[The Business of Being a Woman by Ida M. Tarbell]@TWC D-Link book
The Business of Being a Woman

CHAPTER VI
16/23

It is with her as it is with any newcomer in a strange land of strange tongue--she is shy, dreads ridicule.

Instead of encouraging her to preserve and develop that which she has learned at home, we drive her to abandon it by our ignorant assumption that she knows nothing worth our learning.

The case of peasant handicraft is in point.

It is only recently that we have begun to realize that most women immigrants know some kind of beautiful handicraft which they have entirely dropped for fear of being laughed at.
A very frequent excuse for the lack of pains that the average woman gives to the training of the raw girl is that she marries as soon as she becomes useful.

But is it not part of the woman's business in this democracy to help the newcomer to an independent position?
Is it not part of her business to help settle her servants in matrimony?
Certainly any large and serious conception of her business must include this obligation.
It is the failure to recognize opportunities for public service of this kind that makes the woman say her life is narrow.


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