No Directed Mental Development. — Second, mental development. Here, again, there being no fixed habits, no specially trained habit of attention, no standard, there was no way of knowing that the man's mind was improving. Naturally, all minds improve merely with experience. Experience must be gathered in, and must be embodied into judgment. There is absolutely no way of estimating what the average need in this line would be, it varies so much with the temperament of the man. Again, it would usually be a thing that the man himself was responsible for, and not the management, certainly not the management in any impersonal sense. Some one man over an individual worker might be largely responsible for improving him intellectually. If this were so, it would be because of the temperament of the over-man, or because of his friendly desire to impart a mental stimulus; seldom, if ever, because the management provided for its being imparted. Thus, there was absolutely no way of predicting that wider or deeper Page 314 interest, or that increased mental capacity, would take place.
Moral Development Doubtful. — As for moral development, in the average Traditional Management it was not only not provided for, but rather doubtful. A man had very little chance to develop real, personal responsibilities, in that there was always some one over him who was watching him, who disciplined him and corrected him, who handed in the reports for him, with the result that he was in a very slight sense a free agent. Only men higher up, the foremen and the superintendents could obtain real development from personal responsibilities. Neither was there much development of responsibility for others, in the sense of being responsible for personal development of others. Having no accurate standards to judge by, there was little or no possibility of appreciation of the relative standing of the men, either by the individual of himself, or by others of his ability. The man could be admired for his strength, or his skill, but not for his real efficiency, as measured in any satisfactory way. The management taught self-control in the most rudimentary way, or not at all. There was no distinct goal for the average man, neither was there any distinct way to arrive at such a goal; it was simply a case, with the man lower down, of making good for any one day and getting that day's pay. In the more enlightened forms of Traditional Management, a chance for promotion was always fairly sure, but the moment that the line of promotion became assured, we may say that Traditional Management had really ceased, and Page 315 some form of Transitory Management was in operation.
"Square Deal" Lacking. — Perhaps the worst lack under Traditional Management is the lack of the "square deal." In the first place, even the most efficient worker under this form of management was not sure of his place. This not only meant worry on his part, which distracted his attention from what he did, but meant a wrong attitude all along the line. He had absolutely no way of knowing that, even though he did his best, the man over him, in anger, or because of some entirely ulterior thing, might not discharge him, put him in a lower position. So also the custom of spying, the only sort of inspection recognized under Traditional Management of the most elementary form, led to a feeling on the men's part that they were being constantly watched on the sly, and to an inability to concentrate. This brought about an inability to feel really honest, for being constantly under suspicion is enough to poison even one's own opinion of one's integrity. Again, being at the beck and call of a prejudiced foreman who was all-powerful, and having no assured protection from the whims of such a man, the worker was obliged, practically for self-protection, to try to conciliate the foremen by methods of assuming merits that are obvious, on the surface. He ingratiates himself in the favor of the foreman in that way best adapted to the peculiarities of the character of the foreman, sometimes joining societies, or the church of the foreman, sometimes helping him elect some political candidate or relative; at other times, by the more direct method Page 316 of buying drinks, or taking up a subscription for presenting the foreman with a gold watch, "in appreciation of his fairness to all;" sometimes by consistently losing at cards or other games of chance. When it is considered that this same foreman was probably, at the