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substitution of a permanent for a temporary group of workers, and it helps the stores in providing intelligent, trained girls for positions formerly held by an unskilled and irresponsible group.

Requests from the stores for the services of the high-school girls are referred to the director of salesmanship who, as coordinator, takes up the matter with the teachers of salesmanship in the various schools and arranges for the work. All records of store experience, hours, and compensation are kept on file in the director's office. The store work is usually done on Saturdays (except in vacation periods, when it is continuous) and takes the place of some of the required home work, but if, because of a special need, the girls are wanted on Mondays also, those whose school averages are high are allowed to take advantage of the opportunity for more practice. Since the class instruction in system (more specifically the sales check) must be of general application, preparation for the particular store in which a group of girls is to work is managed in this way: A class of 30 girls, selected from the 10 high schools, is sent to a store from 3 to 5 o'clock one afternoon a week for additional instruction in the system of that store. After two or three lessons, the girls are ready to begin their regular Saturday work.

At first, except in the smaller stores, the pupils are placed in "junior" positions, mostly as cashiers, examiners, or stock girls, work furnishing excellent preparation for the selling positions which they hold later. The teachers "follow up" their pupils in the stores and use the business experience of the girls as a basis for general class discussion. The girls are at all times under school direction and discipline. More and more the store officials are studying the high-school girls during the year with a view to offering them permanent positions, which may be taken at the close of school.

The high-school course in salesmanship already shows some significant results. It has grown steadily in popularity. In 1912-13 the course was elected by 294 girls; in 1915-16, by 407. A total of at least 800 girls is the estimated enrollment for the coming year. A second result, not foreseen when the work was started, is one of peculiar beneficence. The wages paid for the store work ($1 to $2 a day) have enabled many girls to remain in school who might otherwise have had to leave, for the ready money needed for carfares and luncheons is not always available. During the past year 400 highschool girls have had 11,000 days' practice in 35 cooperating stores and $12,000 has been paid for the service. The most gratifying result of all is the action recently taken in regard to holiday seasons. These pupils being carefully prepared for the store positions and adequately supervised while in the stores, develop rapidly into valuable workers, so valuable indeed that they are now relied upon as a sure resource in busy seasons, especially the periods preceding Christmas

and Easter. By virtue of an agreement between the employment managers of the stores and the head masters of the schools, girls whose school work is of "A" or "B" grade will hereafter be allowed to work continuously in the stores during the month of December and also during the week preceding Easter. This concession is a noteworthy example of a gradually broadening attitude on the part of educators toward vocational education and of the tendency to recognize the value of cooperative courses to employees, employers, the school, and the community.

The high-school work is by no means the only connection which the public schools have with salesmanship. The installation of continuation schools has brought the younger workers in the stores under the direction of the department of salesmanship. Without enactment of law and because of a desire to have more workers trained, four of the Boston stores established continuation classes in 1913. All of these classes were made up of boys and girls between the ages of 14 and 16, except in the case of one store employing no one under 16. The next year, 1914, continuation schools were established by law, and four hours' weekly attendance out of the employer's time was required of all children under 16 years of age. The organization of 14 compulsory department store classes and two voluntary groups (of older workers) was referred to the director of salesmanship. If 15 or 20 children are employed by any one store, the school is organized in the store, which then provides room, furniture, heat, and light; supplies and the services of the teacher are furnished by the city. Smaller groups, from two or more stores, are combined into classes of suitable size which meet in a central building in the business district. An especially strong feature of the system as at present conducted is an arrangement by which each high-school teacher of salesmanship teaches also a store continuation group, a plan of especial advantage to the teacher in that it keeps her in close touch with the officials and atmosphere of a store. All of the store continuation classes with an enrollment in 1915-16 of 300 pupils are taught by graduates of the teachers' training class of the school of salesmanship.

The course of study, arranged to cover the regular school year, was planned on the basis of a good, all-round training, with application to the daily problems of the pupils' work. The following is a list of of the subjects taught and the time allotted to each:

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The store topics at all times give valuable, interesting material which is used as a basis for oral and written English, spelling, geography, and civics. Many of these young workers left school at the earliest possible moment because school did not interest them. Mrs. Prince says of these boys and girls:

They represent a large group who care more for something to do than for studying from books. Experience with these groups demonstrates that for the majority of them their work gives the first personal desire to learn more. Once at work, they realize the value of English and arithmetic, and the attentive, interested application of these young workers shows that they have felt the awakening that leads to real education and individual power. In this way, much so-called cultural education is gained which would never come to this group unless the grade school connected its subject matter with the activities of life.

Encouraging evidences of the value of this special type of teaching are not lacking. Many promotions among the juniors are directly traceable to the work in the classroom. On the other hand, a new interest in education, created by the teacher's stimulating efforts, has caused a number of young people to return to school to finish a high-school course which had formerly seemed uninteresting and unprofitable. It is probable that, as teachers learn to make their teaching vital by connecting the lessons of the schoolroom with the interests which fill their pupils' lives, the number of children in continuation schools will diminish, while high-school pupils will increase in numbers. This will mean that the high school will more completely fulfill its function of preparation not for college alone, but for the greater experiences of life.

In many ways the continuation school seems to present a greater social opportunity than any of the other types of classes. The pupils are at an age when they are especially open to influence, and their teachers become their friendly advisers in the many new and crucial experiences which the work of the world is bound to bring. At a time when wise guidance is much needed, a well-qualified person is at hand to give it.

Chapter X.

AFFILIATION WITH THE NATIONAL RETAIL DRY GOODS ASSOCIATION.

The school of salesmanship has passed through four important stages of development: First, the establishment of a class for saleswomen in full cooperation with the stores; second, the organization of a teachers' training class; third, the introduction of salesmanship into the public schools of Boston; fourth, official connection with the National Retail Dry Goods Association. As the preceding chapters have dealt with the first three epochs marking the progress of the school, only the fourth and most recent remains to be explained.

The National Retail Dry Goods Association, with headquarters in New York City, was organized five years ago. It has a membership of 500 or more progressive retail merchants throughout the country, and it aims to promote the welfare and protect the interests of these members. The activities of the association are directed and controlled by an executive committee made up of the officers and 10 members elected from the association at large. It happened that three members of the committee had graduates of the teachers' training class as educational directors in their stores, and these merchants were so favorably impressed with the work that they wished the subject of education brought before the entire membership. Accordingly, an invitation was extended to Mrs. Prince to address the annual convention of the association at the Hotel Knickerbocker, New York, in February, 1915. Mrs. Prince accepted the invitation with some misgivings, feeling that men who had come together for the discussion of business topics would not be greatly interested in hearing about education. Her address on "Department-Store Education" made a far deeper impression, however, than she had anticipated. The merchants were intensely interested and expressed their conviction that the system of training which had been described was the very thing that was needed by the department stores. That they were sincere in their assertions was shown by the action taken even before the convention was ended. Mrs. Prince was asked to attend a session of the executive committee and was forthwith invited to become the director of a newly established department of education. Here was indeed a great opportunity, but the insistent demands of the teachers' training class and the growing interest in all phases of

the work were already absorbing so much of Mrs. Prince's time that she hesitated about assuming any more responsibility. But the gentlemen on the executive committee were generous and farsighted in their wish to share Mrs. Prince with the Boston school, and she accepted the appointment on the understanding that she should be free to give as much time as she thought necessary to the teachers' class. The office was taken in September, 1915, and the new director of education endeavored to make her department of immediate use to the members. A letter was sent to each member asking whether or not he wished the services of the director during the coming year. A large number replied in the affirmative, and trips were accordingly planned to meet the requests of groups of members in different sections of the country.

Mrs. Prince's chief work for the association is the development of interest in department-store education in the cities in which the members live. This is done, to a great extent, through the medium of public addresses. An invitation to address an audience may come from a chamber of commerce, a retail merchants' board, or a board of education, or all three organizations may unite in an effort to bring together an interested and influential audience. Mrs. Prince has made 102 such addresses during this first year of her connection with the association. She has visited many eastern cities in the interests of the work and has made four trips, each of about three weeks' duration, to the Middle West. While on these trips she has also given some time to supervision of the work of the educational directors. The urgent interest in the movement is so great that the full time of more than one "field agent" would be necessary to satisfy it.

This promotional work is of inestimable value to the movement for department-store education. It spreads knowledge of the training more rapidly and more widely than could be effected by any other means; it creates many new openings for teachers-in fact, the demand for trained teachers is at present far in excess of the supply; and it brings to the school applications from desirable candidates who take the work back to their own States. In addition, the connection is valued because it brings association with some of the most progressive men in the country, and because, through acquaintance with many of the members and the special conditions of their stores, the director is able to place teachers more understandingly in the positions to which they are best adapted.

The 80 students who have been graduated from the teachers' course hold positions all the way from Boston to San Francisco; and while the majority are employed as educational directors in large stores, 23 are at work in public or private schools outside of stores in 12 different cities. (See Appendix, pp. 78, 79, for lists of stores and cities.)

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