The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1920-01-04
GIRLS OF ENGLAND
BREAK CLASS BONDS
Enrollments in Technical and Indus
trial Schools Bring All Classes
Into Close Contact

| London. December o0-(Reciprocal News
| Service Hundreds of English girls be-
tween the ages of II and 20 have broken
away from their sheltered upper class
habits and enrolled this year in various
Industrial and technical schools through
out the country.
These girls are mostly the daughters
/ of people who in pre-war times would
have hired governesses to educate their
daughters up to the age of is and then
sent them to Switzerland or France for
year Of finishing, and finally Introduces
them 10 the county set of their own
particular district and season or two
in London
The girls themselves are responsible for
the sudden change in the method of their
education. Parents, distracted with the
increasing difficulty of making. their in
come suffice for actual living expenses.
have fallen in with the new scheme which
while ii mems early emancipation from
home control also is the only promise
| of help in the near future, for a great
majority of these girls will never marry
And while politicians and old fogies ae
shaking their heads over the new order
| 1t looks as if some of the perplexing and
dangerous problems of class distinction
might be now on the way to solving them
selves.
L
schools are located in the poorer districts
of London, it is here these girls must
spend the greater part of their time
| Transport restrictions and the general dif-
| fculty of adjusting the early hours and
severe discipline CT the working world te
the long established leisure routine Of
| middle-class domestic life. have combined
| TO drive girls to live away from home
1 IN an increasing number of cases they
| have set up student quarters with work
| ing girls in the neighborhoods of the
schools.
| During the war the various Polytechuics
opened industrial courses to fit women
rapidly for war industries. 1t has been q
short and easy step to peace classes
Lasting friendships were started on the
work benches III these schools: shortaSs
of housing room and common fnteres'
| have done the rest.
| In South London the daughter of 2
provincial vicar who gets his pre-war
| 1880 a year and has three growing chill
dren to support, has set up bachelor dig
rings with a girl, who like many of Lon
1on's poor has no family that she acknowl-
edges The two girls share a third floor
unfinished room for which they pa'
40 week. The wears daughter con
I; .ribused the furniture from her mother
| -arret the eastside partner the goods fro '
! he station. The girls take turns keepir
| he room in order and the eastside part
rer Hoes the cooking for which she has
real talent shared by most cockneys.
| Sundays the two girls often spend If
| he Old Kent road, where the eastender
| knows everybody and finds no difficulty
| in making her people accept her new
| friend. The only difficulty occurred wher
| he two went for weekend to the vicar.
l age There was trouble. not with the
family but the old-time country servants
1 Who sneered at the clothes and ridicule~
The talk of their young mistress com
oanion.
| While association with a girl of breed
\ ing and educa ion is fast teaching the
slum Girl to play fair in all matters o.
! personal conduct. to keep herself clear
and dress quietly, the freedom of work
| ing class life, the equality of the sexes
and the capacity for making the best 81
things is having a powerful effect upon
the girl who has been raised to believe
herself of less Importance than her BROTH
ars and her career a matter of no i'm
| portance at all except that she got her
self married off at the earliest moment.
AS far as boys are concerned the
girls have worked out scheme between
them which answers for the present. They
| do not ask any men to their room. What
ever man friend either may have she
spends her few short hours with him in
some canteen or hostel The happiest
hours of all are when the two girls so or
\ for a Sunday together in the beautiful
English country with their knapsacks
strapped on Their backs, the whole world
before them. They settle everything in
heaven and earth and make wonderful
plans for the future, when each will he
independent, each the master of her own
| fate.
| And already, in the first term. groups
of these girl students are forming in all
| the technical schools. groups of girls COM
posed of all classes. the daughters CT
gentlemen and artisans, of day iaborers
and professional men, all binding them
selves to common cause, all full of en-
thusiasm. for \ real and tangible thing,
the economic freedom of women