asons have taken clerical
positions and have been complimented on their grasp of the subject,
their orderliness, their ability to think, and their reliability.
Naturally all departments unite to develop character in the students,
but the Academic Department feels this to be a special aim. Pleasure in
the subject of instruction, followed by mental and moral improvement,
has indicated clearly that the academic dullness which is shown at
entrance comes frequently from lack of motive in former studies. The
interest is all the more encouraging as there are many handicaps in the
teaching, for the students enter at any time, are graded by the trades
they select, and are placed in the market as quickly as possible; hence
the work cannot be uniform in its advance. Nor is the academic work a
help to the girls in their business life only, for such subjects as the
keeping of accounts, the consideration of the cost of living, and the
value and price of materials are of direct use also in home life.

Trade Art Instruction

Courses in Trade Art were also organized as a fundamental part of the
instruction. Each trade has its own art, and the school has tried to
adapt the work in the studios to each different occupation. It
recognizes that the art applied in dressmaking differs from that in
millinery, and this again from that required for decorating jewelry
boxes and calendars. It consequently offers each student the kind of
elementary art training needed in her trade. The time is too short to
develop designers, but it does help a girl to be more exact,
resourceful, and useful in her workroom, and often enables her to make a
higher wage. A worker who can place trimming, adapt designs to new
purposes, stamp patterns, draw copies of garments, and combine color
attractively is especially desirable in her chosen employment.

Health

The young wage-earner of New York is much handicapped by her poor
physical condition; heredity, poor habits of life, and unsanitary homes
show their effects upon her. The girls who come to the school are young
enough to remedy many of their defects. In a few months they will be in
positions demanding eight or more hours a day, in which they must
strain every nerve and bend all of their energies to meet the standard
brought about by trade competition. The Physical Department of the
school studies the health of each girl and trains her to care adequately
for it. The specific treatment needed by some of the