Conference with parents as well as with students shows the origin of the demand for vocational training in colleges. The assured expectation of self-maintenance; the desire to be prepared for self-maintenance, should necessity arise; the recognition of the necessity of preparation for home responsibilities; the demand for executive experts with an understanding of industrial conditions; the dearth of workers properly trained for their task; the taste and liking for practical affairs; the desire to be of definite service in the world--all these are factors in the student’s demand for vocational training. The woman with one talent emerges from the course prepared to perform some one task well and glad to meet its demands. It is a privilege and not a burden to be shirked. The ten-talent woman goes out with the power to modify circumstances, to improve conditions, to direct enterprises, to assume executive control. In either case the vocational aim is essential. Already trade schools, technical high schools and technical colleges are answering the demand for vocational training, and proving the existence of the need. Public opinion asks that woman be trained for her work. The one thing needful is that the school, as a public servant, shall come to recognize its true relation to this economic problem. TRAINING THE YOUNGEST GIRLS FOR WAGE EARNING SYSTEMS TO BE FOUND AT PRESENT IN EUROPE AND AMERICA MARY SCHENCK WOOLMAN Professor of Domestic Art, Teachers College, Columbia University, and Director of the Manhattan Trade School for Girls At the present time, even though the work has been but lately begun, excellent examples of trade and vocational education for girls can be seen in both Europe and America. The European schools have long since passed the experimental stage and are usually a regular part of the system of public instruction, supported by governmental grants. On the other hand with us this class of training, being new and as yet in a more or less tentative stage, is chiefly in private hands. The foreign schools give us valuable suggestions, but the direct copy of their work, successful as it is according to the special needs of paternal governments, is not altogether fitted to a growing democracy like the United States. National desires and needs plus the requirements of the community where the schools are placed must influence the trades selected, the course of study and the methods of instruction in every good school. European systems are adapted to the national and municipal conditions of their varied peoples.