Qualifying for Selection.

Employers, administrators, and professional men all now recognize that the field of the general worker, wide as it is, is largely a field of selection. From it are chosen those who are to be entrusted with one or other of the special duties that the circumstances of modern life bring into prominence. The selection may be made by deliberate choice, but that choice is governed by force of circumstances; a place has to be filled and the best available man is put into it. The good fortune of the selection for promotion falls to the man who has, by special training of his own powers, made himself ready for the higher position when the call comes.

The New Zealand Railway Department has seen this need and has made provision for the benefits of railway technical education to be extended to the whole of its staff through a series of correspondence courses adapted to the needs of every branch of the serice.

Each course of lessons is well graded and useful alike to the lad starting on his railway career and the member who, by being on one job for a long period, is in danger of losing touch with the general work of his branch. One very valuable effect is to show to the student his place in the railway scheme of things—to enable him, in other words, to see the wood in spite of the trees. The importance of this aspect can hardly be over-stated in a service employing over 18,000 men. It is human nature to become localised to one's surroundings and to lose sight of the size and functions of the machine of which one is a small cog.