Part 20

If we accept the proposition that the maintenance of the home is woman’s major vocation, all women are included in the group for whom vocational training is essential. The responsibility of providing such instruction is divided between home and school. Exactly as practise under shop conditions is essential for complete industrial training, so practise in a home with wise guidance under normal conditions is indispensable to the best preparation for maintaining a home. Girls who are so fortunate as to live in homes where this instruction is afforded are therefore least in need of supplemental instruction in the public school or other instruction provided for the purpose. The girl who is most in need of industrial training for self maintenance is also likely to be in greatest need of training for home-keeping. Unless she is taught better she will perpetuate the same type of home from which she has sprung, and this in itself is a menace to the community. There is, then, a double reason for providing adequate training in home matters for girls in the more favored homes. Out of their abundance they must help lift the standard of those who are less favored. Home training, however, must be supplemented by general school instruction which approves the higher standard of living, and shows its relation to the community. It is to the advantage of both these groups that standards of right living should be set forth in the schools and approved by them.

It follows that the largest possible influence is inherent in the position of the college woman whose training leads her to recognize the relation of the home to the community, who fits herself to assume her own responsibilities intelligently, and who uses her influence in lifting the standard of the homes which have been less intelligently administered. The college has an indispensable part to play in the development of vocational training. As soon as the college for women incorporates into its accepted program courses which will assist in conscious preparation for the maintenance of the home, the standard of living throughout the country will feel its beneficent influence.

The vocational aim being openly and generally accepted, the public schools will provide for appropriate training. This will include: 1. Provision of courses tending toward intelligent home administration in all programs outlined for women and girls. 2. Some means of testing proficiency in these arts and principles, however acquired, so that at least a minimum amount of preparation will be exacted of all girls. 3. The establishment of centers where household administration can be taught by example and practise as well as by precept. By means of supplementary vacation schools, evening schools and continuation schools, housekeepers, young mothers and others in need of specific instruction may receive the necessary help exactly as the plumber may now reinforce his knowledge through a course in an evening school.

The agencies thus far enumerated will provide the elementary instruction immediately required. Such instruction, however, will not be possible unless suitable teachers are provided, and these must naturally be women of large opportunity and experience. This presupposes higher courses in technical schools or colleges which consider the problem in the large and train teachers and workers for leadership. Again it becomes clear that the college should establish proper technical courses.

The need of three agencies for vocational training is apparent: for the immediate need of the young beginner, the trade school; for the middle group, the technical high school; for the leader, the technical college.

The trade school and the vocational center meet the immediate need of the young worker. Exactly as the girl from the poor and meager home must depend upon intelligent instruction to raise her standard of living, so her judgment and skill must be reinforced when she confronts the problem of self-maintenance. She is pushed by necessity into the ranks of wage-earners, knowing nothing of the field she is entering, and she must make the best terms she can with those who take advantage of her ignorance. As an unskilled worker she must follow the crowd and take what she can get. General schooling has left the hand unskilled and the judgment untrained. She has neither knowledge of her own ability, nor the immediate advantage of a known employment. She is entitled to instruction which considers not trade profit alone but the advantage of the worker, which makes possible intelligent choice of the best course available and shortens the period of unpaid apprenticeship. In short, the education which she sorely needs as she faces self-maintenance is specific preparation for wage earning and the conditions involved in it.

Two conditions are essential to this training: first, a thread of manual vocational work throughout the ordinary school program for all girls, to train hand and eye and develop taste and judgment along practical lines; second, special schools for industrial training, with brief, intensive courses, to which girls may be sent for a preparatory period when facing the necessity of self-maintenance, the minimum requirement of general training having been covered in the ordinary school. These centers of industrial or trade training should be separate from the academic centers and should supply as far as possible the conditions of apprenticeship. They should be free from the fixed classifications and grades of the school, and should afford illustrations and types of vocational experience. To such public provision as may be made for such centers, private philanthropy will for a long while bring its aid, for vocational training must be tied to individual conditions and must ask for coöperation from manufacturer and employer. Supervised apprenticeship in chosen places of work will for a time take the place of organized training schools, as for example, in the case of the hospital dietitian, the house decorator, and the photographer. But elementary courses, requiring accuracy, speed, and an ordinary degree of skill, may even now be provided by the school. The seamstress, the machine operator, the saleswoman, the typewriter, the clerk, the bookkeeper may be trained in such centers.

The technical high school meets the needs of the second group by providing courses which develop manual dexterity, and acquaint the student with the outlines of some practical employment. Notable examples of such schools in New England are the technical high schools of Newton, Springfield, and Boston. In these schools the academic requirement is lessened and courses are arranged in sewing, dressmaking, millinery, cooking, laundry work, household decoration, and sanitation, with ample training in commercial subjects and preparation for clerical work, including stenography, typewriting and bookkeeping. So far as possible the school product is expected to be of service just like the ordinary commercial product. In one school the girls prepare the luncheons which are served to instructors and classes. In another the garments made are sold to cover the cost of material. These schools provide adequate instruction in household arts and at the same time pave the way for a useful vocation. The numbers that flock to them testify to the demand for such training, and many girls who otherwise would have withdrawn at the end of the grammar-school course are glad to remain and profit by the practical opportunity thus afforded. Already the effect of the instruction is shown in increased wage-earning power. Those who have followed the movement are equally sure that the individual homes profit by the vocational training.

An interesting example of the technical college is afforded by the recent development of Simmons College in Boston. This college was endowed by its founder, John Simmons, as an institution through whose offices women might be prepared for self-maintenance through appropriate training in art, science and industry. The trustees to whom the gift was confided made a careful study of the problem of education for self-maintenance, and eight years ago the college opened its doors. It provided courses of training for high school graduates, the programs in every case assuring technical instruction for certain fields of work, with the related academic training necessitated by the task. The work attempted is indicated by the various departments--household economics, library training, secretarial training, training in science (including preparation for nursing and for the study of medicine), and training for social service. The regular programs cover four years.

One hundred and twenty-five students appeared the first year; in the fifth, the college numbered over six hundred. The demand for its graduates has been constant. The register of graduates indicates this demand and shows the variety of positions for which the students have been technically trained and which they are now acceptably filling. The range of compensation exceeds that of the average college graduate, and in some fields is far above it. This is particularly true where executive ability, creative imagination, and the power of directing others are essential. In such positions technical training shows its worth.

The work of the secretary illustrates the need of technical training. The young woman who enters the course arranged for the secretarial school knows in advance something of the scope and character of the duties awaiting her. She knows that she must possess technical skill, that she must become an accurate and expert stenographer and typewriter, must understand accounts, must be able to file letters and find them after they have been filed, must transcribe dictation whatever the vocabulary involved, and must be familiar with business methods. She cannot follow the prescribed technical courses without becoming familiar with the personal requirements as well,--dignity, reserve, professional honor, promptness, patience, courtesy, adherence to contract, responsibility for service. All these are clearly set forth in the preparation of the secretary. This technical preparation is added to academic training, including English, modern languages, certain courses in science, economics, psychology and ethics, as in the ordinary college. At the end of the course the student is technically prepared for a position as college registrar, secretary to president or professor, to author or publisher, to lawyer or physician. She soon becomes capable of research or of executive organization. She commands from the beginning a better compensation than the apprentice could possibly receive. Already experience has shown the economic value of the training. Similar experience has proved the wisdom of vocational courses outlined for managers of institutions, for dietetians in hospitals, for stewards, for directors of lunchrooms, for visitors to the poor, for librarians, nurses and social workers.

“What is my work to be? How can I prepare myself to do it successfully and through it to minister to human need?” These are the questions which the student is constantly asking as she confronts her task. The very presence and recognition of the task give point to the preparation and prevent it from being a mere course of training for one’s own sake.

Conference with parents as well as with students shows the origin of the demand for vocational training in colleges. The assured expectation of self-maintenance; the desire to be prepared for self-maintenance, should necessity arise; the recognition of the necessity of preparation for home responsibilities; the demand for executive experts with an understanding of industrial conditions; the dearth of workers properly trained for their task; the taste and liking for practical affairs; the desire to be of definite service in the world--all these are factors in the student’s demand for vocational training. The woman with one talent emerges from the course prepared to perform some one task well and glad to meet its demands. It is a privilege and not a burden to be shirked. The ten-talent woman goes out with the power to modify circumstances, to improve conditions, to direct enterprises, to assume executive control. In either case the vocational aim is essential.

Already trade schools, technical high schools and technical colleges are answering the demand for vocational training, and proving the existence of the need. Public opinion asks that woman be trained for her work. The one thing needful is that the school, as a public servant, shall come to recognize its true relation to this economic problem.

TRAINING THE YOUNGEST GIRLS FOR WAGE EARNING

SYSTEMS TO BE FOUND AT PRESENT IN EUROPE AND AMERICA

MARY SCHENCK WOOLMAN

Professor of Domestic Art, Teachers College, Columbia University, and Director of the Manhattan Trade School for Girls

At the present time, even though the work has been but lately begun, excellent examples of trade and vocational education for girls can be seen in both Europe and America. The European schools have long since passed the experimental stage and are usually a regular part of the system of public instruction, supported by governmental grants. On the other hand with us this class of training, being new and as yet in a more or less tentative stage, is chiefly in private hands. The foreign schools give us valuable suggestions, but the direct copy of their work, successful as it is according to the special needs of paternal governments, is not altogether fitted to a growing democracy like the United States. National desires and needs plus the requirements of the community where the schools are placed must influence the trades selected, the course of study and the methods of instruction in every good school. European systems are adapted to the national and municipal conditions of their varied peoples.

The majority of the professional schools for girls abroad are planned for the middle classes who are in fairly comfortable circumstances and can therefore pay fees and take several years for training. It is only incidentally that such institutions help the poorer working people. With us such instruction must be arranged for all classes. It is no unusual thing to hear those who have visited the professional schools abroad recommend the incorporation of such instruction into our educational system to help wage earners, forgetting that four or five-year trade courses, often with fees and competitive examinations for entrance, would be impossible for the daughters of the poor working classes in our large industrial cities. Our problem deals with the poorest as well as the well-to-do, the foreigner and the native-born.

The meeting of the need of the lowest-class worker is perhaps more pressing with us, for in European countries children are apt to continue in the occupation of their parents, and labor on the farm or at small home trades or in little shops or markets, as their ancestors did before them. Lines of class demarcation greatly effect schemes of education in Europe, and such discrimination is accepted as necessary. With us on the other hand the workers of the lowest rank are always struggling to get ahead, hence our schools must allow for such upward movement. Moreover, the wages of workers in this group are at the lowest figure, as they are forced by poverty to accept any wage they can get. The schools, then, must also study the industrial condition of the group and improve it.

Different types of education have been organized to train the youthful workers who rush into positions the moment the law will allow them to obtain working papers. The girls of this type cannot take advantage of the Ecoles Professionnelles of France, Italy and Belgium, of the Frauenarbeitsschulen of Germany or of the vocational and technical high schools of America. They have not the requisite education for entrance in the majority of cases and they have at best but a few months or a year to spare for training. The schools which have been planned to aid them in self-support may be grouped roughly under the following heads:

1. Elementary Vocational Schools.--Industrial training of a general character in the last two or three grades of the elementary school, which sends the pupils into life with a good practical working foundation.

2. Continuation Schools.--Weekday or Sunday classes for workers under sixteen years of age, which will help them to obtain a further practical education while they are working for self-support.

3. Apprenticeship, Trade or Factory Schools.--Special trade training after the compulsory school age is passed or in the year following graduation from the elementary school, consisting of shop practice which can be taken by those who can still give a little additional time to training and who can thus be prepared to enter some good trade or business position closed to the untrained. Girls can thus enter industry with the ability to make a living wage and with the hope of rising.

1. The elementary vocational school aims to help the poorest and youngest workers. As large numbers of girls in the great industrial cities of the world are forced, on account of the poverty of their families, to go to work as soon as they reach the age when the law allows them to take out working papers, this class of school aims to provide them with an education immediately available for use. The Volksschulen of Germany and the Ecoles Primaires of France and Belgium have tried to meet this situation by making handwork compulsory through each year of the school. The American public school has done this intermittently, but now that the country is awake to the needs of the working class, severe criticism is heard everywhere of the general trend of our common schools in helping the few who go on to higher education, but doing little for the many who do not. Investigation of the mental and manual condition of the great body of our young wage earners shows them unable to use their hands well or to utilize their academic education. The unskilled trades which alone are open to them do not require much use of their academic education which after a year or two is almost forgotten. If they manage to get into the better positions they are unable to hold them, for their education has not been of the kind to help them practically in trade. The trouble is not that the education is not good, but that it is not put to practical use by these young wage earners after they leave school.

Workers of the lowest grade in the large industrial cities of the United States have to face a difficult economic problem. The father can seldom make enough to support his family well, so the mother is compelled to assist. The children as they reach fourteen, usually before they have completed the elementary school, are forced to take any position they can get, whether healthful or not, whether offering opportunities or not. These fourteen-year-old workers are too young to go to school at night to continue their education, for their strength is sapped by day work; they are too poor to go to a trade school, for their wage cannot be given up by their families and the public school can offer them no more than free education (except in rare instances). Competitive examinations to obtain a supporting scholarship are generally beyond their reach, for they are handicapped by foreign birth, underfeeding and lack of mental acumen. As a consequence they are easily distanced in scholarship by the children of the middle-class workers who need the help less. The girls have to meet the most severe strain of the labor market; they must have money; they underbid their fellows and overcrowd the unskilled trades. The life itself is harder on them than on the boys, both physically and spiritually. These little girls are crowding into the labor market in appalling numbers. Their parents naturally want them to be self-supporting, but know not how to help them. They are often willing to sacrifice themselves and keep the children in school until graduation, but the girls resent the present course of study as useless and get out of school as quickly as possible. On the other hand both parents and children appreciate a curriculum which offers directly available, practical training, and they will do much to obtain it. Hence lately some of the wiser educators have offered industrial courses in the last three grades of the school to induce children to remain longer and to give them a good foundation adaptable to trade or to home use.

In 1907 the public schools of Boston began experiments in various parts of the city looking toward special vocational courses in the sixth and seventh grades. The North Bennett Street school was chosen as one center for industrial work. A special building was set aside and furnished with class rooms for sewing, textiles and design and was also equipped with kitchen, dining room and bedroom, thus giving excellent opportunity for applied lessons in housekeeping and housefurnishing. Fifty girls from the Hancock school in the neighborhood are chosen and are divided into two groups. They alternate with each other in taking academic and industrial work, both morning and afternoon being utilized. They have six and a half hours of academic work to three and a half of industrial. The course of study recognizes woman’s relation to wage earning and to the home, and the culture and technical work are well interrelated. The movement, already showing success, aims to vitalize the regular school studies, to gain the interest of the girls so they will remain in school until graduation, to enable each girl to determine intelligently her life work and finally to direct her into higher grades of occupation.