PASSION FOR SIZE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 66, 19 March 1931, Page 20

PASSION FOR SIZE.

AMERICAN PARADOXES. STATUS OF INDIVIDUAL. TEACHERS WHO "CLOCK OX." A land of paradoxes, where efficiency has been carried to such an extreme that the individual lias largely been sacrificed to the machine, and where democracy has been carried to its logical conclusion, thereby reducing it to an absurdity—these are some of the impressions that Dr. C. E. Beeby, lecturer ;in psychology at Canterbury College, formed during a recent visit to the United States (states the Christohurcli "Press"). "One of the most striking things in America at the present time," Dr. Beeby said, "is the almost feverish rush to make the individual count for something again. The country has developed so rapidly and to such a tremendous e::tent that the individual Was being lost sight of; he was sacrificed for the machine, which was regarded as the thing that was really important. The bigger and better idea had gripped the nation. There was a desire that everything should be bigger and better than anywhere else; everything was being made bigger and. better except human beings."

Huge Fountain of Ink. In the universities, he said, the desire had been to have everything on a grand scale—huge buildings, large classes, and so on. At one university which he visited he found GOO students attending an ordinary first-year lecture, and, characteristic of the general attitude towards education, he saw in the University of California a huge fountain of ink in the centre of a lecture room, so that the students could fill their fountain pens on a grand scale. That was just typical of the mass methods that were adopted. The idea was that a university should be judged by the number of students it enrolled rather than by the results obtained. Everywhere there was a passion for more size. This was demonstrated by the size of the buildings in New York, which were ridiculously high. "They have made their cities such wonderful places that the people simply cannot live in them," said Dr. Beeby. "In the factories it is just a mass movement of mere numbers. It isn't as though a man was merely given a number, but he is simply treated as if the individual didn't count." Commercialised Sentiment. A tremendous number of men were discharged from work last Christmas, he added. On Christmas Eve most of them found a note in their pay envelopes informing them that their services were no longer required. Yet the Americans were tremendously sentimental, and at Christmas there was a great deal of lavish talk about good cheer, friendship and fellowship. That, however, was only commercialised sentimentalism designed to assist in the sale of Christmas goods. Having reached the stage where the individual counted for practically nothing, the Americans were now trying to work in the other direction. Many employers were beginning to realise that in order to get the best out of a man he must not. be treated as a number, but be regarded as a man. As showing the degree to which efficiency was carried, Dr. Beeby mentioned that at one school in New York, attended by about 5000 children, the teachers were required to "clock on'' when starting for the day in the same way as was done in a large factory. That was an instance of a depersonised system which reduced a teacher to merely a hack worker. Strange though it may seem the children in the same school were treated as individuals. Psychology in Industry.

In one factory with about 50,000 employees the aim was to give every individual an interview with a trained interviewer once a year. In this way the employees were able to discuss their grievances and make suggestions, and as a result of the system the output of the factory had been greatly increased. This tendency was simply a reaction from the previous reckless development, and one of the lessons New Zealand should learn from America was to refrain from following her methods of development and to avoid the mistake of dealing with everything in mass. It was better to avoid the necessity for many of these special facilities which now existed in America, as they resulted from some natural deficiency.