The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1889-10-01
WORKING GIRLS NEEDS.
THEY sHoULD BE TAUGHT SOME
PRACTTCAL ARTs AND HABITS.

k ---
Nell Nelson Suggests n Lecture System
Tie Mental Strain of Tasting Molas-
ses-How to Care for the Hands-A
Village of Silk.
What the shop girl and factory girl
needs and must have il her welfare
concerns society is training-a train
ing that the scholastic stuffing OF our
public schools does notsupply nor the
limitation of the Sabbath schools per-
NIT. The pupil children OF ten and
twelve who at fourteen and fifteen
swell the ranks of labor must be
equipped for the battle of existence II
pauper labor is IL be averted. The
girl must have a s%ufficiency of physl-
cal culture not only to enable her to
protect and preserve her health, but
to promote it and to economic her
strength for a future generation. She
must be taught that the injury lone
to her health must be atoned for by
her children, and that her wifehood
and motherhood 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 con-
nection with the apostles creed, the
rule for at least common multlples,
and the population of the ten largest
cities in the world. If manual schools
cannot be opened to girls why not
provide a vast kitchen garden where
the bright motherly little maiden can
mind real live babies, cook real din
ners, knit real stockings and hoods,
and hem napkins, quilts, rubber
cloaks and ragged garments that will
be examined and paid for ii satlsfac-
tory?
Why cannot the school rooms be
fitted up with a range or a work
basket, where a t~en-year-old girl
could learn to make a loaf of bread,
or make herself a warm flannel petit
coat? What is the reason the cunning
little hand cannot be trained to draw
or design, not only prehistoric ducks
and grand divisions of the globe, but
a pattern for a wall paper, an oil
cloth, a bureau or a dress waist? 10
be sure papa's ayes beam with
pleasure at sight of Sherman's march
to the sea, of Farragut's naval
positions, geographically indicated
with colored cfayons, but how would
it do to teach her how to draw a pair
of sleeves or sketch a collar to put on
her frock of the summer before last?
Surprising the science of house
wifery to be impractical, why can't
the girl of thirteen be taught addition
and multiplication. SO that when she
is forced to take a SO clerkship she can
find the value of seven yards of mos
quito netting at three and a half
cents a ward in less than half an hour?
Why in the name of common sense
does a girl of fifteen leave school, and,
after nine years in the various gram
mar grades, stumble in footing the
column of figures in the family gro
cery book? Instead of learning to
add and multiply she has been finding
the value of masonry at some unheard
of price per cubic, extracting the cube
root of a number covering three inches
of paper or a~scertaining the number
of ounces in a long ton.
If. as a certain school superinten-
dent says, the school is not an appren-
tice 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
must plan some scheme which the
money, influence and brains of Chi
cago men are certain to endorse, pro-
vided the work gives promise of being
pertinent. In lieu of the Young Mems
Christian Association, where thous-
ands of bows are aided and o
aged in self-help, | would suggest a
somewhat similar organization-asort
of Peter Cooper Institute on an indus
trial, 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 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 nostrils; work till the dye
from a cheap jersey or cheaper jacket
blackens your face and hands; work
till the perspiration stains every gar
ment that touches your tired body, to
appreciate 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 clubhouse a system
of lectures could be given, and there
are hundreds of ladies VINO could give
these girls mines of valuable informa-
ton. Take, for instance, Mrs. Locke
at the training school for nurses con-
nected with st. Luke's Hospital, where
for nine months of the year her weekly
talk is of this tenor:-"My dear girls,
YOU must remember that ON your in
fiuence and your lives as women de-
pend the health and morals of the
coming men and IN You can't
afford to be idle, to be vulgar, to be
lax, to be untidy, unkind, or unedu-
Gated. You have work to do; plenty
of it; but all the time you must re-
member that unconsciously you are
making indelible impressions on the
people about YOU Then comes some
wholesome advice in great nuggets
Don't talk loud-a low tone will
soften and sweeten a harsh voice.
Look to the care OF your mouth !;
five cents worth of orris powder, used
occasionally when you brush your
teeth, will sweeten a tainted breath.