By MARY A. LASELLE and KATHERINE WILEY. Introduction by Meyer
Bloomfield. Houghton, Mifflin Co. 139 pp. Price $.85; by mail of THE
SURVEY $.92.
This little volume is designed to be of service in assisting
wage-earning girls to a wise and intelligent choice of a vocation and
may be used as a reference or text book in the elementary grades, as
well as furnish “advisory material” for those girls who continue in
school after fourteen years of age.
The chief value of this book has been pointed out by Mr. Bloomfield;
namely, that it is written by teachers who perhaps thus unconsciously
express the prevailing discontent of the teacher alert to modern demands
on education, and the reaching out of the hitherto secluded educator
into the realities with which the child, unequipped, constantly
struggles.
The material is attractively arranged, presented in a breezy, readable
form, tinged with the spirit of sentiment, calculated to excite and hold
the interest of the girl reader. It cannot fail to make the careless,
irresponsible girl more thoughtful to untangle many perplexities for the
troubled girl and to arouse ambition for personal efficiency in all
girls who read it. The emphasis for gaining success is laid almost
entirely upon personal efficiency. While the necessity cannot be made
too clear to the girl—who is inclined to look upon her wage-earning life
less as a profession than the boy—the book is disappointing in its
almost total lack of recognition of the many failures in industry to
meet the reasonable claims of efficiency. The absence of such
information is prone to tempt the girl into industry sooner than there
is financial need for her service, and does not protect her incentive or
optimism, which protection is hoped for by the concealment of these
facts. It is this feature which is too often damaging to the beneficial
effect of many vocational bulletins published without an intimate and
accurate knowledge of the trades discussed.
This setting forth of disadvantages as well as advantages has been most
excellently done in another recent Boston publication, Survey of
Occupations Open to the Girl of Fourteen to Sixteen Years, by Harriet
Hazen Dodge. This pamphlet presents both sides of the question in a most
helpful, concise and scientific form. The knowledge of the
“disadvantages” is needful to the educator with whom will lie the
decision as to the kind of trade or industry with which education can
assist and co-operate in moulding the life of the child.
Vocations for Girls will be of assistance to the elementary teacher in
providing an opportunity for intelligent contact with the girl worker,
and suggestive material for further investigation as to the educative
motive in trades and the benefit of the “occupative motive” in the girl
pupil.
Little or no new information is given the sociological worker concerning
specific lines of work for girls, or concerning her education for wage
earning and home making.
The note of unquestioned recognition of the permanency of the girl’s
wage-earning life which pervades every page of the book, is most welcome
and all too urgently needed—both by girl and employer. But above all
else, let me repeat that the book deserves a pioneer place in vocational
literature, as one of the outward proofs of that which has long been
felt,—that the destiny of the wage-earning child can be safely trusted
to the keen interest, stimulating sympathy and sound judgment of his or
her main dependence—the most potent of our social forces—the public
school teacher.