improved.
But, while they are learning, the employer is not receiving the service
to which he is entitled.

The only practical way for the average girl to enter a business office is
by studying stenography. But to have a really satisfactory school training,
the girl who means to be a stenographer should be ready to pass the
entrance examination into a college or university. Three or four years'
attendance at a high or secondary school is a necessary preparation for
first-class office work. The girl who is a college graduate is not too
well equipped to be a stenographer. Even if a girl is compelled, by the
necessity of earning her living, to begin office work early, still she can,
by determination, courage, and hard work, equip herself with a good
business education. But it is only the exceptional girl who can do this.
The girl who wishes to engage in office work should have three years, if
possible, in a good secondary school, before she enters a business college.

The business college should be chosen carefully, and the girl in training
should attend the classes for nine months or a year. This is the least time
required for satisfactory training. Unfortunately, too many students take
only six months, or even three, at a business school. The result is that
they begin work only partly equipped with training for the office. Many
employers complain that stenographers are incompetent and careless.
One reason for this is that they have not had sufficient training; their
stenography, typewriting, and other instruction have been only half
mastered. Office work would be a better employment for girls if these
half-trained and incompetent workers were not lowering wages, irritating
employers, and limiting the work and responsibility with which girls
would be entrusted if the average stenographer knew her work thoroughly.

The girl who leaves a business college to enter an office should not feel
that there is nothing more to learn. No one can be a thoroughly competent
stenographer until she has been a year at work in an office. The school
teaches her how to handle her working tools. But the real problems of
office work are solved only in the office. There are endless details to
be mastered. Every office has its own rules and customs and its own
methods. It is necessary to learn how to meet people and deal with them.
The girl must study the people with whom she works. She must learn how
her employer likes to have his work done. T