Academic Department
Aim
I. Elementary: To supplement previous schooling. Girls who have left the public school from low grades need special tutoring in the common branches. Special instruction is also needed for newly arrived foreigners.
II. Trade: To quicken and enrich the mind, that the girl may become a more efficient, intelligent, and enthusiastic trade worker.
The work falls under the following subjects: Civics, Industries, Arithmetic, English.
Civics
This course is given as a means of enabling the pupil to recognize her place in the family, the school, the community, and in the world's work. For lack of a better term it is called Civics. It is dealt with under two heads: (1) Community Life in General, (2) Community Life in New York City.
1. Under the first head the discussion of life in a given community is followed by the simple facts that lie at the foundation of civic life. These are approached through the interests or desires which the pupil feels in common with all other people. Building still further on the pupil's own experience, she is led to apply the ideas received to her own community, which ever widening its scope is carried from the neighborhood or the school to the city, the state, and on to the nation.
Civics also gives to the pupils a knowledge of the existing laws under which they will work, by whom these laws are made, and the possible means for improving them. In the discussion of such subjects as Tenement House Laws, Child Labor Laws, and Trade-Unions, there is opportunity for the introduction of home and business economics which have been found to be valuable. Economics is further taught by the detailed discussion of the apportionment of an income of $6 a week for fifty working weeks, considering car fare, lunches, savings, a portion toward family support, and an allowance for clothes. The literature for this course is obtained from the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, the State Department of Factory Legislation, the Consumers' League, the National and State Labor Committees, and current magazines. Mr. Arthur M. Dunn's, "The Community and the Citizen," especially such chapters as those on the "Making of Americans," "How the Government Aids the Citizen in His Business Life," "Waste and Saving," "What the Community Does for Those Who Cannot or Will Not Contribute to Its Progress," has given valuable assistance in leading to discussions which have direct bearing upon daily life and work.
2. The following outline shows the treatment of the second division of Civics: