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is difficult to estimate the effect of years of suppression in childhood. It no doubt depends on the The result is doubtless dependent on the individual. My mother, at the end of life, when my father is no longer capable of directing the household, says with her usual flash of fun, "I have been so long told that I can do nothing, that I have come to believe it." As for me, a keen student of human nature once remarked, "You work best when opposed". Possibly this was a long period of training in enduring silently yet somehow obtaining in small measure my own way. For instance, before I entered high school, my father insisted that I should take the commercial course. Of what use would a classical education be to a woman, he asked. A girl of 13, I spent the summer vacation previous to entering high school plugging at old Latin books that were in the family bookcase, and when school opened, I not only took shorthand & typing but also Latin,— though I refrained from revealing the fact that I was studying Latin for some time.  But at the same time I was learning to thump a typewriter I was fitting myself for college.


[[strikethrough]] By this time my father's plan for making me a stenographer or book keeper had shifted to making me a school marm. [[/strikethrough]]

And when the time came and I picked out a co-educational city college [[strikethrough]] near home and not too expensive, and [[/strikethrough]] within commenting distance, my father conceded rather regretfully that I might become a school marm instead of a bookkeeper or stenographer [[strikethrough]] in his own business establishment. [[/strikethrough]] 


This insistence of my father on my taking a business course led to one excellent result. This training provided me with a trade by which at times I have kept my footing economically. No matter who the individual is, a training for some sort of trade should be part of his life equipment. And the earlier this mechanical or manual training is acquired the better.