III It must not be thought however that when all these facts are set forth the problem of training for public service can be solved by simple and easy adaptation of courses of study in the institutions of higher learning. This vital question of how to secure and maintain a loyal and efficient personnel in the public service cannot be disposed of by so facile a bit of academic ledgerdemain. It is not merely an educational question—it is a broad problem in political science which calls for serious thinking about the very fundamentals of democracy and efficiency. The City's Methods of Recruiting its Services Compared with Although there is as yet no general agreement among those who have given thought to the matter, there are certain readjustments of our current notions and practices which are so obviously necessary as to require no extensive arguments by way of support. In the first place there must be a radical change in the restricted ideas which have thus far controlled our policies in regard to methods of recruiting the public service. The City of New York spends more than forty millions a year for educational purposes, but it has never given any considerable attention to applying any material portion of that large sum to the technical training of those who are to serve the municipality-excepting, of course, the teachers. It is well known, however, that wisely managed business concerns of the larger order do not supply their skilled and special services by running out into the general labor market and picking up people who happen at the time to be out of employment. On the contrary, they spend immense sums of money conducting highly specialized schools for their employees. They do more; they make a practice 1 Although this bulletin deals with the higher ranges of the municipal service, the matter of training for the lower ranges deserves serious consideration at the hands of those responsible for the elementary and high schools. of selecting young people in their plastic years and training them up to posts of responsibility so that as the older servants drop out the continuity of the service may remain unbroken. This is one of the most widely recognized necessities of modern corporate enterprise. The need for applying to the public service the methods which have been found indispensable to the conduct of great business enterprises is so apparent that surely no one will be bold enough to deny it. If the Standard Oil Company, the General Electric, the New York Central, and other great private concerns find it imperative that they should spend considerable sums of money in special training to secure efficient service, how much more imperative it is that the still greater corporation of New York City upon whose operations depend in so large a measure the health, comfort and safety of millions, should set about deliberately training up a body of loyal, skilled and tested servants? Why should New York City continue the hopelessly obsolete method of recruiting principally from the open market of persons almost wholly untrained in the special problems of public administration when every well organized private concern abandoned the practice long ago? There is no reason at all, except, that we have not as yet had occasion to take thought about it. The first call, therefore, is to the city to set its face resolutely against the haphazard methods of the past and establish training for public service as an integral part of the public service and the public educational system. Adjustment of Academic Programs to City Needs In the second place, while the problem of recruiting the public service is being treated in an intelligent fashion, there must be an adjustment of the programs of studies in the various educational institutions upon which the city must depend for such academic discipline as may be required for the public service. This is doubtless the easiest of all the subsidiary questions involved in the larger problem. The College of the City of New York, Hunter College, and the various colleges, universities, and professional schools in the city would no doubt respond with alacrity to any demand by the city for adjustments in programs which would better prepare their students for the municipal service. Training for Actually Doing the Work of the City In the third place, some link of connection must be formed between the schools and the public service. Here the gravest difficulties will be met at once; but they are not insurmountable. Neither are they as formidable as many imagine. It will be said sharply that this will tend to build up a privileged class; that every post should be open to every citizen who can pass the examinations, whether he has had any serious educational discipline or not; and that giving credit for educational experience would recruit the service with a lot of bookish persons. We may as well face the last of these objections first. If by the link between the institutions of learning and the public service is meant special recognition and credit for mere "book learning," then the objection is fatal. The link which the practical requirements of the service call for is not, however, an intermediate program of classroom studies, but laboratory work in the form of actual service in the departments of the city government. This laboratory work should be so organized as to test the ability of the students to perform the actual tasks of the branch of the service which they seek to enter. By firmly establishing this practice, the chief objection to the merit system-namely, that it is bookish in character-would in fact be obviated. By adopting such a method we should change the old rule, "Every citizen has a right to a chance at every job," to read as follows: "Every citizen who can convince the government that he can do the work called for shall have a chance at the position and the person who can do it best is entitled to it." The objection that making special training the chief avenue to the service will build up a "privileged class" ought to have little weight when we remember that in the city of New York there is (as Dr. Breithut points out in his report, p. 26) a system of free education up to graduation from the City College and Hunter College. If it be contended, as it may justly, that it requires a certain amount of wealth to secure the leisure for the free education thus provided, it may be answered that for the present at least there might be provided a system of free scholarships covering living expenses for those students of special capabilities who desired to prepare for the public service. If it be said that it is chimerical for the city to train for public service, the most obvious answer is that scores of private “cramming" institutions, most of them wholly unequipped for their work, are actually "training" for that service and placing their "graduates"-who are often crude and uninformed beyond all description-upon the pay-rolls of the city in posts of responsibility that call for the highest type of technical and administrative skill. The astounding thing is not that the city should undertake to train its own candidates for its service, but that it should have so long neglected this vital aspect of education while spending millions every year on its schools and colleges and $211,000 a year on a civil service commission that is deprived of the most important power which every recruiting agency should possess, namely, that of helping to develop and apply standards for training both as a condition to entrance, and as an aid to promotion after admission to the service. Finally, if it be said that we are not prepared for such a novelty, attention should be called to the fact that precedent is not lacking to support the plan of authorizing properly qualified students to participate in the actual work of certain city departments, side by side with, and under the direction of, regular city employees. Reference is made particularly to work in the central testing laboratory; to food (including milk) and sanitary inspection in the health department; to work in the several hospital departments upon problems concerning the physical operation of plants; to the training for promotion now given to junior employees by enterprising department heads, etc. A concrete example is afforded by the training of city nurses. The city charter in section 692, paragraph 11, as amended by chapter 153 of the laws of 1906 provides that— "In order that suitable trained nurses for the sick in Bellevue and other hospitals may be provided, the board of trustees of Bellevue and allied hospitals shall have power, subject to the approval of the mayor of the City of New York as to terms and conditions, to enter into a contract or contracts with the Bellevue training school for nurses, for the purpose of contin uing, improving and increasing its service in supplying to Bellevue and other hospitals trained nurses for the sick in said hospitals. As authorized by the charter, the City of New York in June, 1906, entered into a contract executed by the president of the board of trustees of Bellevue and allied hospitals with the Bellevue training school for nurses, wherein it was provided that Bellevue Hospital should erect on city land adjacent to the training school a building to be turned over to the training school in order that the latter might improve and increase its facilities for furnishing nurses. The contract further provided that the board of trustees of Bellevue should pay, out of their annual budget appropriations, the salaries in the school for the superintendence of the nurses, and the compensation of each nurse actually provided and approved by the board, together with maintenance. The training school organization, it was agreed, should manage the nursing department of Bellevue Hospital under the supervision of the board, should provide for the supervision of the nursing service in the hospital and supply nurses as required. The training school for nurses continues to maintain a separate corporate identity. There can be no question regarding the quality of service which the Bellevue training school for nurses performs for the benefit of the city. In view of this experiment, it is contended that a similar service, under proper arrangements, could be performed by courses in training offered to engineers, chemists, inspectors, etc., in the laboratories and suitable operating plants of the city, under the joint supervision of college or training school faculties and of those in charge of the respective departments in which the proposed work is to be done. |