Part 4

FOR THE STUDENT

In almost every town and city there are homes where the children are just at the age to prevent the mother and father from going out to the theater, church, parties, etc., in the evening.

These people cannot afford to keep a maid, but could and would pay $2 an evening to a reliable girl or woman to come in and stay with the children once a week.

Why not spend two dollars in want ads telling these people about your plan. It would be easy to get six families who would pay you two dollars each per week; Monday at the Smith’s, Tuesday at the Brown’s, etc.

This is especially good for the girl who studies, since the children will go to bed by 8 o’clock and the remainder of the evening can be spent quietly studying or reading.

IF YOU LIVE IN A CITY

There is hardly a single firm of any size which does not have a quantity of statements at the first of each month or advertising matter to be mailed which overtaxes their regular office force. Many women and girls in the city have started mailing houses. They make arrangements with these firms to address their envelopes, sign and fold the letters, insert in envelope, seal, stamp and mail them. It requires absolutely no capital to start this business, provided you will turn one room of your house into an office.

With practice the average women can address 1,200 envelopes per day with pen and ink. The charge for this work ranges between $3 and $4 per thousand. The rate for folding a one page letter is 70 cents per thousand, 35 cents per thousand for inserting it in envelope, 35 cents per thousand for sealing envelope, 35 cents per thousand for stamping and 35 cents per thousand for mailing.

Most mailing houses charge 35 cents per motion for folding, inserting, sealing, stamping and mailing. So in arriving at a rate for a piece of work you just determine the number of motions required. Each fold and each insert is counted one motion.

As your business increases, employ girls to help you and you will soon be operating an extensive office.

LAMP SHADES

The actual material cost of making a silk lamp shade that retails for $15 is about $5. Any girl who can sew will find making lamp shades an exceedingly simple matter. All department stores sell the wire frame, and transparent silk in many colors and designs can be bought at any good dry-goods store. The sales plan is this:

Make arrangements with a department store or any other store who will display them to sell them on commission. For instance, you allow them $5 profit on a $15 shade. If you show good taste in selecting designs and colors you can build up a very profitable business in a short time.

There is also a constant demand for a shade made of cardboard, hand-tinted in water colors which makes an excellent imitation of genuine parchment.

DOUGHNUTS

In a Middle Western town a certain woman discovered the secret of making old-fashioned doughnuts that would simply melt in your mouth. Neighbors soon learned of these delicious doughnuts, and insisted that every time she made them she would make a few dozen extra which they bought.

She decided to go into the doughnut business. She rented a small place about the size of a small shoe-shine parlor right on the busiest corner, and equipped the window with a kettle of lard on a gas hot-plate. Everything was painted white, and she was dressed in white. She fried doughnuts to order. Customers stood in line waiting for their doughnuts to fry. It proved a tremendous success. To-day she owns a large, fully equipped bakery where she bakes everything usually made in a bakery.

TO WHICH OF THESE CLASSES DO YOU BELONG?

CLASS NO. 1

Are you a stenographer, typist, bookkeeper, or an office clerk of some kind who goes to work at a certain time every morning, rain or shine? Do you take a few sandwiches along and eat lunch at your desk or in a rest room, or do you go to a cheap restaurant? You have a certain time to stop working each day. Do you dread the long afternoon—how lonesome and monotonous!—checking figures, typing letters, filing papers, or doing some other routine work which you have done so often? How you long for five o’clock to come! Not because you are lazy, but because you are human. Because it is not human for anyone to go on and on doing the same monotonous work day after day without becoming weary and discouraged. And then Saturday comes. How much is in your pay envelope? After you pay your living expenses, how much is left for you to buy the things which make life so bright for a young girl? When you go out on Sunday and see so many girls wearing fine clothes and associating with cultured people, what do you think? Do you think of the past weeks of discouraging work? Do you think of your clothes, your kind of friends, your home life and your meager earnings? At times you must look ahead, away off into the gloomy future. Monday morning you awake feeling blue, tired and discouraged with the dreadful thought of the office, the irritable employer who scolds, the same faces looking at you, the same monotonous routine.

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO?

Perhaps you are being led to believe that you are going to be promoted. Stop and think. Suppose you are promoted. What will it amount to? True, you might then be able to wear a little better clothes and not be quite so pinched for money; but after all, nothing else will change. Of all the girls you know, how many of them doing your kind of work ever advanced beyond a living wage? Surely your aspirations are for more than something to live upon! What are you going to do about it?

You have two avenues open to you. One is to continue your present daily grind and deprive yourself of the luxuries, the romance and the brilliant future of a happy home.

The other is to learn the things you should know in order to become successful, and get your full share of the sweet things in this world while you are still a young girl, and can enjoy them. This avenue will lead you to happiness, romance, and to all the niceties of life which are so dear to a young girl.

Can you afford to miss this alluring future? What are you going to do about it? Read every one of the plans which we outline on the following pages. You will find one that will make the world seem brighter to you.

CLASS NO. 2

Are you employed in a factory or at some other kind of work which you hesitate to acknowledge when you meet a new acquaintance, or are you employed in some one’s home doing domestic work. If we could only make you understand the great things in life which you are missing. If you would only go to your mirror and look yourself right in the face and say “I can’t do anything that will make matters worse. Here is a chance for me to better my position. Here is something I can do that will give me an experience which will pay up for my lack of education. It will teach me how to meet and associate with people of a higher rank. It will afford me an opportunity to enjoy all the luxuries of life which I have been deprived of. Instead of rough hands and soiled clothes, I will cultivate a clear, soft complexion. I will develop my natural beauty. I will wear the clothes becoming to a lady. I will do it! To-day, right now, I will take the first step necessary to prepare myself for this new life.” The first step is to read every single word in this book and then decide which plan you will select. Don’t just read. Think while you read! Forget every single thing in the world but your future.

CLASS NO. 3