Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/146

 who, armed with a smattering of stenography or bookkeeping, would be working for a petty lawyer or in a eashier's cage of a small shop for the same sum, five dollars a week. Always it is the girl, and not the work, that determines the wages. And the same girl who would become private secretary if she had a knowledge of stenography may become a department manager or the trusted aide to the senior partner through her cleverness and tact at the switchboard. Capability will manifest itself just as quickly in handling jacks and plugs as in taking dictation. In fact, considering the enormous output of "business colleges," half-trained, almost unlettered stenographers, I honestly believe that the expert telephone operator has the better business opportunities.

Certainly I would urge the girl who has no trade, who suffers sudden financial reverses, and who is naturally intelligent and refined, to turn to telephoning rather than to stenography. If accepted as a learner in a large city exchange, she will not lose a day's time, but from the hour she begins to study she will be earning a small stipend at least.

The out-of-town girl whose knowledge of the work is limited to the system employed at the local exchange should not judge the opportunities offered by what she sees in her home city or village. There positions may be few, and