ficult to move about. In London,
where our shops are mostly cramped and old-fashioned, it would be
impossible for such large numbers of people to find admittance."

The tribute is a very nice one. For a long time the department stores
have realized the difficulties under which they labor and have been
making efforts to overcome them. They have formed associations by which
they study each other's methods, and most of them have very highly
organized systems of training and management. One big department store
carries on courtesy drives. Talks are given, posters are exhibited, and
prizes are offered for the most courteous clerks in the store. "We know
that it is not fair to give prizes," the personnel manager says,
"because it is impossible to tell really which clerks are the most
courteous, but it stimulates interest and effort throughout the
organization and the effects last after the drive is over."

One big department store which is favorably known among a large
clientele for courteous handling of customers depends upon its
atmosphere to an enormous extent, but it realizes that atmosphere does
not come by chance, that it has to be created. They have arranged it so
that each clerk has time to serve each customer who enters without the
nervous hurry which is the cause of so much rudeness. The salesclerks
who come into the institution are given two weeks' training in the
mechanical end of their work, the ways of recording sales, methods of
approach, and so on, as well as in the spirit of cooeperation and
service. By the time the clerk is placed behind the counter he or she
can conduct a sale courteously and with despatch, but there is never a
time when the head of the department is not ready and willing to be
consulted about extraordinary situations which may arise.

It is during the rush seasons such as the three or four weeks which
precede Christmas that courtesy is put to the severest test, and the
store described in the paragraph above bears up under it nobly. It did
not wait until Christmas to begin teaching courtesy. It had tried to
make it a habit, but last year several weeks before the holidays it
issued a bulletin to its employees to remind them of certain things that
would make the Christmas shopping less nerve-racking. The first
paragraph was headed HEALTH. It ran as follows:

"If you want to be really merry at Christmas time, it will be well to
bear in mind during this busy month at least these few 'health