ard in testing all these possible tasks. The more vital the connection between your chief purpose and a certain task, the closer you should grip that task as something to which you must personally attend. The more remote tasks are delegated to subordinates, the far remote perhaps to the waste-basket. On a sheet of paper draw up Test Chart 4. Selecting some typical day's work as a sample, fill out the first column in chronological order; and then the other columns to correspond. In looking over the last column but one of this diagram, in view of the check marks there shown and your own value to the company as represented by your salary, how much per week are private secretarial services worth? Add to this the indirect losses specified on a preceding page, and what is the sum total? This amount represents with fair accuracy the expenditure justified in your case for secretarial services. The problem next to be solved is how the secretarial services purchased by this sum can be employed most productively. For this purpose Test Chart 5 has been devised. It contains ten questions, to each of which a possible credit of ten points attaches. Consider your methods critically as you answer these questions one by one, and credit yourself in the column at the right a 10, a 5, a 2, or whatever your actual practice in the light of standard practice will justify. A perfect score is 100 points. What do your credits total? QUESTIONS 1. Do I know how to delegate work?..... 2. Have I organized thoroughly the duties of my present position?.... 3. Is my work such that the quality of secretarial services makes an important difference in results? 4. Do the means which I employ secure desirable appli cants? 5. Are my various selection tests reasonably certain to 7. Do I know consistently what I want in secretarial 8. Is my secretary assuming the responsibilities he should?... 9. Am I cultivating the secretary's initiative?. 10. Were I my secretary would I hold my employer's habits and methods of work in high respect?... TOTAL.. CREDITS Test Chart 5. Securing Best Results from the Private Secretary CHAPTER VI A SERVICEABLE MEMORY The test of a good memory is that it shall be serviceable; that the mind shall be furnished and ready with just the sort of facts which may be needed, and free from the encumbrances of useless, irrelevant, or distracting material.— CARL EMIL SEASHORE, Professor of Psychology. The Tool Which Is Used Most of All The executive may lighten the burden of details by means of ingenious mechanical aids; he may standardize to a high degree his working conditions; he may surround himself with able co-workers; yet there will remain, after all, certain things which must be entrusted to memory. It is safe to say that the business man's most immediate need is a serviceable memory-which means a store of useful knowledge always at hand. Such a memory, whether material or acquired, is an invaluable aid to success. "In the practical as in the theoretic life," declares William James with much truth, "the man whose acquisitions stick is the man who is always achieving and advancing, whilst his neighbors, spending most of their time in relearning what they once knew, but have forgotten, simply hold their own." The Memory that Gets Results The great importance and obvious utility of a "good" memory have led many otherwise sensible men to foolish extremes in their pursuit of the kind of memory that they most admire. To the man who fails to remember names and faces, a remarkable facility in greeting mere acquaintances of a dozen years ago by name and station seems the summum bonum of recollection. Many politicians have gained popularity and fame because of such readiness; William Jennings Bryan, whose memory is both colossal and exact, is a shining example of this type. Henry Clay had the same sort of memory. The men who can learn things by heart are another source of envy to the average executive. He reads with wistful attention how Macaulay could repeat the "Lady of the Lake" after hearing it read once and how other literary geniuses Knew the great uncles of Moses, And the dates of the Wars of the Roses. The vital question in such cases is not: "How did these men do it," but "What good would such a memory do me?" The lesson to be learned is that what these men knew and remembered related to their life-work and interest and was relevant in a natural way to their respective jobs. Their memories were good because they were serviceable. If knowing that Mr. Brown's first name is George and that his family has moved to a charming suburb will help to do that important piece of business with him, it is worth remembering. If a bit from Gray's "Elegy" will aid you to put over that big contract, memorize the potent verse. If not, why clutter up the orderly array of your mental files with rubbish? Improving the Memory In setting out in a very practical way to improve the memory, that is, to make it more serviceable, we shall save both time and effort by distinguishing at the outset between general retentiveness and methods of using the memory. It is the conviction of William James, the most eminent psychologist that America has produced, that, "No amount of culture would seem capable of modifying a man's general retentiveness. This is a physiological quality, given once for all with his organization, and which he can never hope to change. It differs no doubt in disease and health; and it is a fact of observation that it is better in fresh and vigorous hours than when we are fagged or ill. We may say, then, that a man's native tenacity will fluctuate somewhat with his hygiene, and that whatever is good for his tone of health will also be good for his memory. We may even say that whatever amount of intellectual exercise is bracing to the general tone and nutrition of the brain will also be profitable to the general retentiveness. But more than this we cannot say; and this, it is obvious, is far less than most people believe." This does not mean that the memory cannot be improved. What is to be emphasized, however, is the means by which improvement can be brought about. Abandon attempts to strengthen a general power of memory. Accept without murmur whatever native capacity for retention you have, but make the most of it by a proper system. The Man Who Remembers Is He Who Knows How This solution need discourage no one. As Professor Seashore points out, "All normal persons have sufficient capacity, if only they will use it. To be concrete, the average man does not use above 10 per cent of his actual inherited capacity for memory. He wastes the 90 per cent by violating natural laws of remembering." Through his superior method of recording facts, one of limited native retentiveness, in consequence, may outstrip by far his well-endowed but planless neighbor. System does it. The man who remembers is the man who knows how. Why "Memory Systems" Have Long Flourished Not a few so-called memory systems have been at one time or another enthusiastically exploited, sometimes with most extravagant claims. The Loisette system, perhaps the |