San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-11-02
JUST FROM SCHOOL.
CHAT WITH A BOY WHO is START
ING OUT IN LIFE.
The Hard Pan of the Matter - Junior
Clerk in a Big Ofice-The Bookkeeper.
advantages.

advantages.
Here you are, l6 years old, just from
school, and ready to start out for yourself.
Have you ever got down to hard pan. What
arS you going to do next? Going into bust
ness-going to work. What comes firstI The
hard pan of the matter is just here-what
can you dOl
Read, write, and do short sums Reading!
No money in that unless you mean to be
public reader, and that means a beautiful
voice and years of training and study. Writ
ing and arithmetic9 Why, everybody can
do that. There isn't cent in such things.
Then what was the use of learning these
things? Because they are the hard pan of
every art, trade, business and profession;
and while they will not bring wages, you
cannot get good wages without them
Every business requires some one to keep
the books" There is something for you.
Become clerk. You set out to get place,
and at once find that, while hundreds want
clerks, there are thousands who want to be
clerks. Not one of the fellows who have
places seems to want to give it to you, and,
worse than all, half of the clerks are girls.
It's enough to make a man discouraged to
see the way the girls have pushed into all
the good places down town. A fellow has
no chance now.
At last you get place-junior clerk in a
big Office, with a dozen clerks above you,
and half of them girls The chief clerk gets
a hundred month, the others very much
less, and you-well, it doesn't pay quite as
we'll as being bricklayer or carpenter. All
the same, you mean TO try it Besides, you
don't know how to lay bricks, and as for
driving nails, you always hit your thumb.
Pretty soon you find q the clerks, both men
and women, are on the lookout for something
better The men want to go into the bust
ness, and the wOmcn-wcll, they hope to go
home some day and never come back Some
# them, bo:h men and women. hope to be,
come cashiers CT head bookkeepers or ac-
cOuntants, because, as they tell you, the
higher ths WORK the bigger the wages.
So the hard pan Of the business is that to
earn good wages as clerk, you must be able
to do more than read write and cipher
pretty well, or as well as you do You must
go to work and learn a complicated art, and
it Is doubtful If you can do this without two
years hard work in 4 school or an office
Very hard pan. Just so, but here is the bot
tom fact. To earn good wages. you must be
able to do something well Thousands can
do as well as you can when you come out of
school Tie slow, the stupid, the lazy and
the care eSS will underbid you, will work for
less mOn~y, ard unless you can do better,
your chances of earning a living as a mere
common clerk are very small indeed AS
for making fortune-well, it isn't there.
Suppose you do learn the art, and become
a first rate boOkkeeper and accountant, what
are the bottom facts of the business: Under
the term Oookkeeper, there are hundreds of
thousands Of people employed III this coun-
try III stores Offices, banks, steamship and
railroad offices, telegraph offices, manufac
turing companies and shops of all kinds
Now is this the best thing for you-the best
work you can do' Let us figure it up, and
strike balance sheet of advantages and dis
advantages.
First of all, health, as that is the most valu-
able thing in the world. The work is done
indoors, in close and often dark rooms, often
in the midst of noise, hurry and confusion.
Decidedly, it is not a healthy trade, though,
of course, it is not dangerous, and men do
often live to be gray old clerks. Second,
chances. Does it give chances to risel Yes.
1t gives chances for a smart young fellow
like you to look about and pick up informa-
ton, and learn some other business or pro
fession. This is the chief value of a clerkship.
1t leads to something else. 1t is true, on the
other hand, that these chances are very much
less today than fifty years ago, because bust
GeSs of all kinds now REQUIRES 81 uuch capital.