Shop Management

146 SHOP MANAGEMENT appears when they are held to strict account in their particular line, and are given enough work to keep them hustling. There are many people who will disapprove of the whole scheme of a planning department to do the thinking for the men, as well as a number of foremen to assist and lead each man in his work, on the ground that this does not tend to promote independence, self-reliance, and originality in the individual. Those holding this view, however, must take exception to the whole trend of modern industrial development; and it appears to the writer that they overlook the real facts in the case. It is true, for instance, that the planning room, and functional foremanship, render it possible for an intelligent laborer or helper in time to do much of the work now done by a machinist. Is not this a good thing for the laborer and helper? He is given a higher class of work, which tends to develop him and gives him better wages. In the sympathy for the machinist the case of the laborer is overlooked. This sympathy for the machinist is, however, wasted, since the machinist, with the aid of the new system, will rise to a higher class of work which he was un- able to do in the past, and in addition, divided or functional foremanship will call for a larger number of men in this class, so that men, who must other- wise have remained machinists all their lives, will have the opportunity of rising to a foremanship. The demand for men of originality and brains was never so great as it is now, and the modern subdivi- sion of labor, instead of dwarfing men, enables them