[Illustration:  Office girls at work.  The successful office worker must be neat and accurate and have a temperament in which pleasure in arrangement takes precedence over joy in production]

Twenty-five years ago a large proportion of high-school graduates went at once into the teaching force, where they succeeded (or not) in “learning to do by doing,” without professional training of any sort.  Now, however, teaching as a profession is in many places fortunately reserved for the girls who prepare in college or normal school; and a larger proportion of girls who cannot have this professional training are looking for other occupations.  Office work attracts a large number, and, with present-day business courses in high schools, many girls find employment as stenographers, typists, cashiers in small establishments, bookkeepers, or general office assistants.  In any of these positions girls without special training or experience must begin at very low wages.  Whether they rise to higher ones depends to some extent at least upon the girls themselves.

What sort of girl shall we encourage to enter office work?  Not the girl whose talent lies in making things, for to her the routine of the office will be a weary and endless treadmill entirely barren of results; nor the girl who requires the stimulus of people to keep her alert and keyed to her best work; nor the girl who cannot be happy at indoor work.  Office work seems to require a temperament in which pleasure in arrangement takes precedence over joy in production; in which neatness, accuracy, and precision afford satisfaction even in monotonous tasks.  Coupled with these a mathematical bent gives us the cashier or accountant or bookkeeper; mental alertness and manual dexterity, the stenographer; a talent for organization, the secretary.

Girls who enter upon office work directly from high school must be content with rudimentary tasks and must beware lest they remain at a low level in the office force.  Girls with more training may begin somewhat farther up, the best positions usually going to those whose general education and equipment are greatest.  Stenographers are more valuable in proportion as their knowledge of spelling, sentence formation, and letter writing is reinforced by a feeling for good English and an ability to relieve their superiors of details in outlining correspondence.  It is not enough that bookkeepers know one or several systems of keeping business records, or that cashiers manipulate figures rapidly and well.  More important than these fundamental requirements is the determination to grasp the details of the business as conducted in the office in which they find themselves and to adapt their work to the needs of the person whose work they do.  General knowledge and the ability to think not only supplement, but easily become more valuable than, technical training.

[Illustration:  Photograph by Brown Bros.  The successful secretary must have a talent for organization]