Page:Fagan (1908) Confessions of a railroad signalman.djvu/183

Rh roads and in our schools, are threatened with the coddling process.

Within the last ten or fifteen years, many railroads have changed or modified their system of discipline, as a tribute, in part, to this popular sentiment. Perhaps in making these changes the managers did the best they could under the circumstances. They found themselves fast losing the backing and authority necessary to enforce the old system, and the new method was at least a working arrangement with harmony for its basis.

A great majority of the railroads of the United States are now using some sort of a merit system in the administration of discipline. Most of these methods, are adaptations of the Brown system, which was invented by Mr. G. R. Brown, at one time vice-president of the Pennsylvania. Brown figured it out for himself, while he was taking all the steps from trainman up, on the Fall Brook Railroad; and when he got to be general manager he put it in on his road. The system, as modified by most of the roads, is a sort of bookkeeping, with debits and credits in the shape of marks, to the account of each man. Generally speaking, a perfect record for any term of years may not be entered as a credit item in the book, although conspicuous instances of heroism or devotion to duty are sometimes noted. But a perfect record for a certain