Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/283

Rh calling,—the other had prepared herself for the occupation of a teacher.

Enamel-painting is a kindred class of work, which, as well as watch-making, affords a good and safe means of support to a great part of the female population of Geneva, in more than one class. The work is done at home, or in work-shops; many well-educated young girls work for the manufactory at their parents' houses, and thus contribute to the prosperity of the family. The little watch-making shops, the little work-table, are to be met with in every village and small farm-house in the neighborhood of Geneva. The daughters of the peasants work at these.

I have seen and heard enough of the lives of these female workers, as well in their homes as in their work-shops, to thank God that so great a number of women here, are able, by means of a good and inexpensive branch of industry, to provide for themselves, and acquire an independence—which may lead to great good; and many beautiful examples can be given of these young female workers, applying their earnings to the support of their aged parents, or for the education of younger sisters or relatives.

For the greater part, they seem to become principally the means of the indulgences of vanity, or even of less allowable independence.

The female worker, in the full and highest meaning of her vocation, in the complete fullness of her life, is a character which I have not met with here, as I have done—in Sweden.

I remember there, a little work-table, at which is seated a woman, still young, working from early