in mind certain facts relative to the company which ought to be common knowledge.

2. The geography of the plant, taught by means of maps and visits to departments. Especial attention is given to the routing and distribution of material. Some consideration is given to the location and the work done by other plants owned by the same company.

3. Company organization, showing the number and nature of the different executive officers and the relations existing between departments.

4. A study of a chart showing the path of orders filled by the production department.

5. Standard sizes for all stock in common use, supplemented by an explanation of the necessity for keeping in touch with the division of standards, which makes a constant review of standard sizes.

6. Standard abbreviations. Their use is taught by means of sentences, dictation, and other practical methods in order to familiarize the student gradually with their use.

7. Detailed location of subdepartments, with the path taken by materials from and to these departments. 8. Visits to departments and storerooms, accompanied

by a study of the forms in use with reference to each of them. Some time is spent in studying the location and phone numbers of the different storerooms for purposes of ready reference.

9. A detailed examination of all forms and blanks in use by the production department, with detailed instructions regarding the use of each one and the errors to which they are subject.

One of the principal objects of this course is to make possible a flexible organization. Clerks must become resource

ful in getting information from every possible source and must be sufficiently well trained to be ready for transfer to other work in case of promotion or emergency calls.

Adaptability of These Plans

The principles involved in both of the instruction schemes described above have direct applications to concerns of every kind, and the methods in use are sufficiently flexible to permit their ready adaptation to any kind of work or to any type of organization. Written specifications for hiring, job analyses, written standard procedures, accident reports, organization charts, together with a variety of other material, are already available in many concerns as a basis for in

struction.

Selection of Instructors

The results of the work in the W. H. McElwain Company show quite clearly that organizing and teaching ability are required in the instructor rather than extensive technical experience. The technical part of the instruction is supplemented by contact with the shops and is furnished in part by foremen and others who are experts in their respective fields. These considerations appear to decrease considerably the difficulty which most firms are likely to anticipate in finding persons who are capable of managing a training course for minor executives. In many respects the problem appears to be somewhat simpler than that of obtaining instructors to train workmen or operatives where technical trade knowledge and skill, usually the product only of long experience, must be combined with teaching ability.

The administrative problems connected with instruction at the Westinghouse plant are somewhat different in that a more thorough technical knowledge is required in the in

structor. In either case expert training in dealing with educational matters is required at the outset in collecting the material, in arranging it for teaching purposes, and in devising the methods of instruction. The person brought in from the plant to do this kind of work usually fails because he does not have at his command a technique of class management and does not appreciate the several steps which must be taken by the learner. On this account it appears that there exists here, as in other departments of industrial training, a distinct field of service for state and federal education authorities, or for departments of education connected with universities, in training instructors. The methods by which this can best be accomplished are fully discussed in Chapter XIX.

Small Classes and Practical Topics

There are two essential conditions for successful extension work of this type with minor executives or foremen. One is that it be done for the most part in small groups, substituting problems and discussion for lectures. The other grows out of the first. There is need for the collection of a fund of problems, drawn from the company's experience, which will replace in large measure instruction through formal lectures or by means of problems drawn from sources which make them unreal or uninteresting to the student. Data of the sort desired are relatively easy to secure for mathematics, drawing, mechanics, or shop operations, but are always more difficult to formulate for management classes, foremen's courses, or office employees.

Discussion of Problems in Management

As an example of what needs to be done, a suggestion recently made by the author to a representative of a New York manufacturing plant may be cited. It appeared that

the company was not concerned with organizing classes of the common type for training operatives, but was deeply interested in acquainting a large group of young persons, who had recently come into positions of minor executive responsibility, with the points of view and experience of the older members of the organization and with the fundamental policies of the company. Among the methods of accomplishing this aim through the use of problems and group discussion which suggested themselves, in the course of the conversation, was the following. During the war, the principle of wage payment based upon the use of index numbers was adopted by the company. Each employee receives each week an extra envelope marked "High Cost of Living." The envelope contains a sum of money added to his earnings, the amount of which depends upon the current variation, above a basic standard, of the cost-of-living index numbers published by Bradstreet. Many of the young executives in question, it was safe to assume, had only a hazy conception of the methods of computing index numbers or of the exact use made of them by the company. The suggestion was made accordingly that the group should be set to investigating this matter. The study of several forms of index numbers, with the computation, perhaps, of an index for the local prices of various commodities, and the effort to work out a problem or two illustrating the paymaster's actual computations for the "High Cost of Living" envelopes-together with the discussion which would naturally grow out of this study—would lead, obviously, to a much better understanding of the wage policies of the company.

The Problem Briefly Stated

Scientific management has failed to make as good progress as it should because no technique has been evolved for training the non-commissioned officers who must translate company

policies and standard practice into action. The stability and continuity of any organization depends upon the continual advancement of well-qualified persons to responsible executive positions.

Training for minor executives is intended to help solve these problems. It depends upon research which will supply from the company's daily routine and accumulated experience the specific problems and exact data upon which instruction can be based.