It may be that
a minimum wage, safety devices, laws wiping out sweat-shop methods, will
reduce the number of handicapped girls.
Wise cities may establish special schools for the immigrant girl where
she shall learn something of the language while being taught the making
of beds, simple cooking and the common kitchen tasks, then to be
recommended with some equipment to the homes greatly in need of her.
Even if she should choose later to go into shop or store, the State will
have gone a long way toward removing the great handicap by having taught
her to understand the language of the new land, to care for a room, cook
simple food and keep clean.
It may be that some thoughtful States will require school attendance
until a girl is sixteen, the age under which no girl should enter the
business world as a wage earner.
It may be that the natural good sense of the true American woman will
finally triumph over the extravagant and unnatural living of the present
day and that the handicap of false standards, superficiality, display
idleness, and wild pursuit of exotic pleasures shall be lifted from the
girls now held prisoners by the tyranny of money and complex social
life.
It may be that in all these ways and scores of others, the public
conscience, working out along lines in which it finds itself best fitted
and most interested to work, will solve the problem of the handicapped
girl.
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