Adults who cannot read or write nonetheless find ways to work hard, raise children, and run businesses; and sometimes, they find their way to literacy. That's the message we heard from Barbara Hilliard, who heads the Orangeburg Adult Literacy Council for Orangeburg county, currently housed at OC Tech. The County of Orangeburg is estimated to have a 37% percent illiteracy rate. The goal of the literacy program is to help clients achieve their goals.
Volunteers are needed. Can you help? Call ORANGEBURG ADULT LITERACY, (803) 268-2531.
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Taylor Garrick Has co-ordinated our efforts to adult families for Christmas. Thanks to the generosity of club members, the children in three families will find a few special presents under the tree this year.
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The Four Way Test
Of the things we think, say or do...
First,
Is it the Truth?
First,
Is it the Truth?
Second.
Is it Fair to all concerned?
Is it Fair to all concerned?
Third,
Will it build Goodwill and Better Friendships?
Will it build Goodwill and Better Friendships?
Fourth,
Will it be Beneficial to all concerned?
Will it be Beneficial to all concerned?
In a surprise move this morning, president Bill Carter hit himself with a pop quiz on the four way test (can you recite it from memory?) which it took him two tries, and one generous hint from the gallery, to pass. Hank has agreed to take (and pass) this test next meeting.
What follows is a bit of the history of the Four Way Test from a Rotary website:
The test was primarily written for his bankrupt Club Aluminium Company in 1932. Herb actually gave up his job in ‘packaged groceries; house to house sales’ (his classification in #1 club) in order to join 250 other employees onboard the so-called “sinking ship”.
Rotarian Herb retold the concept of the test in his own words:
”To win our way out of this situation, I reasoned we must be morally and ethically strong. I knew that in right there was might. I felt that if we could get out our employees to think right they would do right. We needed some sort of ethical yardstick that everybody in the company could memorize and apply to what we thought, said, and did in our relations to others.
So one morning I leaned over on my desk, rested my head in my hands. In a few moments, I reached for a white paper card and wrote down that which had come to me – in twenty-four words.”
When a company advertisement was placed before Herb, declaring his aluminium product as “the greatest cooking ware in the world”, Herb simply stated “We can’t prove that”. The advert was rewritten simply stating the facts.
Herb’s heads of department belonged to different religions and all found no incompatibility with their respective faiths. Thus, the test was “for any man to take as arises”.
The most significant and practical example of the test in action concerned an incident involving a Printing contract. One local printer won an order from Herb’s company beating all other tenders. The printer, however, soon realised that he had under-estimated his quote by $500. Legally, Club Aluminium could ignore the printer’s appeals and compel him to fulfil his side of the contract. Club Aluminium was deeply in debt and had acted in good faith but Herb asked his board to reconsider and pay the printer the extra $500. Remember the second line of the test, he told his fellow directors, - “is it fair to all concerned?”
Club Aluminium’s future grew brighter and brighter and in five years had pulled itself out of the red. Perhaps, the test had real, practical benefits.
Rotarian Herb retold the concept of the test in his own words:
”To win our way out of this situation, I reasoned we must be morally and ethically strong. I knew that in right there was might. I felt that if we could get out our employees to think right they would do right. We needed some sort of ethical yardstick that everybody in the company could memorize and apply to what we thought, said, and did in our relations to others.
So one morning I leaned over on my desk, rested my head in my hands. In a few moments, I reached for a white paper card and wrote down that which had come to me – in twenty-four words.”
When a company advertisement was placed before Herb, declaring his aluminium product as “the greatest cooking ware in the world”, Herb simply stated “We can’t prove that”. The advert was rewritten simply stating the facts.
Herb’s heads of department belonged to different religions and all found no incompatibility with their respective faiths. Thus, the test was “for any man to take as arises”.
The most significant and practical example of the test in action concerned an incident involving a Printing contract. One local printer won an order from Herb’s company beating all other tenders. The printer, however, soon realised that he had under-estimated his quote by $500. Legally, Club Aluminium could ignore the printer’s appeals and compel him to fulfil his side of the contract. Club Aluminium was deeply in debt and had acted in good faith but Herb asked his board to reconsider and pay the printer the extra $500. Remember the second line of the test, he told his fellow directors, - “is it fair to all concerned?”
Club Aluminium’s future grew brighter and brighter and in five years had pulled itself out of the red. Perhaps, the test had real, practical benefits.
Read more here; another essay is at http://www.rotaryfirst100.org/presidents/1954taylor/taylor/storybehind.htm.
