Some Immaterial Problems Of Industry

IN speaking of immaterial problems of industry I am using the word immaterial in its original sense, not consisting of matter; not in its derived sense, unimportant. There is nothing of a paradox in saying that immaterial problems are the most important in human life, for His a matter of everyday observation that much of the news in the daily papers, and most of the world's best literature and drama, deal with human conduct that has for its motive forces that are but little concerned with material things. The engineer's preoccupation with physical forces, in extending his control over them, has not blinded him to the impor-tance of forces that, for want of a better word, I call immaterial; but he has considered that dealing with the one is his job and the other is not. All the evidence of the past decade indicates that the latter are so in-extricably interwoven with the former in modern in-dustrial life that the engineer will have to concern himself with them whether he wants to or not. Some of the most important of the problems arising from the action of these forces relate to the mental hygiene of the workers in industry. Mental hygiene in industry was concisely defined, in terms of the best present knowledge, by Dr. C. Macfie Campbell, speaking last April before the executive com-mittee of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, and as his statement can scarcely be bettered, I quote it below: "The term mental hygiene is apt to appear vague. The actual stuff with which mental hygiene deals may be briefly reviewed.