But whoever has once seen the long line of white arms waving back and forth in front of the switchboard lights must feel that he has looked upon the very pulse of the city's life.
In 1902 the New York Telephone Company started a school, the first of its kind in the world, for the education of these telephone girls.

This school is hidden amid ranges of skyscrapers, but seventeen thousand girls discover it in the course of the year.

It is a most particular and exclusive school.

It accepts fewer than two thousand of these girls, and rejects over fifteen thousand.

Not more than one girl in every eight can measure up to its standards; and it cheerfully refuses as many students in a year as would make three Yales or Harvards.
This school is unique, too, in the fact that it charges no fees, pays every student five dollars a week, and then provides her with a job when she graduates.