The aim of the Dressmaking Department is to train girls in the elements of the dressmaking trade, in order to enable them to immediately secure employment as improvers and finishers or as assistants on skirts, waists, and sleeves, and to give them a preparation which will help them eventually to rise to positions of skill and responsibility. The training eliminates the errand girl and apprenticeship stages, and makes possible a living wage at the start. The result is accomplished in from nine to seventeen months, the time depending entirely upon the capability of the girl, her physical condition, her application to her work, her regularity of attendance, and her previous training. Classes The department is divided into three sections: (1) The Elementary, which consists of two classes for the teaching of simple sewing and machine work. This section is rendered necessary by the poor preparation of the students at the entrance. It would be not only practical but desirable for elementary public and industrial schools so to train their students that they could omit this part of the Manhattan Trade School course. (2) The Vocational. This section also includes two classes. The work is tradelike in character, but much time has to be given to developing right habits of work as well as to learning specific kinds of handwork. The public secondary schools could offer this section to advantage, and through it train pupils for a better knowledge of the home or for future livelihood. (3) The Trade Section. This is a business shop, which reproduces trade conditions as nearly as possible and is subdivided into the same progressive divisions. Although the object is to work as trade does, the educational aim is also prominent, and the course of training has been planned with both ends in view. Order work plays an important part in this section, for it makes possible the quantity and variety of material necessary to supply the many repetitions of important phases of dressmaking, the new views of old principles, and the elaborate costume manufacturing which are needed in the training. It would be impossible for a school to adequately deal with the many varieties of garments in this trade without some equivalent for the order work. The use of models or of practice material is not satisfactory on account of the great difference between theoretical and practical knowledge in handling valuable materials. A girl may learn to run fine tucks on cheesecloth, but this will not enable her to do satisfactory hand-tucking on chiffon. Neither is it a correct educational or economic principle to cut up quantities of good material, which the students will look upon as "rags," and then, after working on them, to throw them into a receptacle for waste or sell them simply to get rid of them. To secure the best results in any line of instruction there must be interest and enthusiasm. The aim, therefore, must be definite and the results vital.