The Girl and Her Religion | Page 4

attempting to direct that army of unprepared,
unequipped and largely unprotected girlhood comes to him.
[Illustration: UNCONSCIOUS OF HER HANDICAPS SHE
ANTICIPATES KEENLY LIFE IN THE NEW WORLD]
Where will they be in another year--those ninety-three thousand and
more who came to us in nineteen hundred twelve? What an array of
factories and kitchens, what rows of dingy tenements, the moving
picture film could reveal to us if it followed these handicapped girls! It
does not follow them--they come in over the blue waters of the bay,
look with shining eyes at Liberty with her promise of fulfilment of all
the heart's desires, they sit in the long rows of benches at Ellis Island,
pass through the gate and are gone, the majority to be lost in the mass
that struggles for a mere livelihood--just the chance to keep on living.

What if some summer morning, or in the dim twilight of a bitter winter
day, a miracle should be wrought and the handicapped should be lifted
so that girlhood might be free to work out the realization of its dreams!
Many have prayed for such a miracle, some have hoped for it--but it
will not come. There will be no miracle suddenly wrought for men to
gaze upon in wonder and after a time forget. The release of the
handicapped can come only through man's God-inspired effort on
behalf of his brother man. In removing his brother's handicap he will
remove his own and both shall be free to live. But it cannot be done in
a moment. Effort is slow. It cannot be done by any organization, or
church, or creed or individual. It must be done by the public conscience.
Educating the public conscience is a long process and America is in the
midst of that process now. There are two qualifications without which
the educator of the public conscience cannot succeed--one is patience,
the other persistence. All educators of the public sense of right, like
Jane Addams, have had these two characteristics in marked degree, and
all churches, creeds and organizations which have had local success in
removing local handicaps have shown the ability to wait and the power
to persevere despite every opposition.
How the public conscience will act in directing the work of removing
the conditions which so sadly handicap girlhood today we cannot say.
It may be that vocational schools built and maintained by the State, not
by charity, will be one strong hand laid upon the inefficiency and
ignorance that handicap. It may be that the Welfare teacher whose
salary and rank shall equal that of the teacher of Greek, Ancient History
or arithmetic will be another hand laid upon the shoulder of the girl
limited by the lack of friendship and protection. It may be that houses
maintained as a business proposition and paying honest returns, built in
such a way that girls obliged to work away from home may be decently
housed and have a fair chance for health, will be another strong hand
reached out to release her from the things that handicap. 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.
Before one can possibly help another in a permanent way he must
know what is the trouble with him, and then what has caused the
trouble. The greatest encouragement in our girl problem today lies in
the fact that politics is looking