EDUCATION OF EMPLOYEES

13.  Employers are learning that the finest and most valuable assets in their employees are not their bones and muscles; not their intelligence, training, and experience when they enter the organization; but, rather, the possibility of development of their intelligence, talents, and aptitudes.  Educators now almost entirely agree that the best and most serviceable education possible is that afforded by work, provided the work is intelligently directed and constantly used by those who direct it as an educational force.  Employers are also grasping the great possibilities for them in this theory.  Corporation schools, night schools, special classes, and many other forms of education inside the walls of commercial and industrial enterprises are being used to good advantage.  In an ideal economic system, every factory, every store, every shop, every place where men and women are gathered together for employment should be, in the higher sense of the word, a school for the development of the very best human qualities.

Since this is true, who is better qualified by training, by education, and by experience to conduct this education than the employment supervisor and his assistants?  If he is properly chosen for his work, he has a special scientific knowledge of human nature; he knows not only the talents and aptitudes of every member of the force, but also knows the best way for developing and bringing out these talents and aptitudes.  He knows for just what vocation each one under his tutelage is suited.  He knows just what study and training each one ought to pursue in order to best fit himself for that vocation.

WELFARE WORK

14.  Because of its peculiar relationship to all the employees in the organization, there is no department better fitted to undertake all of that activity in connection with industrial life, which is known as welfare work or social betterment, than that entrusted with employment.

ADAPTABILITY

The organization and plan of an employment department, as we have outlined it, is, as we have said, for an institution employing two thousand men and women.  For larger organizations, of course, the employment supervisor must have more assistants, there must be more clerks and stenographers, according to the number of employees handled and the character of the work to be done.  There are some organizations in which there is very little fluctuation in the personnel.  In such cases a small employment department is all that is necessary, even although a large number of employees may be on the payroll.  In other kinds of work there is a very large fluctuation, under ordinary conditions, and in such cases it is necessary to have more help in the employment department.  In the case of small business, such as retail stores, the