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Fit Girls for Work

By Livingston Wright

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HE Boston Trade School for Girls, of which a branch may soon be established in Chicago, and which is now closing the second year of its existence, is doing a work of incalculable value to the girls who are its students and to the community. The work is of value to the girl because it enables her to enter employment at an initial wage about three times what she could hope to receive if she began without training; and—what is quite as important, if not more so-she can enter at once the better-skilled trades in which are chances for advancement and hope for the future. The work of this school is of value to the community because it makes more efficient workers and better-developed young women physically, mentally, and morally out of these girls, who, the children of to-day, are to be the wives and the mothers of the years to

come.

The Boston Trade School for Girls, as it exists to-day, is the outcome of an experiment tried in the summer of 1904. This summer experiment, begun in July, continued for nine weeks. The philanthropic women behind the venture desired to determine by actual experiment whether or not it were possible to give to young girls a trade instruction that would meet the demands which employers were making upon young women desiring to enter the trades in which skilled workers were demanded. The nine weeks of a summer session were too brief to afford conclusive evidence of the wisdom or the feasibility of the undertaking; but they did demonstrate the truth of three propositions sufficiently to justify the continuation of the school throughout the winter. The results achieved during the first summer made it appear probable that in a compara

tively short time a trade training could be given a girl, sufficient to afford her greater opportunities in the employments where skilled workers are needed; that parents would appreciate the fact that a trade training would result in such increased opportunities for the future as to justify the forfeiture of any immediate wages the girl could earn in unskilled employments; and, finally, that the girl herself would appreciate the opportunities offered her, sufficiently to devote the necessary time without pay to training in a school conducted on shop principles, where the hours must be long and the work continuous and serious.

In equipment, the school hired a building which had once been a residence, and which provided room for about sixty pupils. At no time has the school been other than full, and for the larger part of its existence a considerable waiting list has been maintained. Local conditions in Boston and its vicinity led to the concentration of the training upon those trades which center about the needle and the foot- and electric-power machines. An electric motor was set up, of sufficient power to drive twenty machines. Footpower machines, tables, and the other articles necessary for plain sewing, dressmaking, and millinery, were provided. The basement was fitted up for a lunch. room, and so arranged that a simple training could be given in the cooking and serving of lunches. The large double parlor of the house is used for the daily assemblies, for some of the more popular classes, for gymnastics, and for recreation during the noon recess. In the upper part of the house, commodious and well-lighted studios were fitted up for the work in design.

The departments of the school during the past year have been Dressmaking, Millinery, and Machine Operating. To these, Straw-Hat Making has has been added, and will be taught in the future.

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In each of these departments the girl is prepared to enter a variety of trades. The work in dressmaking, for example, is so planned that a girl may take a position as seamstress, dressmaker's helper, experienced skirt finisher, waist finisher, or sleeve-maker, according to the aptitude of the individual and the length of time she has been able to devote to training. The same is true of millinery. The girl is prepared to be frame-maker, hat-maker, or, if special ability be shown, trimmer. To the girl who understands how to operate machinery run by electric power, a great variety of trades are open. The power-driven machine is used in all the sewing trades. The girl able to operate the power sewing-machine can go into the apron factories, shirt factories, or the establishments making shirt-waists and dresses for the wholesale trade. This training on the power machine is of value to the girl who seeks employment in the shoe factory, the glove factory, and the upholstery shop. The growth of the school during the immediate future will probably be chiefly in the extension of the power machinery department. The introduction of a few special machines would offer the girl an opportunity of becoming a specialized worker in trades like button-hole making and machine embroidery.

The fundamental plan and conception of the school is educational. It can hope to give necessary experience, skill, and speed in the more fundamental processes of a trade; it cannot hope to produce expert dressmakers or milliners. To this end, the conditions of a well-conducted shop are reproduced as nearly as possible. The girls work from 9 A. M. until 5 P. M., with an hour or so for lunch at noon. Just sufficient discipline is maintained to prevent the dissipation of time and energy. Instruction is individual, a girl advances as fast as she is able. Each process must be well done before the next process is attempted. Correctness and not speed is the first thing emphasized. When correctness has been attained, speed is developed. When the girl has learned steady application and persistent effort, and has become accustomed to long hours and accurate work, the methods of the schoolroom are gradually abandoned in dealing with her, and those of the shop adopted. The aim of the school is to give first a correct method, then an intelligent understanding of the processes involved, and finally the necessary speed and independence required by the employer.

In connection with the strictly trade work, and supplementary to it, the school gives every girl a course in practical de

signing. To develop an appreciation of beautiful lines and shapes, tones and colors, is an important part of the education given every girl. The lunch-room and kitchen in the basement is as important a supplement to the immediate trade instruction as is the studio in the attic. Here the girls are taught to prepare some simple dish to eke out the cold lunch brought from home, to care for the lunch-room, and to serve the luncheon attractively. The expense of materials. is met by a contribution of 10 cents a week from each girl. The work in the kitchen and lunch-room teaches the value of coöperation in reducing cost, and is a good training not only for the home but for the many shops and factories where facilities for preparing lunches are now offered. Out of this work, furthermore, may develop at some future time a trade related to household work.

The Trade School for Girls fills a real place in the industrial life of Boston. More than half the girls in the public schools of the city leave to go to work when they are between fourteen and sixteen years of age. Furthermore, in the great majority of cases of girls entering

or seeking to enter the millinery and dressmaking establishments, the reason for going to work is not abject poverty. The recent report of the Commission of the Legislature on Industrial and Trade Education, states that 85 per cent of the girls in millinery and dressmaking whose cases were studied by the Commission were quite able to afford further training than they had received. That report shows clearly that the critical period of the girl's life is the years between 14 and 16. Under the law she can go to work at 14. Employers report that the girl under 16 is of very little value except to run errands or in such juvenile occupations as cash girl in a department. store or dipper in a candy factory. In other words the girl who is looking forward to a life of toil, who belongs to the laboring class in the semi-technical meaning of that word, feels when she reaches 14 a sense of restlessness, a strong desire to be about the business of life. The high school, with its marked academic character, does not reach or hold her. She rushes into what work she can get, at whatever wages she can secure. The employments open to these girls who pour out of the public schools

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and seek to become wage-earners without experience and training, require no skill and offer no opportunity for advancement in either wage or position.

"They demand," says the Massachusetts report on Industrial and Technical Education, "very little thought, leaving the girl's mind open to all sorts of evil just at the age when she most needs something to exercise her mental faculties; they offer as a maximum wage that which is not sufficient for a girl to live upon with any degree of respectability, and thus place her in the way of temptation to be immoral; they not only offer no training which will be of benefit in a home, but they foster in the girl just the characteristics which unfit her as a wife and a mother. As long as the schools do not train the girls for the better class of industry, they are forcing them into the stores as cash girls, into candy factories, rubber factories, box factories-employments all tending to lower the standards of our women. On the other hand, the more desirable industries offer opportunities for self-support, for advancement, for development; and these are at present largely closed to the young girl because of lack of training."

It is no wonder that the managers of the Boston Trade School for Girls insist that the $150 a year which it takes to give a girl a year's training in the school is money well-spent. It is returned to the community many, many fold in added efficiency of workers and

in a nobler, finer womanhood. It is no wonder that girls and their parents are willing to make sacrifices to secure for themselves or their children the benefits of such training for the work of life. Girls are quite willing to spend a year in the school-a year, it must be remembered. when they might according to law be earning, for the school will receive no girl until she is fourteen years old. The children who are crowding the school to its capacity are the daughters of men in humble circumstances-teamsters, day laborers, and the like. They come some of them from distant parts of the city and from near-by towns. Some of them have helped to earn the money for their car-fares by the sweat of their own brows. One little fourteenyear-old girl took in washing with her mother until the two had saved $100 with which to pay her way back and forth from Boston during the school year.

Already this work so quietly and efficiently done is attracting attention from other parts of the country. Chicago and Cleveland are discussing the idea of attempting something similar in their own cities. It is to be hoped for the sake of the girls that the experiment may be tried in both places.

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THE SUDDEN DEMAND OF THE MILK INSPECTOR.

In Brussels these officials often unexpectedly demand samples from the public milk seller with her queer little cart and team of dogs.

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care

By W. G. Fitz-Gerald

NE of the greatest signs of modern progress is the exercised nowadays in protecting the public of great cities in the matter of their food supply. It is estimated that between 400,000 and 500,000 persons are probably alive to-day in New York, solely through the efforts of the Health Department. This result is chiefly due to Dr. Herman M. Biggs, a Cornell man, and a disciple of the famous Professor Koch of Berlin.

Doctor Biggs undoubtedly saves every year the lives of thousands of American babes by his system of milk inspection alone. His Department maintains two inspectors of long scientific experience, whose sole duty it is to examine with scrupulous impartiality and system all the dairies and creameries for many miles around, which supply America's greatest city.

They work as far north as within

twenty miles of the Canadian boundary, and their "beat" likewise takes them into remote corners of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. The inspectors see firstly that the dairies supplying New York are kept in strict sanitary condition, and secondly that no milk is shipped which is above a temperature of fifty degrees. Naturally this calls for an enormous consumption of ice on the part of the dairies, except in mid-winter.

Naturally enough, the milk-inspectors of the Health Department have no jurisdiction outside New York State; but they can and do get even with recalcitrant dairymen who do not comply with the regulations; for the milk of such people is promptly condemned when it reaches the city.

Milk comes into New York City in train-loads and boat-loads, and is dealt with by sixteen inspectors of the Health Department. These men visit the great railroad terminals, docks, and piers, and

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