Courage and self-reliance are now held to be virtues as womanly
as they are manly; for the world has grown wise enough to see
that nothing except a life can really help another life. It is
strange that it should ever have held any other theory about
woman.
That was a true use of the word "help" that grew up so naturally
in the rendering and receiving of womanly service in the old-
fashioned New England household. A girl came into a family as one
of the home-group, to share its burdens, to feel that they were
her own. The woman who employed her, if her nature was at all
generous, could not feel that money alone was an equivalent for a
heart's service; she added to it her friendship, her gratitude
and esteem. The domestic problem can never be rightly settled
until the old idea of mutual help is in some way restored. This
is a question for girls of the present generation to consider,
and she who can bring about a practical solution of it will win
the world's gratitude.
We used sometimes to see it claimed, in public prints, that it
would be better for all of us mill-girls to be working in
families, at domestic service, than to be where we were.
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