t it will be easy. Yet most must make their own way, and
perhaps most of these have a fair share of happiness, for there are
compensations in all work done in the right spirit.

V.

SELF-SUPPORT--HOW SHALL GIRLS SUPPORT THEMSELVES?

And now how shall a girl choose her occupation? And how shall she be
fitted for it?

If she has a superb voice she may sing. If she has undoubted genius in
any direction her decision is easy, whatever difficulty there may be in
getting her education. Most people, however, have not genius. They can
do some things better than others, and it is of great importance to
their success and happiness that they should be able to use their
natural powers to the best advantage. Still their gifts are not great
enough to be perfectly clear at sight. It is only by careful cultivation
that they become really available, and if a mistake is made in the line
of one's education it is hard to repair it.

I think the course I have already described as practical for girls
should be the foundation for the education of all girls, save in a few
exceptional cases. If, in the end, a girl marries, her reading and
cooking and housekeeping are all necessary. How can she use these homely
accomplishments in earning a living?

They will not, to be sure, bring her a large income, but there is a
steadier demand for good work in these directions than in any others. So
a woman who has them is almost sure of a modest support. She need not go
out to service to be a cook. Who has seen the dignified and refined Mrs.
Lincoln giving lessons at the cooking-school without realizing that
cooking may be a fine art, or who has read the cook-book of Mrs.
Richards without perceiving that cooking may be an intellectual pursuit?

But these women are exceptions. I will take a humbler example. I knew at
school a stylish, energetic girl who was too dull to learn her lessons,
but who had the air of polish which comes from association with educated
people. Half a dozen years later she found herself obliged to earn her
living. She had a little money, and she risked it in leasing a good
house on a good city street which she filled with boarders. She worked
very hard, and she had much to discourage and disgust her. But she knew
how such a house ought to be kept, and she had the determination to keep
it in that way. It will be seen that she was a rare landlady. Some
landladies do not know how a house ought to be kept, and some have no
c