the way is not made easy for her; she is a novice with all the hardships
that come to the novice. Perhaps in the beginning she has met a very
real perplexity in hardly knowing what line of work to take up. She has
no particular interest, no especial talent, no brilliant record, no
powerful friends, no money with which to establish herself. 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