Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 912

the best people for those jobs. There might be better people somewhere.”

I remember responding, “How are you going to tell that they're better? We have only the beginnings of the employment system, and thank God it has not yet reduced human beings to type and number so you can fit them into a type and number job. You still have to pick people on what they appear to be and what they say they are, and here's a job that's not too much for any human being. There are a few jobs where the specialized individual is the only person who can do it, but those are only a few jobs, very few, and they have to be hunted for and you can't apply general tests to a whole population.”

I remember thinking that it was perfectly idiotic to think that you could set up a scheme by which you could direct all people in the United States to their particular job.

Interviewer:

Was this actually what was in Harold Smith's mind?

Perkins:

Certainly it was. His idea was to get everybody. Well, “everybody” but all the shake-offs, of course, that there are bound to be. In general, to direct everybody to his job, and that was to be a scientific direction. That was what he had in mind: a scientific conception of the human beings that existed, of the jobs that were to be done, and a measurement





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help