Human behaviour and its relation to industry

This volume is the first fruits of the venture. Dr. D. Ewen Cameron, Professor of Psychiatry, in cooperation with Dr. H. Graham Ross and many others, organized a series of lectures to explore the problems of mental health in industry - an almost virgin field. Although social scientists had, for many years, studied questions of noise and fatigue and con ducted elaborate efficiency studies, this is one of the first Canadian attempts to combine the special abilities of social scientists and psychiatrists. The aim is not merely to increase the production efficiency of the worker, but to explore the relationship of man to what in modern urban life constitutes an important part of his environment. It assumes that gainful employment is a normal part of a man's life and not merely a means of enabling him to live.

During these years of war, an increasing strain has been placed upon the individual worker, and it is not likely that this strain will be greatly diminished during the immediate post war years. We are aware of the need for further effort after hostilities have ceased, if we are to attain in very truth the ideals for which we are fighting, and we should be equally aware of the difficult problem of readjustment that will be encountered by individuals demobilized from the armed services, who must settle down to the normal peace-time routine of Canadian industry and agriculture. These problems of personal readjustment are as basic to a successful recon struction programme as they are to an all-out war effort, and the following pages record the sincere effort of a group of university men and industrialists to find solutions to them.