making her a
player are being thrown away. To some this might seem the right thing.
She has found "the home her sphere." To others it seems a serious
waste. We advocate often that the middle-aged woman who has reared her
children should return in some way to the work of the world outside
the home. In the case of the trained woman her training should be made
of use in such return. She should, however, beware lest her tools are
rusty from disuse.

We may not perhaps leave the questions involved in a discussion of
vocations as they affect homemaking without noticing that certain
occupations are considered especially dangerous to the moral stability
of girls. Nursing, private secretaryship, and domestic service present
dangers in direct proportion as they bring about isolated
companionship for the girl and a male employer. Girls must not enter
these employments without the knowledge of how to protect themselves
from lowering influences.

CHAPTER XIII

THE GIRL'S WORK (Continued)--VOCATIONS DETERMINED BY TRAINING

The question of vocation choosing begins to make itself felt far down
in the grammar school, first among the retarded and backward children
who are old for their grades and are merely waiting and marking time
until the law will allow them to leave school and go to work. These
children are usually either mentally subnormal or handicapped by
foreign birth and so unable to grasp the education which is being
offered them.

As soon as they are released the girls go to the factory, to the
store, or to help with some one's baby or with the housework. No other
places are open to them, and their possibilities in any place are few.
They cannot rise because they are mentally untrained.

The upper grades of the grammar school lose annually many children who
would be able to profit by the help the school offers to those who can
remain. Some drop out because they see no need of remaining when the
factory will employ them without further knowledge. Others chafe at
spending time on what seems to them, and what sometimes is, quite
unrelated to the life they will lead and the work they will do. Some
leave reluctantly, because their help is needed in financing a large
family. Many go gladly, because they will begin to earn and to have
some of the things they ardently desire. And until yesterday the
school paid little attention to their going, regarding it as one of
the necessary evils. Still less attention did it pay