EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY, LABOR, AND INDUSTRY 2,11
human nature in a manner altogether too mechanical,
and the human being too much as if it were a mere automaton,
to be adjusted and shifted accordingly.
Now, strange as it may seem, even the manufacturer
sometimes adopts a hostile attitude and resents the method
of employment psychology on the ground that it is too
scientific and too formal for application to human beings.
Although entirely convinced of the necessity of applying
scientific methods to the inspection, classification, and
treatment of his material equipment, he is quite satisfied
with the application of crude clerical methods to the
treatment of his human equipment. And even if convinced
of the value of applying the scientific method to
the study of people, he considers it too involved and
costly for application to his particular problems. The
possibility of supplementing the physical, chemical, and
medical laboratories with a psychological laboratory has
thus far occurred to only the most farsighted of industrial
leaders.
As a partial answer to this possible view the following
quotation from an article in “The Harvester World”, by
Cyrus McCormick, Jr., is given: “Automatic machinery
has come to stay. Progressive machining and progressive
assembly are known sciences. The time has come when
we must ask ourselves frankly if we are making the same
good use of man power that we are of machine power.
Speaking economically, an employer should take not only
the same, but better, care of his men than he does of his
machines. No factory superintendent would consent to
the operation of any gear cutter, for instance, which was
so dulled as to cause its rate of production to drop below
the point of efficiency. Do we take the same care to keep
our men from being dulled? I mean just this, if we spend
