Continuation classes in America up to the present have not been exactly like the German ones. Night classes under public instruction have offered academic, commercial and domestic courses of all kinds; but the aim has been general helpfulness rather than direct aid to young wage earners by supplementing with special training their defective preparation for business positions. The difference between the two governments is a factor in the situation. The German government can make such courses compulsory between definite ages and can require manufacturers to give up their young employes during certain hours of the day; but with us the wish of the voters of a city must be considered. The majority of our employers assert that competition is too close for any one firm to try the experiment unless all do the same, and to compel all means tedious legislation. It is of interest to know, however, that this interrelation between factory and school has already been tried with success for boys in Massachusetts and Ohio, and that the latter state will make the same experiment for girls. The following plan is in use in Cincinnati: The manufacturers agree to send boys from among their employes to attend school and at the same time to pay them a regular wage. The board of education provides the teachers, and the work in general is technical with as close application as possible to the special factory in which the boys are employed. A period each day is devoted to general shop questions, shop practise, economic and civic questions. Practise in spelling, writing and reading in connection with the story of industries is given. It is expected that it will take four years for the average boy to complete the course, a period which corresponds to the four years of apprenticeship demanded by the unions. Reports are sent to employers of the attendance of their employes. As children under sixteen can work but eight hours a day, i. e., 48 hours a week, the employer gives up four hours of this for school training. The boy therefore is in the shop for 44 hours and at school four hours per week. A bill has been introduced into the Ohio legislature recommending that this kind of instruction be made compulsory. The fact that a girl’s business life is of uncertain duration makes more difficult a similar plan for her education, as employers are less inclined to allow her to take instruction in business hours. Many of the Cincinnati workrooms, however, have agreed to try the experiment.

A form of continuation work which promises well in trades employing boys is the school within the factory. When this education aims to develop the students broadly and not alone for specific use in one enterprise, it is the best kind of training. Beginnings of such instruction for girls have appeared in the training forewomen are obliged to give green girls, and more orderly courses are already developing. The social secretary now employed in so many large stores to look after the women workers has in some cases added the instruction of new employes to her duties. Courses in salesmanship, elementary studies, technical and domestic training, are at present being given as a part of the work of certain department stores. Filene’s in Boston and the Wanamaker stores in Philadelphia and New York are doing work of this character for their employes.

III. The short-time trade or factory school offers all-day courses from a few months to a year in length to those girls who even though they must go to work early can arrange to give a short period to preparation for some industrial pursuit. The compulsory school years are over and the work papers obtained, but the student may or may not have finished the elementary school work. In a city like New York with so large a foreign element half the students, at least, will not have completed the eight grades of school when they go to work. In Boston a larger proportion have been graduated. The trade-school problem has been partially met in a few of the cities of the United States. New York organized trade instruction for girls in 1902 and Boston followed in 1904. Milwaukee, Cleveland, Rochester and Albany have begun or are about to begin similar work, but as yet their schools have not been established long enough to show definite results.

In Europe this class of school, reproducing actual trade conditions and fitted for the poorest girls, is rare. In Belgium there are a few which are called apprenticeship schools. The one in Maldaghem is extremely interesting. The town is small and very mediæval. The school is housed in a new, simple building. The entrance is on the side, and a narrow long hallway, in which the students put their sabots two by two on both sides, stretches the length of the building. A steep little staircase leads to the upper floor where the business offices and workrooms are to be found. Orders are carried out as in any factory, the work being fine handwork, the operation of Corneli and single embroidery machines, beading, and crocheting on net and mousseline. Robe garments of embroidered net, scarfs, curtains and lace veils of fine character are produced, some of which come to the American market. The students are paid nothing while learning, but after their training is finished can continue to work in the school and receive a regular wage. The same town has another school for teaching the making of fine varieties of Brussels lace, the product of which is for the regular market. The building is an old type of peasant home with stone floors. These Belgian apprenticeship schools are under government inspection.

The type of apprenticeship school begun in the United States is quite different. The Manhattan Trade School of New York was the pioneer; the Boston Trade School was organized later on similar lines. A careful study of trade conditions in each city preceded the organization of instruction. Continual close touch with actual conditions is held by both schools to be necessary in order to keep up to business requirements. They have thus fitted well into the business life of their particular cities. The schools differ from each other in the trades they offer just as the two cities differ. They both believe that trade conditions must be exactly reproduced in instruction; consequently they are organized as small factories. To aid the trade work and to develop a high-class worker, art and academic work adapted to the specific needs of each of the trades represented in the schools are given. Wholesale and custom work are taken in all departments. Systems of business shops headed by trade workers who can teach as well as conduct workrooms give the students real business organization under which to work. The results in both schools show that such practical instruction enables the workers to enter better positions, to gain higher wages and to continue to rise to more influential positions. Crude, thoughtless girls have been developed into thoughtful, reliable workers, and capable girls have been given the opportunity of rapid rise to positions suited to them.

In both schools stress is laid upon health work. By careful physical examinations, specific treatment, talks on hygiene, lessons on foods, and experience in simple lunchroom cookery, the health of students is brought to a higher level and they know how to keep it there. This of itself makes better workers, able to stand the strain of business life. Established health will also react favorably on their homes and families if they marry.

Training for domestic service is not usually appreciated or desired by the American girl of the large cities, for the industrial trades offer her better opportunities. Even Germany finds difficulty in attracting to her schools for training servants the class for whom the schools were intended. An excellently planned school for this purpose was opened some time since in Berne, Switzerland. The servant’s course, six months in residence, includes the following work: cooking; care of kitchen, care of the cellar and keeping stores; gardening, including planting, cultivating, and gathering vegetables; laundry work; mending; and care of rooms. Rooms with board are rented in the school building to give practical experience to the student.

EMPLOYMENT BUREAUS FOR WOMEN

M. EDITH CAMPBELL

Director Charlotte R. Schmidlapp Fund, Cincinnati