In France the mothers take their children to the opera school and they work all day and dance at night and perhaps receive 40 cents for it. Each one is working to be a première danseuse. As she advances her pay increases. Her work is recognized as she improves and she is placed in the ballet according to her proficiency. Then, as it is a national school, when she is too old to dance she is pensioned. Here, where there is no [national] school, the work is taken more casually, and a ballet girl knows that as she grows older there is nothing for her but to be pushed aside.10