Increasing Efficiency in Business

A comparison of these results is most instructive. The lad who went at it blindly by the Haphazard method required eight hours and even then did not analyze out the principles that would help him solve later prob-

lems. My son, who employed the Apprenticeship method, accomplished his task in two hours but discovered no principles. His work was blindly mechanical. The engineer worked according to the Theoretical-practical method, completed his task in thirty minutes, and understood perfectly what he had done. By employing the Practical-theoretical method I was enabled to accomplish the task in fifteen minutes and to understand also how it was done.

Whether I have in mind my own development or that of my employees, if I am seeking to utilize the Practical-theoretical method of capitalizing experience, I am confronted with two problems: (1) How shall I secure or provide the requisite practical experiences? (2) How shall I secure or provide the appropriate theoretical interpretation of such experiences?

During recent years in the educational, industrial, and commercial world serious attempts have been made to answer these two questions, and the results are most significant.

The College of Engineering of the University of Cincinnati believes that it has solved the problem for certain fields of activity by ``coperative courses.'' In these courses the students spend one week in some manufacturing plant and the next week in the college. This weekly alternation of practical and theoretical is kept up for six years. The number of students in the college and the number of workers in the manufacturing plant is kept constant by dividing each group of students into two sections which alternate with each other, so that when one section is at the college the other is at the shop. The college teaches the principles that are necessary for understanding and solving the problems arising from week to week in the shop. As the Dean of the college expresses it, ``It aims to teach the theory underlying the work, to teach the intent of the work, to give such cultural subjects as will tend to make him a more intelligent civic unit.'' It is thought that such coperative courses could be arranged by schools of different ranks of advancement and

that the students could spend their alternate weeks in almost any class of industrial or commercial institution of importance.

One of the most conspicuous attempts to provide Practical-theoretical experiences of an educative sort is that of the General Electric Company of West Lynn, Massachusetts. This institution has provided a corps of instructors and rooms devoted exclusively to instruction within the plant itself. The theoretical instruction is assumed to be perfectly cordinated with the practical. In fact the young apprentice spends much of his time almost daily in constructing commercial articles and under the same conditions that will confront him in later years. His theoretical instruction is thus planned to help him to accomplish his practical task more quickly, perfectly, and with more perfect understanding. The training is so broad that the graduate is prepared to become an industrial foreman in any mechanical establishment.

The John Wanamaker Commercial Institute of Philadelphia is a school conducted

within the store and for the benefit of the employees of the store. In this school theoretical instruction is given that is designed to give the principles underlying commercial life. The results are said to be most gratifying both to the employer and the employees.

The Practical-theoretical form of education is not limited to the apprentice or to the new employee but is equally valuable to the expert, the oldest employees, and the employer. This fact is taken advantage of most wisely by the National Cash Register Company. This company provides instruction suited to the needs of all its salesmen, whether they are new and inexperienced or whether they are the oldest, most efficient salesmen.