ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the activities of employers that have to do with the selection and training of workers and with programs designed to ensure safe working conditions and to maintain the health of employees. The value of proper selection techniques was recognized in isolated instances but prevailing techniques appear crude and unrefined in light of modern methods of hiring. There were no major differences between the apprentice training programs of the railroads and industrial firms. Industrial training in public schools was practically unknown prior to 1875 and made little headway until after 1900. Prevailing common law principles, under which the burden of proof in any industrial accident always rested with the employee, failed to provide employers with an incentive to establish safe conditions of work. Before the first decade of the present century had ended, safety programs and the use of medical and hospital facilities received increasing attention from employers.
