GIRLS’ EMPLOYMENTS.
Isabel (Art Needlework).—You would be very well taught in the Royal School of Art Needlework, Exhibition Road, South Kensington; the fee for instruction is £5. The School does not, however, guarantee to find work for its pupils, but some of the latter earn an average income of £1 a week. In art-needlework shops, the payment is usually much lower, 14s. or 15s. a week being not unusual. If you are fond of needlework, could you not learn dressmaking at a technical institute, and then go out as a visiting dressmaker? You would do better in this way than as an embroideress, for you could earn about 2s. 6d. a day, and would receive board during the time of your engagement.
A Young Correspondent (Helping others).—The fact that you are very young need not prevent you from helping other people as you wish to do, and from making yourself useful in the world. If you can knit, you might write to the secretary of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, 181, Queen Victoria Street, E.C., and ask whether you could knit mufflers or mittens for the fishermen. Another kind of work in which help is required is in embossing books in Braille type for the use of the blind. In regard to this work, you should apply to the Hon. Secretary, British and Foreign Blind Association, 33, Cambridge Square, W. Do not trouble about the other matters you mention. Girls in their teens often do not look their best, and the complexion nearly always improves in later life. With a pleasant manner and a neat becoming style of dress, a girl may always make an agreeable impression, whereas there are many handsome girls who are so selfish and disagreeable that their beauty gives no pleasure to anybody, not even to themselves.
Pansy (Advice).—It would be a great mistake to become a companion, although you do say that such a career is your ambition. Companions occupy an anomalous position; their duties are undefined, and their services are consequently little valued. And, after middle life, the companion usually finds herself without an engagement, and without a profession of any kind. You say you do not wish to become a governess, but at the same time you feel yourself competent to teach children from seven years old to twelve. Now, under these circumstances would it not be wise to become an elementary school teacher? Your pupils would be of the ages mentioned, and you would have an occupation by which you could almost certainly earn a living. Elementary teachers are now in great demand, for this very reason, that so many girls will try to become companions and secretaries. Had you been under eighteen, you might have become an apprentice as a pupil-teacher in an elementary school; but as you are eighteen already, you had better pass the Queen’s Scholarship Examination, and then seek employment as an assistant teacher, or, much better, enter a teachers’ training college. You could study all the requirements more fully by obtaining through a bookseller a copy of the New Code, issued by the Education Department. If you wanted further advice, it is probable that some Board School or National School mistress in your own town would give it.
Snowball (Typewriting, etc.).—A typist and shorthand writer, employed as a clerk in a City office, usually receives a weekly salary of from 18s. to 21s. to begin with, rising at the end of a year or two (if she is really competent) to 25s. and, after that, rising again possibly to 30s., 35s., or any amount not exceeding £2. But many girls do not advance beyond 25s. per week, and employment is to some extent precarious, as so many girls can now do typing and write shorthand with moderate skill. But we consider that a girl occupies a tolerably secure position who can do verbatim reporting, and can be relied on to take down all that is said at a long meeting, which, when interruption and discussion takes place, is by no means an easy task. But as you are quite young, write a good clear hand, which you will doubtless improve within the next twelvemonth, and are determined to work, we should counsel the Post Office Department of the Civil Service in your case, especially if you pass the Cambridge Junior Examination well, for which you are preparing yourself. You should try to get into the Service as a girl clerk as soon as you are sixteen; that is better than waiting till you are eighteen to enter as a woman clerk. Pay great attention meantime to your studies in French, German, geography, arithmetic, and handwriting. Girl clerks begin at a salary at £35, and women clerks at £55. The latter are eligible for a pension after a certain number of years’ service.
Kalifa (House Decoration).—We do not quite agree with you that there is an increasing demand for ladies who undertake house decoration. To succeed in the business, a girl ought to be apprenticed to a decorator who will teach her how to draw and design furniture, and to see that workmen carry out orders properly. To learn the business thoroughly, a girl must either give time or pay a high premium; one of the foremost decorators charges £100. It is not an employment for everybody; and a good many ladies of taste have failed because they have not carried out their work in a sufficiently responsible and business-like manner.
Espérance (Suggestions).—If you shrink from nursing, it is difficult to know what you can do in the way of philanthropic work without possessing some private means. Perhaps through the church or chapel you attend you could be put in the way of doing something for the poor, such as district visiting. There are also, as you perhaps know, several settlements in the East of London in which women work. For instance, there is the St. Margaret’s House, Bethnal Green, a Church of England Settlement, and there is also the Canning Town Settlement, 459, Barking Road, Plaistow, which is unsectarian. You would probably find that should the occasion arise for you to earn your living, the experience gained by working in one of these settlements would help you to obtain a position as matron of some charitable institution. There is now a considerable demand for philanthropic workers who have been trained in settlements.
Lois (Librarianship).—We hardly think your scheme is feasible of obtaining a librarianship in a charitable institution or in a ladies’ club. In a workmen’s reading-room and institute it is quite possible you might obtain employment, or in a free library. The branches of the Manchester Free Library employ women. Some post of that kind you would probably fill well, as you have had several years’ experience already, and have interested yourself in the work. Then there is a large circulating library at Norwich, the property of a private firm, where some women are engaged. Otherwise, if you wish to make a change, you would have to seek a secretaryship, or post as book-keeper, as you say; but this seems to us rather a pity as you have done so well as a librarian.
Ingeborg (Needlework).—You had better communicate with the secretary of the Society for the Advancement of Plain Needlework, 16, Stafford Street, Marylebone Road, N.W., and ask what courses he would advise you to pursue in order to obtain a teachership of needlework. Very likely it may be thought best that you should pass the examination at the City Guilds’ Institute, as this qualification would help you materially to secure an appointment.