a high order and a fine ethical sense to the prosaic and seemingly uninteresting business of selling women's garments. Instead of remaining petty tradesmen, they have become, in every sense of the word, great merchants.

The Filenes recognized that the function of retail distribution should be undertaken as a social service, equal in dignity and responsibility to the function of production; and that it should be studied with equal intensity in order that the service may be performed with high efficiency, with great economy and with nothing more than a fair profit to the retailer. They recognized that to serve their own customers properly, the relations of the retailer to the producer must be fairly and scientifically adjusted; and, among other things, that it was the concern of the retailer to know whether the goods which he sold were manufactured under conditions which were fair to the workersfair as to wages, hours of work and sanitary conditions.

But the Filenes recognized particularly their obligations to their own employees. They found as the common and accepted conditions in large retail stores, that the employees had no voice as to the conditions or rules under which they were to work; that the employees had no appeal from policies prescribed by the management; and that in the main they were paid the lowest rate of wages possible under competitive conditions.

In order to insure a more just arrangement for those working in their establishment, the Filenes provided three devices:

First.-A system of self-government for employees, administered by the store co-operative association.

Working through this association, the employees have the right to appeal from and to veto policies laid down by the management. They may adjust the conditions under which employees are to work, and, in effect, prescribe conditions for themselves.

Second.-A system of arbitration, through the operation of which individual employees can call for an adjustment of differences that may exist between themselves and the management as to the permanence of employment, wages, promotion or conditions of work.

Third.-A minimum wage scale, which provides that no woman or girl shall work in their store at a wage less than eight dollars a week, no matter what her age may be or what grade of position she may fill.

The Filenes have thus accepted and applied the principles of industrial democracy and of social justice. But they have done more they have demonstrated that the introduction of industrial democracy and of social justice is at least consistent with marked financial success. They assert that the greater efficiency of their employees shows industrial democracy and social justice to be money-makers. The so-called "practical business man," the narrow money-maker without either vision or ideals, who hurled against the Filenes, as against McElwain, the silly charge of being "theorists," has been answered even on his own low plane of material success.

McElwain and the Filenes are of course exceptional men; but there are in America to-day many with like perception and like spirit. The paths broken by such pioneers will become the peopled highways. Their exceptional methods will become accepted methods.

Then the term "Big business" will lose its sinister meaning, and will take on a new significance. "Big business" will then mean business big not in bulk or power, but great in service and grand in manner. "Big business" will mean professionalized business, as distinguished from the occupation of petty trafficking or mere money-making. And as the profession of business develops, the great industrial and social problems expressed in the present social unrest will one by one find solution.

X

A Proposed Code of Ethics for All

Engineers

By A. G. Christie1

ENGINEERING is slowly establishing itself as a profession. Some people question whether it is a true profession or a business. Let us note how a profession is defined and then we can determine at once whether the term "profession" applies to engineering.

A professional man must have to his credit some preliminary attainments in special knowledge and some measure of learning, as distinguished from the mere skill that comes from experience as an administrator or as a mechanic. He must also apply such knowledge in practical dealings with the affairs of others, rather than in mere study or investigation for his own purposes. A professional career implies a sense of public responsibility for the accomplishment of certain social objectives. In other words, the

1 Professor A. G. Christie is Professor of Mechanical Engineering in Johns Hopkins University and Chairman of the Joint Committee on Ethics of the Federated American Engineering Societies. The movement for the establishment of a code of ethics for all engineers is sketched in outline in this paper, which was published in the Annals of American Academy of Social and Political Science, for May, 1922. This number of the Annals gives a comprehensive picture of the status of ethical codes in business and the professions in the United States at the present day. It should be studied carefully by anyone who is interested in the subject.-EDITOR.

professional man must be ready to render public service where his special training and experience makes him particularly fitted to do the work. Finally, he must adhere to the code of ethics of his particular profession, which should be so well known by the. public that they understand what to expect of that particular class of professional men.

The engineer is being called upon more and more to render public service. He possesses special knowledge of his particular branch, which he applies practically in advising others or in serving their interests or welfare in the practice of the art of engineering. It is quite logical, therefore, to conclude that engineering can be ranked among the professions, together with law and medicine. It is secondary that, up to the present time, engineering has not had a common code of ethics well known to the public at large, although individual societies have had their own codes.

The profession of medicine has had an ethical code since the days of Hippocrates and possibly even earlier. As law courts developed, custom and usage established certain requirements of an ethical character to be fulfilled by those who practised in the courts as lawyers and by those who administered the law as judges. The ethical standards of these two professions have been slowly developed throughout the centuries, until now both have well defined and very complete codes, covering all the usual contingencies that may occur in professional practice. These respective codes serve to maintain the dignity of the profession and its high regard by the general public because they are accepted by most doctors and lawyers, and are carefully administered.