Employment opportunities will be found only in the larger cities. However, an independent business may be established even in comparatively small towns.
The above statements regarding duplicating machine work apply to the operation of the addressograph and similar office devices, such as the Hollerith machine card puncher, the photostat, and the tabulating machine.
PLAN No. 1085. STENOGRAPHY
No less important than bookkeeping is stenography with its exceptional record for serving as a medium through which men may advance to high grade executive positions. Stenographic work requires somewhat more physical activity than does bookkeeping, but a skillful male stenographer, though somewhat physically disabled may count on employment owing to a constant demand that has never been fully met. In no other occupation is one thrown into such constant and close contact with the business executive to whose advantage it is to promote an employee who has shown capacity for more important and profitable work. As a stepping stone to big things a stenographic position has no rival in the list of business occupations.
Many prominent men might be named who owe their success to some extent to their ability to write shorthand. The list includes men high in official positions, and prominent railroad executives who have reached their high positions, through stenographic work. Their success gives conclusive evidence of the importance of this kind of training. In other lines, also as for example, in iron and steel, insurance, powder, electricity, and in fact right down the line of big business in America bright young men have, because they were shorthand writers, had the chance to go to school to the best teachers of the business in the world, i. e., the executive heads of their respective concerns. And instead of having to pay handsomely for their instruction, they received good salaries while they were learning and preparing to step up higher.
Qualifications and Training Required
Taking character for granted, the necessary qualifications for amanuensis and secretarial work are:
Good general health, eyesight, and hearing. Ambition, enthusiasm, self-reliance, and determination. A mind of at least average activity and alertness, improved by a thorough high school education or its equivalent.
Training in English to the extent of becoming proficient in spelling and punctuation, and acquiring a good working vocabulary.
Ability to speak and write with a fair degree of fluency.