The National Cash Register Company, of Dayton, Ohio, employing over
two thousand employees, and said by experts to be the most perfectly
organized industrial institution in the world, having many unusual
features of comfort and recreation for the employees because "It
Pays," and having kindergartens, cooking schools, gardens, etc., for
the training of the children of the employees and other residents of
the factory quarter, have published the decree that, "After 1915 no
application for employment in the company will be considered unless
the applicant has had an industrial (otherwise kindergarten) training
in childhood." The company will continue to publish this
conspicuously, and why? Because, in their experience, children so
trained are workers to be trusted without superintendence, and "It
Pays" to have such workers.
This shot at old conditions relative to the improper care of children
is the result of experience, and it is truly a shot that will be
"Heard 'round the World" louder than that which first belched forth in
defence of personal liberty at Concord, Mass.
The liberty to learn to work with skill, and to participate in
recreative work, is the ultimate liberty that ensures the possibility
of happiness. This is the aim of the educational philosophy of
Froebel, so ably endorsed by Charles Dickens, so beautifully
exemplified by Mrs. Peabody, Mrs. Cooper, Miss Blow and others by
successful practice, and now brought into the economics of manufacture
by a great company which has tried it and finds that "_It Pays_."