That is its first step toward service--the careful selection of the
human factor. The next step lies in the proper training of that factor;
and as soon as a young man enters the service of the Pullmans he goes to
school--in some one of the large railroad centers that act as hubs for
that system. Sometimes the school is held in one of the division
offices, but more often it goes forward in the familiar aisle of a
sleeping car, sidetracked for the purpose.

Its curriculum is unusual but it is valuable. One moment it considers
the best methods to "swat the fly"--to drive him from the vehicle in
which he is an unwelcome passenger; the next moment the class is being
shown the proper handling of the linen closet, the proper methods of
folding and putting away clean linen and blankets, the correct way of
stacking in the laundry bags the dirty and discarded bedding. The porter
is taught that a sheet once unfolded cannot be used again. Though it may
be really spotless, yet technically it is dirty; and it must make a
round trip to the laundry before it can reenter the service.

All these things are taught the sophomore porters by a wrinkled veteran
of the service; and they are minutely prescribed in the voluminous rule
book issued by the Pullman Company, which believes that the first
foundation of service is discipline. So the school and the rule book do
not hesitate at details. They teach the immature porter not merely the
routine of making up and taking down beds, and the proper maintenance of
the car, but they go into such finer things as the calling of a
passenger, for instance. Noise is tabooed, and so even a soft knocking
on the top of the berth is forbidden. The porter must gently shake the
curtains or the bedding from without.

When the would-be porter is through in this schoolroom his education