proper exercise of one's individual abilities, because under such unsocial conditions best results are not obtainable from human beings. A prematurely incapacitated workman, much more than an inefficiently employed one, is a direct financial loss to the industry and a direct economic loss to the community. But it is particularly the social and ethical aspects of the question which I wish to emphasize. That the owners and managers of plants under scientific management recognize and capitalize that source of additional personal profit is true; that they consciously consider their economic obligations may or may not be true; but that they primarily and continuously have the best interests of their people at heart, not from any ulterior motives but because they are that sort of person, I believe can be doubted by no one who will take the trouble to visit them and their employees. They would otherwise never have achieved scientific management for scientific management is distinctly a thing to be achieved; it cannot be purchased and it cannot be had or maintained without this attitude. One would naturally expect, therefore, to find in such plants satisfactory conditions as regards accidents, health and sanitation, the speedy and impartial adjustment of grievances, and comfortable working conditions generally. The providing of such necessities follows almost as a matter of course. In addition are found also in varying degrees of completeness rest and recreation rooms, playgrounds, libraries, lunch rooms where necessary operated at cost, first aid hospitals, etc., on an unpretentious scale according to strict utility. Such measures, if initiated upon actual need and if properly regulated, are appreciated by the employees and express the good will of the firm toward them. Then, as a step further, there are the mutual benefit societies and insurance and retirement funds which were initiated by Mr. Taylor very early in his work and which are very characteristic of plants following his lead as well as of many others at the present time. There is another phase of this question, however, which is of much greater importance than most of the measures enumerated in that it affects the workman during his entire working hours while he is at the machine and for his entire life as a productive member of society. While it is important to provide means for caring for him during temporary sickness or disability and after he has ceased to be productive, it is at least equally important that his period of usefulness be safeguarded and prolonged through attention to his daily work. This is accomplished through the determination of "the best day's work that a man could do, year in and year out and still thrive under." The object of time study is just this - the determination of a proper day's work which, through allowance for rest and necessary delays, the workman may do year in and year out and thrive under. The setting of a task either too high or too low is equally shortsighted, since the object for which the study is made is thereby defeated. As a vital part of the determination of such a task is the investigation of the tiring effect on a workman for each class of work, investigations commonly described today by the term "fatigue study." It is significant that the first "fatigue study" ever conducted in a really thoro and scientific manner, so far as the writer's records show, was performed over thirty years ago by Mr. Taylor as a part of his determination of a proper day's work. Indeed, so far ahead of the time was he that, except as embodied in the routine of current time study according to the methods he and his 1 Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, pp. 53-59. associates developed and insisted upon these early researches seem until very recently to have been generally overlooked until the admirable work of the British Health of Munition Workers Committee served again to emphasize their importance. And, in closing the discussion of this topic, it may be stated that, in spite of the oft-expressed fears on the part of various estimable gentlemen that the so-called "speeding up " would result to the immediate or ultimate detriment of the worker, no authentic case of anything but beneficial results has been brought to light. E. Selection, Fitting, and Training It would be difficult to overestimate the advantage both to the individual and to the nation of a condition where each person could be engaged, under conditions satisfactory to him, upon work for which he is naturally best fitted. The misfits in industry are the causes of a direct loss of thousands of dollars annually, and of a loss of initiative impossible to appraise and of far greater importance. In the first place it is an economic waste to hire a workman who is not fitted for the work in hand. This waste is not always avoidable or even to be avoided under all circumstances, however. In the second place, after a man is hired he must be quickly trained to his full productiveness or transferred without delay to work on which this will be possible. He must in the third place, both for his own sake and for that of the management, be taught to do several different operations if possible (see Babcock's formula, item 3, page 491, above), and finally in the fourth place he must be given an opportunity to measure up to his full abilities as he proves, by 1 See Merrick, D. V., "Time Studies for Delay Allowances," American Machinist, June 21, 1917, p. 1061 (and preceding articles) where carefully worked out charts show proper allowances for rest and delays under various conditions. careful and impartial records, that he can assume increasing responsibilities. It is a direct loss to employ a man on work for which he not fitted, or to fail to take advantage to his full ability. The human scrap heap of discouraged, discontented and worn out men is but a sorry return for our modern industrial system. If we believe that "for each man some line (of work) can be found in which he is first class," it imposes upon us the duty of acting in conformity with our belief. In addition it is sound business. Committed from early days to a policy of "scientifically selecting, training, teaching, and developing the workman," in plants adhering to this principle it is the customary thing, therefore, to find operatives who are now doing excellent work on their third, fourth, or even fifth trial after having previously been unsuccessful at work for which even they originally thought they were best fitted. We naturally expect to find, and do actually find, numerous cases of promotion from the ranks. Starting with the original functional foreman inappropriately called the disciplinarian, now developed into the modern functionalized Employee's Department (known variously also as the Personnel Department, the Labor Department, the Employment Department, etc.), there is set up not only a means for bringing to pass such conditions as those described above, but also a means to establish and maintain a more intimate personal touch between management and men, and to modify or counteract the tendencies on the part of the foremen and the production officials generally to press for high production regardless of the best interests always of the individual, and on the part of the employees to go to the other extreme. This department is so constituted that it sits in judgment over the employee on the one hand and the management on the other - acting as buffer, as it were, between the two. The very recent widespread adoption of this safety valve is a decided step in the right direction and has far-reaching possibilities in capable hands. F. Free Scope for Individual Initiative and "Democracy in industry " has been defined as existing where conditions are such as described in the above title. Whether we agree that this is a sufficiently comprehensive viewpoint or not, certainly this degree of "industrial democracy" should constitute the minimum for which we should strive, and is necessary for true progress. And yet even this amount is extremely difficult to obtain in modern industry, even with the best intentions in the world. Opportunity may be abundant, yet there are so many unmeasurable elements to be considered in determining advancement - so many questions of judgment and of personality and of circumstance. The best one may do is to do the best he can, in fair-mindedness and in impartiality. Monotony, where monotony exists (for there is ample evidence that many for whom in their "deadly monotonous "tasks we are prone to feel compassion, do not at all envy us with our larger responsibilities), is due not so much to the unvarying repetition of recurrent operations as to the accompanying feeling that the work holds no future possibilities. Introduce the possibility and the probability of a more attractive future, and the humdrum task becomes but a stepping stone, seen in its proper relation to the whole scheme of things and eminently serviceable and satisfactory as a present means. The belief that each of us has a marshal's baton in his knapsack is no less stimulating today than it was |