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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
the different departments of the work. Men should be employed who
have experience in business and who are wise managers. It would
have been better years ago to have employed men who were thorough
managers,—men who would have taught thoroughness, promptness,
and economy,—even if double the wages that has been paid to foremen
had been necessary. Brother R is deficient here; he has not a happy
way of correcting evils. He undertakes to do this, but very many things
are entirely neglected that ought to be reformed at once. The office
has lacked a care-taking economist, a thorough businessman. There is
three times as much lost as would be required to pay for the very best
talent and experience in this work.
Very much is lost for want of a competent person, one who is
efficient, apt, and practical, to oversee the different departments of
the work. One is needed who is a practical printer and is acquainted
with every part of the work. There are some who understand printing,
but utterly fail in generalship. Others do the best they can, but they
are yet inexperienced and do not understand the publishing work.
Their ideas are often narrow. They do not know how to meet the
demands of the cause; and, as a consequence, they are unable to
estimate the advantages and disadvantages of enlarging their work.
They are also liable to misjudge, to make wrong calculations, and
to estimate incorrectly. There have been losses in consequence of
a failure to make proper estimates and to improve opportunities of
pushing the publishing work. In such an institution as this, thousands
of dollars may be lost through the calculations of incompetent persons.
Brother P had ability in some respects to understand and properly
estimate the interests of the publishing work, but his influence was an
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injury to the office.
There should be someone to see that the youth, as they enter the
office to learn trades, have prompt and proper attention. A man should
be employed for this work who is apt to teach, patient, kind, and
discerning. If one man is not sufficient for this work, let others be
employed. If it is done faithfully it will save to the office the wages
of three men. These youth are forming habits that will affect their
entire experience. They are, as it were, in a school; and if they are
left to pick up their knowledge as best they can, marked defects will
be seen all through their future work. The basis of thoroughness,
honesty, and integrity must be laid in youth. The formation of correct