ent and are issued only
upon written requisitions. Requisitions are carefully checked up, records
kept to show that each department is using only its proper quota of
materials and supplies of all kinds.

While the purchasing of mere inanimate material, which after all is only
secondary in importance, has thus been reduced to science and art in
charge of specialists, the methods of selection, assignment, and handling
of employees in nearly all industrial and commercial institutions
continues to-day on the same old dishonest basis as that which we found in
the printing and publishing house described. Foremen, superintendents, and
heads of departments still guard jealously their prerogatives of hiring
and firing. So deeply rooted is this prejudice in the minds of the
industrial and commercial world, that many managers have said to us in
horror, "Why, we can't take away the power to hire and fire from our
foremen. They couldn't maintain discipline. They would not consent to
remain in their executive positions if they did not have this power of
life and death, as it were, over their employees."

Incidentally, we may say, that we have had almost no trouble in securing
the enthusiastic and loyal co-operation of foremen and superintendents
where employment departments have been installed.

SCIENTIFIC EMPLOYMENT THE REMEDY

It is becoming increasingly clear to employers that, only by following the
example of the purchasing department, can industry and commerce cure the
evil which we have briefly described and exemplified in the two preceding
chapters. We find that employment, instead of being left to the tender
mercies of foremen, Tom, Dick, and Harry--who may or may not be good
judges of men, who may or may not be honest, who may or may not indulge in
nepotism, who may or may not pad the payroll; who may or may not be
unreasonable, tyrannical and otherwise inimical to the best interest of
the concern from whom they draw their living--selection of help is now
delegated to specialists and experts. Employment departments are now
established with more or less complete control over the selection and
assignment of men and women in the organization. In some of these
departments complete records are kept. Exact and painstaking care is used
in securing data, hunting up applicants, watching the actual performances
of those who are put to work, determining whether or not they live up to
their opportunities. In other employment departme