employer himself is oftentimes the entire employment department, except for such assistance as he may obtain from a clerk or stenographer.  In such a case, also, the records do not need to be so complete and so voluminous, since the proprietor can carry a great deal in regard to each one of his employees in his own mind.  We know many executives in large organizations, where employment departments have not been established, who constitute, in themselves, employment departments for their own little corner of the industry.  They may have only five or six employees under their care, but they handle them according to scientific principles, analyzing them and their work with just as great care as if there were hundreds of them.

The method, after all, is unimportant.  It is the spirit of the work that is all important.  It does not matter whether you have a huge force of clerks, assistants, interviewers, and stenographers, or whether you yourself, in your little corner office with your three or four retail clerks as a working force, constitute the whole organization.  The spirit of scientific analysis and the fitting of each man to his job in a common sense, sane, practical way, instead of according to out-of-date methods, is the important consideration in the remedy which we present.

CHAPTER IV

RESULTS OF SCIENTIFIC EMPLOYMENT

In a lecture to the students of the New York Edison Company Commercial School, on January 20, 1915, afterward also presented at the Third Annual Convention of the National Association of Corporation Schools at Worcester, Mass., on June 9, 1915, Herman Schneider, Dean of the College of Engineering of the University of Cincinnati, in discussing “The Problem of Selecting the Right Job,” made the following statement: 

“2.  Physical Characteristics.

“This seems to be a development of the old idea of phrenology.  It is claimed in this system that physical characteristics indicate certain abilities.  For example, a directive, money-making executive will have a certain shaped head and hand.  A number of money-making executives were picked at random and their physical characteristics charted.  We do not find that they conform at all to any law.  Also, we found men who had physical characteristics that ought to make them executives, but they were anything but executives.  A number of tests of this kind gave negative results.  We were forced to the conclusion that this system was not reliable.”

It is of exceeding great importance for us to know whether the conclusion of Dean Schneider is to be accepted as final.  He is a man of high attainment and has done some most remarkable and highly commendable work in connection with continuation schools in the city of Cincinnati.  His opinion and conclusion, therefore, are worthy of the most careful consideration.