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EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY
single machine in an endless monotony of stereotyped
and simple motions, one individual will supervise the
work of a chain of machines, automatically fed and regulated,
requiring, instead of a brainless and emotionless
automaton, a well-trained mind and a knowing touch.
Education, instead of dampening the fire of inventive
genius, will encourage it to accomplish its utmost in emancipating
mankind from enslavement to work that is
merely automatic and from which all creative elements
have been systematically abstracted.
What has been said of education and industry applies
also to education and labor unions, though in a slightly
different manner. Probably no factor does more to destroy
the cohesion and intelligent cooperation of labor
parties than ignorance or the lack of education. The very
lack which contributed so much to the rise of unions is
now the lack which acts as a bar to their intelligent and
concerted action. But as the workers become better
educated their power of cohesion will become stronger.
At the same time, a cohesion made stronger through education
will become less threatening because of its intelligence.
Industry has much less to fear from an educated
party than from an ignorant mob. And on the other hand,
a union of educated members will be able to achieve more,
in a constructive and cooperative manner, than can an
ignorant mob by force.
We are now in a position to regard employment psychology
in a truer perspective and with a clearer sense of
its relation to industry and labor. If psychology is not a
panacea for all employment ills and labor turnover,
neither is education, fundamental though it is. No matter
how extensively and intensively the work of education
is carried on, there will always be an appreciable turnover,
