and so you are
able to watch everything?"

"No," she said, "it's not that. We do buy things. That's part of it.
Most of the girls like to buy little knick-knacks, and anyway it gives
them a good chance to do their shopping while they're there. But while
they _are_ there they are observing. Then afterwards they make charts."

"Charts of what?" I asked.

"Charts of the employes; they're used to show the brain movement
involved."

"Do you find much?"

"Well," she said hesitatingly, "the idea is to reduce all the employes
to a Curve."

"To a Curve?" I exclaimed, "an In or an Out."

"No, no, not exactly that. Didn't you use Curves when you were at
college?"

"Never," I said.

"Oh, well, nowadays nearly everything, you know, is done into a Curve.
We put them on the board."

"And what is this particular Curve of the employe used for?" I asked.

"Why," said the student, "the idea is that from the Curve we can get the
Norm of the employe."

"Get his Norm?" I asked.

"Yes, get the Norm. That stands for the Root Form of the employe as a
social factor."

"And what can you do with that?"

"Oh, when we have that we can tell what the employe would do under any
and every circumstance. At least that's the idea--though I'm really only
quoting," she added, breaking off in a diffident way, "from what Miss
Thinker, the professor of Social Endeavour, says. She's really fine.
She's making a general chart of the female employes of one of the
biggest stores to show what percentage in case of fire would jump out of
the window and what percentage would run to the fire escape."

"It's a wonderful course," I said. "We had nothing like it when I went
to college. And does it only take in departmental stores?"

"No," said the girl, "the laboratory work includes for this semester
ice-cream parlours as well."

"What do you do with _them_?"

"We take them up as Social Cells, Nuclei, I think the professor calls
them."

"And how do you go at them?" I asked.

"Why, the girls go to them in little laboratory groups and study them."

"They eat ice-cream in them?"

"They _have to_," she said, "to make it concrete. But while they are
doing it they are considering the ice-cream parlour merely as a section
of social protoplasm."

"Does the professor go?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, she heads each group. Professor Thinker never spares herself
from work."

"Dear me," I said, "you must be kept very busy. And is Social Endeavour
all that