depended upon for such everyday details as appointments, the keeping of promises, producing papers when wanted?

Initiative: Is he able to think for himself? Has he energy plus imagination, or would he wait to be told what to do and stop at that? Can he look ahead? Is he able to stimulate others and direct them as well?

Tact: Does this applicant possess sympathy, courtesy, politeness, patience, diplomacy? In handling our correspondence and our callers what sort of an impression would he make? Would he be able to get along with our own people?

Personal traits: How about his voice, his facial expression, his manner of standing or sitting, his way of speaking? Is he personally neat and cleanly and of some refinement? Has he good health?

Teachableness: Would this applicant be willing and eager to learn or does he think he knows it all? Would it be effort wasted to try to get him to improve or has he the power of growth?

Interest in our business: Has he real interest in this line of business, in our firm in particular, and in his prospective employer's personal needs and requirements? Would he study this position and make our interest his own, or does he look upon it merely as a means of filling in time, a possible livelihood?

The Rating of the Various Applicants

The answers to some of these questions can be secured very readily from the preliminary letter of application, others from the references submitted, many from the personal interview, while for certain others written examinations should be devised. The tests devised by the United States Civil Service Commission for the selection of stenographers will prove helpful in this connection.

The decision as to which applicant is to be preferred depends finally upon his rating as a whole. One applicant will lave shown himself unusually proficient in taking dictation, another has been found exceptionally qualified in filing sys

tems, or handling callers, or thorough knowledge of the business, etc. The employer should not expect an applicant to grade 100 per cent in all respects-such a prodigy is not to be found but should tender the position to the one whose abilities most nearly meet the requirements.

Standardized Conditions for the Secretary

Upon taking up his new work the private secretary should be provided with the equipment which renders good work possible. The same rule applies to the secretary's position as applies—we have seen-to the office conditions of the executive, namely: to secure superior output, provide standardized conditions.

A typewriter desk into which the machine drops when not in use, a holder for the stenographer's note-book, a comfortable chair, good light, a supply of stationery, carbons, clips, scissors, and the like indicate the more common requirements. In addition there are certain supplies which, while they may not be termed essentials, yet make for increased effectiveness. Should the letterheads be stored in one drawer, the envelopes in another, the carbon paper in a third, and the carbon sheets in their original box or, what would amount to much the same in the end, all piled into the same drawer, the assembling of these materials in the typewriter entails much waste effort.

A desk drawer fitted with partitions, inclined toward the rear, keeps the sheets separate and speeds up the process of assembling.

Owing to the mass of details which comes to the private secretary for attention, he can very well use much of the equipment, such as the day's work file and the tickler, discussed in previous chapters. In fact, not a few private secretaries are really executives, with stenographers to take their dictation and filing clerks under their direction. Needless to

say, such secretaries can profitably be supplied with the necessary equipment which aids in systematizing an executive's work.

The Secretary's Desk with Respect to Office Layout

In arranging the office layout, the secretary's desk should be carefully fitted into the scheme of things. Executives often prefer that the secretary have a separate room, connected by buzzer, telephone, and door, in order that the annoyance of the typewriter may be removed and visitors may be received in privacy. For those who do not follow this plan, che arrangement of the real estate office shown on page 58 is worth noting. With the office arranged in this way, the secretary on his revolving chair is able to turn easily to the typewriter or the double desk. This plan provides considerable working space and a convenient arrangement in handling telephone calls or dictation.

Training as the Source of Competent Secretaries

It was a far-sighted corporation head who not long since remarked, "We can't hire executives; we have to grow them." His remark applies with considerable force to the private secretary. The secretary perfectly trained and competent to perform at once his most valuable services is simply not to be hired.

Frequently it will be found that the qualifications mentioned on a preceding page are possessed in the main by some above-average stenographer already in the firm's employ. She is, let us say, an excellent typist, rapid and accurate in taking dictation, absolutely dependable, ambitious, has graduated from the local high school and during her four years' tenure has shown herself most loyal to the interests of our firm. Would it not be more feasible to promote her to this secretaryship than to seek elsewhere?

The Best Possible Results from a Given Cost

"Impossible," some will claim. "We invariably employ graduates of secretarial schools at salaries of $35 to $40 per week and they certainly make poor enough secretaries, as our experience goes to prove." Very true, no doubt. In some executive offices even $90 per week would be far too little to pay for secretarial services. Nevertheless, the man whose duties and whose importance in the organization justifies an appropriation not exceeding $20 a week for secretarial assistance often insists upon a $75-a-week secretary. No others, he claims, are competent! The point here insisted upon is not that secretaries be poorly paid, far from that. But every executive is justified, according to his position, in making a certain expenditure for secretarial services and no more. It is his duty to secure maximum results within that sum. Very frequently this implies that the above-average stenographer should be promoted and afforded some little training for her new position.

A Special Training Course

There are a few excellent books devoted to secretarial work, and the study of their specific directions and suggestions simplifies the problem of training. There is such a thing as the professional spirit which, once we have it, leads us on, makes us grow. In the present instance such a spirit once stirred into being by the study of these secretarial books may after a time transform the promising beginner into a competent secretary.

Books on secretarial training may very well be followed by works on filing and indexing. The student of such works does not need to be told that accuracy in filing is important, and is able within a comparatively short time to develop a competency with filing systems considerably beyond that which the employer alone would be able to insure. With

such knowledge the secretary can aid materially in working out the form and arrangement of the employer's personal files. Handling Correspondence Without Dictation

The goal commonly set for the secretary by his employer is the ability to handle correspondence without dictation. Too often the employer discovers, however, that such correspondence is so error-laden as to be unsafe or trite and exasperating with its customary "Your letter of the 13th received and contents noted," and "Hoping to be favored with your reply."

While the word for word dictation by the executive may at first seem the easiest solution it is really no solution at all; the problem is to fit the secretary to take hold for himself. The principles upon which effective correspondence depends have been presented in several excellent texts and the study of these, even the reading of one of them, cannot fail to secure improvement. The articles devoted to sales correspondence in the current magazines will be found helpful. This part of his training provides the secretary with standards for correspondence, numerous directions as to how these standards are to be applied, and stimulus to make such applications daily.

A Knowledge of the Company's Business

The business letter, however, depends not alone on the secretary's knowing how to write but also on his knowing what to write about, in other words, his knowledge of this particular business and its daily operation. An employer complained of a certain private secretary because "She doesn't somehow get into the swing of things." It was discovered later that during her two years' employment she never went further into the plant than the first floor of the office building in the front yard. The purchasing, the advertising, and the accounting departments on the second floor, the twenty-acre plant with its belching furnaces and tall chimneys, were to