Evening star., 1937-03-20
Bp Eugene Guild.

~ HE Federal Government Is going
into the business of training
its employees. Developing slow
L ly at first, but with increasing
momentum, there have grown up a
group of schools and training courses
within the Government departments,
designed to familiarize new employe
with the requirements of his job or
to give men and women already in the
service additional equipment with
which to meet new problems of their
work or to increase their chances of
promotion.
More than a dozen Government
agencies are conducting "in-service"
training programs, with thousands
of enrolled students and instruction
In everything from advanced optics
to the expert use of a sub-machine
gun and from scientific German to
glass-b blowing. Among the organiza-
tions conducting such courses are:
The Department of Agriculture, with
Its graduate school, and training
courses in the Bureau of Agricultural
Economics and the Forest Service;
the Bureau Of Internal Revenue; the
Bureau of Indian Affairs and Soil
Conservation Service in the Interior
Department; the immigration and
Naturalization Service and Bureau of
Labor Statistics in the Department of
Labor; the F. B. I. in the Department
of Justice; the Bureau of the Census,
the Farm Credit Administration and
the Social Security Board.
The development of vocational
training, after employment rather
than before, is comparatively new both
in the Government service and in
private industry. The old system Of
apprenticeship, inadequate to meet
the complexities of the present, has
disappeared and left gap which has
only begun to be filled within recent
years. The Federal Government has
been slower, on the whole, to tackle the
problem than has private industry,
but within the last decade there has
developed realization of the need for
training the Government worker for
his job, instead of leaving the matter
to luck or to the employees own initia-
tive.
1t is often not enough to select
men and women with the right sort
OF background and education, thrust
them into positions requiring all sorts
of peculiar technical skill, and leave
them to founder around in the un-
familiar work until they have mastered
it. 1t is too wasteful of the Govern
ments time and the employees energy.
Furthermore, employees with years of
experience sometimes find themselves
confronted with new work which re-
quires training they do not have and
cannot get unassisted So various
departments and bureaus have de-
veloped programs and schools for
training their workers. 1t has been
spontaneous, unco-ordinated move
ment, but the results have been so
satisfactory that it is growing and will
continue to do so, the more perhaps
If the plan to extend the Civil Service
and make it truly career proposition
takes definite form.
TRAINING schools within the Gov
w PoA VAAlCAioo may NC
classified into three main types, de-
pending on the relation of the schools
to the department and to the work of
the employees. First is group sup
ported by the tuition fees of the
students, with classes conducted after
office hours, and attendance on a
purely voluntary basis. Next Is a
group whose work is concurrent with
the employment of its students-that
Is, students attend classes partly on
their own time and partly on the Gov
ernments, attendance being either
voluntary or compulsory. A third
group gives concentrated, full-time
training, usually as a preliminary to
appointments within the department.
with students attending classes
throughout each day for a definite
training period. To these major types
may be added some interesting de-
velopments in training by correspond
ence, and in the university training
OF Government employees.
The outstanding example of the vol
0ntary, tultlon-supported school, and
pioneer in the field of in-service
training is the Graduate School of the
Department of Agriculture, which has
grown from modest beginnings until
1t is almost university within a Gov
ernment department. It was started
In 1921 because Henry Wallace, then
Secretary of Agriculture, father of the
present Secretary, realized the need for
adequate training of those who enter
the service In the lower positions" The
hrst courses were strictly laboratory
affairs, in the physical and biological
sciences. Later, other types of instruc-
tion were added as the need arose. In
vestigators found they needed work.
ing knowledge of Russian in order to
digest Soviet agricultural bulletins.
Statisticians came into the depart
ment with doctors degrees, but shaky
knowledge of algebra, and no concept