If he is granted an interview, be should go to it well-dressed, but not over-dressed. He should ap proach the business man neither boldly nor timidly, but with modest confidence in himself, bearing sin mind that he has a perfect right to be there. 'He should answer all questions with the utmost candor and truthfulness. When he sees that the interview is over, he should leave at once—and not ask ques tions.
The youth who has gone thru college or a univer sity school of commerce, or who has completed the Modern Business Course and Service of the Alex ander Hamilton Institute, if he has had no experience in business, must expect no special favor at the start. His advantage over the lad who started in at four teen must be demonstrated by the quality he displays in the lower grades of business.
13. Education and advancement.—It is not neces sary here to point out the advantage of mental train ing in business. A generation or so ago business men were sceptical about the practical value of the so called higher education, but today the university man has proved his worth in business.
The question we have to consider here is what kind of education should the rank-and-file worker have had. There can be only one answer. If he wants to become more than a routine worker, he should have had in his youth the best possible education he could obtain. The man with the right kind of training, or who has mastered the T exts and literature of the Alex ander Hamilton Institute, has ten chances of ad vancement where the 'untrained youth has one.
It might appear from what I have said about the re sponsibilities of the rank-and-file worker that he need. not do any thinking, his duty being simply to get his particular task done properly and on time. It is quite true that he is not hired to think, and is not paid for thinking, yet if he is the right kind of man and wants to get on, he will do some real thinking. He handles the details of' the business and is in the best possible position to discover unnecessary waste, fric tion or inefficiency, and to devise and suggest methods of improvement. The rank-and-file worker whose mind is alert, who comes forward now and then with a useful suggestion, always modest but self-respect ing, soon comes to be regarded as a very promising member of the organization and is in line for rapid promotion.
./-1 man in business who is ambitious to get on rap idly must rely not upon his education, but upon the power in himself which his education has helped to develop: 14. million men of various ages are toiling at the drudgery of business in the United States, and probably over half of them believe that they deserve more pay than they get. To the worker his wage seems a pitiful one as be compares it with the big salltries paid to the executives, or -vvith the dividends received by stockholders. He and his fel lows work hard every day; in fact, they dd all the work; the executives seem to him to be having an easy time, and the best paid man of all, the chief execu tive, apparently has less to do than anybody else. Why, he asks himself, should the men who do the real work in the business have so little share in the profits? If he takes time to read, he will find his views with regard to his wages set forth and defended in ap parently scientific fashion in many books, periodicals and newspapers ; and, as an American citizen, he will cast his vote for the politician who promises to advo cate not only a minimum wage law, but higher wages for all workers.
If the worker dissatisfied with his wages will read faithfully the Modern Business Texts, especially Vol ume 2 on "Economics," he will discover that he should be dissatisfied not with his wage, but with himself and, to some extent, with his ancestors. A low wage is not a desirable thing, and it is a. pity that any man should have to work eight or nine hours a day and yet receive in pay barely enough to feed and clothe him. But his employer is not to blame, for his employer does not fix the rate of wages. The workers them selves are more responsible for the rate of wages than the employers. The residents of New York- City complain of the high rents exacted by landlords. Most of them do not realize that the rents are not fixed by the landlord, but really by the tenants, the landlord merely accepting the high rentals offered by the tenants. Competition among the tenants of houses puts up rents ; in the same way, competition among workers lseeps down wages.