GIRLS’ EMPLOYMENTS.
Mary H. C. (Stewardess).—The position of stewardess is not easy for a girl to obtain who has no connection with steamship companies. The companies usually prefer for these appointments the widows or daughters of employees. It is not also a position for which quite a young girl would be thought eligible. We think your parents are very wise in desiring you to know a trade, as an employment of this kind can always be practised; but there is, as you say, the difficulty that many trades which girls can adopt are of a sedentary character, and might not suit you for that reason. How would you like dairy-work? This is a good business to know, as girls who can take charge of dairies or teach dairy-work are often wanted. You could be well taught in the Reading Agricultural College (where you might also learn poultry and bee-keeping), at the County Council Dairy Institute, Worleston, near Nantwich, Cheshire, or at the Midland Dairy Institute, Kingston, Notts. Laundry-work also is a most remunerative business to anyone who has been trained for the post of manageress in a steam laundry; but as you are not very strong, this might not prove a desirable occupation for you.
Blackamoor (Companion, etc.).—1. You are one of our quite young readers, we divine, and so perhaps will not take it amiss if we observe that your spelling is a trifle weak; but as you write carefully this will doubtless soon be improved. When you are older, we think you will give up the idea of becoming a lady’s companion, and think it rather a poor employment. Some girls make themselves valued in this capacity, but they are young women who understand household duties thoroughly, and can, as the expression goes, turn their hand to anything. But we should like you to try in preference to do some one thing well, in particular, as this is the more useful faculty nowadays.—2. Your second question shows that you have the laudable ambition of a true Scottish girl to become well educated. You aspire to obtain a “bursary,” or, as we call it in England, a “scholarship,” at some school whence you could eventually proceed to Girton. The St. Leonard’s School at St. Andrew’s is a particularly good one. We advise you to write to the Principal, asking her whether any bursaries are offered by the school for which you could compete. You could also obtain some useful preliminary instruction through the St. George’s Oral and Correspondence Classes, of which the secretary is Miss S. E. Murray, 5, Melville Street, Edinburgh. Pupils are helped in home study through these classes, and also prepared for the Edinburgh Local Examinations.
K. L. (Journalistic Work in China or Japan).—China would offer no field for journalistic employment to girls of nineteen, and is almost the last country to select. Japan would be much safer, but we doubt whether it would offer much field for journalistic work. If you wish to become a journalist, surely, as your home is in Canada, it would be much wiser to try the United States. You could at all events obtain journalistic experience there, and a few years later you would be in a better position to judge whether the East could offer you congenial employment. No doubt if you did not require to earn money, it might be quite possible to gratify your wish for Oriental travel; but as this is not the case you would only be encountering insuperable obstacles by trying at your age to introduce Western ideas concerning girls’ employment into the East.
Dolly Varden (Telephone Clerkship).—You wish to know at what age girls can be received into a telephone office. The National Telephone Company accepts girls between the ages of seventeen and nineteen. Their height, it is stipulated, must be not less than 5 feet 3 inches. They must bring with them two letters of recommendation and a doctor’s certificate. Good education and pronunciation are also demanded. Clerks are engaged on a monthly agreement, and are received at first on probation without payment, and afterwards at 5s. a week for half-time, namely four hours a day. When engaged for full time, that is, eight hours a day, less time for luncheon and tea, they are paid 5s. a week, rising by 1s. a week yearly to 15s. Promotion to higher and better paid work is accorded to suitable girls in order of seniority. We rather fear that the complaint from which you have suffered might prove to be an obstacle in your way, as the duties of a telephone clerk entail much standing.
May Désirée (Telephone Clerkship).—See reply to “Dolly Varden,” in which we have dealt with this employment fully.
Topsy (Stewardess, etc.).—1. Positions as stewardess are only to be obtained through the steamship companies; but would it not be wiser, Topsy, to remain a dairy-maid as you are at present? A girl who knows dairy-work is useful in all parts of the country and colonies, and has a far better chance of earning her living, if she loses a situation, than a stewardess out of place.—2. Used postage stamps have no value.