Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/141

 finance are suggested by these letters. For even when a woman is advised against the step she follows her own inclination and opens the shop, only to lose all through her ignorance of the trade. She does not know how to buy. She does not know how to direct the work of those whose knowledge of hat-making and trimming is necessary to draw custom. She is deceived by unscrupulous jobbers and wholesalers.

The woman with a little money to invest should not consider opening a millinery store unless she can spend at least two seasons actually working in a wholesale trimming establishment in a millinery center like New York, Chicago, or St. Joe. She should take any sort of work offered, and keep her eyes everlastingly open to what is going on around her in the workroom. At the end of her second season she may not know how to trim hats, but she will know many tricks of the trade, and how to select a trimmer for her venture, also something about buying goods. This work in a trade center may not even pay her board, unless she lives at a home for working-girls; but on the other hand it may open her eyes to the pitfalls of the business, and save for herself and her family the money she was so keen to invest.

If she cannot serve the commercial apprenticeship, then she should find a practical partner, rather than hire all of her workers. Per-