in this work than for a boy.  She must begin at the most rudimentary work, as cash or errand girl, and her progress will necessarily be slow.  She will require an ability to handle with some skill elementary forms of arithmetic, an alert and observing mind, an interest in and some knowledge of human nature, and good health to endure the confinement of the long day.  She will be fortunate if she finds a place in one of the stores in which a continuation school is conducted.  At such a school in Altman’s department store in New York the girls pursue a regular course designed to be especially helpful in their work, and are graduated with all due formality, in which both public-school and store officials take part.  Such a school helps girls to feel a pride in their work and to feel that they are under observation by those who will recognize and reward real endeavor.  Filene’s in Boston and Wanamaker’s in New York and Philadelphia are other notable examples of such schools.

In a government report previously quoted we find interesting figures as to the possibility of advancement for the saleswoman.  In a study of twenty-six of the largest department stores in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, employing more than 35,000 women, the workers were classed as follows: 

Per Cent
Cash girls, messengers, bundle girls, etc           13.2
Saleswomen                                          46.2
Buyers and assistant buyers                          1.2
Office and other employees                          39.4

“It will be seen,” adds the report, “that the opportunity for reaching the coveted position of buyer or assistant buyer is small.”

The disadvantages and dangers of salesmanship for girls, other than small pay and improbability of 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.