Railways a National Industry 415 



manager on an English railway to have started as an office 

 boy. Many a head of department to-day entered the service 

 as junior clerk, and worked his way up to his present posi- 

 tion ; there are station-masters who began as ticket clerks ; 

 there are guards who gained their first knowledge of railway 

 work as station porters, while engine-drivers are recruited 

 from firemen, and firemen from engine-cleaners. 



For details as to what the American railway companies are 

 doing in the matter of " Education for Efficiency in Railroad 

 Service " I must refer the reader to a bulletin written by 

 J. Shirley Eaton and published, under this title, by the 

 United States Bureau of Education. Here I can do no more 

 than reproduce the following extract, giving in brief Mr 

 Eaton's view on the general situation as he finds it on the 

 other side of the Atlantic : 



" Railroads, as a whole, through a representative body 

 such as the American Railway Association, should in a com- 

 prehensive way take up the matter of the education of rail- 

 way employees. As they now have committees devoted to 

 standards of construction, maintenance, and operating prac- 

 tice, they should also have a standing committee, of a character 

 to command confidence, who should sedulously foster a closer 

 relation between the railroad and educational agencies. This 

 could be done by roughly grouping railroad service into 

 classes according to the requirements of service, indicating 

 the efficiency required in a broad way, and studying the 

 curricula and course of experience leading up to such efficiency. 

 Such a body should officially gather all railroad literature and 

 accumulate the nucleus of a railroad museum. In various 

 ways the teaching force of educational agencies, training to- 

 ward railroad employ, could be drawn into study and dis- 

 cussion of the practical everyday problems of railroad work. 

 The large public policies involved in railroad operation are 

 to-day left to the doctrinaire or accidental publicist, when 

 they should be a subject of study and effective presentation 

 by the highest grade of trained experts which the associate 

 railroads could draw into their service. On the other hand, 

 such a standing committee could stimulate and guide the 

 practice of railroads in their methods of handling and in- 

 structing apprentices. Between the instruction and practice 

 in the service on the one side, and the instruction outside 



