who are seeking information, who are not members, than the rest of you do. To begin with, the early dream of this organization was like every other early dream, vague, indefinite, but there was back of it realization that we had approached, if not reached, a certain stage of development when coöperative effort was necessary. The progress that has been made by this Association perhaps was never better typified than it was this morning. Notwithstanding the war, notwithstanding that many of our members cannot leave their desks for even a day, we have opened this convention with a registration twice as large as at any previous convention, representing all sections of the country, and the registration this morning, in my judgment, will be very small compared to the registration at our conventions three to five years from now, because every branch of industry in the country has awakened to the realization that we have specialized on equipment, we have specialized on machinery, we have specialized on processes of manufacture, but we have neglected the men engaged in these processes. We are confronted with a problem that the industries of this country have never been confronted with before, namely, the substitution of women for men in our industries, so that the men may go to the front, to a large extent.

The mail that has come into your Executive Secretary's office has indicated that there are many corporations all ready to organize and start in to train their employes, to take up the question of scientific employment, the whole personal relations problem, safety in employment, promotion, how far the workman shall have a voice in discipline and in management, and this bringing out the latent possibilities of the individual and various other aspects of the labor problem are involved. There is where we are weakest, ladies and gentlemen, in our own organization. Your Executive Secretary does not know how to advise these corporations who are already to undertake this work-how to proceed with it. We have not had any means at our disposal by which to train and develop people for this class of work, and while it is true that a course will be put on at the New York University this fall-such a course has been definitely approved-to teach a class that may go into industry and undertake this work, at the present time our supply, that is, those who apply, come almost entirely from that class which has been engaged in Y. M. C. A. work and who have had experience teaching in the schools.

These are the people who apply, they are earnest in their efforts, but the experience they have had does not qualify them for dealing with personal relationship problems in industry.

I think that Mr. Yoder said a very good thing-that they work from the bottom up-we have got to work from the top down. I have had a good many delegates tell me, "Our association is now properly organized, is working well, and we are getting the benefits of our combined effort." I have used the expression in describing the work of our Association that we are "just at the top of the hill." It has been an uphill climb for a little over four years-on the 4th of April four years ago this organization started business. Its Executive Committee met and closed the charter with eighteen members, and we started on our work. We knew we had a mission, but it was not defined, but I think you all begin to see the importance of our work now.

What is the first thing a man must do who goes to a corporation and says that he is competent to organize the personal relations department of that corporation? The first thing he must do is to make a survey, in order to know what kind of people there are in the organization, how many are skilled, how many speak English, how many cannot, how the office work is carried on, and whether there are any standards, etc., and the next thing to find out is the means he has to draw on for organizing the work, the extent to which his own corporation will support him, in what measure he can depend on the Y. M. C. A., how much will the local schools do, and in general what aid he can expect in his work of developing industrial efficiency, and thus assist in the development of individual efficiency and national efficiency.

I think there has come this awakening. The greater awakening has come in the Pittsburgh district. If I may be permitted to embarrass our past-president, Mr. McLeod, I will say that I think he has the art of driving home vital facts to those great interest around Pittsburgh, that the training of their employes is a very great problem, and that this Association can be of great assistance in the development and treatment of that problem. Mr. McLeod is especially good in getting memberships. They are now coming in. We secured three last week from great iron and steel companies; one of them is the Pressed Steel Car Company, the biggest concern of its kind in the country.

Gentlemen come into my office, representatives of the differ

ent corporations, and ask for copies of this report and that report, which shows their interest in our work, and they say: "We are coming in, we must come in," but they require just a little more knowledge of our work before we can finally convince them that it is their duty to join with us. I did not intend to speak, but I want you to think of these matters before the afternoon discussion, so that you will be prepared to take part in the discussion at that time. This is no small privilege, that of telling a corporation how to organize its educational work, so that the corporations who have not these systems can begin to organize such systems effectively. It is a vice-president's job. I am glad to know that Mr. O'Donnell of the Pennsylvania Railroad, one of the biggest officials in the country, has taken a deep interest in this work. It is a vice-president's job, and he reports on this work to his president and board of directors, and Mr. Yoder, coming a little lower, reports to him.

Many of these higher officials are fully convinced about the value of our work. They are convinced of the value of the collective experience of those who are working in this organization. When we have the collective experience of all workers, then all must see the value of our proceedings, the value of our meetings, until we can develop standards. Then the organization of a corporation school will not be any more difficult than the opening of an ordinary school to-day.

It is a tremendous problem; one of the two biggest problems confronting us to-day. There is the labor turnover, and one plays into the hands of the other. I want you to think about these matters before the meeting this afternoon.

PRESIDENT TILY: As long as the Executive Secretary has established a precedent, I will follow him and say a few words of endorsement of the importance of the work of this particular committee. It is a new committee, and an important committee. I believe, in connection with this problem of administration and supervision, that the only thing that is wrong with our work, if there is anything wrong with it, is that our attendance is made up almost exclusively of educational directors and you want the administrators and executives here with you. In speaking of the corporation schools movement you ought always to emphasize the word corporation. It is belittling the importance of this work from the standpoint of the corporation if educational di

rectors and instructors only are sent to these conventions. Let this committee get busy and bring the executives, bring the vicepresidents, who are in touch with the importance of developing throughout all industrial organizations the teaching spirit, bring these vice-presidents and higher officials to the next convention. My sole concern, or rather my great hope this year, has been that we might arouse the executives of the corporations to the importance of the work which we are doing as an organization, and the importance of the work that you are doing at home. You want the enthusiastic support which comes from the fact that you are backed up by your executive chief, and he is alive to what you are doing. It may be difficult for you to get his ear at home, but if he comes here and listens to you under the influence of this kind of an inspirational meeting, you are going to have an easier task when you are endeavoring to devlop throughout the entire organization the teaching spirit which must be your basis for greater educational work.

Now, think of this: Whether you employ 2.000 or 20,000 men and women, you are dealing with human units other than with an assigned task. Is anything more important than the education of each one of these individual units up to an appreciation of how they should work, and is there anything of more importance to you than to know how to reward them for their work, in two ways, in the wage which they get from week to week, and in those wages which are perhaps of a higher form, in the formation of habits of skill, and an inspiration to do better work, and be of more use to themselves and the community? I think you are too much concerned with the academics of the case, not with the great field for individual work which you have in your corporations, and when you come next year, gentlemen, bring with you a man in your organization who is as near the top as you can reach, and let him get the inspiration at our meetings which he ought to have. We have 104 Class A members. We ought to have a thousand, and we will never get that thousand. until the 104 which we now have are represented at the conventions, not only by the educational director, but someone nearer the top. Bring him with you next year. (Applause.)

ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION— ADMINISTRATION, SUPERVISION AND

METHODS

TUESDAY EVENING, JUNE 5TH, 1917

CHAIRMAN DOOLEY: The schedule calls for two Round Tables. I have been studying all day to distinguish between the subjects. announced and it seems to me they can be fittingly run together, and the two or three remarks that I am going to make by way of starting the ball rolling will not recognize these two subjects. If I do get them running closer together than you think they should be, you can separate them again in your own remarks. Under the heading of "Administration, Supervision and Methods," it seems to me that it calls for statements of the different kinds of supervision that are now in existence, and possibly the different kinds of classes and different kinds of schools, and I have just noted them down in this fashion, that there are trade schools, clerical schools, commercial schools, and possibly executive schools, and these various schools, which I will touch on for just a moment, are controlled, as I have found in different companies, by several ways, and I will mention them in this way: First, a manager, plus a committee; second, a committee plus a secretary; and third, some outside agency, as the Y. M. C. A. or an extension course controlled and administered by a college; and fourth, by correspondence. Our school is managed under the first method-we have a manager who is responsible, the same as the manager of any other department, and he is surrounded by committees, and I call it a manager plus committees. The committees act in an advisory capacity only.

Our school work at present is divided into three main groups: Manufacturing, engineering and sales. Each of these company groups maintains an advisory committee which meets and sits. in with the manager, either at regular intervals or at irregular intervals. There is no particular plan about it. But I think