
 The expenses of managing the club vary according to 
 the wealth of the members. A penny a month for each 
 member seems to be the minimum ; and in some clubs the 
 honorary members undertake to pay for this part of the 
 concern. Threepence a month per member is a very 
 usual charge for expenses when paid by the ordinary 
 members. The salary of the secretary varies from two 
 pounds a year to twenty-five pounds, according to the 
 wealth of the club. 
 
 The visitors are frequently paid, but sometimes the 
 members of the club take the office in turn without pay. 
 It would probably be better to pay them when the club 
 can afford it. I think I have now touched on the chief 
 points, which concern the welfare of a benefit club. 
 There is every reason to believe that women’s clubs, 
 when founded on good principles, are perfectly successful. 
 One was established by a clergyman in the agricultural 
 village of Hawkshead, on the borders of Westmoreland 
 and Lancashire, in 1798, and is still flourishing with one 
 hundred and seventy members, and a fund of above £900. 
 This club gives the sick allowance for life, but after sixty 
 the half allowance only is given. The members are chiefly 
 labourers’ wives and maid-servants; and only three 
 pounds a year is received from honorary members. 
 
 Benefit societies would be of much service to dress¬ 
 makers, and shopwomen in towns. One which was started 
 
BENEFIT SOCIETIES FOR WOMEN. 
 
 103 
 
 in 1863 in London, for female telegraph clerks, gives 
 good promise of success. 
 
 No fear need be entertained that the tables here given 
 are not high enough, they are at least higher than those 
 of the successful club at Hawkshead. They are amply 
 sufficient unless deception is practised with regard to 
 illness, and if deception becomes customary among the 
 members of a club, it is impossible to say how high the 
 tables ought to be to allow for it. 
 
 It is stated, I regret to say, that much feigned illness is 
 to be found among women in clubs. I believe that this 
 occurs, not in women’s clubs, but in mixed clubs for men 
 and women, and when it is the case it will be also found, 
 I think, that women are not admitted to a full share of 
 the management of the society or of the offices belonging 
 to it. This diminishes their interest in the institution, 
 and causes them to consider it a mere instrument for 
 obtaining money. Their public spirit being checked, a 
 selfish one springs up in its place. This exclusion from 
 office does not justify the dishonest conduct of the female 
 members, but it accounts for and in some degree excuses 
 it. The first departure from equity comes at least from 
 the side of the male members. Female members should 
 remember, however, that wrong doing ought not to be 
 counteracted by more wrong doing. If an injustice 
 cannot be resisted, it should be endured, and not revenged 
 by another act of injustice committed with subtlety. 
 The women who have thus acted have degraded them¬ 
 selves, and given their whole sex a bad character for 
 trustworthiness and honourable dealing. 
 
 Whenever men or women are in the same club, the 
 
104 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 women ought, in justice, to be eligible for the committee 
 of management, and a certain number, according to the 
 proportion of women in the club, ought to be placed upon 
 it; if this is not done, the men may feel sure that the 
 public spirit of the women with regard to the interests 
 of the club will be less keen than their own. And this 
 is not the result of any feminine peculiarity, hut is a part 
 of human nature. If the brown-haired men in a club 
 were to decide that the black-haired men should hold no 
 offices in it, the public spirit of the black-haired men 
 would soon be found to decline. Above all, women 
 visitors for the sick should be instituted (unless a doctor 
 is employed to give certificates) whenever women are 
 admitted into the club, and if the male visitor is paid, 
 the female visitor should be paid also. If any woman 
 was inclined to feign illness, she would find it more 
 difficult to deceive one of her own sex than a man. 
 
 In a mixed club, where the men subscribe for a high 
 rate of sick allowance, the sick allowance of the women 
 should be less than half that of the men, as the wages 
 of women are (at least in agricultural districts) less than 
 half those of men. Also, as women have a greater 
 share of illness than men, they ought to pay rather more 
 in proportion.* Thus, if a man paid Is. 2d. a month to 
 secure a sick allowance of 10s. a week until sixty-five, a 
 woman ought to pay 7d. (half) a month to secure 4s. 6d. 
 a week sick allowance, somewhat less than half. 
 
 * The following table from the government returns shows the amount 
 of illness among men and women. Mr. Glenfindlaison’s Report, pp. 22 
 and 55. Average amount of sickness per annum to each person expressed 
 in days. 
 
BENEFIT SOCIETIES FOR WOMEN. 
 
 105 
 
 The rule should also he observed, that women whose 
 work is partly domestic, partly out of doors, are to receive 
 only the half allowance unless too ill to do their domestic 
 work. 
 
 Under just regulations men and women might join 
 together in a club with success; but as it would he 
 troublesome and difficult to secure just regulations, 
 especially that of admitting the women to an equal share 
 of the honours and offices, it is probably better to form 
 separate clubs for each sex. 
 
 I believe that if these societies for mutual help were 
 generally established among women, they would confer 
 
 Age. 
 
 Men engaged 
 in light labour 
 
 Men engaged 
 in heavy labr. 
 
 Females 
 
 20 
 
 6.42 
 
 7.10 
 
 8.58 
 
 25 
 
 5.97 
 
 7.34 
 
 8.03 
 
 30 
 
 5.98 
 
 7.57 
 
 9.00 
 
 35 
 
 6.13 
 
 7.92 
 
 10.28 
 
 40 
 
 7.16 
 
 9.10 
 
 10.09 
 
 45 
 
 7.94 
 
 10.58 
 
 11.27 
 
 50 
 
 10.40 
 
 12.48 
 
 13.15 
 
 60 
 
 16.15 
 
 21.42 
 
 20.66 
 
 70 
 
 40.86 
 
 46.65 
 
 32.81 
 
 80 
 
 90.96 
 
 104.25 
 
 55.97 
 
 
 197.97 
 
 234.41 
 
 179.84 
 
 This gives women a less proportion of illness than men, and no doubt 
 there is less illness among women in clubs which continue to give the 
 sick allowance for life. But as a general rule, clubs in England cease at 
 60 or 65, which leaves a greater proportion of illness to women. If the 
 tables ended at 60, the number of days’ sickness would be, light labour, 
 66.15; heav)’’ labour, 85.51; women, 91.6. Agricultural labourers are 
 included under the head of heavy labour. Women have about one-six¬ 
 teenth more illness than men engaged in heavy labour. The difference 
 between women and men engaged in light labour is far greater. 
 
106 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 inestimable benefits upon them, especially on single 
 women; for not only the help in sickness would be of 
 great value, but the companionship and interest of such 
 a society would cheer their lives, and give them a 
 pleasant interest.The employments of women are 
 frequently necessarily tedious and frivolous; this tedium 
 and frivolity they often feel painfully, and it produces in 
 them a kind of self-contempt. This is not observable in 
 men. A stout young fellow will sell ribbons for years, 
 and keep a high opinion of himself all the while ; and the 
 reason of this difference I believe to be that he is some¬ 
 thing more than a ribbon-seller when out of the shop. 
 Perhaps he is a rifle volunteer, or a good hand at cricket, 
 or he belongs to a debating club, or has some office in a 
 benefit society, or possesses some other pursuit or 
 avocation, in which he fills a position of importance, and 
 this knowledge keeps up his self-respect. If in the day 
 he is a mere drudge, when evening comes he is some¬ 
 body : thus he does not suffer from the humiliation of his 
 position. But with working women the case is different; 
 
 * Benefit clubs ouglit not to attempt to give allowances to persons 
 out of work, as so to do would encourage the idle or fastidious to decline 
 situations. It is true that very industrious women are often out of 
 place from no fault of their own, even when in health; but as it would 
 be impossible to distinguish between those who could not get work and 
 those who did not choose to take it, the attempt should be avoided 
 altogether, as it would end in the idle being maintained by the 
 industrious. It is a proper measure of precaution to send a copy of the 
 Eules, before they are printed, to John Tidd Pratt Esq., Eegistrar of 
 Benefit Societies, 28, Abingdon Street, Westminster; as Mr. Tidd Pratt 
 would point out any illegality in the rules, and in some cases has given 
 many useful dii’ections. 
 
BENEFIT SOCIETIES FOR WOMEN. 
 
 107 
 
 their position never changes, they are seldom important, 
 seldom looked up to with respect, and so their own self- 
 respect dies out, and they learn self-contempt. 
 
 Mr. Trollope, in his book on America,* speaks of the 
 painfully humble look and manner of English girls of the 
 middle and lower ranks. This humility is a misfortune, 
 not a virtue; it springs from unhappiness, and it leads to 
 misery; for women who have this feeling acquiesce in 
 their own wretchedness, and seem to think that any kind 
 of bad treatment is good enough for such poor creatures 
 as they are. They will not struggle against injustice or 
 misfortune, but yield to it at once, as if they knew it was 
 their fate to be miserable. 
 
 I am convinced, therefore, thait one indispensable step 
 towards improving the position of women must be, to call 
 forth their own self-respect and to raise them in their 
 own estimation, and I see no way of doing it effectually 
 except by means of these societies. The woman who is 
 a member of one of these useful self-supporting institu¬ 
 tions, and who has a voice and a vote at the half-yearly 
 meetings for the direction of its affairs, cannot fail to 
 feel some respect for herself. When she belongs to an 
 important community, a sense of her own importance will 
 grow up in her mind, and a portion of its dignity will be 
 reflected upon herself. If she is an officer in the society, 
 her sense of dignity and usefulness will be proportionally 
 increased ; and if her life is solitary, the companionship 
 and the friendship which will spring out of the society, 
 will cheer her loneliness. Thus she will be encouraged 
 
 * Vol. 1. page 315. 
 
108 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 and cheered to make a struggle against fortune, and to 
 strive to maintain herself in a respectable position. For 
 as M. de Tocqueville says, “The humblest individual 
 who is called upon to co-operate in the government of 
 society acquires a certain degree of self-respect.” Other 
 good and great qualities in her will also be drawn out, 
 and anything of meanness or pettiness be repressed. 
 Mr. Stuart Mill so well describes the effect on the human 
 mind of joining in any public business, that I will quote 
 his words :—“ The private money-getting occupation of 
 almost every one is more or less mechanical routine ; it 
 brings but few of his faculties into action, while its 
 exclusive pursuit tends to fasten his attention and interest 
 exclusively on himself, and upon his family as an 
 appendage to himself, making him indifferent to the 
 public, to the more generous objects and the nobler 
 interests, and in his inordinate regard for his personal 
 comforts, selfish and cowardly. Balance these tendencies 
 by contrary ones, give him something to do for the 
 public, whether as a vestryman, a juror, or an elector, 
 and in his degree his ideas and feelings are taken out of 
 their narrow circle. He becomes acquainted with more 
 varied business, and a larger range of considerations. 
 He is made to feel that besides the interests which 
 separate him from his fellow-citizens, he has interests 
 which connect him with them, that not only the common 
 weal is his weal, but that it partly depends upon his 
 exertions.”* 
 
 Now, this description relates to human nature, and 
 
 * Dissertations and Discussions, by J. S. Mill. Yol. II., p. 24. 
 
BENEFIT SOCIETIES FOE WOMEN. 
 
 109 
 
 is, therefore, as true of women as of men, and women 
 as well as men are morally improved by engaging in any 
 work which regards the public good. Women of wealth 
 obtain this practical moral education by engaging in 
 charitable undertakings, but women who have no money 
 to spare can do nothing for the public good: thus they 
 grow^ narrow in their ideas; if they are married, they 
 take interest in little save their families; if they are 
 single, they take interest in little but themselves. Those 
 who are by nature hard grow selfish, and if they are 
 not naturally hard but generous, they then become 
 desponding, through feeling the littleness of a life lived 
 only for self, and so end by despising their position and 
 themselves. 
 
 Thus, friendly societies would bestow on our working 
 women important indirect benefits, besides the imme¬ 
 diate advantages of support in sickness and medical 
 advice. Yet, in the establishment of these institutions, 
 much caution should be observed, especially in the 
 choice of officers, otherwise they may do harm instead 
 of good. I would strongly recommend any persons 
 who may think of starting a society of this sort, not 
 on any account to employ men as secretaries or trea¬ 
 surers, as their superior knowledge of business would 
 enable them, if dishonestly inclined, to defraud the 
 subscribers without danger of discovery. An exception 
 might perhaps be made in favour of some man of 
 established good character. I am only speaking of a 
 general rule, but it is a rule that should not be departed 
 from save in some very exceptional case. There would. 
 
110 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 however, he no objection, hut rather the contrary, to 
 the employment of men among the competent persons 
 engaged to overlook the accounts at the end of the 
 half-year. 
 
 In the management of these associations perfect 
 integrity must be observed, not only with regard to 
 money—that is self-evident—but on other points. 
 There should he no unfair grasping after power or credit, 
 no packing of committees, no carrying of measures by 
 surprise. In men’s associations these evils are not 
 uncommon, but men have such habits of business, so 
 much knowledge of the world, that though business is 
 impeded and success diminished by intrigues, it is still 
 possible to go on with the undertaking. With women 
 this would not he the case. Any attempt at unfairness 
 would prove the ruin of the enterprise ; for a want of fair 
 dealing once perceived, discouragement would creep in, 
 as no one would know how to stop it, or how far it might 
 go. All manoeuvres, even for objects good in them¬ 
 selves, should be strictly avoided, as an undertaking 
 would he less injured by the honest carrying of a had 
 measure, than hy the dishonest carrying of a good one. 
 The bad measure may in time he discovered to be a 
 mistake and he rescinded, or the evil effects from it not 
 prove as great as was expected; hut the discovery of 
 unfairness among colleagues and fellow-workers would 
 spread a fatal distrust and sense of insecurity amongst 
 all concerned. •* 
 
 Bad means cannot serve a good cause; and as the 
 cause of the improvement of the position of women. 
 
BENEFIT SOCIETIES FOR WOMEN. 
 
 Ill 
 
 the most numerous but least powerful half of the human 
 race, is a good and sacred cause—perhaps the best and 
 most sacred of all causes—it can only be served by good 
 and honourable means, by uprightness, truthfulness, and 
 open dealing. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 Evil is wrought by want of thought 
 As well as want of heart.— Sood. 
 
 ‘‘ Pray, Mr. Opie, may I ask wkat you mix your colours 
 with?” said a brisk, dilettante student to the great 
 painter. “With brains! sir,” was the gruff reply, 
 and the right one. It did not give much of what we 
 should call information; it did not explain the principles 
 and rules of art: but if the inquirer possessed the com¬ 
 modity referred to, it would awaken him, it would set 
 him a-going, a-thinking, and a-painting to good purpose. 
 If he had not the wherewithal, as was likely enough, the 
 less he had to do with colours and their mixture the 
 better. 
 
 Again, Etty was appointed teacher of the Koyal 
 Academy, when, having been preceded by a clever, 
 talkative, scientific expounder of aesthetics, who delighted 
 to tell young men how everything was done, how to copy 
 this, how to express that, a student came up to the new 
 master, “How should I do this, sir?” “Suppose you 
 try.” Another: “What does this mean, Mr. Etty?” 
 
HEAD-WORK AND HEART-WORK. 
 
 113 
 
 “ Suppose you look.” “ But I have looked.” “ Suppose 
 you look again.” And they did try, and they did look, 
 and looked again, and saw and achieved what they never 
 would have seen and done, had the how and the what 
 been told them and done for them. These anecdotes 
 from “Horse Suhsecivse,” by Dr. John Brown, are 
 intended to show that it is impossible to teach people 
 to do anything well unless they will take the trouble 
 of trying to learn,— and not of trying with the hand 
 only, which people are often willing to do, hut with their 
 heads also, and using their brains to think and reason 
 about the matter taught. A schoolmaster is reported to 
 have said to his scholars, “ Think wrong, if you like, 
 but think for yourselves :” knowing very well that if they 
 once learnt to think at all they would think to good 
 purpose some day. People who learn with their hands 
 only, and do not use their heads too, may become 
 tolerable third-rate workmen, but will never rise to the 
 first rank. It is said by a gentleman who ought to 
 know, that young women are very idle in this respect, 
 and that they avoid thinking and using their brains as 
 much as possible; and to this he attributes the fact that 
 few women have risen to the highest eminence in those 
 professions and employments which are open to them. 
 
 The gentleman who speaks thus is Mr. Hutton, 
 Professor of Mathematics in the Ladies’ College, Bedford 
 Square. 
 
 Mr. Hutton mentions as instances of women who have 
 risen to the highest ranks in their professions—art and 
 literature, Kosa Bonheur, and the author of “Adam 
 Bede.” We have seen how thorough was Rosa Bonheur’s 
 
114 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 art education, and liow she put her whole heart in her 
 work, and used not her fingers only hut every faculty she 
 possessed to attain to excellence. The author of ‘‘Adam 
 Bede” is well known to he a very learned person, and to 
 have tackled the toughest and most profound regions of 
 thought; and to these reasoning habits, and to the power 
 of mind educed by such studies, which enabled her to 
 understand and perceive the depth and breadth of every 
 subject she writes on, not its superficial aspect only, Mr. 
 Hutton attributes her success as an author. “ Is it a mere 
 accident,” he says, “that she can venture with so much 
 success where her competitors and peers [other female 
 writers] dare not tread ? Or is it not surely that that 
 power of generalizing and passing beyond the sphere of 
 individual observation, which is generally reserved for 
 men, has been conquered by her in consequence of the 
 bracing influence of her masculine studies ?” The 
 author of “Adam Bede” herself seems to be of opinion 
 that teaching is of little use unless the learners will 
 “try,” and “look,” and “think” for themselves, as is 
 shown in an amusing scene in one of her novels between 
 an old schoolmaster and the young men in his night 
 school. 
 
 “After the reading class, two youths, between sixteen 
 and nineteen, came up with an imaginary bill of parcels, 
 which they had been writing out on their slates, and 
 v/ere now required to calculate “ off-hand,”—a test 
 which they stood with such imperfect success, that Bartle 
 Massey (the schoolmaster) whose eyes had been glaring 
 at them for some minutes through his spectacles, at 
 length burst out, in a high-pitched tone, “Now, you 
 
HEAD-WORK AND HEART-WORK. 
 
 115 
 
 see, 3^011 don’t do this thing a hit better than yon did a 
 fortnight ago, and I’ll tell you the reason. You want to 
 learn accounts, that’s well and. good; hut you think all 
 3’OU need do to learn accounts, is to come to me and to 
 do sums for an hour or so, two or three times a-week; 
 and no sooner do you get your caps on and turn out of 
 doors again, than you sweep the whole thing clean out of 
 your mind; you go whistling about, and take no more care 
 what you’re thinking of than if your heads were gutters 
 for any rubbish to swill through that happened to he in 
 the way, and if you get a good notion in ’em, it’s prett3^ 
 soon washed out again. You think knowledge is to 
 be got cheap—you’ll come and pay Bartle Massy 
 sixpence a-week, and he’ll make you clever at figures 
 without your taking trouble; hut knowledge isn’t to be 
 got by paying sixpence, let me tell you; if you’re to 
 know figures, you must turn ’em over in your heads, 
 and keep your thoughts fixed on ’em. There’s nothing 
 you can’t turn into a sum, for there’s nothing hut what’s 
 got a number in it—even a fool. You may say to your¬ 
 self, ‘ I am one fool, and Jack’s another; if my fool’s 
 head weighed four pounds, and Jack’s three pounds 
 three ounces and three quarters, how many penn3^weights 
 heavier would my head be than Jack’s ?’ A man that 
 had got his heart in learning figures, would make sums 
 for himself and work them in his head: when he sat 
 shoemaking he’d count his stitches by fives, and then put 
 a price on the stitches, say half a farthing, and then see 
 how much money he could earn in an hour, and then ask 
 .himself how much money he’d get in a day at that rate, 
 and then how much ten workmen would get working 
 
 I 
 
116 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 three, or twenty, or a hundred years at that rate, and all 
 the while his needle would be going just as fast as if he 
 left his head empty for the devil to dance in. But the 
 long and short of it is. I’ll have nobody in my night 
 school that doesn’t strive to learn what he comes to 
 learn, as hard as if he was trying to get out of a dark 
 hole into broad daylight. I’ll send no man away because 
 he’s stupid; if Billy Taft, the idiot, wanted to learn 
 anything I’d not refuse to teach him; but I’ll not throw 
 away good knowledge on people who think they can get 
 it by the sixpenny worth, and carry it away with ’em as 
 they would an ounce of snuff. So never come to me 
 again, if you can’t show that you’ve been working with 
 your heads, instead of thinking you can pay mine to 
 work for you. That’s the last word I’ve got to say to 
 you.” ^ ^ ^ , 
 
 This advice is most admirable, and is just as applicable 
 to women as to men, for neither one nor the other can 
 learn anything well unless they think of it out of the 
 hours of study. It seems certain that a want of education 
 is at the bottom of much of the difficulty which women 
 experience in finding employment, for it is evident that 
 unintelligent people cannot be employed in situations 
 where intelligence is required, and if people are ill taught, 
 they are likely enough to remain unintelligent; but this 
 is only a reason the more why young women should try 
 to teach themselves, as the less help they receive from 
 others, the more they must try to help themselves. 
 There is an error into which a girl who is naturally 
 clever, or who by chance has received a tolerable education, 
 is very apt to fall, viz., she compares herself to other 
 
HEAD-WORK AND HEART-WORK. 
 
 117 
 
 girls, and finding herself superior to them, fancies that 
 she is a stiperior person, and becomes conceited, instead 
 of remembering that it is very easy to he superior to 
 other girls, and yet to be inferior to well-educated persons. 
 It is with these she should compare herself, with her 
 own brothers, for instance, and if she finds herself 
 inferior to them in knowledge, powers of calculation, or 
 general intelligence, she may feel sure that she will not 
 he considered clever in business, or become a useful 
 member of society. 
 
 I do not deny that it is hard that they who naturally 
 suffer from inferiority in physical strength, should be 
 compelled to sufier from another and artificial inferiority 
 also. It is hard; but nothing was ever yet gained by 
 grumbling, and the only sensible thing to be done is for 
 women to set to work and try to improve themselves as 
 much as they can. And they should remember that no 
 one, no employer at least, will ever make the least 
 allowance for the difficulties an assistant may have 
 laboured under as to education. Ne deficiencies will be 
 excused on that score. If a clerk or saleswoman is 
 equal to her business, she will be kept, if not, she will 
 be dismissed without the least regard to her want of 
 opportunity for learning; so young women had better try 
 and learn for themselves, and make the most of any little 
 teaching they may get at private schools, for they will be 
 punished for the deficiencies of their education, unless by 
 extra exertion they can contrive to make up for it. 
 Every woman of the middle classes cannot marry, and 
 even those who do, will have probably to maintain them¬ 
 selves for some years first, and unless they can manage 
 
118 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 to attain to the average rate of intelligence possessed by 
 persons who have been better educated than they are, 
 they will not find it easy, perhaps not possible, to earn a 
 livelihood. The task is a hard one, hut it is necessary to 
 be done, and by diligence much may be effected. They 
 have probably learnt writing and a little arithmetic at 
 school; these are the two great essentials, and they 
 may improve themselves in these at home by self-teaching. 
 They should try to develope their thinking powers, and 
 should remember that in everything there is a reason 
 and a principle, even in the smallest actions, and that 
 people who perceive that principle and understand that 
 reason will succeed, and that those who fail to see and 
 understand will not succeed. 
 
 The rules of art apply as much to the trimming of a 
 dress as to the painting of a picture. Those who 
 understand them will be able to paint saleable pictures 
 and trim saleable gowns pretty nearly to a certainty, 
 while those who do not understand the rules, hut paint 
 and trim from their own tastes only, will often fail.-’'' 
 The same principle .applies even to the making of a 
 pudding; if a person knows the exact proportion of the 
 materials, she can always make a good one, hut if she 
 does it by guesswork, a good deal of flour, a little sugar, 
 some milk, and boils it a good while, instead of a certain 
 number of minutes or hours, it will very often prove a 
 failure. There is also a principle of reason in cutting 
 out the shape of a gown. The person who knows this 
 
 * An English painter has set up at Paris as dressmaker. His 
 knowledge of art enables him to decorate gowns more tastefully than 
 any of the regular milliners, and he is making his fortune. 
 
HEAD-WOEK AND IIEART-WOEK. 
 
 119 
 
 principle will always be able to make a good fit, those 
 who do not will only make a good one now and then by 
 chance. A tailor will take a measure for a riding habit 
 with a piece of tape in five minutes, or you may take 
 your own measure and send it him, and the habit will fit 
 perfectly; and a French dressmaker can do the same if 
 required, because the tailor and the Frenchwoman are 
 both to a certain degree educated, and have had their 
 reason developed. The poor uneducated unreasoning 
 Englishwoman spends a quarter of an hour and a box full 
 of pins in fitting on an elaborate calico shape, and after 
 all the gown probably does not fit. The consequence is 
 that ladies employ tailors to make their habits, and often 
 Frenchwomen to make their gowns. Thus, in every¬ 
 thing, in the humblest as in the highest professions, 
 intelligence wins. 
 
 Another reason why Englishwomen do not succeed as 
 well as their neighbours over the water, is, it appears to 
 me, that they are apt to despise the avocation by which 
 they get their bread, and consequently not to put their 
 hearts into it. A French milliner was asked to explain 
 the reason of the superiority of her countrywomen in 
 millinery. “ They take pride in ther work,” she replied, 
 “ and Englishwomen do not.” A woman may think it a 
 small thing to be employed all her life in making gowns, 
 and may consider her occupation paltry and not worth 
 thinking about more than is absolutely necessary to keep 
 her situation, but she is wrong ; the result of the skill the 
 French exercise in their work is not paltry, for they are 
 v/ell ofi* compared to us, and the trade they bring to 
 Paris greatly enriches their capital city, so they have a 
 
120 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 right to be proud. It is said that it requires five separate 
 processes to make a pin, and that each process has a set 
 of workmen attached to it who never do anything else. 
 Now, it does sound as if making the fifth part of a pin all 
 one’s life was a petty avocation, hut it is not a small 
 residt that England should make better pins than any 
 other nation, and so supply the world. The pyramids 
 are great things, yet each of the chisel-strokes and 
 spadefuls of earth which went to make them was but a 
 trifle. The means of effecting a purpose are often trivial, 
 hut we must not despise them, unless the result is trivial 
 also. In all we undertake, however small the matter 
 may he, it should ever be our aim to reach perfection. 
 We ought not to be contented with passable workman¬ 
 ship, hut should take a pride in our work and strive to 
 make it the best possible. 
 
 ^ Let us remember that every piece of good work done 
 by a woman raises the character of the sex, and en¬ 
 courages employers to trust other women with more work 
 of the same nature. We must also avoid discouragement, 
 and ought never to allow ourselves to fancy, as many do, 
 that because we are women we can do nothing well, and 
 that therefore it is useless to try. We see that in 
 France women can do many things which in England 
 they never attempt; for, besides engaging in the various 
 handicrafts already mentioned, they are continually 
 employed as cashiers in shops, ticket clerks on railroads, 
 and in various other public and private capacities, that 
 are supposed in England to be quite beyond the 
 intelligence of a woman. Our inferiority, therefore, is 
 not natural and belonging to women as women, hut is 
 
HEAD-WOKK AND HEAKT-WORK. 
 
 121 
 
 artificial, and confined to untaught women. It may be 
 true that it would be difficult to find^ many women in 
 England who could act as cashiers or railroad clerhs, but 
 the fact that Frenchwomen are constantly so employed 
 proves that this incapability is not owing to sex, but to a 
 bad education. 
 
 Now, this is very encouraging, for an artificial or 
 accidental inferiority may be got rid of, and the effects of 
 a bad education may with diligence be repaired by the 
 young, and if the present generation do their duty, the 
 next need not suffer from it at all. Perhaps our best 
 plan to effect this object is, to observe in what the 
 French system of education differs from ours, and to see 
 whether we could not to some extent imitate it. In the 
 first place, no person is allowed in France to set up a 
 school, whether for boys or girls, or to take a situation as 
 teacher, without passing an examination and receiving a 
 certificate of competency; thus good or at least tolerable 
 teaching is secured; and Mr. M. Arnold, who made a tour of 
 inspection among schools in France, at the request of our 
 Government, to observe their system, states that in girls’ 
 schools more attention is paid than with us to the 
 practical parts of education, those parts I mean which 
 will have a direct effect in enabling them to earn their 
 bread. More than once he speaks of the great pro¬ 
 ficiency of the girls in arithmetic, and their corresponding 
 deficiency in geography and history. It is impossible for 
 children to study more than a certain number of hours, 
 and in England we spend much time in teaching history 
 and geography; but the French, with greater shrewdness, 
 reflect that these studies will have little effect in helping 
 
122 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 a girl to earn her bread, and consequently devote but 
 little attention to them, reserving her time and energy for 
 what will really he of use, namely, hand-writing and 
 arithmetic. This explains the admission of women to 
 offices in France for which they are considered incapable 
 in England. 
 
 The superiority of Frenchwomen in dressmaking, and in 
 some other arts, may be explained in the same manner. 
 Girls at school are taught the cutting-out of dresses as 
 well as how to sew; in fact, to teach a girl to sew with¬ 
 out cutting-out, is teaching her hut half her trade, and 
 the worse-paid half, too; yet in England, we seldom, if 
 ever, make the cutting-out of dresses a part of school 
 teaching. To show the importance attached by the 
 French to this practical instruction, it may he related 
 that when the Empress lately visited the school at Paris 
 for the daughters of members of the Legion of Honour, 
 she instituted two prizes, one for the best painter on 
 porcelain, the other for the best cutter-out of dresses. 
 
 In towns and large villages in France where there are 
 several schools, they unite to establish an “ ouvroir,” or 
 workroom, where, in the afternoon, when the literary 
 schools are closed, the girls are taught needle-work in all 
 its branches, including cutting-out, under the super¬ 
 intendence of an experienced and skilful workwoman, thus 
 obviating the difficulty we suffer under in England, of 
 finding a schoolmistress who can teach well both needle¬ 
 work and the higher kinds of learning. In these 
 
 * For a short account of the “ouvroir” system, see “Popular 
 ' Education in France,” by Mathew Arnold, p. 104. 
 
HEAD-WOEK AND HEART-WOEK. 
 
 123 
 
 “ ouvroirs,” the special female industry of the district is 
 also cultivated and brought to perfection; where em¬ 
 broidery on muslin is the special industry, good patterns 
 are procured from the schools of design, which the 
 children are taught to execute, thus at once exercising 
 their skill, improving their taste, and diffusing good 
 patterns among those who live by their industry. It is 
 therefore not wonderful that the French surpass us in 
 embroidery. I have seen it stated that lace-making is 
 taught in the same way, and think it highly probable, 
 but have not been able to find any account of it myself. 
 
 Now, when we consider what great advantages French¬ 
 women enjoy by this good and useful instruction, we can 
 no longer wonder at their superiority, nor need we tax 
 our own countrywomen with natural inferiority of 
 intelligence if they cannot equal them. But, whatever 
 the causes of French superiority, one thing is certain— 
 we must contrive to keep up with them in the race of 
 ingenuity, skill, and energy, otherwise they will take our 
 employments more and more away from us. Free trade 
 is the order of the day, and whatever Frenchwomen 
 make better than we do, is, and will he, brought over 
 here duty free, and purchased in preference ^o our 
 inferior wares. Millinery, lace, embroidery, and artificial 
 flowers, are imported in quantities, and unless we can 
 contrive to equal them, more and more will continue to 
 be imported, to the great detriment of our own poor 
 working women. It must he confessed that it is not a 
 fair race, for their superior teaching gives them a terrible 
 advantage ; but still we must try to win, for we have no 
 choice whether we will run in the race or not, and if we 
 
124 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 lose, we lose our daily bread. Now, if to keep up with 
 this competition is “head-work” on the part of our 
 working women, it ought surely to he “heart-work” on 
 the part of the wealthy, to aid them in the struggle by 
 giving them good instruction and placing them as far as 
 possible on an equal footing with their rivals. 
 
 In all plans for ameliorating the condition of women, 
 it should be borne in mind that there are two distinct 
 classes which want assistance, and that the assistance 
 given to each requires to be of a very different character. 
 There are the labouring classes, who want instruction in 
 household and domestic matters, to enable them to 
 
 * It may, perhaps, seem ungenerous to grudge these poor French¬ 
 women the profit their skill and industry makes out of English 
 customers, a profit which by all accounts they want badly enough; but 
 the fact is, that ill off as Frenchwomen are, our own countrywomen are 
 in a still more deplorable condition. A study of the rate of wages given 
 in “ L’Ouvriere,” beginning at page 205, will show this. Their most 
 skilful female artificers in bronze, jewellery, and some other handicrafts, 
 earn as much as 3s. 4:d. a-day, and even more; thus, there is a large 
 class of fairly-paid female artizans who have no counterpart in England, 
 while the worse-paid kind of needlewomen do not certainly receive less 
 than with us, and are perhaps a shade better remunerated. It is very 
 remarkable that better wages should be earned by women in a country 
 where there is so little outlet for the population by emigration. It is to 
 be explained, I think, partly by the causes before adverted to, and partly 
 by the liberality of French workmen, in allowing women to engage in 
 trades from which they are excluded in England. Perhaps some day we 
 may adopt the French system in these respects, and if we do, there can 
 be little doubt that our women will then be better off than theirs, 
 because of the greater advantages we possess as to emigration. When¬ 
 ever this happens, it would be most ungenerous to grudge our neighbours 
 any profit they can make out of us, but until then I confess that it seems 
 to me impossible not to regret every sixpence which is withdrawn from 
 our own countrywomen, and which they can so ill spare. 
 
HEAD-WORK AND HEART-WORK. 
 
 125 
 
 become good servants and useful wives for working men; 
 for these the teaching given in the “ ouvroirs” would be 
 of the highest value; and there are the middle classes, 
 such as the daughters of tradesmen, clerks, &c., who 
 require another kind of teaching of a more intellectual 
 nature, to enable them to become saleswomen or book¬ 
 keepers, and engage in other situations requiring 
 intelligence; for these a good business handwriting, a 
 knowledge of arithmetic, mental and slate, and a 
 thorough comprehension of book-keeping are desirable, 
 and, above all, habits of diligence, obedience, and patient 
 application. Bookkeeping is an excellent discipline for 
 the mind, and ought invariably to be taught in schools for 
 this class. It gives habits of neatness and order, and 
 exercises the reason; for if the pupils do not reflect, they 
 are sure to make wrong entries. Children take interest 
 in learning it, and it is certain to be of use in future life, 
 whether the pupil remains single and has to support 
 herself, or whether she marries and has to keep her 
 household accounts. It is difficult to say which of 
 these two classes of working women, the higher or the 
 lower, most requires help. Each from want of instruc¬ 
 tion and discipline, are apt to fall into great distress and 
 misery, but all attempts at aid must be kept quite 
 separate; for tradesmen’s daughters do not want to be 
 taught to be servants, and it would be waste of time to 
 give a high intellectual education to labourers’ daughters, 
 as such instruction would have no effect in aiding them 
 to earn a living. 
 
 Yet, though different in detail, the principle to be 
 observed in both classes of schools is the same, that of 
 
12G 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 teaching things likely to he of practical use to the 
 learners in after life. In both cases they should be 
 made thoroughly to understand what they learn, as a 
 girl’s success in life depends upon being master of what¬ 
 ever she undertakes. A noble self-supporting ambition 
 should he aroused, a truthful spirit encouraged, and 
 obedience to lawful authority inculcated. A girl of the 
 higher class requires to he taught self-command and the 
 use and abuse of power; for as the future mistress of 
 a household she will probably possess it, and those can 
 never rule well who do not hold their own spirit in 
 subjection. It is very important to impress high and 
 honourable ideas on young girls, to implant self-respect, 
 a love of justice, and to teach them to look with con¬ 
 tempt on dishonest and deceitful conduct, and also, if 
 possible to give them sound religious principles; for it is 
 the women of a household who teach the rising genera¬ 
 tion, the religious and moral instruction of the children 
 generally falling to the mother’s lot. 
 
 To return to our subject, what working women can 
 do to help themselves. First of all, they must try to 
 excel in their branch of employment, whatever it is, and 
 to do this they must bo patient in learning their business. 
 It is almost always disagreeable to learn, the process is 
 tedious and wearisome, hut success is unattainable with¬ 
 out knowledge. The higher the description of work, the 
 more difficult it is to learn; Manual work is soon learnt, 
 It does not take more than a few weeks to train a cotton- 
 spinner ; hut to attain to proficiency in any kind of 
 intellectual work takes months, sometimes in the higher 
 branches many years, of patient study and toil. Young 
 
HEAD-WORK AND HEART-WORK. 
 
 127 
 
 women and girls are often eager to learn at first, but 
 when they find that learning is a tedious process they 
 are discouraged, and give up. I have read a story about 
 the great and numerous nation of the Do-as-you-likes, 
 who came away from the country of Hard-work and set 
 up for themselves, but who were gradually reduced to 
 great misery and finally exterminated, because they never 
 would do anything that was disagreeable if they could 
 possibly avoid it. Many of the poor creatures in our 
 workhouses, prisons, and penitentiaries, belonged in their 
 time of prosperity to this great nation. 
 
 A spirit of endurance in encountering the many small 
 evils and discomforts which must be met with in earning 
 even a good livelihood is also quite necessary to all who 
 would succeed. A young artist was engaged to do some 
 work which could not be accomplished without consider¬ 
 able exposure to cold and fatigue. Her employer, seeing 
 that she looked tired and chilled, asked if she was not 
 suffering. ‘‘Yes,” was the reply, given in a cheerful 
 tone, “yes, I am, but that is what I must expect.” 
 This quiet answer had a touch of the heroic in it, quite 
 unsuspected by the speaker. She well knew that no one 
 could earn a living without encountering hardships, and 
 she had made up her mind to bear them cheerfully, as a 
 matter of course. This is the right spirit for workers. 
 Yet I would not advise young women to submit patiently 
 to hardships if they feel that their health is being 
 permanently injured. Health is the working-woman’s 
 best dowry, without which she cannot earn her bread; 
 so, rather than lose it, even a well-paid situation should 
 
128 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 be given up: it is only discomforts, petty annoyances, 
 and small hardships which should he disi’egarded. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no point on which employers are 
 more to blame than in exacting from their assistants such 
 long hours of toil as are likely to destroy the health of 
 ordinary women. Even a poor maid-servant will be 
 grudged the eight hours’ sleep which are absolutely 
 necessary to the health of all growing girls, and this will 
 be done by women who are not positively ill-disposed, 
 and will perhaps give money or old clothes to the poor, 
 and certainly contribute at church or chapel towards 
 charitable objects. They forget that “to do justly” is 
 the first duty of life; and that if everyone was just, 
 there would be little occasion for anyone to be generous. 
 The poor girl thus over-worked will one day break down 
 and become an object for charitable relief; but had her 
 mistress acted justly towards her, she would have con¬ 
 tinued able to earn her living for herself. It is the same 
 with milliners’ and dressmakers’ assistants and ap¬ 
 prentices. They are often kept far too long at work, and 
 early death, or long pining illness, which to a working 
 girl is worse than death, are the consequences. Perhaps, 
 some who read these pages may themselves become 
 employers. I trust that they will think seriously of their 
 responsibility: they could not better prepare themselves 
 for it than by reading the Epistle of St. James; and 
 every year it would be well to keep the anniversary of 
 their accession to power by reading it carefully over 
 again. We hear of co-operative associations being suc¬ 
 cessful in many trades: why should they not succeed 
 among dressmakers ? Then, the same persons being 
 
HEAD-WORK AND HEART-WORK. 
 
 129 
 
 capitalists and workers, the receivers of wages and the 
 payers of wages, justice would certainly be observed. 
 
 A few words on the subject of obedience to lawful 
 authority will perhaps not be out of place here. Dis¬ 
 cipline is necessary in all undertakings. What a scene 
 of confusion would an army be without it! And the 
 same is true of smaller concerns. Whether the chief 
 be the employer, or, as in co-operative associations, an 
 elected officer, obedience is still necessary. An associate, 
 assistant, or servant, has no right to quarrel with terms 
 to which she has voluntarily agreed. If she does not 
 like them she may seek a better situation, but she has 
 no right to complain unless deception has been practised 
 upon her. 
 
 Far be it from me, however, to say that submission is 
 invariably a duty. There are cases when submission but 
 invites oppression, and resistance becomes a necessity. 
 The person who resists generally loses by it, but others 
 are benefited and protected. It may also, when the in¬ 
 terests of others are concerned, sometimes become our 
 duty to submit, when if no one but ourself was concerned 
 we should resist. In either case, those who submit and 
 those who resist contrary to their own advantage for the 
 sake of others, act nobly; and show a generous spirit. 
 But, though submission is not invariably a duty, the 
 necessity for resistance should be considered an evil, not 
 a pleasure, as is done by some pugnacious spirits, nor 
 should it.be resorted to unless an equitable arrangement 
 can be concluded in no other way. Neither should it be 
 embarked in for trilling causes, or without a strong 
 probability of success, for a quelled insurrection does but 
 
130 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 rivet the slave’s chain the tighter. Also, it is a duty to 
 avoid fancying ourselves the victims of oppression when 
 we really are not; injustice is not such a small sin that 
 we can afford to accuse each other of it lightly. Nothing 
 wears into the soul so much as the belief that we are 
 unfairly dealt with, therefore it is not wise to foster 
 the thought unnecessarily. “ A merry heart goes all 
 the day, a sad one tires in a mile—a,” says the old song, 
 and for this reason, though not for this reason only, a 
 sensitive spirit should be discouraged. People some¬ 
 times admire a sensitive spirit in themselves, but let me 
 ask, did they ever admire it in others ? A sensitive 
 mind, like a delicate constitution or weak nerves, is a 
 source of failure, not a subject for pride. 
 
 Gentleness is a virtue which deserves much consider¬ 
 ation. If I were to write a table of the qualities which 
 most conduce towards success, I should put gentleness 
 very high in the list, next, perhaps, to energy and 
 perseverance. A request gently proffered is far more 
 likely to he granted, than a demand, however just, if it 
 be roughly enforced: it is useful, too, when it is 
 necessary to refuse. It was said of a great politician 
 that he could refuse a request in such a gentle, kind way 
 that he almost seemed to confer a favour; while of some 
 other statesman it was said that he granted a favour so 
 roughly as to offend the person on whom it was 
 conferred. Thus, gentleness makes friends and saves us 
 from making enemies. It is as easy to say, ‘‘ I am sorry 
 I cannot comply with your wishes,” as “ I will do no 
 such thing, and I wonder you should ask me hut how 
 different is the effect produced on the hearer! Gentle- 
 
 t 
 
HEAD-WORK AND HEART-WORK. 
 
 131 
 
 ness is quite compatible with firmness—indeed is one of 
 its adjuncts; for people often refuse an unreasonable 
 request so harshly that they grant it afterwards to make 
 up for their incivility. Even in a quarrel a gentle 
 manner and as far as possible gentle words should be 
 maintained. Cutting speeches and sharp taunts are of 
 no use, and only serve to make a settlement of the point 
 in dispute more difficult. We should remember that 
 success in life depends as much on our moral 
 as on our intellectual qualities. A gentle, good- 
 tempered woman of average abilities will succeed as well, 
 in all probability, as a clever woman with rough manners 
 and a sharp tongue: of course a woman who is both 
 clever and good-tempered will succeed better than either. 
 
 Good manners are important in every profession and 
 business, and in some are absolutely necessary. A 
 writer in Macmillan's Magazine says, “ Manner is the 
 one and indispensable essential in a linendrapers’ as¬ 
 sistant. Without this virtue all others vanish into thin 
 air; they are lost in the shade and go for nothing.” 
 This is equally true of eveiy kind of salesman or sales¬ 
 woman, and the higher the class of shop, the more 
 obliging and polished the manners of the assistants are 
 expected to be. Persons of a naturally obliging disposi¬ 
 tion will have less trouble in attaining to good manners 
 than others, and persons of a mild nature can more 
 easily learn to be gentle in word or deed; still, good 
 manners and gentleness are probably unattainable to few. 
 It is a great blessing to be possessed of both a good 
 heart and a good head, but where one is deficient, the 
 other should be called upon to do double work to 
 
 K 
 
132 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 compensate for the shortcomings of its comrade. Thus, 
 when gentleness does not arise from natural good-feeling, 
 it should be produced by reflection; and, per contra^ the 
 wisdom which the intellect fails to supply must be 
 obtained by steady, heartfelt adherence to the rules of 
 right and wrong, which, in nine cases out of ten, indicate 
 precisely the same course that the most consummate 
 worldly wisdom would point out. There are probably 
 few middle-aged people who in looking back on their 
 lives, do not perceive that they have committed some 
 foolish action, from which they would have been pre¬ 
 served had they done simply what was right. The 
 wisdom of the heart in humbly obeying the directions 
 God in His kindness has given to guide us, would often 
 and often make up for the folly of the head. The saying 
 that “ Honesty is good policy,” is equally true of every 
 virtue under the sun*. It is always bad policy in tho 
 long run to do wrong, though we may gain by it at the 
 moment. If we were perfectly wise we should see this, 
 but as we are not wise, we fail to see it, and do wrong, 
 and do not discover till long afterwards that if we had 
 done right it would have been more to our advantage. 
 
 Now, to conclude, I will say a few words on public 
 spirit, for it is a quality in which women are often de¬ 
 ficient, and this is a cause for regret, as it has more 
 power than any other in checking selfishness. Women 
 are seldom selfish in their own families, often are they 
 most nobly generous, sometimes even foolishly so; but 
 towards those for whom they have no affection, women 
 are often selfish. Their unselfishness to their relations 
 is the result of love, not of principle. Thus, the same 
 
HEAD-WORK AND HEART-WORK. 
 
 133 
 
 woman will sometimes be kind and generous to her 
 friends and relatives, yet a hard and grasping mistress 
 to her dependants, and unfair in her dealings with her 
 equals. 
 
 I believe that associations, such as benefit clubs and 
 co-operation societies, would have a strong effect in 
 producing public spirit, calling out a love of justice, and 
 teaching women to rejoice in the general prosperity of a 
 number of associates and friends, instead of rejoicing 
 each in her own prosperity alone or that of her family, 
 and thinking of no one else. It is true that each person 
 must think first and most of his or her own concerns, 
 but to think first and most is not to think solely of them. 
 When we reflect how many interests in common women 
 have, it is sad to see how little union there is among 
 them. It is this want of union which makes women so 
 weak and defenceless. Like the sticks in the fable, they 
 are easily broken one by one, instead of being closely 
 bound together by the ties of sisterly love and mutual 
 sympathy. Good and great men are trying to raise the 
 position of women, but these efforts will be unavailing 
 unless zealously seconded by the women themselves. 
 Every woman who has her own livelihood to earn, what¬ 
 ever her station may be, has suffered more or less either 
 from a deficient education, or from ill-judged restrictions 
 excluding her from well-remunerated employments ; even 
 those who are successful suffered from these causes early 
 in their career. Truly, these mutual misfortunes, this 
 common suflering, ought to form a strong bond, of union 
 among all who work for their bread, whether they belong 
 to the higher or lower sections of society. Indeed, it 
 
134 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 seems as if so hard a case ought to secure the sympathy 
 and aid of every woman, whether she belongs to the 
 ranks of those who work or not.* 
 
 There are two descriptions of workers who specially 
 deserve the support of their own sex. First, good 
 teachers, who, by the instruction they give, raise the 
 intelligence of their pupils and make them useful, 
 helpful members of society; and secondly, women of 
 enterprise, who leave the be'aten track of labour, and 
 seek out fresh paths for themselves. It has been said 
 that the man who makes an ear of corn grow where none 
 grew before is a benefactor to his race: the same may 
 he said of the woman who opens a new employment to 
 her sex. The generous worker who, to avoid distressing 
 others, declines to enter on an overcrowded employment 
 and strikes out in a new line, will have to encounter 
 many difficulties; but of one support and consolation she 
 ought always to feel secure—the gratitude and respect of 
 her fellow-women. 
 
 It is probable that in time women will be better 
 educated, and gradually assume their proper industrial 
 position. Yet, though these changes may take place in 
 the course of time, they will not take place by the course 
 of time, but only by means of efforts which in the course 
 of time may prove successful: if there are no efforts 
 
 * Professor Wilson, when anxious to establish an industrial museum, 
 appealed for assistance specially to intelligent ladies, on the ground that 
 they would thereby contribute “to increase the means of giving an 
 industrial education to women of the poorer classes, and to multiply the 
 vocations which may keep them from starvation, misery, and crime.— 
 “Memoirs of Geo. Wilson,” p. 425. 
 
HEAD-WORK AND HEART-WORK. 
 
 135 
 
 there will be no improvement. Meanwhile, I would say 
 to the workers for their bread, in the words of Dr. John 
 Brown, “My young friends, mix brains with everything 
 and everything with brains.” Eemember that every step 
 in advance is gain, every increase in skill, in taste, in the 
 knowledge of art, in general intelligence, power of 
 reasoning, and^ accurate calculation, is so much to¬ 
 wards a better state of things, so much towards raising 
 the condition of our country-women and the depressed 
 state of our female industry. And this is far from 
 a small object: the means by which it is to effected may 
 appear trivial, but the result cannot be despised. Each 
 step in advance may seem short; each stroke with the 
 pencil or the pen, each stitch with the needle, may have 
 little effect; each simple piece of practical knowledge 
 acquired, each effort of reasoning successfully made, 
 may seem but little gained; but added together they 
 come to a good deal. The ants in tropical countries 
 build houses twelve feet high, yet each ant brings but a 
 grain of dust at a time. To raise the condition of our 
 female industry is an object to which women of every degree 
 may contribute according to the talents entrusted to 
 them, the rich aiding in their way, the poor in theirs; 
 but success most depends on the exertions of the poor, 
 for the rich can only give them the means of instruction 
 and self-help: it rests with the workers to avail them¬ 
 selves of these means. If every worker would put heart 
 and head into her work and do her best, whether with 
 pen, or brush, or ledger, or needle, whatever her tool 
 may be—not only for the purpose of earning her own 
 bread, but for the noble object of raising the position of 
 
136 
 
 HINTS ON SELF-HELP. 
 
 her fellow-women—the condition of workers generally 
 would before long improve. This is a purpose worthy to 
 occupy both our heads and hearts, and the humblest 
 worker in the cause, if she does her best, deserves 
 respect. Let it, then, be our object in all we do to help, 
 not only ourselves but each other, and let us strive so to 
 live and work, as to show that self-help is far removed 
 from selfishness.* 
 
 * I wish to correct a mistake in the Chapter on “Choice of a 
 Business.” I have spoken of the Female Medical College as if the 
 students there could obtain diplomas or licenses as. general medical 
 practitioners. This is not the case; they can only obtain certificates for 
 midwifery. The instruction given on the subject is said to be good, and 
 this branch offers a fair opening for remunerative employment to women 
 of some education; but the ladies instructed there are not enabled to 
 engage legally in any other part of the profession. It is, however, 
 possible for women to enter the general medical profession, and the 
 Secretary of the Society for the Employment of Women, can place ladies 
 wishing to enter it in communication with a lady who has obtained a 
 license to act as general practitioner, and who will give information upon 
 the course necessary to be pursued. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Female School of Art, and House Decorators. 
 
 Instruction in decorations of all kinds is given at the 
 Female School of Art, 43, Queen Square, Bloomsbury, by 
 Dr. Dresser, F.L.S. Terms, £5 for a session of 20 weeks. 
 Students and free scholars of the School of Art, are admitted 
 for £2. Orders for house decorations and designs of all 
 kinds are received at the School. 
 
 Wood engraving is also taught, as well as all styles of 
 drawing and painting. Applications to be made to the lady 
 superintendent. Miss Gann. 
 
 B. 
 
 Institutions for Training Nurses. 
 
 The committee of the Nightingale Fund train nurses at 
 St. Thomas’s Hospital, age from 25 to 35. The training 
 lasts a year. Probationers are kept, free of expense, and 
 receive a small salary; at the end of a year situations in 
 hospitals are found them. Applications to be made to Mrs. 
 Wardroper, Matron, St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, S.E. 
 
 St. John’s House Training Institution. Norfolk Street^ 
 
 Strand^ London. 
 
 Age between 25 and 40. Period of probation according 
 to capacity. Probationers and nurses kept free. Wages, 
 
138 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 first year £10: gradually rising to £20; 5s. a month extra 
 during actual attendance on the sick. A superannuation 
 fund is being formed. Applications to be made to the Lady 
 Superintendent. 
 
 All Saints’ Home. 82, Margaret Street^ Cavendish 
 
 Square^ London. 
 
 Women of a superior class, as well as those of humble 
 degree, are received here. Age of probationers from 20 to 
 45. Time of training three months; board, lodging, and 
 washing found. Nurses are paid besides on the following 
 scale: 
 
 * 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 1st year.10 10 0 
 
 2nd ..12 0 0 
 
 3rd „.14 0 0 
 
 4th „.lb 0 0 
 
 5th „.18 0 0 
 
 After the fifth year a nurse will receive £20 without 
 further increase. 
 
 Each nurse will have two print dresses and two best 
 dresses given her every year; must belong to the Church 
 of England, be of good character, and able to read and 
 write. Application to be made to the Mother Superior, at 
 the Home, from whom further particulars can be ascertained. 
 
 Institution of Nursing Sisters. 4, Devonshire Square^ 
 Bishopsgate^ London^ N.E. 
 
 Age of probationers from 28 to 40; must be intelligent 
 and of good character. Time of probation, several weeks, 
 when, if found qualified, they are received as sisters. 
 Stipend, first year, £20; third, £23; fifth, £25; board, 
 lodging, dress, &c. After twelve years’ service a superan¬ 
 nuation pension of £20 per anniim. Candidates to apply 
 personally to the Lady Superintendent at the Institution, 
 between 9 and 12. This Institution was founded by 
 Mrs. Fry. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 139 
 
 Liverpool Training School and Home for Nurses. 
 
 Age of probationers from 25 to 35, certificates of age, 
 liealtii, and character required. Wages of probationers after 
 the first three months, £14 4s. a year, with board, lodging, 
 and washing. At the end of the year they become nurses, 
 when they will be required to serve two more years in 
 hospital, or as they may be directed, after which time they 
 are free to engage in private nursing. Application to be 
 made to the Lady Superintendent of the Training School for 
 Nurses, Koyal Infirmary, Liverpool. 
 
 Bath Training Institution and Home for Nurses. 
 
 Age from 20 to 35 years. Qualifications—good health 
 and character, able to read and write. A premium of three 
 guineas is required with each candidate, and an agreement is 
 entered into after a month’s trial, to serve the Institution for 
 three years. Wages, £8 a year to probationers, £12 to 
 nurses. After three years the nurses are at liberty to engage 
 in private nursing, or to remain in the Institution at higher 
 wages. Api)lication to be made to the Lady Superintendent, 
 7, Duke Street, Bath. Arrangements are being made to 
 receive educated women (ladies in reduced circumstances) 
 and instruct them in midwifery and monthly nursing. 
 
 Bristol Training Institution. 
 
 The system is almost the same as at Bath, wages rather 
 higlier. Apply to the Hon. Secretary, 5, Cambridge Place, 
 Clifton, Bristol. 
 
 Women are also trained as nurses in almost every hospital; 
 for though ready-trained nurses are preferred, it is almost 
 impossible to obtain a sufiicient number. The best treatment 
 is given in the Government Army Hospitals. 
 
 Army Hospitals. 
 
 Age of nurses from 30 to 40 ; must be able to write and 
 produce a certificate of good character. Wages commence 
 
140 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 at £20 a year, with board, lodging, and uniform dress, and 
 are raised at the rate of £2 a year till they reach £50. At 
 60 every nurse must retire on a pension. Pension after ten 
 years’ service, £12 a year ; an addition of rather more than a 
 pound is made for each subsequent year’s service, until £35 
 is reached. 
 
 Eight hours are allowed for sleep, two for recreation, 
 besides time for meals. If a nurse loses her health before 
 she has served ten years, she receives a small gratuity to 
 enable her to rest while recovering. A woman of good 
 education is almost certain to rise in a few months to some 
 superior office. 
 
 Nurses trained under the Nightingale fund at St. Thomas’ 
 Hospital, are often sent to Military Hospitals ; but applica¬ 
 tion may also be made to the Superintendent General of 
 nurses, Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley, Southampton. 
 
 At the following Institutions in London, women can be 
 trained as midwives :— 
 
 Queen Charlotte’s Lying-in Hospital. New Road^ 
 
 Marylehone^ N.W. 
 
 Two classes of pupils are admitted. The first class have 
 a bedroom and sitting-room to themselves, are comfortably 
 boarded, and received instruction from the medical officers. 
 Fee, £30 for three months’ training. The second class sleep 
 and live in common, cook their own meals, and receive no in¬ 
 struction from the medical officers, but are taught by the 
 matron and nurses. Fee, £8 8s. for three months. Applica¬ 
 tions to be made to the Secretary or Matron at the Hospital. 
 
 British Lying-in Hospital. Endell Street^ Long 
 
 Acre, W.C. 
 
 Resident pupils admitted. Applications to be made to 
 the Secretary, from whom further particulars can be as¬ 
 certained. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 141 
 
 King’s College Hospital, Portugal Street^ London^ W.C. 
 
 Respectable women between 26 and 34 years of age are 
 here taught midwifery. The period of training is si:s 
 months, instruction is given gratis, but £10 must be paid 
 in advance for board, lodging, and washing. A certificate 
 of good health and references as to character will be 
 required. Probationers are received on the 31st of October 
 and 30th April in each year. Applications should be made 
 not less than a fortnight previously, to the Lady Superin¬ 
 tendent, from whom a printed paper of regulations can be 
 obtained. 
 
 City op London Hospital, City Road^ E.C. 
 
 General Lying-in Hospital, Yorh Road^ Lambeth. 
 
 Royal Maternity Charity, Office, 2, Chatham Place, 
 Blackfriars, E.C. 35 midwives employed. 
 
 Royal Pimlico Lying-in Institution, 38, Upper Belgrave 
 Place, Pimlico, /S.IF. 
 
 St. George’s and St. James’ Lying-in Charity, 17, ' 
 Savile Row, W. 
 
 At these places instruction can be obtained on various 
 terms, the particulars of which had better be ascertained 
 from the resident officers. I fear that the course of instruc¬ 
 tion seldom, if ever, exceeds three months, a term insufficient 
 to enable a pupil to attain to much skill; but probably the 
 pupil might often obtain an engagement as midwife after 
 the term was over, and thus have the opportunity of 
 practising under experienced medical men before setting up 
 for herself. Educated women should study the subject before 
 going, that they may derive as much benefit as possible from 
 the instruction afforded. 
 
 At the Female Medical College, 4, Fitzroy Square, W.C., 
 lectures are given on Midwifery. A course of study at this 
 College would be an excellent preparation for the practical 
 instruction obtained at the Lying-in Institutions. 
 
142 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 C. 
 
 Oefice in London where Law Copying can be learnt :— 
 
 12, Portugal Street^ LincoMs Inn^ W.C. 
 
 Fee, £1. Six months are required to learn the business 
 really well as a clerk, but pupils can begin to earn money 
 much sooner. MSS. are copied, circulars written, and every 
 kind of writing executed at the same place. Two years’ in¬ 
 struction would be required for the head of an establishment. 
 
 D. 
 
 Commercial School for Girls, 45, Great Ormond 
 
 Street^ W.C. 
 
 Terms, 9d. a week for children above ten, 6d. for those 
 under ten. 
 
 Classes for training young women as clerks and book¬ 
 keepers are held at the Working Woman’s College, 29, 
 Queen’s Square, W.C. Fee, 5s. for a term of 14 or 15 
 weeks. 
 
 Cooking Schools. 
 
 16, Soho Square. Director, Mrs. Langton. A Kegister 
 
 Office is kept here. The terms of instruction can be had 
 on application. 281, Regent Street. Director, Mrs. 
 
 Mitchell. 
 
 F. 
 
 Emigration Offices. 
 
 Government Office for Domestic Servants^ 3, Park Street, 
 Westminster. Free passages. 
 
 National Female Emigration Society. Office for Domestic 
 Servants, 44, Charing Cross. 
 
 Assisted passages to Australia, New Zealand, and the 
 Colonies. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 143 
 
 Colonial Emigration. 
 
 Commissioner for Canada. Office^ Dray's Buildings^ Water 
 Street^ Liverpool. 
 
 Commissioner for Queensland. Office.^ 17, GracecTiurch Street^ 
 London. 
 
 Commissioners for Canterbury. Office^ 16, Charing Cross. 
 
 .Commissioners for Adelaide. Office, 5, Copthall Court, 
 Throgmorton Street, E.C. 
 
 Commissioner for Otago. Office, 36, Leadenhall Street, E.C., 
 and 20, St. Andrew Square, Edinburgh. 
 
 Any kind of women of good character taken. 
 
 Commissioner for Southland. Office, 3, Adelaide Place, 
 King William Street, E.C. Assisted passages. 
 
 Middle Class Female Emigration Society, 12, Portugal 
 Street, Lincoln's Inn, W.C. 
 
 Assisted passages to all the Colonies given to nursery 
 governesses and practically-educated women. Secretaries, 
 Miss Rye and Miss Jane Lewin. 
 
 G. 
 
 Homes for Young Women in London. 
 
 As young women in business, or coming to town to learn 
 a trade, or to seek employment, or prepare for emigration, 
 are often at a loss to find cheap yet comfortable and respect¬ 
 able lodgings, the following Homes have been established to 
 receive them ; but I strongly recommend no one to come to 
 London to seek employment, as it is more difficult to be 
 procured there than in the country. 
 
 Christian Young Women’s Home, 50, Charlotte Street, 
 
 Fitzroy Square, W.C. 
 
 Terms 10s. a week for board and lodging; 12s. with a 
 private bedroom. 
 
144 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Christian Young Women’s Home, 48, Crawford Street^ 
 
 Portman Square. 
 
 Terms 5s. a week. 
 
 In all cases lodging alone is given when required, or 
 partial board on reduced terms. 
 
 H. 
 
 Needlewomen’s Institution, 
 
 Where ladies can engage workwomen at Is. 6d. a day. 
 
 2, Hinde Street^ Manchester Square. Secretary, Miss 
 Barlee. 
 
 Any additional useful information will be gratefully 
 received by the Author, at the office of the Society for the 
 Employment of Women, 19, Langham Place. 
 
 JARROLD AND SONS, PRINTERS, NORWICH. 
 
JARROLD & SONS’ PUBLICATIONS, 
 
 12, Paternoster Row, Loridon, 
 
 ONE SHILLING BOOHS. 
 
 Happy Half-Hours with the Bible; or, Mary Jane 
 
 and Bertie. By Aunt Emily. Frontispiece, i8mo, cloth. 
 
 My Teacher’s Gift. For Girls. On Toned Paper, with 
 
 Frontispiece. iSiiio, cloth. Also in Paper Covers, 6d. 
 
 My Teacher’s Gift. For Boys. On Toned Paper, with 
 
 Frontispiece. i8mo, cloth. Also in Paper Covers, 6d. 
 
 Children of Summerbrook : Scenes of Village Life in 
 
 Simple Verse. By Mrs. Sewell, Author of “ Mother’s Last Words.” 
 Frontispiece, lamo, cloth. 
 
 Rose Bryant : Passages in her Maiden and Married Life. 
 
 By Emma Marshall. Frontispiece, lamo, cloth. 
 
 The New Home : or. Wedded Life ; its Duties, Cares, 
 
 and Pleasures. Frontispiece, lamo, cloth. 
 
 The Peace Maker and the Mischief Maker. 
 
 Frontispiece, Foolscap 8vo, cloth. 
 
 Tales of the Workroom :—The Sisters. By Mrs. 
 
 Curtis. Frontispiece, i8mo, cloth. 
 
 Consideration ; or. How we can Help one Another. 
 
 By Emma Marshall. Frontispiece, i8mo, cloth. 
 
 Every-Day Wonders of Bodily Life; Essential to 
 
 be known for Health and Comfort, By Anne Bullar. lamo, cloth. 
 
 Lessons about God : for very Little Children. By 
 
 Sophia Sinnett. i8mo, cloth. 
 
 Tales of the North American Indians and Adven¬ 
 tures of the Early Settlers in America. Frontispiece, lamo, cloth. 
 
 Katie’s Work. By Emma Marshall. Frontispiece, 
 
 i8mo, cloth. 
 
 Things of Every-Day LTse : What they Are, Where 
 
 they Come From, and How they are Made. lamo, cloth. 
 
 Lyrics for Little Ones. i8mo, cloth. 
 
 Kirton’s Temperance Tales, including “Buy Your 
 
 Own Cherries.” lamo. 
 
 The Book for Fathers and Mothers. Frontispiece, 
 
 lamo, cloth. 
 
 The Book on Home Happiness. Frontispiece, i2mo, 
 
 cloth. 
 
 The Book for Workers and Thinkers. Frontispiece, 
 
 i 2 mo, cloth. 
 
 'I'he Book for Young Women. Frontispiece, i2mo, 
 
 cloth. 
 
 The Book for Young Men. Frontispiece, i 2 mo, cloth. 
 
JARROLD & SONS’ PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 ONE SHILLING BOOKS. 
 
 The Book for Boys and Girls. Frontispiece, i2mo, 
 
 cloth. 
 
 The Book of Poetry on Home and School Life. 
 
 ^Frontispiece, i 2 mo, cloth. 
 
 The Pathway of Health. Frontispiece, i 2 mo, cloth. 
 The Book for Young Men and Women. Frontispiece, 
 
 i 2 mo, cloth. 
 
 Home ! Sweet Home ! and other Tales. Frontispiece, 
 
 i 2 mo, cloth. 
 
 Popular Readings. Frontispiece, i 2 mo, cloth. 
 
 Tales in Rhyme. Frontispiece, i2mo, cloth. 
 
 ONE SHILLING AND SIXPENNY BOOKS. 
 
 Roger’s Apprenticeship; or. Five Years of a Boy’s 
 
 Life. By Emma Marshall. 8vo, foolscap, embossed cloth. 
 
 Fred Williams. A Tale for Boys. Frontispiece, 
 
 embossed cloth. 
 
 Do IT WITH THY MIGHT; or, our Work in the World. 
 
 Addressed to those who ask, “ What shall we Do Cloth elegant. 
 
 Sayings about Friendship. By the Author of “Do 
 
 it with thy Might.” Cloth elegant. 
 
 Rural Scenes ; a Peep into the Country. New Edition. 
 
 profusely illustrated, demy i8mo, embossed cloth. 
 
 Picture Story Book of London ; or. City Scenes. 
 
 New Edition, profusely illustrated, royal i8mo, embossed cloth. 
 
 The Earth and its Garment of Water and Air. 
 
 i 2 mo, cloth. 
 
 The Atoms and Electric Forces of the Earth. 
 
 i 2 mo, cloth. 
 
 Hints on Self-Help for Young Women. An Answer 
 
 to the Question, “What Shall we Do with our Daughters?” By Jessie 
 Boucherett. Frontispiece, i8mo, cloth. 
 
 Health for the Household. Frontispiece, i 2 mo, cloth. 
 Here a Little and There a Little ; or Daily Manna 
 
 for the Lambs of Christ’s Fold. By a Mother.' Frontispiece, iSmo, cloth. 
 
 The Life of a Plant; “Science for the Household.” 
 
 i 2 mo, cloth. 
 
 Household Truths for Young Men. Frontispiece, 
 
 i 2 mo, cloth. 
 
 Household Truths for Working Men. Frontispiece, 
 
 i 2 mo, cloth. 
 
 Household Truths for Mothers and Daughters. 
 
 Frontispiece, lamo, cloth.