NO SPECIFIED TIME FOR OR SOURCE OF THE TEACHING.--Under
Traditional Management there is no particular time in which this
teaching goes on, no particular time allowed for the worker to ask
for the instruction, nor is there any particular source from which
he obtains the instructions. There is, moreover, almost every
hindrance against his getting any more instruction than he
absolutely must have in order to get the work done. The persons to
whom he can possibly appeal for further information might discharge
him for not already knowing. These persons are, if he is an
apprentice, an older worker; if he is a journeyman, the worker next
to him, or the foreman, or someone over him. An important fact
bearing on this subject is that it is not to the pecuniary advantage
of any particular person to give this teaching. In the first place,
if the man be a fellow-worker, he will want to do his own work
without interruption, he will not want to take the time off;
moreover, he regards his particular skill as more or less of a trade
secret, and desires to educate no more people than necessary, to be
as clever as he is. In the third place, there is no possible reward
for giving this instruction. Of course, the worker necessarily
improves under any sort of teaching, and if he has a receptive mind,
or an inventive mind, he must progress constantly, either by
teaching himself or by the instruction, no matter how haphazard.
GREAT VARIATION UNDER TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT.--Only discussion
of teaching under this type of management with many men who have
learned under it, can sufficiently emphasize the variations to be
found. But the consensus of opinion would seem to prove that an
apprentice of only a generation ago was too often hazed, was
discouraged from appealing for assistance or advice to the workers
near him, or to his foreman; was unable to find valuable literature
for home-study on the subject of his trade. The experience of many
an apprentice was, doubtless, different from this, but surely the
mental attitude of the journeymen who were the only teachers must
have tended toward some such resulting attitude of doubt or
hesitancy in the apprentice.
MENTAL ATTITUDE OF THE WORKER-TEACHER.--Under the old plan of
management, the apprentice must appear to the journeyman more or
less of a supplanter. From the employee's standpoint it was most
desirable that the number of apprentices be kept down, as an
oversupply of labor almost invariably resulted in a lowering of
wages. The quicker and better the apprentice was taught, the sooner
he became an active competitor. There seldom existed under this type
of management many staff positions to which the workers could hope
to be promoted, certainly none where they could utilize to the
fullest extent their teaching ability. There was thus every reason
for a journeyman to regard the teaching of apprentices as
unremunerative, irksome, and annoying.
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