Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/148

 of an establishment where a switchboard is maintained to connect different departments or branches or employees. Chicago follows New York closely as a Mecca for telephone operators, and in any city of 100,000 population or more a girl is reasonably sure of securing an opening almost immediately.

But the reader must not think that any and every girl is suited to this work. The applicant for a position or for training in a school for operators must have natural intelligence and quickness in thought and action. The dull, slow girl who moves with exaggerated deliberation and who does not grasp an idea quickly will not, succeed. The applicant must speak distinctly and write a legible hand. She must have good health, good eyesight, good hearing and a fair education. In the larger cities, where telephone operating is taught by the local company, no girl who has not completed her grammar school grades will be considered as an applicant, while preference is given to the high school graduate or the girl who has had a year or two of high school training. This is because the additional training is apt to make a girl think more quickly and grasp instructions more readily.

Applicants between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three are given the preference also. The girl under seventeen lacks the physical strength and the mental poise to handle a switchboard,