Workers of the lowest grade in the large industrial cities of the United States have to face a difficult economic problem. The father can seldom make enough to support his family well, so the mother is compelled to assist. The children as they reach fourteen, usually before they have completed the elementary school, are forced to take any position they can get, whether healthful or not, whether offering opportunities or not. These fourteen-year-old workers are too young to go to school at night to continue their education, for their strength is sapped by day work; they are too poor to go to a trade school, for their wage cannot be given up by their families and the public school can offer them no more than free education (except in rare instances). Competitive examinations to obtain a supporting scholarship are generally beyond their reach, for they are handicapped by foreign birth, underfeeding and lack of mental acumen. As a consequence they are easily distanced in scholarship by the children of the middle-class workers who need the help less. The girls have to meet the most severe strain of the labor market; they must have money; they underbid their fellows and overcrowd the unskilled trades. The life itself is harder on them than on the boys, both physically and spiritually. These little girls are crowding into the labor market in appalling numbers. Their parents naturally want them to be self-supporting, but know not how to help them. They are often willing to sacrifice themselves and keep the children in school until graduation, but the girls resent the present course of study as useless and get out of school as quickly as possible. On the other hand both parents and children appreciate a curriculum which offers directly available, practical training, and they will do much to obtain it. Hence lately some of the wiser educators have offered industrial courses in the last three grades of the school to induce children to remain longer and to give them a good foundation adaptable to trade or to home use.