, the singer and
the dramatic artist, whose production is of an intangible sort, the
girl who makes things is a handworker by choice. The extent to which
her handwork is touched by the imaginative instinct of course measures
the distance that she may make her way up the ladder of productive
work. The girl's school record will usually show her best work with
concrete materials. She draws or sews well, has excellent results in
the cooking class, works well in the laboratory. At home she finds
enjoyment in "making things" of one sort or another. She displays
ingenuity, perhaps, in meeting constructive problems. If so, that must
be considered in finding her place.

Handwork for women includes a wide range of occupations. Let us now
examine some of these kinds of work.

[Illustration: _In the packing room of a wholesale house. The
untrained girl finds it easy to obtain factory work_]

_Factory work._ This term covers many departments of manufacturing
industries. In the main, however, they may be classed together, since
in practically all of them the worker contributes only one small
portion of the work incidental to the making of candy, or artificial
flowers, or coats, or pickles, or shoes, or corsets, or underwear, or
anyone of a hundred different products, some one or several of which
may be found in nearly every American town.

The great advantage of factory work, as the untrained girl sees it, is
that it is usually easy to obtain and that it promises some return
even from the start. Hence a large proportion of untrained girls who
leave school as soon as the law allows enter the factories near their
homes.

The great disadvantages of factory work, laying aside for a moment
many minor disadvantages, are that it not only requires no skill in
the beginner, but that it produces little if any skill even with years
of work and offers practically no advancement for a large proportion
of the workers. It should therefore, be reserved for girls of less
keen intelligence, and other girls should if possible be guided toward
other occupations.

Teachers must make themselves thoroughly familiar with working
conditions in local factories, since there will always be girls who,
because of their own limitations or the limitations of their
environment, will find themselves obliged to take up factory work.
Under the teacher's guidance girls should make definite studies and
prepare detailed reports of local conditions with respect to