It is very interesting to see how much more concerned people are about growing boys in great cities than they are about girls. This is really illogical, for what is happening to girls is happening in a very special way to the race. Everyone says glibly enough that the position of woman in any society is an index of that society’s civilization. This fact seems to be perceived, however, rather as some sort of bookish generalization than as a subject of social concern, which ought to be connected with a positive social purpose. It would be idle to claim that the situation of the young girl entering industry in New York to-day is in any way socially satisfactory. It is not. There is a social--or as some prefer to call it, moral--instability at the present time that is very serious. The purity of the working girl is under a terrific strain, and it is criminal to close our eyes to the fact. Those who know this to be the case seem almost committed to a policy of silence. While they realize the gravity of the facts, they are also among the sincerest admirers and friends of the working girl, and they do not want to create the impression that there is anything inherently debased about this army of youthful women workers. It would, in fact, be a total misrepresentation to picture the working girl as in any way different from any other girl. She is, of course, the same sort of person as the society girl or the so-called middle-class girl, but her position at just this juncture is a more difficult one than that of any other young woman, for she is stepping out from the most old-fashioned type of family into the newest type of industry. This new social adjustment is just as inevitable as the economic adjustments that followed the industrial revolution.