(3) To render legal aid and give advice to members,
        and to benefit generally the clerical and secretarial
        profession for women.

    (4) To maintain a registry for women clerks and secretaries,
        and to watch for openings for members of
        the Association.

    (5) To establish and maintain an Approved Society
        under the National Insurance Act, 1911, for the
        benefit of Women Clerks and Secretaries.

The Association is not yet, however, strong enough to form a recognised union able to fix a minimum education qualification for membership.  An important conference was held by this Association in May last at the University of London.  Every speaker emphasised the need for better and wider education before taking up the profession, and there was unanimity of opinion that no girl should be allowed to start the technical part until she was at least sixteen.  A remark of Mrs W.L.  Courtney, who was one of the speakers, is well worth quoting:  “One of the cleverest women I ever knew, who was an amateur indexer, said to me one day, ’It does not matter in doing this work about being clever; what matters is to have lived.’” There is not much chance then for the school-girl of sixteen.[4]

The National Union of Clerks is conducted with energy and enlightenment.  It has increased its membership by nearly 8,000 in the last twelve months, and one of the best reasons it offers women clerks for joining, is that it is the only National Society for Clerks that has always accepted women as members on equal terms as men.  There are 1,000 women in a membership of 10,000.  Notwithstanding the hard work these two societies are doing, there is nothing like the response there should be from women clerks.  It is only the exceptional woman clerk who has yet developed anything like a corporate conscience.  The reason is partly that she is often an isolated being.  Where there is a large number of clerks together, as in the Civil Service, there is no lack of the right spirit.

Here are a few of the causes of the overstocking of the clerical market by women.  Almost any one can be a clerk of a kind.  The training is cheap and easily obtainable.  Many parents want their children to bring in money early, and this seems an easy way.  A large percentage of young girls (in 1907-1909, 87 per cent.) who fail to pass Civil Service examinations, try to become clerks.  Some time ago there was an article in a daily newspaper entitled “The Passing of the 15s.-a-week-Girl.”  She is with us in larger numbers than ever, however, and she has added to her numbers a 10s.-a-week-girl and even a cheaper girl, as we have seen.  We meet her daily in Tube and ’bus, looking remarkably attractive, in spite of foolish shoes and a bad habit of eating four-penny lunches.  The chief charge some of her fellow clerks have against her, apart from her inferior work, is that she only makes use of typing as a road to marriage.  The other class of offender is the daughter of well-to-do parents.  Typing is regarded as a ladylike employment, and parents, who would never expect their daughters to be self-supporting, are glad for them to earn pocket money or just enough for dress.