f much advancement, we shall consider in
a later chapter. We may say here, however, that these disadvantages
and dangers, for the really commercially minded girl, are to a certain
extent neutralized by her nature and possibilities. She is the girl
whose mind is more or less concentrated on "the selling game." Her
nerves are less worn because of a certain exhilaration in her work.
She is the girl who passes beyond the underpaid stage and is able to
live decently and to rise to a position of some responsibility, partly
because of her concentration and partly because she has been able to
resist the influences about her which make for mediocrity or worse.

_Office work_. The girl emerging from high school and looking for work
is usually on the lookout for what in a boy we call a "white-collar
job." Especially in the case where the girl has been kept in school
at more or less sacrifice on the part of her parents, both they and
the girl feel that the extra years of schooling entitle her to a
"high-class" occupation of some kind. Girls are far less willing than
boys to "begin at the bottom" and work up through the various stages
of apprenticeship to ultimate positions near the top. They resent
being asked to take the "overall" job and fear mightily to soil their
hands.

[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 h