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INTRODUCTION.

This study of the needs and possibilities of the industrial training of girls and women by the city of Worcester, Mass., was made in the spring and summer of 1911. Three cities, Worcester, Cambridge, and Somerville, through their respective school committees, expressed a willingness to establish trade schools for girls and asked the State board of education through its agents to aid them in the task of setting up the kind of school which would best meet the vocational needs of the female wage earners and receive the approval of the State board of education for State aid under the Massachusetts statutes.

The board having no force available for carrying on such an investigation, the service of the research department of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union was secured, and a thorough study of the conditions to be met and the kind of schools that needed to be adopted in order to meet them was carried on by this department under the direction of Dr. Susan M. Kingsbury, ably assisted by Miss May Allinson and a corps of young women who, through fellowships awarded by the union, were fitting themselves for social research.1 The reports resulted in the establishment of trade schools for girls which are now in successful operation in the three cities.

The conditions at Worcester were somewhat more favorable for the research work, and the report upon that city was fuller and perhaps, on the whole, more thoroughgoing. It is presented herewith.

The publication of this material is timely. Communities which are about to engage in vocational education would do well to remember David Crockett's maxim, "Be sure you're right; then go ahead." The task of training young people to meet the varied and complex demands of trade, and of fitting them at the same time for good citizenship, is not a simple one; it is most difficult. We know very little about the industrial conditions under which young people work, and probably less about the things that they need to know in order to be successful in their work. The Worcester report indicates the many problems that need to be taken into consideration in setting up a course of study and a scheme of training for any group of female

1Miss Mary Rock, Miss Lorinda Perry, and Miss Elizabeth Riedell held the fellowships for the year 1910-11.

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