Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1913-05-31
WHY GIRLS LEAVE SCHOOL.

The idea that children leave school
to 60 to work, because their parents
need the money, is vigorously COM
bated in a bulletin just issued by the
United States Bureau of Education.
The authors of the bulletin have made
a. careful study Of trade and labor con.
ditiOns among girls in Worcester,
Mass, preliminary to the establish.
ment OF a trade school for girls. They
find that from one.half to three
f0urths of the girls at work in the
factories could have had further
schooling II they had wanted to or if
their parents had cared to insist upon
II.
The survey showed that the mum.
her Of girls between IA and 16 years
Of age who leave school is constantly
increasing, During the past five years
many more girls between those ages
left the Worcester schools than can
be accounted for by increase in pop.
ulatiOn. Only about II per cent of
them had finished the grammar
schools; most of them left in the
sixth and seventh grades.
Why did the girls leave school?
Various reasons were assigned by the
!. girls themselves. Some thirty girls
Said they did not like school," could
not get along with the teacher" were
not promoted; or wanted to go to
work. Two were working to help pay
for "a piano. One of these was a cash
girl Of IA years. who had left the
ninth grade to go to work in a depart
nent store for 50, later $3.50 a week.
Another was a girl of Is from the
eighth grade. who went to work in a
corset factory for 81 and rose to
$4.S2. Still another girl was taking
music lessons and contributing to the
payment on the piano.
Twenty.seven girls were found at
home. In some cases they had left to
help in homework, while a few had
left at a time Of temporary stress
AaHd then had not returned to school.
Four girls had changed places with
the mother, who worked in a corset
factory, laundry, or some such place,
while the girl, whose wage-earning
power was small, kept house for the
mother of the children.
Curious differences as to what the
parents though they could afford we're
discovered: "The mother of a family
OF 8 children, living in apparently
direst poverty, would have been glad
to have sacrificed and pinched still
further to haze had her daughter STAY
IN school longer, if she would. The
mother of another family of 6, living
In a comfortable apartment house
with hardwood floors, piano and 9th.
er luxuries, said her daughter wished
to stay in school longer, but the bur-.
lei OF supporting the family was too
heavy for the father to bear alone:
SO the girl was taken out of school to
30 to work. A visit to "a Swedish fam
tly revealed a carpenter and his wife,
e washerwonan, who had just built
n owned a new three-story apart.
~ mont tJ1nv1c1 W. Al.
daughter with a seventh grade edu.
cation had been SEN to work in a
papergoods factory at 50 a week.
The question why did you leave
school?' was put to some 1856 more
mature workers in the corset trade
Nfnety-one per cent of these women
had left school between the ages of
Us and Is, and fully so per cent be-
cause of their dislike of school or be-.
cause they wanted to go to work, OIL
~ workers in a clothing factory s.
per cent had left school between the
ages of - and 16, % per cent of their
own volitfon."
In the opinion of the authors of the
bulletin, conditions such as were
found In Worcester emphasize the i'm.
peratdve need for special training Of
g practical sort for girls between the
eyes of IL and Is. In the main the
children left school simply because
80 49, . . 10 - s... EH fEr. .aH--H" I#r. |
they disfked the school work. NotI
getting the kind of training they
might have liked and would have