The field of employment which has just been described, offers great opportunities for the proper kind of women to make an independent livelihood. The work is hard and confining, but the pay, as women are paid, is very good. A trained nurse never receives less than $20 a week, her board being, of course, included, and more often she will get $25, or even $30, a week; in fact, she can command her own price, and that price will depend upon the wealth and liberality of her patrons, and the ability which she brings to bear on the case in hand. Good nursing is very often more important than good doctoring, and thousands of people are willing to pay liberally for such exceptional help. The demand for trained nurses far exceeds the supply, and, provided a woman has made herself fully competent in this peculiarly appropriate branch of women's work, the extent of her employment will only be limited by her physical strength to render the services required.
PROOF-READERS, COMPOSITORS, AND BOOKBINDERS.
Men who employ women in trades and businesses where they have to work for some length of time before they become skilled laborers have one very strong objection against female help. "No sooner," they say, "do we really begin to get some benefit from the woman's work, after having borne long and patiently with her sins of omission and commission, than along comes a good-looking young fellow and marries her."
For this reason women sometimes find it difficult to obtain entrance into the most desirable establishments where trades can be learned. And yet these same employers are not hostile to female labor; on the contrary, they are strongly in favor of it, but they say that they are not willing to encourage it to the extent of sacrificing the necessary time and trouble in making a woman perfect in a trade, and then seeing her leave them to enter upon the presumably more congenial duties of matrimony.
The woman, therefore, who desires to learn a trade may find this difficulty meeting her at the threshold. All employers, however, are not alike, and some establishment can generally be found where a woman can learn the first principles of the occupation she wishes to follow; as soon as she has attained a reasonable degree of proficiency in it, she can get a position in a larger and better establishment, where the pay will probably be higher and the surroundings more agreeable.