To find ways of practicing democracy, not ways of orating about it, is our great problem. Mary Barnett Gilson More Quotes by Mary Barnett Gilson More Quotes From Mary Barnett Gilson During the first World War women in the United States had a chance to try their capacities in wider fields of executive leadershipin industry. Must we always wait for war to give us opportunity? And must the pendulum always swing back in the busy world of work and workers during times of peace? Mary Barnett Gilson swings opportunity war Shopping seemed to take an entirely too important place in women's lives. You never saw men milling around in men's departments. They made quick work of it. I used to wonder if shopping was a form of escape for women who had no worthwhile interests. Mary Barnett Gilson shopping important men ... the self respect of individuals ought to make them demand of their leaders conformity with an agreed-upon code of ethics and moral conduct. Mary Barnett Gilson respect leadership self A young professor I watched in action at one of our large eastern colleges used to stand with his back to the class and mumble explanations of blackboard problems. He was "let out" at the end of two years because students refused to attend his classes. He was given an evasive reason for his dismissal and he left with justifiable bitterness toward the administration. If someone had told him the truth he could have avoided this denouement. Sometimes professors go on for years without any conception of remediable faults which irritate their listeners. Mary Barnett Gilson college class two ... work is only part of a man's life; play, family, church, individual and group contacts, educational opportunities, the intelligent exercise of citizenship, all play a part in a well-rounded life. Workers are men and women with potentialities for mental and spiritual development as well as for physical health. We are paying the price today of having too long sidestepped all that this means to the mental, moral, and spiritual health of our nation. Mary Barnett Gilson educational spiritual work ...there are persons who seem to have overcome obstacles and by character and perseverance to have risen to the top. But we have no record of the numbers of able persons who fall by the wayside, persons who, with enough encouragement and opportunity, might make great contributions. Mary Barnett Gilson perseverance encouragement teamwork Until the sky is the limit [for women], as it is for men, men as well as women will suffer, because all society is affected when half of it is denied equal opportunity for full development. Mary Barnett Gilson sky opportunity men ... until opportunity is as free from sex discrimination as the right to vote finally came to be, no man has any right to criticize women for failure to measure up to men. Mary Barnett Gilson opportunity men sex The economic dependence of woman and her apparently indestructible illusion that marriage will release her from loneliness and work and worry are potent factors in immunizing her from common sense in dealing with men at work. Mary Barnett Gilson marriage loneliness work Women cannot claim the right to be considered mature and responsible until they decide the course of their lives for themselves and refuse to be a "manipulated group." They will not be truly emancipated untilthe right to work is a matter of course and not of discussion. Mary Barnett Gilson groups mature matter Until we devise means of discovering workers who are temperamentally irked by monotony it will be well to take for granted that the majority of human beings cannot safely be regimented at work without relief in the form of education and recreation and pleasant surroundings. Mary Barnett Gilson majority work mean The matter of consulting experienced workers, of keeping all the workers informed of changes in production and wage methods, and how the changes are arrived at, seems to me the most important duty in the whole field of management. Mary Barnett Gilson important matter work Unless a group of workers know their work is under surveillance, that they are being rated as fairly as human beings, with the fallibility that goes with human judgment, can rate them, and that at least an attempt is made to measure their worth to an organization in relative terms, they are likely to sink back on length of service as the sole reason for retention and promotion. Mary Barnett Gilson groups organization work The industrial world would be a more peaceful place if workers were called in as collaborators in the process of establishing standards and defining shop practices, matters which surely affect their interests and well-being fully as much as they affect those of employers and consumers. Mary Barnett Gilson peaceful practice matter The higher one climbs, the lonelier one is. Mary Barnett Gilson climbs higher success Probably nothing in the experience of the rank and file of workers causes more bitterness and envy than the realization which comes sooner or later to many of them that they are "stuck" and can go no further. Mary Barnett Gilson advancement envy work The new supplants the old. Yet men's minds are stuffed with outworn bunk. Educating the young in the latest findings of authorities and scholars in the social sciences is important. It is equally important to devise ways and means for aiding the middle-aged and old to reexamine hang-over unscientific doctrines and ideas in the light of recent discovery and research. Mary Barnett Gilson truth education mean How ignorant we are! How ignorant everyone is! We can cut across only a small area of the appallingly expanding fields of knowledge. No human being can know more than a tiny fraction of the whole. It must have been satisfactory in ancient times when one's own land seemed to be the universe; when research studies, pamphlets, books did not issue in endless flow; when laboratories and scientists were not so rapidly pushing back frontiers of knowledge that the process of unlearning the old left you gasping for breath. Mary Barnett Gilson cutting book knowledge The intelligent employer encourages challenge, questioning--not blind acceptance and "our Leader knows best" acclaim. Mary Barnett Gilson intelligent acceptance leadership ... education fails in so far as it does not stir in students a sharp awareness of their obligations to society and furnish at least a few guideposts pointing toward the implementation of these obligations. Mary Barnett Gilson responsibility doe education
