Whiteley’s Business Training College

WHITELEY’S Business Training College, School of Shorthand, Typewriting, Bookkeeping, and Civil Service Academy, 75, Jamaica Street, Glasgow.
Principal:—Mr. Sykes Whiteley.

    It is a universally admitted truism, that of all phases of modern tuition, that which forms the basis of a good mercantile education is the most important, because the most needed ; and over and above the ordinary curricula of the Board Schools or Universities there is manifestly required some such course of training as that which has been conducted in Glasgow, during the past five years, under the title of Whiteley’s Business College.

    The appropriate location of the College in the heart of the Commercial metropolis, while the course of training embraces every subject that is useful to Mercantile and Civil Service aspirants, strongly commends its objects and advantages to all desirous of acquiring a sound and carefully regulated knowledge of the more useful details of writing, arithmetic, book-keeping, shorthand, typewriting, composition, grammar, spelling, invoice work, and all the other requisites of clerical proficiency. Indispensable as shorthand has now become to the proper equipment of a Mercantile, Law, or Civil Service clerk, typewriting is destined to attain a similar place ; and this valuable art is imparted by Mr. Whiteley in conjunction with that of shorthand in such a manner as to enable students to secure readily the many remunerative situations which a knowledge of these combined arts now offers.

    Notwithstanding the advances of shorthand and typewriting, the original longhand writing is yet an important matter, especially as regards rapid copying or transcription ; and as rapidity is not attained by any defined method of writing, Mr. Whiteley has endeavoured to develope the students’ own style in a manner calculated to give the maximum of freedom and fluency to the hand, the only different modes observed at this Institution being (1st) rapid business hand for mercantile and general correspondence, (2nd) official or Civil Service hand for Government offices, and an elegant free hand for ladies. While it is obviously impossible to here treat exhaustively of the numerous branches of tuition engaged in at this Business College, special reference may be made to the various matters which are absolutely essential, such as quick and correct casting-up of figures and calculations, the making out of invoices, accounts, current accounts, sales, writing letters, arranging papers, taking notes, &c., and the student thus encounters the whole routine of the counting-house, with this valuable distinction — that any error or inadvertency is courteously pointed out, corrected, and explained, so that by the time he enters employment, it requires the simplest effort to advance and promote his own interests.

    Nothing better than this could be claimed for an establishment of the kind which Mr. Whiteley has so advantageously placed before the public. The whole details and rotation of tuition are as invaluable as they are simple and easily acquired ; and where, in many cases, the elaborate routine of the School or College has eluded the powers and faculties of pupils — otherwise expert and intelligent — Mr. Whiteley’s College has formed a valuable medium of improvement. That this is so cannot be better attested by the numerous testimonials, of which (during the comparatively short time this Institution has been established) Mr. Whiteley has been the recipient. By his efforts many apt pupils have found good situations, not only in the Post Office, but in other Government offices, and in many of those mercantile houses to whose clerical staff it is considered an honour to be appointed. Ladies pass from this College to remunerative employment in the Commercial and Civil Service spheres, and the many appointments now open to all females must form a special inducement at the present day when the other forms of ordinary employment are not only overcrowded but unremunerative.

    There is also a junior department, under the joint direction and supervision of Mr. and Mrs. Whiteley who are assisted by competent teachers, and the whole work of the Academy progresses with a smoothness and regularity highly favourable to the successful carrying on of all its various branches and departments. As a professional writing master and expert in hand-writing, Mr. Whiteley has done much to stimulate the work of penmanship by the introduction of a Rapid Writer’s Pen, while a valuable concomitant thereof is presented in his Brilliant Blue Writing Fluid, and every specialty in pens, ink, and books is adopted and recommended by him as soon as its usefulness is recognisable.

    To persons at some distance from Glasgow, ready communication is obtained by letters addressed to the College, 75, Jamaica Street, or to his private residence, 15, Hamilton Terrace, West Partick, Glasgow, while his Prospectus affords an insight into the objects and advantages of that Institution, whose leading features have been accentuated in the present review.

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