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    174 TUITION OR TRADE?

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    As Cate This The Emp Journal Loyment Is ...

    the means of gaining * a social position or subsistence , with what is inferred to be Utopian ideas about freedom , justly excepting *

    however the well-known paper read by Miss Parkes at the Bradford meeting-, on the Market for Educated Female Labor .

    Writers here and there , few and difficult to find as needles in bundles of hay , may have ventured beyond the limits prescribed by

    even the liberal-minded ; yet it cannot be denied , while we are thankful for the generous encouragement shown in many influential

    quarters and in tangible forms , that a narrower spirit prevails and in a wider sphere , whereby the mere effort to gain bread is

    encountered by the prejudice that still exists against every species of occupation not strictly domestic .

    Home-life is insisted upon in a manner that may almost be termed cruel ; for it is a fact , that no such life can be found for

    thousands , unless starving in a cheerless London attic , or sitting * an unwelcome guest at a stranger ' s board , can be called a " home . "

    It is to build up homes , to plant trees under whose pleasant foliage the worker may repose , that we demand space to labor in , and

    avocations for which we are anxious to prepare ourselves . The author of the article on Female Labor selected for comment

    must excuse us should we err in believing that his experience seems to be more with the dead than the living ; that books rather

    than men and women , with their social activities , their wants and their wishes , have been his companions ; consequently the wheels

    of every-day life are not brought within the range of his observation . On one point his theory is as Utopian as any conceived

    combination of circumstances that has yet been worked up into a system and offered for acceptance to the world at large . We all

    have our pet opinions , our sure and certain remedies for whatever is amiss in society ; and the dominant idea of our ally in " Fraser" is ,

    that women should have leisure , ample leisure , in order to acquire knowledge from the pure love of storing up information . He

    complains of the contempt now shown by women for " leisure / ' wrongly , we think , as it is the other sex who , in their haste to be rich ,

    scarcely find time to remember that they have wives and children and home duties that demand attention as well as business . Women

    apparently have too much leisure , while men have too little ; thus , to the former , home-life becomes dreary and monotonous , while the

    latter have no home-life at all worth the name . Idleness is as sternly deprecated as any of the most earnest advocates of work can

    desire ; therefore on this point we are agreed , our differences arising with regard to the nature of the employments proposed , and to the

    objects for which labor is to be undertaken . The chief objection against the employment of women in industrial

    pursuits is based on the fear that teaching * would be turned away from by many with disgust ; and it is regretted by the writer in

    question , that the office of governess has been spoken of as less worthy to occupy women than some other avocations in which mental culture

    i \

    174 Tuition Or Trade?

    174 TUITION OR TRADE ?

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1860, page 174, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051860/page/30/