er 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]

A careful study of local conditions as they affect office positions
will enable girls and their guides to have a better conception of
requirements and rewards in this field. A valuable study of conditions
among office girls in Cleveland has recently been published which
sheds considerable light on the ultimate industrial fate of the
overyoung and poorly trained office worker. A more general study is
found in the volume on _Women in Office Service_ issued by the Women's
Educational Union of Boston.

THE SERVICE GROUP

The third, or service, group of workingwomen covers without doubt the
widest range of all. Here we find the domestic helper (or s