Honest Educational Methods Perhaps the most widely accepted definition of personnel work is that which avers that personnel work and education as synonymous. This definition has been stated by L. B. Hopkins and by the committee of the American College Personnel Association of which R. C. Clothier was chairman and to which reference has already been made. As the most frequently quoted definition of the field, it should properly be appraised first.
In 1926, after a careful inspection of personnel
trading breakout practices in fourteen colleges and universities, Hopkins defined personnel work as "work having to do specifically with the individual.' He then observed that "one might question how this differs from the concept of education itself. I don't assume that it does differ." Clothier in 1931 presented a similar formulation in these words: personnel work is "the systematic bringing to bear on the individual student of all those influences, of whatever nature, which will stimulate him and assist him through his own efforts, to develop in body, mind, and character to the limit of his individual capacity for growth, and help him to apply his powers of developing more effectively to the world."" In 1935 he repeated this definition substantially and wrote that "very largely we might define education itself in such terms. If so, personnel work and education are the same thing—which, broadly speaking, is perfectly true.""
If anything, this is even more inclusive that Clothier and Hopkins. They label all education persor outdoes them. He brings into the personnel field d< experts from the pediatrician who directs the individual' first months to the attorney who draws up his will upoi these specialists patently consider the individual system of the individual," but they would be surprised to di; personnel workers. And, of course, they are not. To dt so broadly is to render the term meaningless.
A psychiatrist on the staff of a large eastern
forex trading university was recently asked in conversation wl Personnel Director of his institution. His reply was that t relations to or with the "personnel organization and its d explanation of this reply, the psychiatrist pointed out that v office carries on one primary activity. The psychiatrist referred to in this report obviousl, work to be placement and graduate followup—nothin; other people similarly define the personnel field. Fot appeared in 1931 entitled "Twenty-five Years of Persc Work at the Carnegie Institute of Technology." Its devoted entirely to the placement activities of the Recommendations, and although in the introduction vocational and educational guidance, one is given essentially personnel work at Carnegie means only pl definition is in vogue at a number of other institutions.