1
The problem in many large firms is how to develop
office efficiency to the highest possible degree. In
this respect the monthly examination scheme has been
found a great success. The examination consists of a
list of questions about merchandise and business
procedure. The questions are given out on the last
Saturday of the month, and the answers are returned
for criticism on the following Wednesday. The
employees are told that they may consult as many
authorities as they wish, but each man must write his
own paper. A poor percentage in three of these tests
usually means dismissal. Thus the inefficient are
dropped, and the ambitious who have studied are
recognized. The vice-president of one concern that
uses this system says that it is a strong reminder to
his men that they must make themselves worthy of the
organization. Besides maintaining an even standard of
efficiency, the plan has resulted in developing a
number of valuable executives, whose latent powers
were brought out by the rigidness of the tests.
2
Every month the department head in one big eastern
concern, watch in hand, times a large force of typists
individually, testing how rapidly they can write a
letter of 200 words from their shorthand notes.
Rapidity, punctuation, spelling, and neatness are
carefully recorded. This plan has had a desirable
influence in bringing stenographers up to grade in
their daily work, because a good examination mark is
reduced one-half by careless daily work, and a poor
examination mark correspondingly raised by excellent
daily work. When both examination average and daily
average are excellent, the stenographer's salary is
increased; when both are below good, the stenographer
is dismissed. In this way the standard of stenographic
work is kept high.
3
In his effort to succeed many a young business man
overlooks the detail of business courtesy. He does not
realize the value that a buyer places upon that
commodity. The more experienced man, however, knows
that courtesy does more to hold a buyer than do
bargain sales. In our large cities merchants have
incurred great expense to fit up rest rooms where
customers may spend an idle hour, write letters on
stationery that is provided, and read the latest
magazines. In the rural districts, where such luxuries
are often impossible, the merchant provides chairs for
his customers and a place for stationing their teams.
The country merchant, however, can often accomplish
his object more quickly than the city dealer by
spending an hour gossiping with his customers. He
recognizes the fact that buyers are flattered when the
proprietor himself takes the time to say a few words
to them. He knows just as well as his city competitor
does, that if a buyer feels at home in his store,
sales are practically guaranteed.
4
The rural landscape of Norway, on the long easterly
slope that leads up to the watershed among the
mountains on the western coast, is not unlike that of
Vermont or New Hampshire. The railway from Christiania
to the Randsfjord carried us through a hilly country
of scattered farms and villages. Wood played a
prominent part in the scenery. There were dark
stretches of forest on the hilltops and in the
valleys; rivers filled with floating logs; sawmills
beside the waterfalls; wooden farmhouses painted
white; and rail-fences around the fields. The people
seemed sturdy, prosperous, independent. They had the
familiar habit of coming down to the station to see
the train arrive and depart. We might have fancied
ourselves on a journey through the Connecticut valley
if it had not been for the soft sing-song of the
Norwegian speech and the uniform politeness of the
railway officials.
--Van Dyke: _Fisherman's Luck._
5
The plan of the _Spectator_ must be allowed to be both
original and eminently happy. Every valuable essay in
the series may be read with pleasure separately; yet
the five or six hundred essays form a whole, and a
whole which has the interest of a novel. It must be
remembered, too, that at that time no novel, giving a
lively and powerful picture of the common life and
manners of England, had appeared. Richardson was
working as a compositor. Fielding was robbing birds'
nests. Smollett was not yet born. The narrative,
therefore, which connects together the Spectator's
essays gave to our ancestors their first taste of an
exquisite and untried pleasure. That narrative was,
indeed, constructed with no art or labor. The events
were such events as occur every day. Sir Roger comes
up to town to see Eugenio, as the worthy baronet
always calls Prince Eugene, goes with the Spectator on
the water to Spring Gardens, walks among the tombs in
the Abbey, and is frightened by the Mohawks, but
conquers his apprehension so far as to go to the
theater when the "Distressed Mother" is acted. The
Spectator pays a visit in the summer to Coverley Hall,
is charmed with the old house, the old butler, and the
old chaplain, eats a jack caught by Will Wimble, rides
to the assizes, and hears a point of law discussed by
Tom Touchy. At last a letter from the honest butler
brings to the club the news that Sir Roger is dead.
Will Honeycomb marries and reforms at sixty. The club
breaks up, and the Spectator resigns his functions.
Such events can hardly be said to form a plot; yet
they are related with such truth, such grace, such
wit, such humor, such pathos, such knowledge of the
human heart, such knowledge of the ways of the world
that they charm us on the hundredth perusal. We have
not the least doubt that if Addison had written a
novel on an extensive plan, it would have been
superior to any that we possess. As it is, he is
entitled to be considered not only as the greatest of
the English essayists, but as the forerunner of the
great English novelists.
--Macaulay: _Essay on Addison._
=Exercise 209=
Prepare a paragraph developing each of the following topic sentences: