But they would rather live with strangers, accepting a position which is often invidious, than lift a hand to work at home, so great is the repugnance to manual labour.

These, again, have no domestic knowledge (beyond that of teaching children), none of cooking, or general household management.

If they marry a tenant farmer of their own class, with but small capital, they are too often a burden financially.
Whence comes this intense dislike to hand work--this preference for the worst paid head work?
It is not confined, of course, to the gentler sex.
No more striking feature of modern country life can be found.
You cannot blame these girls, whether poor or moderately well-to-do, for thinking of something higher, more refined and elevating than the cheese-tub or the kitchen.

It is natural, and it is right, that they should wish to rise above that old, dull, dead level in which their mothers and grandmothers worked from youth to age.

The world has gone on since then--it is a world of education, books, and wider sympathies.