Increasing Efficiency In Business, Walter Dill Scott [best novels for teenagers .TXT] 📗
- Author: Walter Dill Scott
- Performer: -
Book online «Increasing Efficiency In Business, Walter Dill Scott [best novels for teenagers .TXT] 📗». Author Walter Dill Scott
traditional apprenticeship system is unable to
give either the general comprehension of the
industry or the skill in the specialized processes.
III. Theoretical-practical Experience
In contrast with the two methods discussed
above (Haphazard Experience and
Apprenticeship Experience) schools must be
considered as a method of providing experiences
preparatory to industrial life. The first
two methods secure skill, but the schools secure
learning. The first two might be said to
educate the hands and the latter the head.
The comparative advantages of these contrasted
systems is the theme of unceasing
debate. The man skilled in one thing can at
least do that one thing well. The man who is
learned but not skilled in any activity of his
chosen occupation is unable to compete with
the boys who at the expense of schooling,
“went to work” in that particular occupation.
<p 264>
An advanced general school education has
very distinct advantages. But skill in reading
Latin does not greatly increase one’s ability
to read instruments of precision. Skill in
applying mathematical formul<ae> will not greatly
assist in estimating the value of merchandise.
A knowledge of general psychology will not
insure ability in selecting employees. Even
great proficiency in discoursing upon ethical
theories does not protect one from the temptation
to be dishonest in business.
Skill in one thing does not insure skill in
other and even in similar things. Learning
in one field is not incompatible with gross
ignorance in other and related fields. We
have discovered that skill and learning are
largely specialized, and accordingly we see the
necessity of acquiring skill and learning in the
particular fields in which the skill and learning
are desired. To meet these demands
various modifications in our schools have been
made. To meet the needs of training for the
industries we have the manual training schools,
industrial schools, trade schools, continuation
<p 265>
schools, correspondence schools, night schools,
technological schools, etc. To provide the
appropriate experiences for commercial life
we have commercial schools, business colleges,
store schools, schools of commerce, etc.
These schools have rendered invaluable
service and are rapidly increasing in number,
yet they do not provide either the skill or the
learning which should be possessed by the
employee.
IV. Practical-theoretical Experience
The weakness of the Haphazard and Apprenticeship
methods of securing experience
is twofold: (1) They cease too early. So soon
as the man really enters into his occupation his
education ceases. (2) They are too narrow,
they fail to provide experiences that give proper
perspective; they do not give adequate
theoretical comprehension of the work being
accomplished from day to day; they do not
develop the judgment.
The weakness with the Theoretical-practical
method of providing experience resembles
<p 266>
the weakness of the Haphazard and the Apprenticeship
methods in that it ceases too
early. It ceases *before the individual begins
his life work. It may have the special weakness
of not being closely organized with the
vocation for which it is assumed to be a preparation,
hence of being impracticable.
The Practical-theoretical form of providing
experience is based on two assumptions: The
first assumption is that the practical and the
theoretical should be equally emphasized;
that they should be closely organized; and
that the theory should be deduced from the
practice. The second assumption is that the
educative processes should continue so long
as the man is engaged in his occupation.
A concrete illustration will make clear the
difference between the four different methods of
acquiring experience as given above.
During the present summer vacation I have
been spending a few weeks in a boarding house.
Some previous boarder had bequeathed to the
house an intricate Chinese block puzzle.
During this summer one lad in the house spent
<p 267>
eight hours in solving the puzzle. He worked
by the Haphazard method, trying blindly, till
he just happened to get it right. The next
attempt did not take so long, but it was many
days before he could solve the problem rapidly.
As soon as the lad had learned to solve the
puzzle, my son watched him solve it many
times, and kept trying to do it as he saw it
done. My son learned to solve the puzzle in
perhaps two hours by thus watching another
and then trying it himself. He was employing
the Apprenticeship method, and his education
was accomplished in one fourth the time required
by the Haphazard method.
In the boarding house was an expert mechanical
engineer. He took up the task of
solving the problem and was most scientific
in his procedure. He figured out the principles
that he thought might be involved,
tried them, and immediately abandoned methods
that proved unsuccessful. He was able
to solve the puzzle in a half hour. Later trials
were all successful and rapid. He knew just
how he had solved the puzzle, and therefore
<p 268>
did not have to experiment or take chances on
later trials. This engineer employed the
Theoretical-practical method of learning.
The engineer volunteered to instruct me in
the problem. I took up the blocks and began
trying to unite them. As one difficulty after
another arose, I was given instruction in the
principle for overcoming it. No principle
was presented to me till I had faced a situation
demanding that particular principle. The
practice and the theory went together, and so
far as the instruction was concerned the practice
preceded the theory step by step. I was
therefore employing the Practical-theoretical
method. As a result I was enabled to solve
the problem in fifteen minutes. Furthermore
I knew just how I had done it and could do it
again and could apply the same principles
to other puzzles.
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-
<p 269>
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.
<p 270>
The College of Engineering of the University
of Cincinnati believes that it has solved
the problem for certain fields of activity by
“co<o:>perative 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
co<o:>perative courses could be arranged by
schools of different ranks of advancement and
<p 271>
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 co<o:>rdinated
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
<p 272>
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. By means of
letters, books, demonstrations, and conventions
the salesmen are constantly provided with
educative experiences and are kept from the
narrowness and lack of progress so characteristic
of men in the commercial life after they
have become thoroughly established and relatively
efficient in their work.
In keeping with this modern tendency to
<p 273>
supplement practical experience with theoretical
interpretation, we find a very pronounced
increase in the utilization of all agencies that
interpret and enrich the daily toil. Men who
are fully employed (e.g. journeymen and salesmen)
have realized the necessity of some form
of theoretical instruction to enable them to
profit by their daily practical experience.
This fact is almost pathetically demonstrated
by the multitudes who are seeking for such
instruction through correspondence and evening
schools. Every progressive engineer,
teacher, physician, and lawyer keeps abreast
of the best thought of the day by means of
frequent conventions, conferences, books, and
periodicals. The experience secured from such
agencies is essential to progress; only by such
agencies can he learn the latest and most perfect
interpretation of the experience of his
professional life. Likewise the non-professional
man engaged in commerce or industry
finds the modern world to be so complex that
mere practical experience is no longer adequate
to enable him to meet the demands made
<p 274>
upon him. The theoretical training of his
youth (even though it include the college and
the technical school) is totally inadequate to
interpret for him the new relationships which
arise from day to day. He needs a theory
that grows out of his practical experience and
that enables him to understand and to improve
upon his practical work. The most common
means for providing him with such experience
he finds in his conventions and informal conferences
with his peers and in his trade
journals and technical books.
There is no warfare between theory and
practice. The most valuable experience demands
both, and the methods of procuring
the most valuable experience in business and
industry demand that the theory should supplement
the practice and not precede it.
The environment most conducive to securing
and utilizing the most valuable experience is
in the work-a-day world. But this is the very
environment in which men become engulfed
in
Comments (0)