sibilities for each type must be
clearly understood by the guide. If it is evident that training cannot
be obtained before the girl must begin to earn, the choice is
necessarily a narrow one. The factories in the neighborhood should be
thoroughly studied, and, under the guidance of the teacher, girls
should prepare detailed reports with respect to their working
conditions. The "blind-alley" job should be plainly labeled, that it
may not catch the girl unaware. Girls who must take up factory work
should at least be enabled to choose among factories intelligently,
and if possible should be fortified with an avocation that will supply
them with the interest their daily task fails to inspire and that will
provide an anchor against the instability toward which the factory
girl tends.

[Illustration: Millinery class in a trade school. Where trade schools
do not offer such training, there are opportunities for apprentice
work for girls]

The possibilities for apprentice work with dressmakers or milliners or
in other handwork should also be made known. Girls begin here, as in
the factory, at simple and monotonous tasks, but the possibilities of
advancement are far greater and mental development is unquestionably
more likely. The ability acquired by such workers, as they progress,
to undertake and carry through a complete piece of work is not only
satisfying to the workers themselves, but of value in later years.
They learn to analyze their constructive problems and to work out the
various steps of the work to its ultimate conclusion--a knowledge
which the factory girl never attains.

Some few girls will need to be shown the possibilities which lie in
independent productive work. For the girl who has talent or even
merely deftness in manual work, coupled with initiative and some
degree of originality, such work may bring a better return than
working for others. Most girls, however, lack courage to start upon
independent work, especially if they are in immediate need of earning
and are untrained. It often happens, however, that they do not
appraise at its true value the training they have received. The
grammar-school girl, under present methods of teaching, is often fully
qualified to do either plain cooking or plain sewing, but since she
does not desire to enter domestic service, she considers these
accomplishments very little or not at all in counting her assets for
earning. Some girls have found ready employment and good r