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226 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
stigmata, and then interviews
privately, one
by one, the remainder.
For the engaging of
workmen, it is a shortcut
system towards se-
1 e c t i n g the efficient.
For clerks or shopassistants,
elimination
would be based on
other factors as well.
The staff superintendent
of a big department
store tells me that he
lays great stress on
healthy teeth, as a
physical symptom, and
well-cared-for hands,
as a mental symptom.
Another manager uses
as a mental test the
questions: "What work
do you like best?"
"What is your ambition
?"
Unquestionably the work which a man
likes best will be, in the long run, the
work he will do best. The red-blooded
workers are the happy workers. The
happy workers are those who have found
congenial occupation. The enthusiasm of
youth or the rhythmic, steady drive of
middle-age is only harnessed fullpowered
to the work which gives joy in
the doing. And consequently, the employer
who looks beyond the immediate
present is anxious to give to his men
and women employes, so far as practicable,
the work that each feels most congenial.
In that counting-house with its
row of young men bending over ledgers,
there will be some who have a natural
liking for the recording of the results of
other men's efforts, and there will be
some who vastly prefer to be the effortworkers
and let others record. One boy
would shrink from the snubbings and the
humiliating experiences of the embryo
traveler; another would feel a keen
pleasure in the making of sales against
the obstacles of circumstances.
It is for the employer to watch ' for
Everywhere Youth and Age Are
Busily Engaged in Seeking the
Golden Opportunity
signs of specialized ability, and deliberately
to make opportunity for the man or
woman with the latent talent. In too
many small businesses repression is the
order of the clay. That brand of employer
is eternally afraid of demands for
increased salary. He frowns on the
ambitious. He discourages suggestions
from underlings. He makes entrance to
his private office a most uncomfortable
ordeal.
But the really big business men, with
whom I have had the privilege of coming
in contact, work on a very different
policy. Having - studied human nature,
they recognize that ambition in an employe
is a positive asset to the business;
that it pays better to pay large salaries
to the capable than small salaries to the
mediocre; that generosity begets generosity
and loyalty begets loyalty.
Further, they cultivate what has been
termed "a wise blindness to weaknesses."
No man is perfect. Human nature is
always a patchwork quilt. So long as
the foibles do not affect integrity or
loyalty, the far-sighted business man