New-York tribune., 1874-11-12

| FREE TRAINTNG SCHOOL FOR UOMEN
The report of the Free Training Schools for
Women D this city, an abstract of which we
published on Monday last, offers history of q
work for the poor whose purpose and results
are worth those OF dozen hospitals and soup
houses. Not only are the hungry and home
less relieved in these houses, but they are
helped to help themselves, given the aid which
is no aims, which destroys all need OF aims
the power to earn their own living. The
training schools were originally founded to in
struct women in the use of the sewing machine,
work being sent to them from outside, ut first
by manufacturers of clothing, and supplied
afterward by the managers of the schools In
the shane of garments for the missions of the
city. By these means the women, while being
taught the expert Use of the machines, were
proyided with work and paid a liberal price
for it. The report states that from Aprll'
1873. TO the same month in the current year,
5000 women applied for instruction, OF which
number 1890 seamstresses were trained and
placed, 95 bOOkkeepers, and 81 photographers.
On Thursday evenings, we are told, the
reading room is opened for both the learners
and managers of the institution, who meet
" in perfectly informal manner" and listen
to readings, recitations, music, and short
lectures on hygiene, morals, etc.-an effort for
social intercourse between two widely differing
classes, admirable in design, and which (pro-
yided each class have the culture which gives
the proper self-respect and lack of self
consciousness may be Of advantage to both.
The wisest movement yet made by these
benevolent ladies' however, was the foundation
of training schools for domestic servants,
laundresses, and housekeepers. The chance of
earning sufficient livelihood by work on a
sewing machine diminishes with every year.
The market is flooded with ready-made
garments, that supply an always existing
want, especially to women employed in trade
or service who have no time to sew.
To bring these clothes within their reach the
coarsest material is used, and minimum Of
wages paid to the operatives, 81 25 being
offered by liberal employers for the making of
half a dozen calico wrappers, which is high
wages compared to the pittance paid to the
women employed in houses where the ma
chimes are run by steam. Even in the large
and highest class of dry goods houses, where
"lmported dressesn are furnished by the
thousand every season to the would-be fash
ionable world, the women employed in max
ing up these garments receive from SO to $5
per week. There will, it is true, always be a
demand by private families for expert opera
tors, but the manufacturers will rule the mar
kct, and as their business extends farther into
the West and South, and steam power is more
extensively used, the general rates of women's
wages will necessarily be lowered. Domestic
service calls more loudly for the training
school, and promises more immediate and cer-
tain success. We should be at a loss to know
why the ladies were forced to "select the
"braver of the girls" to send out as cooks
and chambermaids, when this kind OF work Is
notably the best paid, most private, and
comfortable of any open to women. did
we not remember that the bondage OF
caste presses heavier the lower we de-
scend in tho social scale. Kitchen labor
is, curously enough, the only kind OF work in
which the scale of prices is not graduated by
ability. The ignorant emigrant let loose for the
first time among civilized pots and pans, re-
ouires as high wages pa skilled servant,