ays injures us. If we have
duties to perform, and hire or command another to perform them, we rob
ourselves of one of the richest blessings that can come to a mortal
being--the consciousness of having performed a duty and the improvement
gained by its performance. Thousands of women in our country are greatly
injured by the presence of their servants. Servants do for them what
they ought to do for themselves. They acquire the habit of dependence,
and it soon degenerates them into petty tyrants. If I had but two
lessons to impress upon the young women of my generation, the first
should be that a useful Employment is the primary means of developing a
true womanhood.

I know there is an antipathy to labor among a large class of women; I
know that women as well as men seek to avoid care and responsibility; I
know that useful Employments are looked upon as hard necessities, to be
avoided if possible. But still I know that Employment--daily, constant,
responsible Employment--is the stepping-stone to mental and moral worth,
to usefulness and happiness. I do not contend for degrading toil, but
for honorable, mind-developing, soul-redeeming, heart-adorning
Employment. Both men and women are made better by useful Employment.
Life is given for Employment; our powers are made for activity. If God
had intended that any of us should be idle, he would have built houses,
made clothes, cooked victuals, formed characters, accumulated knowledge,
and had every thing that we need both for mind and body ready made at
our hands. But not so. He has made all that is grand in life, that is
glorious in thought, depend upon our own exertions. This is as true of
women as of men. Then the idler is a leech on himself--his own
despoiler. An idle woman is as base a thing as an idle man. She was made
for usefulness. A drone in any hive is a base bee--a nuisance, a leech,
a moth.

I know young women have refined ideas of delicacy; sometimes imagine it
is vulgar to be useful; that delicate hands are evidences of ladyship.
They ought to know that a delicate hand is an evidence of a shallow
brain; that a soft hand is an evidence of a soft head. Ladyship and
womanhood are two things. A soft hand and a faint heart may make one,
but not the other. Womanhood is put on by industry in the pursuit of
good. It is made in the field of noble Employment.

I seek to elevate woman. I look to her elevation as the elevation of the
race. I see in her powers capable of g