Like shorthand, the typewriter is nowadays easy to learn. The great commercial colleges teach it as a separate course, as do most of the com mercial colleges throughout the country, of which there are tnany,—tech nical institutes, polytechnics and similar institutions. The use of the typewriting machine is largely a matter of familiarity, although a great deal of help can be given by an expert directing the efforts of the student. What 'anted chiefly is a machine to use and to practise on and the necessary desire to master its technicalities.
With shorthand and typewriting it is not difficult nowadays to rind an opening in a business office. There is always a need for competent opeotars. In the provinces salaries for competent stenographers and typists vary from 140 to 1'65; in London the salaries range from 1'50 <05 a year. Possibly in the case of mere beginners the figure in both the provinces and the cities would be less, but these salaries are paid to workers who are arriving at the age of maturity.
The credentials of being able to write shorthand and to operate a typewriter are valuable as the beginning of a career in an office, but they are now no longer passports to success. In the early days, when short hand writing and the use of the typewriter were novelties, the man or woman who could do both was greatly appreciated in a busy office and had exceptional opportunities for advancement. To-day the tasks are regarded as purely mechanical, and unless the worker who goes equipped with these qualifications is not careful, he may be confined to shorthand writing and typing all his days. While he would not find any difficulty in getting a living wage for competence in these directions, he might find his income fixed by his market value and his prospects of advancement almost limited by his qualifications. Employers in offices to-day, who select a man because he is a good shorthand writer and typist, are apt to treat him as such as long as he is in their service, as it never occurs to them to attempt to .discover whether he has any special qualifications
for the higher grades of work in their offices.
While it is difficult to get an opening in any up-to-date office to-day without a knowledge of shorthand and typewriting, the beginner should not lose sight of the fact that these acquisitions are only means to an end. If he is going to be content with a living wage all his life, which will rise to its maximum by the time he is twenty-eight, possibly first class shorthand and efficient typewriting will meet tis needs. If, on the other hand, he is ambitious and &sires to go he should be con stantly aware of the danger of having his status tired by these two elementary qualifications. Once the worker has secured an appointment in an office by the employment of shorthand and typewriting, he should not be content to merely fulfil the mechanical functions of the shorthand typist, because if he is, it will be taken for granted that these two mechanical functions represent his limitations. He should be on the alert to seize opportunities of showing his value outside these two functions, as an organiser, initiator, or a tactful executive servant. The value of the mere technical accomplishments is fixed, and practically all oncoming beginners in business life possess it. The skilled user of shorthand and operator of a typewriter is in danger of becoming one of a vast army of people mechani cally perfect for a dual task, but unfitted for any other. While the two faculties are almost indispensable to a favourable entry into business life on the office side, there is an ever-increasing danger that they fix the position of the aspirant to business success in a groove very little further advanced than the point at which he started.