The untrained girl who loves an outdoor life has fewer opportunities than other girls unless she is capable of independent work.  If she is capable of this and has sufficient ability to study her work, gardening and poultry or bee culture may open the way for her to work and be happy.  School gardens, poultry clubs, and canning clubs have shown many a girl what she may do in these ways.

[Illustration:  Courtesy of U.S.  Department of Agriculture Some girls have built up a good business canning fruits and vegetables at home]

Many times too little is realized of the possibilities of these grammar-school girls who are crowded by necessity into the working ranks.  We cannot shirk our responsibilities in regard to them, however, although they escape from our school systems and bravely take up the burden of their own lives.  Quite as many of these girls as of more favored ones will marry and be among the mothers of the next generation.  The work they do in the interval between school and home will leave its impress even more strongly than upon the girl whose school life lasts longer and who is therefore older as well as better equipped when she enters upon her work.  Few of these younger girls in times past can be said to have done anything other than drift into work which would make or spoil their lives and perhaps those of their children after them.  It is well that the responsibility of the school toward them is being recognized and met.

[Illustration:  A prosperous poultry farm.  Poultry farming opens the way for the girl who loves an outdoor life to work in the open and be happy]

A distinct duty of the grammar-school teacher is to make known the facts concerning short cuts for grammar-school girls to office work.  Unscrupulous business “colleges” sometimes mislead these immature girls into believing that a short course taken in their school will enable the girls to fill office positions.  Facts are at hand which show the futility of attempting office work under such conditions, and teachers should be very careful to see that all the facts are in the possession of their pupils.

In the early days of high schools usually the only distinction, if any, in courses was “general” and “classical.”  To-day we have many courses, or in the larger cities different schools fit boys and girls for varying paths in life.  The college-preparatory course or the classical high school leads to college.  The commercial course or school leads to office work.  The manual training or industrial or practical arts course or high school leads to efficient handwork.  The trade school leads to definite occupations.  The difficulty now is to help girls choose intelligently which course or school will best meet their requirements.  This involves vocation study in the grammar school.

[Illustration:  Benson Polytechnic School for Girls, Portland, Oregon.  The trade school leads to definite occupations.  The girl with mechanical ability may find her vocation in millinery, dressmaking, or the various sewing-machine trades]