The present difficulty will never cease until the money value of good proof-reading is better recognized than it ever has been. At least one union in this country has always made a maximum weekly scale, and insisted upon classing readers with all other hands, at the same wages. Employers should insist upon paying as much over the union scale as they choose, and will always find it conducive to their interest to pay liberally for proof-reading and demand first-class work.
If any one is fortunate enough to have a first-class proof-reader in his employ, he will be foolish to let that reader go, if money--within reasonable bounds--will keep him. Fifty men may try to fill the place and fail before another really competent man is found.
A large proof-room should have its own foreman--not merely a head reader, but one actually in authority, just as any foreman should be, and with higher pay than the other readers have, and also with the chief responsibility. The room must, of course, be subject to the general foreman with regard to many details, whether it has a separate foreman or not; but, whoever is in charge, the readers should not be too much restricted in small, formal matters. An extreme instance that will illustrate practically what is meant by this arose through strict orders not to change anything from copy, too literally obeyed. A letter was missing from a word always spelled the one way, and the reader queried its insertion. He was an ordinarily good reader, too, who certainly had not the natural habit of doing anything stupid.
Undoubtedly better work will be turned out where there is no possibility of such queries being made, for the necessity of making them, under orders, imposes upon the reader an unfair burden of useless watchfulness that inevitably rivets his attention where it is not needed, and draws it away from matters that demand the utmost care.
SOME PRACTICAL CRITICISM FOR PROOF-READERS.
A periodical highly esteemed in literary circles, in reviewing a book, said: “The proof-reading is so bad that we infer that its author could not have seen the proofs.” The publishers of the book do their own printing, and probably think their proof-reading is as good as possible, though they may realize that it is not as good as it should be. Many employers have had trying experiences in their efforts to secure good proof-readers, and such experience may have operated in favor of poor workmen, through sheer discouragement of their employers.