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 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 work the girl, uncertain of her ability to master what she has undertaken, is placed in a position in which she has the encouragement of neither the school nor the home.  Before, she has put much of the responsibility for her work and life upon parents and instructors.  Now she has to be her own judge and pass judgment on herself and her work.  She has, too, not only to lift her own weight but the weight of others as well.  As she longs for cooeperation, good will and encouragement the value of the team-play spirit has never seemed so great before.