elf. With her it
must be as it is with thinking: she must seize hold of the thing nearest
her. What seems to her a temporary and unsatisfactory expedient will in
many cases open out a path leading to something much broader. At least
she may remember this as consolation: that even that experience of
uncertainty, of indecision, is a part of education, and out of it,
rightly and bravely met, will come some richness for her future life.

The beginning of a work, teaching or anything else, may have to be
rather irksome, indeed, may be exceedingly difficult,--an experience
that will perhaps test staying power to the utmost. When it is too late
to give due appreciation we realize that the work in school which was
planned for us and arranged with our physical and mental well-being in
view was, after all, not so hard as we thought it at the time. We wish
that we had enjoyed our leisure more and complained less.

From the point of view of fatigue, as a secretary, a clerk, a trained
nurse, a teacher, a social worker, the burden may be so great that the
girl is disheartened. She is all the more disheartened because, knowing
that a useful life is a strong, steady pull, the way before her seems
interminable. If she carries her whip inside her--this counsel is not
for those of us who are lazy--she does well to remember that there is a
point beyond which fatigue should not be borne, that is, when it
overdraws her capital of health and nervous energy. Raising pigs is
preferable to a so-called high profession when pig-raising is happily
joined with a reasonable amount of health and security. The pigs and
health together can always pay mortgages and buy necessities for those
dependent upon us and for ourselves. The high calling without health is
like a wet paper-bag: it will hold nothing.

The girl meets with another difficulty in finding out that in almost any
line of work a great deal of time is needed for the mastery of what seem
the simplest principles. No one wants the girl who hasn't had
experience, and nobody seems disposed to take her and give her that
experience. However, we all find some one who is hardy enough or kind
enough to try us; and as every year now there is more effort put into
finding the work girls are most suited to do, there is no excuse for
slipping into teaching as a last resort. Not unnaturally we sometimes
distrust ourselves, especially in taking up an occupation to which we
are not accustomed. And in her new