TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 751 



3. The Education of Girls for Professional Life. 

 By Mrs. W. L. Courtney. 



It is necessary to differentiate between : 



I. Professions with a fixed course of training, for which a university 

 education is a necessary preliminary (e.f/., medicine, teaching). 

 II. Professions for which girls cannot train until they are nineteen or 

 over [e.g., nursing, social work, higher grades of Civil Service). 

 III. Occupations which can be begun at an early age {e.f/., secretarial and 

 clerical work, journalism, lower grades of Civil Service). 



Glass I. need not here be further considered because the school curriculum 

 for thes.e girls must necessarily be guided entirely by the I'equirements of the 

 Universities. 



Class II. includes two different types of professions. For some {e.g., 

 nursing) a university course is irrelevant; for others {e.g., social work. Civil 

 ■ Service) it is eminently desirable, if the age at which wage-earning must be 

 begun can be deferred until twenty-two to twenty-four. But the school curriculum 

 will not need any special adaptation for either type. The nurse will be the better 

 for a good general education, and would not in any case begin her vocational 

 training at school. The social worker or aspirant to the Public Service, if she 

 cannot afford the very desirable university course, will take her settlement, or 

 other sociological, training from about the age of nineteen, and need not begin 

 at school. 



Class III. is the group immediately concerning us. Here there are two rival 

 views : (1) That vocational training should begin at fifteen or sixteen either 

 (i) during the last school year; (n) at a special school or commercial college. 

 (2) That vocational training should in no case begin before seventeen, and pre- 

 ferably should be deferred till eighteen. Those who hold this view advocate its 

 non-inclusion in the curriculum of the secondary school. 



The arguments in favour of (1) are {a) that it ensures the girl remaining 

 longer at school; {h) that it thereby strengthens her character and improves her 

 health; (c) that, while ensuring her these advantages, it turns her out equally 

 proficient in technical subjects. This is frequently disputed. 



The arguments against (1) are («) that the time spent on vocational training 

 is subtracted from the ordinary school hours, and therefore curtails general 

 education; {b) that the girl so trained is not as proficient as the pupil of the 

 special school. 



The arguments in favour of (2) are obvious. It ensures better general educa- 

 tion, and defers the vocational education to an age when the mind is more 

 mature and the technical qualifications are therefore more rapidly and more 

 effectively acquired. 



The arguments against (2) are (a) that it defers the beginning of wage-earning 

 to an age which many middle-class parents cannot afford; {b) that the employer 

 prefers his assistants to begin young. This is again a very disputable point. 



It is clear that the only person who certainly gains by the girl beginning 

 young is the parent. The girl does not gain, for she feels the strain of work 

 more severely, and chafes more against the long hours and confinement. And 

 the employer's gain is illusive, for though the girl may be more amenable, she 

 is less intelligent and attentive at sixteen than at eighteen, and in the long run 

 probably of less use. 



But if the girl is not to begin wage-earning work at sixteen, and is to wait 

 lill eighteen, where should she spend the years from sixteen to eighteen ? 



I answer, at school if possible, receiving a good general education. But if 

 wage-earning at eighteen or earlier is indispensable, then from sixteen to seventeen 

 at school, and from seventeen to seventeen and a half or eighteen at a secretarial 

 or business training school, carefully selected. I do not believe in the possibility 

 of getting more than the first rudiments of business training at school, because 

 it is impossible to create there the business atmosphere. And though the 

 ' hustle ' of the crammer is as bad in its way as the ordinary school's absence 

 of business atmosphere, there is something between the two, and that 'some- 

 thing ' is what the ordinary business employer regards as indispensable. It 



