free to consider the broader lines of policy and to study the character
and fitness of the important men under him. The exception principle can
be applied in many ways, and the writer will endeavor to give some
further illustrations of it later.

The writer has dwelt at length upon the desirability of concentrating as
much as possible clerical and brain work in the planning department.
There is, however, one such important exception to this rule that it
would seem desirable to call attention to it. As already stated, the
planning room gives its orders and instructions to the men mainly in
writing and of necessity must also receive prompt and reliable written
returns and reports which shall enable its members to issue orders for
the next movement of each piece, lay out the work for each man for the
following day, properly post the balance of work and materials accounts,
enter the records on cost accounts and also enter the time and pay of
each man on the pay sheet. There is no question that all of this
information can be given both better and cheaper by the workman direct
than through the intermediary of a walking time keeper, providing the
proper instruction and report system has been introduced in the works
with carefully ruled and printed instruction and return cards, and
particularly providing a complete mnemonic system of symbols has been
adopted so as to save the workmen the necessity of doing much writing.
The principle to which the writer wishes to call particular attention is
that the only way in which workmen can be induced to write out all of
this information accurately and promptly is by having each man write his
own time while on day work and pay when on piece work on the same card
on which he is to enter the other desired information, and then refusing
to enter his pay on the pay sheet until after all of the required
information has been correctly given by him. Under this system as soon
as a workman completes a job and at quitting time, whether the job is