Every girl who is guided by common sense will aim at becoming a business
woman. That is to say, she will try to cultivate habits of order,
industry, perseverance, method, and punctuality, and will do her best to
learn how to conduct formal correspondence, how to keep accounts, how to
manage money, and what to do with savings. Besides this, she will make a
point of knowing something about the laws relating to domestic life--the
renting of houses and the employment of servants, for example--and she
will push her inquiries in every direction, so as to acquire not only
the right way of doing things, but the right way of forming a judgment
upon them.

A wise girl will thus greatly increase her usefulness in the world. She
will be able to take part in the affairs of life with pleasure to
herself and without being a trouble and hindrance to her neighbours.

Another advantage may be pointed out. There are always people trying to
get the better of those who know nothing, and their victims more often
than not are ladies. It is easy to fall a prey to rogues and sharpers if
one is ignorant of business, especially when nature has made women
kind-hearted and experience has not rendered them suspicious. As a
protection, there is nothing like being a business woman.

Perhaps someone may say that "business woman" has a hard sound, and
stands for a character precise, selfish, and uninteresting. That is not
what we intend by it at all. Is a girl to be less loveable, less gentle,
less charming, whenever we cease to say of her, That girl, in regard to
all the ways of business, is a perfect simpleton? On the contrary,
business is a fine training-school for many virtues; and of all good