Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-09-18
CITY SLAVE GIRLS.
THEY WANT NOT PITY NOR, CHAR
 iTY, BUT PRACTICAL TRAINING.


 Not Supply Their Real Needs-A sug-
 gestion as to What Might Be Done.
 Good Words.
 What the shop girl and factory girl needs and must have if her welfare concerns so- ciety is training-a training that the scholas- tic stuffing of our public schools does not supply nor the limitation of the Sabbath schools permit The pupil children of 10 and 12 who at If and 15 swell the ranks of labor must be equipped for the battle of existence if pauper labor is to be averted. The girl must have sutficiency of physical culture not only to enable her to protect and pre- serve her health, but to promote it and to economiZe her strength for future genera tion. She must be taught that the injury done to her health must be atoned for by her children, and that her wifehood and mother hood is influenced and largely governed by her girlhood and young womanhood. She must have her eyes and her fingers trained even at the expense of mentality, and some practiced science must be mastered before or in connection with the apostles creed, the rule for at least common multiples and the population of the ten largest cities in the world. If manual schools cannot be opened to girls why not provide vast kitchen gar den where the bright motherly little maiden can mind real live babies, cook real dinners, knit real stockings and hoods, and hem nap kins, quilts, rubber cloaks and ragged gar mentS that will be examined and paid for If satisfactory?
 Why cannot the school rooms be fitted up with a range or a work basket, where a ten year-old girl could learn to make a loaf of bread, or make herself warm flannel petti- coat9 What is the reason the cunning little hand cannot be trained to draw or design, not only prehistoric ducks and grand divi- sions of the globe, but pattern for a wall paper, an oil cloth, bureau or dress waist2 To be sure papa's eyes beam with pleasure at sight of Shermans march to the sea, of Far ragut's naval positions, geographically indi- cated with colored crayons, but how would 1t do to teach her how to draw pair of sleeves or sketch a collar to put on her frock of the summer before last?
 Supposing the science of housewifery to be impractical, why can't the girl of 13 be taught addition and multiplication, so that when she is forced to take $S c1erkship she can find the value of seven yards of mus quito netting at 3l19 cents yard in less than half an hour2 Why in the name of common sense does a girl of 15 leave school, and, after | nine years in the various grammar grades, stumble in footing the column of figures in the family grocery book? Instead of learn
 
 the value of masonry at some unheard of price per cubic, extracting the cube root of number covering three inches of paper or ascertaining the number of ounces in a long ton.
 If, as certain school superintendent says, the school is not an apprentice shop, where boys can be taught trades and girls trained in domestic art, help must come from the men and women of the world. The women l must plan some scheme which the money, in- 1 huence and brains of Chicago men are cer- l tain to indorse, provided the work Eives promise of being pertinent. In lieu of the | Young Mems Christian association, where | thousands of boys are aided and encouraged in self help, would suggest somewhat sim | liar organizations sort of Peter Cooper in- stitute on an industrial, social, educational plan, where the young girls from the down town shops and factories could go at noon to eat their lunch look over the papers, find writing facilities and a lavatory where rigid l economy would not be made of cold water toilet soap and clean towels
 | Your exquisite dame and dainty belle who go to Kinsley's, the Grand Pacific or the Palmer house to get brushed, powdered and rested after shopping and before lunching must go into a factory and work until the lint chokes you and lodges in your hair and I or cheaper jacket blackens your face and hands; work till the precipitation stains every garment that touches your tired body, to ap- preciate the luxurious environments of a clean toilet room provided with chairs, fResh air, sunlight, towels and an abundance of fresh water.
 In a free girls club house system of leo lures could be given and there are hundreds of ladies who could give these girls mines of valuable information. Take, for instance, Mrs. Locke at the training school for nurses connected with St. Luke's hospital, where for nine mouths of the year her weekly talk is of this tenor, My dear girls, you must remem- ber that on your influence and your lives as women depend the health and morals of the coming men and women. You can't afford to be idle, to be vulgar, to be lax, to be un- tidy, unkind, or uneducated You have work to do; plenty of it; but all the time you must remember that unconsciously you are making indelibls impressions on the peo- pie about you" Then comes some whole some advice in great nuggets: Don't talk loud-a low tone will soften and sweeten e harsh voice. Look to the care of your mouth; five cents worth of OTIS powder, used occasionally when you brush your teeth, will sweeten tainted breath You may not have beautiful hair, but no need to have an unclean head. Don't neglect your hands. A woman'a touch is a delicate, soothing caress" And then follows practical lesson in chemistry, in which glycerine, rose water and few drops of carbolic acid are clements of 10 cent compound Such slight thing as ''now promise silently that you will try to keer your lips sealed" will be made most valu. able sermon, and perhaps the next week this beautiful woman will spend day making toast or bed or pillow slip.
 1would advocate just such help as womer like Mrs. Locke can render for the ameliora tion of the ignorant little stitchers who are being worked to death in our manufactories Nell Nelson in Chicago Times