The Coming Fight!
A Straight Talk to the Girl Clerk About the Coming Commercial Warfare
The war has brought about great changes in the commercial world, and when it is over our commerce will be in many ways quite different. We trust never again to have our markets flooded with German goods, and we expect to trade largely with the Spanish-speaking countries of South America. In most foreign countries correspondence in English and French can be carried on.
In Europe nearly all large firms have clerks who can speak these languages, but in South America it is different. The good folk there are quite content with their own mother tongue, and if those they correspond with do not understand, then they just feel very sorry for them, that's all.
Now we, as a nation, want to make our commercial world the greatest there is and if we set out to trade with an unknown tongue, we at once set out to learn that tongue. That is the reason so many far-sighted people are learning Spanish.
Outside the scholastic world, people do not realise how Spanish is taking a prominent place in the daily work. Masters and mistresses themselves are learning it, and boys—or perhaps we should say the boys' parents—are often advised to take it as one of their subjects.
Lord Cowdray has recently presented a large sum of money to a provincial university to enable Spanish to be one of its special subjects, as he considers it is of such importance to the future prosperity of the nation.
Now is it not a happy thought that one can fit oneself to earn more money and at the same time be doing really quite patriotic work ? We hear about the coming trade war when the war is over. Well, the girl who learns Spanish will be fitting herself to fight in that.
Spanish is quite an easy language to learn. The girl who knows French will find that a great help, and the pronunciation need not trouble her. The great point is to be able to read it and to write it well. A good plan is to get a "Spanish Self-taught."--there are plenty of such little books — and a Spanish grammar, also a dictionary. By these simple aids one can get a good insight into the language.
It is no good to go to a school that says you can be proficient in one month. That may be all very well if you want to speak only, but speaking Spanish is of little value to a girl clerk. You want to write a letter in Spanish grammatically. This point must be impressed upon any school entered. A good idea is to get a girl friend to start Spanish at the same time. Two working together help each other. But be sure to choose a girl who has grit in her, and will stick to it.
English girls must realise that for many years to come the effect of this terrible war will be felt by all classes. The girl who now looks forward to the future and fits herself for it is very wise. She will not only learn to read and to in Spanish— what is called commercial Spanish—but she will practise typing letters in Spanish too. She will, in fact, fit herself in every way to take a post as clerk in an office with a large correspondence in Spanish. Of course, it may be that she will have a letter in English dictated to her which she must translate into Spanish; or, it may be, some of the heads of the firm will be able to speak Spanish, and dictate a letter in it to her.
The understanding of Spanish spoken is consequently important, but to speak it oneself will not matter. We make a point of this, because so many girls may say: "Oh, I could never speak Spanish! My French was so bad at school the girls always laughed at me." Speaking a foreign language is not a strong point with the English, but it need not worry the ambitious girl clerk. Go in and win; that is the best advice. It may mean some hard work, it may mean a few less "picture evenings"; but war-time is work-time, and nothing a girl can do can come up to what the "boys" are doing, for penetrating through their hard work is the awful risk of their lives.
The girls are only asked to fit themselves to take their share in the fight in the commercial warfare so that we may as a nation be in every way worthy of the great sacrifice so many have made.
[It's interesting that Woman's Weekly was already foreseeing severe competition for jobs, post-war, at a time when it must have been far from obvious that Germany could be defeated, though the predictions of the value of learning Spanish seem a bit off the mark.
Lord Cowdray was Weetman Pearson, created a Viscount in 1917. The Pearson company was involved in construction, and had business interests in Mexico – they had built a railway for the Mexican government, and had developed successful oil wells there, which were bought out by Royal Dutch Shell later in 1918. He had endowed a Chair in Spanish at the University of Leeds. (Information taken from Wikipedia.)]
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