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p>Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 684 February 3, 1877

      FEMALE PROFESSIONALS

      Discussions respecting suitable employments for women have for the last few years caused much unpleasant excitement. Society is divided on the subject. Shall women study to be medical practitioners or not? Are they not entitled to compete fairly with men in such occupations as are consistent with their strength and abilities? Surely you are not going to treat them as inferior beings? These are the sort of questions that have been debated, and not always in a very placid humour. Having never interfered one way or other in this matter of dispute, we approach it in a perfectly impartial spirit, and desire to treat it not from any of the partisan views usually presented, but in the broad light of Nature – for to that every temporary and local interest must in a great degree eventually give way.

      Let us go practically to the point, as that is better than any abstract reasoning. In a late number of our contemporary, The Queen, a London periodical partly devoted to illustrations of ladies' fashionable apparel, it is intimated that a wood-engraver of high standing had opened a class in London for instructing ladies in the art of wood-engraving. The announcement proceeds to say that wood-engraving is a lucrative art, in which partial training is valueless, and that the artist referred to being 'deeply interested in the extension of this work as an employment for women, does his utmost to impress upon all whom it may concern that no one can hope to succeed as a wood-engraver who is not willing to devote six hours a day for six years to learning the work. It has often been a matter of surprise to us that ladies did not study wood-engraving as a profession. If any novelty in dress or millinery is brought to us, and we desire to illustrate it in our pages, experience has taught us – and we only say this after repeated trials – that to Paris it must go to be both drawn and engraved. We have tried artists of fame, as well as unknown men, and always with the same result – utter failure. The figures may be more natural, and the faces better drawn perhaps, but as illustrations of dress or bonnets the English engravings failed to convey any definite idea of them, and were practically useless. Now that the use of illustrations in the literature of the day is constantly on the increase, and the number of periodicals devoted to ladies' requirements, are legion; also now that catalogues issued by the leading London mercers of their latest novelties yearly become more complete, we marvel why ladies who have a talent for drawing do not attempt to bring it into the market, and acquire the French knack of drawing, even such trifling matters as bonnets, on wood. Delicacy of touch rather than strength of hand is required; the cost of the requisite tools is nominal; it is essentially a home occupation, cleanly in its nature, and free from any unpleasant accompaniments. Wood-engraving is certainly worth a trial to any ladies who have studied drawing, and like the occupation, but to succeed it should be taken up seriously, and not as a pastime.'

      We should be exceedingly glad to learn that the artist mentioned was successful in finding a numerous class of young women, who having little or nothing to do, would patiently and intelligently 'devote six hours a day for six years' to acquiring a satisfactory proficiency in the art of drawing and cutting illustrations on wood. It is an elegant art, requiring taste and accuracy of observation. In London especially it is, as is stated, largely in request, and accordingly to the skilled who are ready with their services, can hardly fail to be fairly remunerative. Nor should we forget that it involves no more severe bodily labour than needlework, if so much, while it is ten times more interesting.

      Unfortunately, there is a per contra in almost everything, and particularly as concerns the prosecution of industrial occupations by women – wood-engraving and doctoring included. We frankly own that in many employments women are qualified to come up to men in proficiency, if not to go beyond them. We see this in various departments. It is much more observable in France than in England, perhaps because the draining away of men for the army has long been much greater in France than in our own country. In Paris, as we have seen, the man struts about in uniform, while Madame, under the pressure of domestic necessity, paints pictures, keeps the shop, or in some other way employs herself to secure a living, and sends baby to nurse with the chance of never seeing it more either alive or dead. That may be called making the most of women as bread-winners.

      In England, society has not got this length, and we hope it never will. The foundation of our polity, civil and religious, is the family system, and it is the natural and proper system, anything else being abhorrent to cherished feelings and convictions. The destiny of man has been indicated with a plainness not to be mistaken. 'Man goeth forth to his labour.' In the old texts we do not hear of women having, like the over-drudged shop-keeping females in Paris, to toil for the support of husband and family. Knowing, and in no respect objecting to his fate, a young man learns and sticks to his profession. There is his work before him. It is the thing by which he proposes to live, as well as to maintain those for whom he may incur a responsibility. He may in the progress of affairs enlarge and improve upon his original employment, but unless he be a downright ne'erdoweel, or by good-luck falls into a fortune, he never entertains the idea of giving up work altogether as long as he is blessed with health and strength. The truth is, in most instances, work becomes so much a pleasure and a habit, as not to be readily relinquished, even when the pressure of necessity has passed away.

      Such is the destiny of men according to the order of Nature. That of females is very different, or at least it is only modified by special and unavoidable circumstances. The young woman does not naturally look out for a trade which she will have to pursue for life. If she selects an employment to support herself, it is a kind of make-shift. It is something that may honourably provide for her wants in the meantime, or for a few years, as the case may be, but is not seriously viewed as a profession for life. The result is a degree of training and self-sacrifice inferior to that to which men feel obliged to devote themselves. Miss Nightingale has said that 'three-fourths of the mischief in women's lives arises from their excepting themselves from the rules of training considered needful for men.' Just so. Women might in many departments of labour be equal to, or outshine men, but they will not take the trouble. They are thinking about something else, as it is quite natural they should do.

      Miss B. B. M'Laren, a lady in Edinburgh, who has interested herself in the instruction of young women in wood-engraving as a pleasant and remunerative profession, does not speak very hopefully on the subject, in a small pamphlet which she has issued. Her words are worth quoting: 'In some of the novels of late years, in which a heroine is suddenly thrown on her own resources for maintenance, she at once becomes an engraver on wood, the profession being invariably acquired in the course of a year! Accuracy had to be sacrificed for the exigences of the tale, and anything can be accomplished on paper; but in real life several years of daily work will pass before proficiency is acquired. This does not mean to say that a proficiency very pleasing to the amateur may not be reached at a much earlier period, and pictures for admiring friends to praise grow under her hands; but the amateur standard and the professional one are widely apart. Partial training has been the ruin of many attempts to gain new employment for women. It is often spoken of as desirable that they should do "a little" work, but the "little" which is meant to apply to the matter of quantity, is easily transferred to that of quality, and this effectually bars the way to success. It is very undesirable to see a lowered standard for women's work, and yet what reason is there to expect the attainment of the higher one in any way but with the same amount of time and labour given by young men? No one asks for more. It is sometimes said that girls "take up things" more quickly than boys; but even where this is the case, the intuitive quickness of perception which rapidly obtains some knowledge of art, will not do away with the need for that time and experience which alone will give the power to practise it.'

      In the education of women, according to this lady, there is usually a fatal want of 'thoroughness.' Things are learned superficially. This she laments; but from what we have already hinted at, it does not seem strange. The ordinary professions are not the vocation of women, and by no contrivance can we make them so, any more than we could make water run uphill. The hope of woman from the outset is some day to be married, and fall into the range of duties imposed on a wife and mother. Now, there is nothing wrong in aspirations of this kind. They are, on the contrary, to be commended, and at all events spring from moral and intellectual conditions which Nature has demonstrated from the earliest girlhood. Take, for example, the love of dolls. In every country in the world, dolls are the solace of female children. In

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