Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-07-27
New York Y. NJ. c. A. Starts
School for the Genus.
oLD-FAsHI0NED KIND BEST
Neat, Polite, Ambitious Youngsters
Are at q Premium,
MODERN TYPE Is DIFFERENT
Wants to Leave Early and Relatives
Always Dying When Ball Team
IL Home,
Special Correspondence Of The Star.

Special Correspondence Of The Star.
NEW YORK. July o. 1907.
In about one month. with the ending of
the summer season. the metropolis will be
crying for $1,000 Office boys, the old fash
ioned kind preferred. Each year the cry
for boys that goes up from the skyscrapers
becomes more insistent New York's greedy
business nav gobbles up some 10000 young
sters year as office boys. and though
| there are just about enough boys to supply
| the demand. business men complain that
to secure the right kind OF boys Is q very
difficult matter indeed.
1t Is curious fact about New York's
great army Of Office boys that a very small
proportion Of them are graduates of the
public schools. The schools graduate less
than 10000 boys year, and fully half of
| these enter the high schools to equip them
selves for business or other careers. so
that probably not more than 1000 of these
| annual graduates become office boys The
| average age of these young business men
Is fourteen years and six months. OF the
residue of the annual contingent of office
boys, the great majority are youngsters,
who, for some reason or other have been
compelled to drop out of school before COM
pleting the course.
Boys enough there are. then. but business
men lament the passing of the old-fash-
toned office boy. who. as a type, Is taking his
place with the dodo and the mastodon. He
was the boy who came early and stayed
late, who busted. swept. scrubbed cleaned
the windows. filled the tnkwells and in
short. was chambermaid and waitress and
office assistant all In one. If there was
an errand to be run he was there and back
in jiffy He apparently had mother
q nt i'm, irrro at In oil lfoh
from finger nails to shoes. He said Yes,
sir" instead of sure and, incidentally
he could add and write a fair round
hand" and had working knowledge Of
geography. He rose rapidly from the Of
flee boys Job. and OF course, married the
boss daughter and became head Of the
firm In time.
Not Like That Now.
This paragon Of a lad. according to bust
ness men. has passed OF course. business
conditions have changed too. The win
dows In modern business house are clean
ed by the window cleaning trust, the Of
fees are scrubbed and cleaned up by armies
Of scrub ladies'" The average boy has a
habit of getting down to the Office after
the boss, and his eagerness to leave early
Is only equaled by his gross ignorance Of
the uses Of ordinary office apparatus. The
mortality among his relatives during the
base ball season is something stupendous
And he must be constantly adjured by his
employer that soap and water are good
things for the health.
This Is the Indictment that the average
business man brings against the average
office boy. But there Is another side to the
story, as prominent department head in
the public school system pointed out.
"All the average boy could expect ten
years ago. he said. was an elementary
school education. Then the boy was ready
for the Office. Nowadays. practically oil
the better boys go to high school or take
UP some sort OF special training. BY the
time they get through that they can COM
mand something step higher than the
ordinary office boys job. So that the cream
of the yearly output. Of boys never become
office boys"
The degeneration OF the office boy has
led to the appearance Of the "off1ce girl"
who Is clean and neat. and, in business par
lance, very much on the Job. She Is in
creasing in numbers every day Examina-
lions for Office girl now have a regular
place on the local civil service list, and she
Is satisfactorily doing her work in many
city departments The girls show q keener
disposition to Improve themselves for ad-
vancement than their brothers. and they
ball games Perhaps in time the Office girls
will crowd out the Office boys altogether.
Office Boy School.
The demand for office boys who know
something about an office" has led to the
RbtdDllSIIueHI VI al evening training SCHOOL
ISr office boys by the West Side Young
Mems Christian Association. which seems
to be filling a long-felt want The instruc-
ton Is designed to turn out polite, reliable
and promotable youngsters as Office assist
ants.
Part one of the instruction consists of
such elementary things as business arith-
metic. spelling. correspondence, business
English and commercial geography, with
emphasis on the geography Of New York
city. This course Is designed to meet the
need of business men who find themselves
unable to procure boys familiar with ordi
nary business nomenclature and lawyers
handicapped by Office assistants ignorant OF
the whereabouts of any of the courts or
how to get to them
Part two of the instruction is divided
into elementary and advanced work In
cluded in the elements of Office work are
the cNre of desks and office furniture, an
swerink indicator calls and the care Of
messages. the use of telephone and SWITCH
board and instruction in all methods OF
letter copying and letter-book indexng.
Incidentally. stress is laid on personal ap-
pearance. neatness. cleanliness. carriage
and address. as we'll as courtesy and po-
likeness In receiving visitors. No boy who
gets drought the course is likely to receive
the card of a business caller with fingers
that leave huge smudge on 1t. or tell one
of his employers friends to "Gwan, the
boss amt in" The advanced work includes
all systems of letter fling and file index
ing, instruction in manifclding and the va
rious duplicating machines, mailing desk
work shipping-desk work and it's various
phases. cashiers department work with In
struction in banking routine. and general
Office routine. with elementary bookkeeping
and simple commercial correspondence.
Business men have shown even more in
terest In the office boys school than the
boys themselves. AS consequence, many
more places were offered to graduates Of
the school during the past year than the
INIT number Of hOvS cOnld poSSib1y All
and the unplaced boys who completed the
course all had choice of several good po-
stions. The other boys who were already
employed materially bettered their posi-
tons. and. in some cases. they were able to
triple their salaries while taking the course