try as has been permitted in the case of boys and men. There has
been in our commercialized society no kind of effective tradition for
the care and guidance of adolescent workers, and, there is no escaping
from the condemning proofs of our neglect: there has been, and, indeed,
is still going on, in many directions a vast range of betrayal and
baseness in the way we have shirked our duties to the young. As the
writer, from whose Report I have quoted, says, with a rather grim irony:
"a strain has been put on the character of young persons which might
have corrupted the integrity of a Washington and have undermined the
energy of Samuel Smiles."

VI

The war is over, and with it the special and pressing need for women's
and girls' work, but the consequences of the war period are far, indeed,
from nearing their end. Following all the industrial confusion of the
war, we are now facing the certainty of wide-spread unemployment among
women and girls. We have condemned thousands of them to unemployment
with the same thoughtlessness with which they were called into industry;
and in the less skilled ranges of employment, the always existing
competition between men and women and boys and girls is certain to be
fiercely accentuated.

It is officially stated that the number of women and girls who took
out-of-work donation policies during the period between the Armistice
and February 14th was 633,318. Of these the large majority 630,874 were
civilians, while 2444 belonged to the forces. Thousands of women and
girls who during the war proved themselves most capable at engineering
and wood-work are now ruled out of those occupations. There was a girl
of twenty, for instance, at Loughborough who showed real genius at
gauge-making, work that required accuracy to the ten thousandth part of
an inch. Although she took to the work only during the war, she became
so good that instead of being sent to a factory she was kept to instruct
others. This is the type of girl who now has to seek other employment.
There can be no question of the difficulties of the situation.

Many workers are holding out to get the same level of work and pay as
they have left. Strongest of all is the aversion shown to domestic work:
many girls who have been engaged on munitions during the war have thrown
up their unemployment pay rather than again enter domestic service.
Factory work has bitten into girl's lives; they do not want to do any
other kind of work.