after forty years of insistence, have brought certain comforts, such as central heating, into European hotels, but how long and painful the process has been! And such reforms end at the hotels; the average English or French country-house, to say nothing of more modest dwellings, is still cold and uncomfortable in winter, at least for certain portions of the day and certain portions of the house.

This sluggishness of adoption is due to several reasons. It is due partly, as we have indicated, to a distinct liking for one's own way and a distrust of the ways of others; it is due partly to climatic conditions, which are so influential in forming the character of a race, and which in Northern Europe leave men deliberate and incurious, in Southern Europe emotional and easy-going; but it is also due very largely to the fact, merely psychological one might think, yet very real, that any idea coming to Europe from America must fight its way against a strong current that always sets the other way. Naturally, the European, from his superior historical position and his sense of what Europe has recently achieved in thought, art and invention, finds this removal from American influences quite a natural if not beneficial detachment. Better fifty years of Europe than, if not a cycle, at least several hundred years of America.

And yet, while admitting the reasons for this imperviousness, while granting that it carries with it a certain protection against whatever is excessive in Western civilisation, one may doubt whether the balance does not represent a loss rather than a gain; the unprejudiced mind, conversant with both civilisations, may feel strongly that Europe would be a better Europe if she permitted herself more easily and quickly to be permeated by Western ideals and achievement. An entirely different social order exists there, an amazing activity in all departments of life; and it could not but give a wider and therefore a truer horizon to our own outlook upon life if Europeans were at least aware of this order and activity, even if these were found not quite fit to appropriate in their entirety. Again and again, on this side of the Atlantic, we are told that certain changes in the body politic and social are quite impossible, when the other side of the Atlantic has

proved them quite possible years ago. Conditions differ, but, in general, society advances much more slowly than it might, simply because we are so ignorant of the advances made elsewhere. Content to say that human nature cannot be changed or that the British public would not put up with such and such a reform, it hangs back, rather proud of its conservatism. As a matter of fact, human nature is far more adaptable than we allow, and soon accommodates itself to new conditions, forgetting the old. And, essentially, in our reforms, it is not human nature that we wish to change; rather we are striving to effect certain benefits to society as a whole, let human nature remain or change as it will.

The two forces in America that in recent years have done most to put the American house in order and of which next to nothing is known in Europe are Efficiency and Prohibition, both of which undoubtedly interfere with individual freedom, but have come into play in the States without any of that wholesale injustice with which we are always ready to brand any reform. Prohibition has disappointed its opponents, both in the facility with which it has been introduced and established, and in the number and magnitude of the blessings it has conferred. Totally unsuspected benefits have developed, including commercial benefits which have won over the most unbelieving adversaries.

But the question of prohibition is too controversial a matter to be discussed here and now. The subject to which I wish to call attention is the other movement, also widespread in the States-that of 'Efficiency,' or 'Scientific Management,' as it was termed by its founder. I prefer the simpler term 'Efficiency,' since I wish to treat of this force in its general, philosophic aspect, rather than in its application to industrial management. I speak of Efficiency as a force, since its discovery was precisely like the discovery of some hitherto unsuspected force in nature, in that it completely revolutionised old ways of doing things and opened up new fields of achievement. Efficiency was not unknown-it is, indeed, as old as the hills; but only toward the end of the last century, and in America, was it discovered that it could be applied scientifically to all walks of life, and particularly to the output of labour and the management of business. Some

scoffed, and continue to scoff, at its (to them) exaggerated claims, pointing out that every big business must have studied Efficiency in its own particular line-it was, in fact, the very air that big businesses breathed. But the unprejudiced observer will, I think, confess that Efficiency or Scientific Management, as it has been preached and practised the last score of years in America, is a great and new idea in the world.

It developed in this way. In 1878 a young American, Frederick Winslow Taylor, whose training had been that of a pattern-maker and machinist, entered the machineshop of a steel company at Midvale, Pennsylvania. He quickly rose from the position of a day-labourer to a clerkship; next he became a machinist running one of the lathes; then, after several months, as he turned out more work than other machinists on similar lathes, he was made 'gang-boss' over all the lathes. After about three years, during which time he had been promoted to be foreman of the machine-shop, it was found that the output of the machines had been materially increased, in many cases doubled. What was the secret of this increased output Taylor had scarcely told himself, much less the world, although he had his wild surmises, as do all those who make a real discovery. To obtain this result he had changed the movements of men and machines, and had adopted many new devices for speeding-up, probably to a greater degree than is usual where any increase of production takes place without increase of labour or plant; but as yet he had hit upon no new laws of maximum results, he had not converted his ideas into a science. He was confident, however, that scientific laws existed and could be translated into formulæ that would, with determinable modifications, be applicable for all work.

Taylor was now joined by others, as enthusiastic and convinced as himself; and in the years that followed, chiefly in the steel-works of Western Pennsylvania, countless experiments were carried out, countless data tabulated, as to the maximum amount of heavy labour that could reasonably be expected of a first-class man in a day-that is, how many foot-pounds of work a man best suited to a particular job could do. The number of Vol. 229.-No. 454.

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foot-pounds varied considerably with the different kinds of heavy labour that were under inspection; in fact, it was soon discovered that there is no direct relation between the horse-power which a man exerts and the tiring effect of the work upon the man. On some kinds of work the man would be tired out when doing only one-eighth of a horse-power, while in others he would feel no greater fatigue after having done half a horsepower. After three long series of experiments, Taylor and his colleagues, by plotting the curves of their data, discovered the central law of heavy-labour maximum, namely, that to obtain the maximum output of a heavy labourer before he is tired out, he must be under load only for a percentage of the day. This percentage varies inversely with the strain caused by each given pull and push on the man's arms; the greater the strain, the smaller the percentage of the day that he should work, if the maximum result is to be obtained from his labour. Thus, when pig-iron is being handled, a first-class workman can be under load only 43 per cent. of the day when each pig weighs 92 pounds, but 58 per cent. of the day when each pig weighs 46 pounds.

Taylor got his data by timing men at work with a stop-watch. He experimented with them, noting which men did the most work, and why; seeing whether these men could do more work if they omitted certain movements or rested periodically; and timing the movements and output of these first-class men, so as to know just when these periods of rest should come and how long they should last. In the case of loading pig-iron on to a freight-car, Taylor's data pointed to the conclusion that a man suited to the job ought to be able to load between 47 and 48 tons per day, when the pigs weighed 92 pounds each. As one of the managers at the Bethlehem Steel Company, he then undertook to see whether his experimental data would hold good in practice and on a large scale. The pig-iron gang at these works at this time consisted of seventy-five men, who were lifting pigiron from a ground-pile, walking up an inclined plank and dropping it into a car at the rate of 12 long tons a day. Taylor's first step was to single out one of these men, a Dutchman called Schmidt, of the ox-type of man, and on this first day and all day long Schmidt was told

by the man who stood over him with a watch: 'Now pick up a pig and walk'; 'Now sit down and rest,' and at half-past five in the afternoon Schmidt had loaded 47 tons of pig-iron on to the car. It was then merely a question of picking out other men of the Schmidt type. Only eight were found in this particular gang, but enough of the ox-type were found either in the yard or outside; and more suitable work was found for the sixtyseven men who were not the right men in the right place when loading pig-iron. By the end of the third year in which Taylor's methods had been applied at the Bethlehem Steel Company, the number of yard-labourers was reduced from between 600 and 400 to about 140 (of whom only two were drinking men), while the average number of tons handled was increased from 16 to 59 per man per day, the average daily wage raised from $1.15 to $1.88, and the average cost of handling a long ton lowered from 73 cents to 3 cents. In this reduced cost are included the office and tool-room expenses as required by the new system of management, and all the wages of labour-superintendents, foremen, clerks, time-study men, and others.

There is the whole story. It all points one way; there is no other side to it. The men were better paid, happier and soberer, and they worked fewer hours; the Company increased the quantity and quality of its output at a reduced cost per unit, and experienced no labour troubles. In fact, wherever the Taylor system has been applied, there have been no strikes or labour troubles; and the system has been applied to every form of industry and office management during a period of thirtyfive years.

The illustration given above tells the whole story as regards increasing the production of man, but the science of efficiency has been applied with equally remarkable results to the production of machines. In one case, the gain in time made through running metal-cutting machines according to scientific principles ranged from two and a half times the speed in the lowest instance to nine times the speed in the highest. The new theory, however, meets perhaps with its greatest triumphs in those trades and occupations where the saving comes not alone from the observance of the laws of fatigue,