1

The number of 14 to 16 year old girls leaving school to go to work is increasing. The records of Worcester and Somerville show a marked increase in the past five years. The percentage of girls going to work is much greater than the percentage of increase in population.

The majority of young girls who leave school to go to work are only 14 years of age. They are dropping out, therefore, as soon as the law allows. Sixty per cent of such girls in Worcester, Cambridge, and Somerville in the school year of 1909-10 were 14 years of age." Does this mean that the majority have completed the work of the school? Does it mean that severe economic pressure is grammar driving 14 year old girls to work?

The work offered in the grammar schools has been completed by only a small proportion of the 14 to 16 year old girl workers in each of the three cities. Thirteen per cent of the girls from the Somerville schools graduated. Seventeen per cent, so far as the Worcester records enlighten us, completed the ninth year. Twenty-three per cent of the girls from the public schools of Cambridge had graduated, but total returns, including girls from the parochial schools, would probably lower this percentage. The proportion of girls who left school having completed the grammar grades in these three cities in 1910, therefore, agrees very closely with the proportion, one-sixth, discovered throughout the State in 1906.3

There is a large loss of girls in the sixth and seventh grades. A large number have then reached the age of 14 and can secure working papers. One-third of the girls who left the public schools of Cambridge and all the schools of Worcester dropped out in the sixth and seventh grades. A much larger proportion, two-thirds, dropped out of the sixth and seventh grades of the Somerville schools. Fortythree per cent dropped out of the sixth and seventh grades throughout the State in 1906, according to the State study based on 5,447 children. The length of schooling or the completion of the grammar grades, therefore, is not necessarily the determining factor in the large outgo of girls from the grammar schools.

Who decides that the child shall leave school? Is economic pressure in the home driving the girls of 14 to 15 into the factories. and mills? Because of the limited time for the study, it was deemed impracticable and unnecessary to go into details regarding the economic status of the family. Questions as to exact incomes and

1 Comparative statistics could not be secured for Cambridge, as the age and schooling certificates previous to September, 1909, had not been preserved.

This percentage is, however, based on different figures in each of the three cities. The total number of certificates issued to 14 to 16 year old girls in Worcester was about 700, Somerville, 251. The percentage for Cambridge considered 236 girls reported by the public schools. Certificates were issued to 452 girls from 14 to 16, of whom 243 were from the public schools and the remainder from parochial schools. The records had not been kept and hence were not available.

Report of the Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, 1906, p. 85. 'Ibid., 103.

rents were not attempted. Questions, however, were asked regarding the occupation of father, mother, and other members of the family, character of these occupations, illness, home conditions, and the opinion of the parent-which was checked up by that of the investigator-as to ability to give the girl longer schooling. These detailed statistics were secured for the State in 1906 by the commission on industrial and technical training. The investigation of 1906 was a more statistical study, and it covered a much wider area. The present studies were less statistical, but intensive in particular local areas. By carefully checking up conclusions deduced from the present study with those gained from the study of 1906, the director of the investigation has felt justified in presenting the conclusions reached.

2

Fully 50 per cent of the 14 to 16 year old girls studied in each of the three cities did not leave school because of economic pressure. In 1906 it was found that 76 per cent of the children studied in all parts of the State were economically able to have had further schooling, if persuaded of the advantage. The percentage which has been deduced in the present studies is very conservative for two reasons: First, because the conclusion was based on general rather than detailed statistical information; second, because it was deemed advisable to report a conservative number of possible prospective students.

The 14 to 16 year old girls who go to work, with very few exceptions, enter unskilled industries which offer little or no opportunity for rise or development. The instability of these young workers is a universal problem in all three cities. The elementary processes which occupy young or inexperienced workers are purely mechanical. The work of the beginner, even in the better trades, does not afford training or working knowledge of the more skilled work. The work in unskilled trades points to nothing higher or better. The work is monotonous, easily learned, and the maximum pay, which is small, is soon reached. The beginner becomes discouraged with the lack of opportunity for advancement and determines to try something else. She drifts from place to place and never becomes proficient in any one thing. "One-half the girls," remarked the superintendent of the largest corset factory in Worcester, "get discouraged before they reach the point of maximum speed, and quit when they are probably just about to strike a paying point." A large rubber factory in Watertown (adjoining Cambridge) which employs 1,600 workers at any one time reports that 4,500 were enrolled on the pay

1 Worcester-314 of the total 727 were followed up; 214 were located and interviewed. Cambridge-236 of the total 243 leaving the public schools were followed up; 187 were located and visited. Somerville-146 of the total 251 were located and visited.

Report on Industrial and Technical Education, p. 92.

For this reason the total number studied, rather than the number reporting on a specific question, has been used throughout as the basis for computing percentages.

roll in the past year. A jewelry factory in Somerville reports that 5 out of every 6 workers leave in a year; another says the whole force shifts every year. Employers in all three cities say that a large proportion of the workers is continually fluctuating. The monotonous repetition of work, inability to meet the demands of the trade, inefficiency, discouragement, and the seasonal fluctuation are producing an army of fluctuating, unskilled, low-paid workers which involves many industrial, economic, and social complications. Large establishments in the three cities are attempting to solve the problem by various methods. None has yet attempted to solve the problem through systematic training of their workers.

While these general conditions of a phase of the so-called social unrest prevail from city to city, the relief is so closely associated with the industrial opportunity that local study at once becomes imperative. What the schools are doing, what the children are needing, what the business establishments are demanding, seems to be uniform from community to community. What the school can do, what the family may expect, seems to depend on the industrial character of each locality.

Although the work for young girls is unskilled in all large factory industries, the processes open to the more mature women may require a certain degree of skill or manual dexterity and offer a correspondingly higher wage.

A study of the women-employing industries of Worcester and Cambridge shows that the largest industries which employ women do require some skill. Machine operating on clothing occupies almost one-half of the women working in factories in Worcester. Rubber goods, bookbinderies, and presses employ almost one-half the women working in Cambridge. There are, however, practically no provisions in the trade for training or preparing the beginner for the more skilled processes. The result is large waste, incompetence, and instability of the labor force, and scarcity of skilled workers.

The necessity for local study is well illustrated by the differences in these three cities. Worcester is the third manufacturing city of New England, with a population of more than 145,000. It is a political, industrial, and social entity, resulting in a lack of interchange of work and workers with Boston. It is, on the other hand, near enough to Boston to give opportunity for an interchange of custom and customers. Therefore, although the more skilled trades have a great insufficiency of skilled workers, the city is too far away to draw workers daily from Boston. Because of the lack of highgrade work, however, the wealthy people of Worcester come to Boston for their more expensive costumes.

Cambridge, a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants, presents a different situation. Although a political entity, it is industrially and

economically dependent on the various surrounding cities, as they are in turn dependent on Cambridge. This results in an exchange of work and worker, as well as of custom and customer. Cambridge, therefore, sends out skilled and unskilled workers to surrounding cities. Her large factories, on the other hand, employ women not only from Cambridge, but from surrounding cities. The university draws large numbers of transient residents. Its suburban character makes it the residence of many people who work in Boston. Such conditions partially explain the large development of laundries in Cambridge, which employ a large number of women. Its suburban character partially explains the investment of Boston and outside capital in large factories.

Somerville, a city of more than 77,000 inhabitants, is primarily a residence suburb. Only a few, small, scattering, low-grade industries exist. Although a political entity, Somerville is an industrial and economic dependency of Boston, Cambridge, and surrounding cities. It sends its skilled and its unskilled workers out to surrounding commercial and manufacturing cities.

The women-employing industries of Worcester show a tendency to group in four large divisions: Machine operating,' textiles, wire and metal goods, and envelopes and paper goods. The first group only, the machine-operating trades, offers opportunity to a large number for a medium degree of skill and wage. The highly skilled trades, dressmaking and millinery, show little development. They employ and offer opportunity to only a comparatively small number.

The women-employing industries of Cambridge show greater diversity, though rubber goods and bookbinderies employ more than 40 per cent of the women working in Cambridge. The highly skilled trades show very little development. The women-employing industries of Somerville are practically negligible.

What significance have these conditions for the problem of industrial training in each of the three cities?

In Worcester, the machine-operating trades employ large numbers of workers. There is a great scarcity of help. Training therefore in machine operating for a large number of girls would seem to benefit the worker by preparing her for the more skilled processes of the trade. A knowledge of the operation of the machine would lift the worker over the preliminary stages of unskilled work which prove a great sifting process and are a fundamental cause of instability of the workers. The skilled trades need only a small number of beginners each year, hence only a few should be trained for the shop. A large number of dressmakers are day workers or private workers. The problem for solution is to equip young girls for this

I Machine operating is used in this study to indicate the manufacture of corsets and other women's wear as a factory product.

broader field of the day worker, without the intermediary experience in the shop.

In Cambridge and Somerville the skilled trades show very little development, but Boston offers opportunity for prospective workers. Training might therefore well be offered in dressmaking and millinery. The workers can secure their preliminary experience in the shops of Boston and later return to their home town as independent workers, as the shops of Boston provide the intermediate as well as the advanced stage for the girls trained in dressmaking and millinery in Cambridge and Somerville. In Worcester that opportunity is lacking. The large industries of Cambridge offer little opportunity for training outside the factory. Boston, again, offers opportunity for the worker who is capable of a medium degree of skill and who must acquire immediate economic independence or partial independence. The machine-operating factories of Boston are in great need of skilled workers. The young girls of Cambridge and Somerville may well be trained and find opportunity for development in these factories of Boston.

Local conditions need careful study therefore in determining the character of trade training or continuation schools. Worcester has a purely local problem. Public money expended in training and developing her young prospective workers gives returns in more efficient workers, greater stability, and better social and economic conditions for the wealth-producing industries of the city. Cambridge and Somerville will necessarily be training and developing workers for the industries of other surrounding cities. Worcester need concern herself with the problem of part-time instruction in her own local industries only. Cambridge and Somerville must concern themselves with the problem of their workers in surrounding cities. Worcester is an independent entity from an educational, economic, and industrial point of view. Cambridge and Somerville can not become independent from an educational point of view any more than they can from an economic or industrial standpoint. Only by intensive cooperation with surrounding cities, therefore, can the people of Cambridge and Somerville meet the needs and demands of the girl.

There are advantages, however, as well as disadvantages in the dependence on surrounding cities. The workers of an industrially independent city like Worcester may be deprived of opportunity for development and experience in highly skilled trades. The workers of an industrially dependent city may have the advantage of access to the skilled trades of a neighboring city.

A knowledge of local conditions is therefore essential before action can be taken in the establishment of trade training or parttime schools. Satisfactory results and efficient work can come only