GOOD TRADESMEN.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 29 December 1923, Page 7

GOOD TRADESMEN.

EDISON DECLARES THEY ARE NOT BEING TRAINED. "

An extremely interesting article by Thomas A. Edison, the famous discwerer, on "How 1 Would Double the Volume of Business," appears in System. He maks a remarkable confession about his inability to get good men. b

There, is," he says, "a lack of men capable of designing automatic machinei7" T. ar? increasing our knowledge of th© possibilities of automatic machinery at the rate of one hundred, and we are increasing the men capable of putting the ideas into, effect at two f o educational or technical institution that I know of is even attempting to develop men for this all-important phase of industry. This is an extremely serious problem. I had much less trouble getmg good men forty years ago than I have to-day. The men of to-day seem to lack imagination. I have, examined 1800 men for positions in the last two years. I took 80 of them, and of that 80 only 35 have lasted. I test out the men with a questionaire in which I put five little mathematical problems which I took from a child's* school book on arithmetic. Not one man as yet has correctly answered all five of the problems.

"It seems somehow that in the modern system of education th© average boy's brain stops somewhere between the elementary school and the secondary school—that is, when he is about 14— and thereafter takes no interest in knowing anything. I find that unless a boy has become interested in some subject—it does not make much difference what it is—before he is 14, he never thereafter masters anything, but is content to be led or driven. Industry is the result of the efforts of man and I think a large part of the work of bettering industry will have to begin with the education of the boy."