workman in a factory handling a
wheelbarrow may afterward become the president of the greatest corporation
in the world, the clerk, toiling over his papers and his books, is almost
inevitably sentenced to a lifetime of similar toil, with small
opportunities for advancement before him.

There are men fitted by inheritance and training for clerical work and
what lies beyond and above it. They are so constituted that they have the
ability to take advantage of opportunities, to forge to the front from
such a beginning, and to rise to commanding positions. But this is not
true of the men who have aptitudes which would make them successful in
active work with their hands, and afterward with hand and brain. These men
of inherent activity and skill of hand, men whose bones and muscles were
made for work, whose whole nature calls for the out-of-doors, are doomed
to stagnate, grow discontented, and finally lose hope, if compelled by
pride or bad judgment to undertake the "white collar man's" job.

SOCIAL VALUE OF THE "WHITE COLLAR MAN"

Regarding the social deficiency of this class of worker Martha Brensley
Bruere and Robert W. Bruere, in their excellent book, "Increasing Home
Efficiency," have the following to say:

"The output of their domestic factory so far is two sons able to earn
living salaries, who are useful to the community undoubtedly, but as easy
to replace if damaged as any other standard products that come a dozen to
the box. They themselves didn't like the upper reaches of the artisan
class where they had spent their lives, so they boosted their sons till
they could make a living by the sweat of their brains instead of the sweat
of their brows. Society can use the Shaw boys, but is it profitable to
produce them at the price? The money that made these boys into a clerk and
a stenographer cost twenty years of their parents' brain and muscle. Mrs.
Shaw has bred the habit of saving into her own bones till now, when she
might shift the flatiron, the cook stove and the sewing machine from her
shoulders, she can't let go the $10 a month her 'help' eats and wastes
long enough to straighten up her spine. These two boys and a daughter
still in the making have cost their father and mother twenty years, which
Mr. Shaw sums up by saying:

"'So, you see, the final result of making up your mind to do a thing,
including the great trouble of bringing up a family, is just getting down
to the ground and grinding.'

"Isn't it j