"Edward Bellamy. Lookimg Backward From 2000 to 1887" - читать интересную книгу автора

intended to be as little as possible invidious to the less successful,
have the effect of keeping constantly before every man's
mind the great desirability of attaining the grade next above his
own.

"It is obviously important that not only the good but also the
indifferent and poor workmen should be able to cherish the
ambition of rising. Indeed, the number of the latter being so
much greater, it is even more essential that the ranking system
should not operate to discourage them than that it should
stimulate the others. It is to this end that the grades are divided
into classes. The grades as well as the classes being made
numerically equal at each regrading, there is not at any time,
counting out the officers and the unclassified and apprentice
grades, over one-ninth of the industrial army in the lowest class,
and most of this number are recent apprentices, all of whom
expect to rise. Those who remain during the entire term of
service in the lowest class are but a trifling fraction of the
industrial army, and likely to be as deficient in sensibility to their
position as in ability to better it.

"It is not even necessary that a worker should win promotion
to a higher grade to have at least a taste of glory. While
promotion requires a general excellence of record as a worker,
honorable mention and various sorts of prizes are awarded for
excellence less than sufficient for promotion, and also for special
feats and single performances in the various industries. There are
many minor distinctions of standing, not only within the grades
but within the classes, each of which acts as a spur to the efforts
of a group. It is intended that no form of merit shall wholly fail
of recognition.

"As for actual neglect of work positively bad work, or other
overt remissness on the part of men incapable of generous
motives, the discipline of the industrial army is far too strict to
allow anything whatever of the sort. A man able to do duty, and
persistently refusing, is sentenced to solitary imprisonment on
bread and water till he consents.

"The lowest grade of the officers of the industrial army, that
of assistant foremen or lieutenants, is appointed out of men who
have held their place for two years in the first class of the first
grade. Where this leaves too large a range of choice, only the
first group of this class are eligible. No one thus comes to the
point of commanding men until he is about thirty years old.
After a man becomes an officer, his rating of course no longer
depends on the efficiency of his own work, but on that of his
men. The foremen are appointed from among the assistant
foremen, by the same exercise of discretion limited to a small
eligible class. In the appointments to the still higher grades