Arizona republican., 1919-09-08
GOVERNMENT AID IN GETTING A START

| average child to do his work in the world and then to help him find that work. We must eliminate the immense waste of human power which is caused by creating misfits.
 This work the local bureaus of the junior section propose to do. Nine junior sections have been established already in Washington, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Pitts burg, Providence and Cleveland, and a state bureau in Indiana In each of these man, usually an associate su- perintendent, one of whom is usually a business man. This bureau takes in hand each boy or girl leaving school, studies his record. his needs and his abilities, and helps him to find a job If the youngster needs more schooling, an effort is made to persuade him or enable him to stay in school. And interest in him does not end when he has been landed in a job. Follow up work is regular part of the bureaus duties, so that the individual is not abandoned until he has really found work for which he is fitted.
 This work will not only help boys and girls to find jobs. and employers to find labor, but it will help the edu- cators to find out what is the matter with education.
 Mrs. Reed has personally aided in the organization of each of these bu- reaus. She is still spending her days working in the Washington local bureau. At four-thirty, when the bureau closes. she calls in a new corps of stenographers and begins her work as head of the national organization. All of this she does for salary which is, a fraction of standing offers she has received from business concerns. She says that she has earned good money in the past, that her needs are few, and that she is willing to make the financial sacrifice for the sake of being at the head of national under taking. She is a middle aged wolnhn with gray hair, a clear eye, and a long resolute jaw. She is agreeably free of the setimentality which gums up the efforts of so many lady -uplifters. She has worked as a teacher and efficiency expert in many different parts of the United States. When a number of minimum wage laws were passed in western states, Mrs. Reed acted as a consulting expert in helping manu- lecturers to adjust their businesses to increased salary scales. Her method was to eliminate all employees who could not be made efficient enough to earn the higher wage. These inef- ficients were located in easier jobs.
 Mrs. Reeds work is being watched with special interest here, because it looks as though she might help to save the employment service from the prej- udices which have arisen against it. ! It Is generally acknowledged fact that the employment service did most useful work during the war, both for labor and for employers. It demon strated that a national agency of that kind can perform an important func- tion. It is also well known that of l late the employment service has got- l ten in bad with the employers. They i have charged in substance that it is a tool of the unions and that parlor bolshevists have found access to it's staff.
 l Whether these charges are true or not, they have tended to weaken the 1 confidence of employers in the em- ! ployment service, and it is vital to the l success of such an organization that it should have the confidence of both capital and labor.
 As result of the opposition it ! stirred up. the employment service al- most went out of existence. It was saved from oblivion by an appropria- ! tion of s400000 which was much less 1 than it needed. Part of this money is being used in organizing the junior 1 section, and it seems probable that this | particular effort will meet with the approval of employers as well as of 1 labor
 Mrs. Reed has no heavy baggage of theory. She does not aim to change the social order. She believes that to be effective her work must take into account the employers point of view as that of the laborer She believes i that a part of our labor supply is be- 1 ing wasted at the source through clumsy handling of school children: i: that this waste falls upon employer, worker and the public alike; and that it can be eliminated.
 The junior section has many appli- cations for local bureaus, but it can not organize any more of them with l the funds on hand. unless the city is willing to pay all expenses. The con- tinuance of the work is dependent upon special appropriation from congress next year.