Abstract
ALL human affairs seem to be in process of reorganisation, notably the industrial situation. The contrast between the inter-relationship of master and man to-day and prior to the year 1832 is marked. Formerly, the employee was normally regarded as a mere producing factor, without human interest to the employer. A pioneer in humanisation was Robert Owen, who not only pointed, but also led, the way on the path of Christian socialism in industrial affairs. Sir Walter Besant's later efforts in the same direction met with a practical response in the People's Palace which Mr. Beaumont established in Mile End, but this, unfortunately, became side-tracked. The United States, as Mr. J. E. Walters shows in this well-arranged and comprehensive book, has gone steadily forward on lines of industrial progress; and though some may consider that there is an excess of officialdom and of official methods, yet the practical outcome of the movement has been beneficial, not to employees and employers alone, but also to the public at large. It may well be that the swing of the pendulum has been excessive, and that a certain tendency towards over-guidance and over-control has resulted; this may, however, presently swing slightly backward, whereby individual self-dependence will be better established.
Applied Personnel Administration.
J. E.
Walters
By. Pp. ix + 338. (NewYork: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1931.) 18s. 6d. net.
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M., P. Applied Personnel Administration . Nature 129, 637 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129637b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129637b0