Clerical worker

“ The essential difference between the clerkship which boys for the most part hold and the general clerical work which girls do is that the boys' work is unified and is a definite, separate responsible part of the business, usually in line for promotion to some other clerkship; the girls' is a miscellany of more or less unrelated jobs and is not a preparation for specific promotion. ”

“ The office might be made again a sphere of training for those who wish to take Holy Orders, wherein a young man might be thoroughly educated in the duties of the clerical profession. It would be an immense assistance to an incumbent to have an active and educated layman associated with him in the work of the parish, in teaching, in reading and serving in church, and in visiting the sick. Like the clerk of old, he would be studying and preparing for ordination, and there could be no better school for training than actual parish work under the supervision of an earnest and wise rector. ”

“ To add to the impoverished appearance of the clerical profession, there existed in every capital and country town the luckless nonconforming clergy, bereft of the emoluments of their vocation, and often reduced to a condition scarcely—if at all—removed from begging. ”

“ But it is no less true as regards those of the clergy who are not genuinely and by nature as much better than the average as they are conventionally supposed to be. The other source of harm to the clerical profession is endowments. ”

“ On the one hand, we hear the complaint that the ablest and most conscientious men are deterred by scruples from entering the ministry in the Church of England, even when they feel a strong bent for clerical work. If this scarcity of able candidates for ordination continues for many more years, we shall have bad times in store for us. ”

“ Clerks, or the clergy, were drawn from all classes of society, from the royal family down to the serfs on the manors. In fact, before the time of the Black Death, the only way in which a serf could become a freeman was by buying his freedom or by becoming a clerk. A serf who wanted his son to rise to a better position than his own would try to get him made a clerk; for the moment he became a clerk he was a free man. But to attain his purpose the serf must first have the permission of his master or overlord. All overlords were not tyrants by any means. ”

“ In all the principal parties there are some clerical pretensions. They nearly all have some kind of clerical standard, that a man must pass, to enter into holy orders at all. They have some kind of regular process through which a man must pass, to be an authorized minister, or to be permitted to minister in holy things at all, or to make [268] ordinances valid administered by his hands, or to give him official grace and functions. ”

“ Every clerk was an anointed of the Lord, a sacred thing for the civil judge. No one had a right to place his hand upon him, until he had been tried, condemned, and degraded by the members of his own order. The clergy thus formed a society wholly distinct from the general society. ”

“ Nowadays, if I happen to be in the City when all the clerks are coming away from business, I feel an inexpressible pity for them. I feel I should like to find two or three of the hardest driven, and just divide my superfluous income between. A clerk’s life—a life of the office without any hope of rising—that is a hideous fate! ”

“ But in everything which concerns what is called discipline—the exercise of that jurisdiction over the people with which the office-bearers of the church are conceived to be invested, he is assisted by lay-elders. They are laymen in that they have no right to teach or to dispense the sacraments, and on this account they fill an office in the Presbyterian Church inferior in rank and power to that of the pastors. ”

“ The poor supernumerary, on the other hand, who is the only real worker, is almost always the son of some former clerk's widow, who lives on a meagre pension and sacrifices herself to support her son until he can get a place as copying-clerk, and then dies leaving him no nearer the head of his department than writer of deeds, order-clerks, or, possibly, under-head-clerk. ”

“ The career which was thus thrown open to all classes of the people was a much larger one than appears at first sight. Not only all the offices and dignities of the Church, from that of stipendiary chaplain to that of bishop or even of Pope, were open to all comers, but also all the offices of the State which required learning as a qualification were open to every clerk. For the kings took the officials of the civil departments of the Government very largely from the ranks of the clergy ”

“ In truth, in northern Europe the Church included practically all the learned professions, including the civil servants of the government, the physicians, architects, secular lawyers, diplomatists, and secretaries, who were all ecclesiastics. It is true that in order to be a "clerk" it was not really necessary to take even minor orders, but it was so easy for a king or bishop to reward his physician, his lawyer, or his secretary by a monastic office rather than by a large salary, that the average student, at least in the larger places, looked to holy orders as his eventual destination. ”

“ The common understanding of the terms 'labor' and 'laborers' does not include preaching and preachers, and it is to be assumed that words and phrases are used in their ordinary meaning. So whatever of light is thrown upon the statute by the language of the title indicates an exclusion from its penal provisions of all contracts for the employment of ministers, rectors, and pastors. ”

“ Many persons not employed as clerks or messengers of a department, are in the public service by virtue of an employment by the head of the department or by the head of some bureau of the department authorized by law to make such contracts, and such persons are as much in the civil service within the meaning of the joint resolution as the clerks and messengers employed in the rooms of the department building. ”

“ I am one of those who do not think that all the changes in the ministration of Church services are, after experience had, desirable. I think that in many instances the lay clerk ought to have been instructed in the performance of his duties, to the profit of all concerned. And I deem that this proceeding would have been a far wiser proceeding than any substitution of the man or his function. There is ancient authority for a clerk or clerks. It is wise to secure work to be attended to in the functions of divine service for as many laymen as possible, consistent with principle and propriety. ”

“ Just now I adore my work, and I do think that business can be made as glorious a profession as medicine, or exploring, or anything, but in most offices, it seems to me, the biggest ideal the clerks have is safety—a two-family house on a stupid street in Flatbush as a reward for being industrious. Doesn’t matter whether they enjoy living there, if they’re just secure. And you do know—Mr. Truax doesn’t, but [307] you do know—that the whole office system makes pale, timid, nervous people out of all the clerks—”
“But, good heavens! child, the employers have just as hard a time. ”

“ We take upon us willingly priesthood, but we do not fulfil and do the works and office of priesthood.' And immediately after he saith, 'We are fallen unto outward affairs and business, for we take upon us one office for honour's sake, and we do exhibit and give another to ease ourselves of labour. ”

“ In the decretals of Gregory IX there is a reference to the clerk's office, and his duties obtain the sanction of canon law. Every incumbent is ordered to have a clerk who shall sing with him the service, read the epistle and lesson, teach in the school, and admonish the parishioners to send their children to the church to be instructed in the faith. It was thus in ancient days that the Church provided for the education of children, a duty which she has always endeavoured to perform. ”

“ In cases also of felony, a clerk in orders shall have the benefit of his clergy, without being branded in the hand; and may likewise have it more than once: in both which particulars he is distinguished from a layman [6] . But as they have their privileges, so also they have their disabilities, on account of their spiritual avocations. ”

“ Our various organizations should keep clerks, whose duty it should be to record the acts of its members, whether or not those members are living up to their requirements, and whether, instead of attending their meetings, they are engaged in fishing, hunting, freighting, gold-seeking, or anything else that is contrary to what is expected from them as laborers in the Church and kingdom of God. ”

“ In an office, if a clerk fails to please his immediate superior, he is probably condemned to obscurity for his whole life. The Parliamentary chief who presides over the department for a few years, and who is overwhelmed with business, can, as a general rule, know nothing of the merits of individual clerks in the lower ranks of the office, except through the permanent officers at its head. ”

“ The clerks are in great excitement, having learned that a proposition will be brought forward to put all men under forty-five years of age in the army. It will be hard to carry it; for the heads of departments generally have nephews, cousins, and pets in office, young and rich, who care not so much for the salaries (though they get the best) as for exemption from service in the field. ”

“ In those cases in which the patronage of departments belongs to their chief for the time being, the appointments which it commonly falls to his lot to make are either those of junior clerks, to whom no very important duties are in the first instance to be assigned, or of persons who are to fill responsible and highly paid situations above the rank of the ordinary clerkships. ”

“ Upon an application from Colonel Maberly’s extra clerks for an increase of salary, I proposed instead a regular system of promotion, whereby all vacancies in the establishment should be filled by selection from the extra clerks instead of from without, an arrangement which would have obtained the collateral [66] advantage of submitting every candidate for regular clerkship to a probation in the extra corps. ”

“ So that a new clerk from the States, receiving an appointment here, thinks for the first few weeks that he is going to save money, and not only that, but he is going to set an example of economy to his fellow clerks. But he soon finds that he cannot do it, and if he would command respect and association, he must do as he sees others do, and like an adept, he falls in, convinced that his fellow clerks are not spendthrifts after all. ”

“ On the other side, I will say that in the important bureau with whose workings I am most familiar, I believe the most careful and painstaking work is done by the female clerks, and the compensation to male clerks is correspondingly much greater. ”

“ The clergyman, the lawyer, the doctor, the member of Parliament, the clerk in a public office, the tradesman, and even his assistant in the shop, must dress in accordance with certain fixed laws; but the author need sacrifice to no grace, hardly even to Propriety. He is subject to no bonds such as those which bind other men. Who else is free from all shackle as to hours? ”

“ I have sometimes taken the liberty of speaking about men that work on the Public Works, and I have said that they did not earn more than about one-half of what was paid to them. They say, in reply, if we do not do right, why not call us up before the Bishops of our Wards? ”

“ In my opinion the examination for promotion of those who present themselves should be chiefly, if not wholly, upon their knowledge of the work of the bureau or Department to which they belong and the record of efficiency made by them during their previous service. I think the records of efficiency kept from day to day should be open to the inspection of the clerks. ”

“ The majority of the subordinates and clerks, many the ne’er-do-wells of distinguished families, assuming that they were assured of a life position, had lived up to, and beyond, their meager incomes, and suddenly found themselves unfit for other employment and confronted with dismissal. ”

“ No person convicted of Catholicism may practice the common law as a counsellor, clerk, attorney, or solicitor, nor may practice civil law as advocate, or proctor, nor shall be justice, minister, clerk, or steward in any court, nor practice medicine, nor perform as apothecary, nor be officer in a town, in the army, or navy, or forfeit 100 pounds as punishment. ”

“ I fear I shall not be able to change the policy about men clerks. It is an unprogressive policy. How her face would brighten the department! And she knows silks better than most of our men clerks. She has a feeling about them that counts a great deal; she really understands them. ”

“ For no pastor can accomplish all that needs to be done; and if left to the church generally, very little effective watch-care is exercised. Such consultation with the officers will often save the pastor from mistakes, while the division of labor greatly simplifies and relieves his work. It affords, also, a sphere of real usefulness for the deacons, and serves to develop their gifts and augment their religious power. ”

“ Many such faithful clerks have devoted their years of active life to the service of God in His sanctuary, both in ancient and modern times; and it will be our pleasurable duty to record some of the biographies of these earnest servants of the Church, whose services are too often disregarded.
I have mentioned the continuity of the clerk's office, unbroken by either Reformation changes or by the confusion of the Puritan regime. We will now [pg 26] endeavour to sketch the appearance of the mediæval clerk, and the numerous duties which fell to his lot. ”