A survey of the post-office quickly illustrates the fact that it could only be successfully conducted by the agency of skilled employees, especially trained for the work. The distribution of the mail is dependent upon employees who certainly must closely apply themselves to the mastery of the schemes of separation, and we should imagine that these are rather tedious to study, for it seems to be largely a matter of "grind" and memory taxation regarding absolutely unrelated names and places, times of train departures, etc. It is a work to which men must devote a good part of their lives and must have constant practice in order to maintain speed, and the duty of standing eight hours a day in front of a case and boxing letters by the thousand, year in and year out, must sometimes be closely akin to drudgery. To add to the difficulties of these men there are constant changes in the list of post-offices, in the timetables, etc., so that a scheme of separation is no sooner mastered than it is necessary to memorize new changes. A department devoted to the training of the employees engaged in this work is known as the "Examination Section," and is under the supervision of Mr. H. S. McLean. As soon as a substitute is appointed he is sent to this section, where he is drilled in the fundamentals, in the rules and regulations, and in proper methods of performing the duties ordinarily performed by new employees. Later the employees are graduated to practical work, and are assigned certain schemes to study on which they are examined from time to time and required to attain a certain standard of proficiency to justify their retention and advancement in the service. In the examinations, which continue as long as the employees are engaged in the distribution of mail, they are tested not only as to accuracy but as to speed, and if an employee fails to maintain the required efficiency, demotion follows. A feature of the work is the endeavor to impress upon the employee the importance of his employment, the necessity for devoting to it his best efforts and of not only maintaining but improving the standard. The following statistics in a way show the extent of this work: Number of regular clerks subject to examination 5,956 Approximate number of substitute clerks subject to examinations 2,000 -------- Total 7,956 Number of examination schemes issued to regular clerks subject to examination 10,051 Approximate number of examination schemes issued to substitute clerks subject to examinations 2,000 ------- Total 12,051