The history of human resource development reveals that education, training, and organization development of all sorts are largely the products of social and eco- nomic conditions. Scott's (1914) early characterization of education is still mean- ingful: "education is the attempt of a civilization to perpetuate what it believes to be most vital in itself" (p. 73). Personnel training and development has a unique role in the history of the human resource development (HRD) profession. As you will read in this chapter, training-in the form of parent-child, master-apprentice workplace learning models-has existed throughout all recorded history of the human race. The his- tory of HRD helps the reader understand (1) the origins of the HRD profession, (2) the major developments and events, and (3) the reason why the profession is as it now exists.