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fails, he will get only the ordinary wage.

Such, in outline, is Mr. Taylor's system. It has been adopted in many and various large industrial companies in America. The results are spoken of with enthusiasm by its inventor and by many of the capitalists and manufacturers who have adopted it. They claim that it revolutionizes industry and business, it reconciles labor and capital, it enormously reduces cost of production, and increases wages. system has been in operation long enough to make it possible to verify some of these claims by a consideration of actual results.

The

In the first place, it seems to be true that the system does make a most astonishing difference in efficiency. The systematic study of the simplest operation shows that in almost every case the traditional method of doing it is most inefficient. Here are some examples of increased efficiency obtained under scientific management:

(1) Bricklaying: 120 bricks per man
per hour increased to 350 bricks
per man per hour;

(2) Cotton goods manufacture: In-
crease of output 100 per cent.
(3) Handling pig-iron: 12%1⁄2 tons per
man per day increased to 47 tons
per man per day.

(4) Machine factory work: Increase
of production from 400 to 1,800
per cent.

(5) Shovelling: 16 tons per man per day increased to 59.

It is also true that this increase of efficiency has in most cases, been accompanied by a great decrease in cost of production and increase in wages. Thus, in the case of the shovelling quoted above, while the average daily wage per man rose from $1.15 to $1.88, the cost to the company of handling a ton fell from $0.072 to $0.033.

The claims of scientific management to solve the larger problems of industrial society are far more doubtful.

Mr. Taylor argues that increase of the output of the workman must benefit not only the whole world in general, but the workmen themselves. He is at great pains to show that such an increase does not produce unemployment, and as a proof he quotes the introduction of machinery. But no argument can ever prove that, if the efficiency of labor in any industry is improved, so that only one man is employed where two were employed before, the demand for the product will be increased sufficiently to provide employment for all. In some cases, such conditions will be fulfilled, in others they certainly will not. The whole question is one of considerable intricacy, and depends largely in each particular case upon the relation of the cost of labor to the total cost of production.

One has only to examine actual cases in which the new system was introduced, to see that the results were not all pure gain to the workers. When the scientific system of shovelling was introduced into the Bethlehem Steel Company, the number of yard laborers was reduced from about 500 to 140. It is true that the 140 men earned $1.88 per day instead of $1.15, but it is none the less true that about 360 men were thrown out of work. Again, take the case of the handling of pig-iron. The scientific investigation of the work showed that a man ought to handle 47 tons a day instead of the previous 12% tons. The task set for each man in the Bethlehem Steel Company was accordingly 47 tons. But we learn that, with the "very best intentions," seven out of eight men in a gang, employed on this work, were physically unable to complete the task." And so seven out of eight men had to find other employment.

The last example shows clearly where an abuse of the system may very easily creep in. It is the management which fixes the standard of

efficiency; the desire to earn the bonus

is what is relied upon to keep the worker up to that standard. If the management is scrupulous and careful, the standard will probably be sufficiently low; and it is true that in many cases improved methods of Scientific Management have not only increased the output, but have also made the work easier and the hours shorter. But this has not always been the case. "Efficiency engineers" are, after all, only human, and human calculations are not necessarily kept accurate by good intentions. A slight miscalculation may result in the setting of too high a standard of efficiency. When this happens, the bonus acts as a goad to urge the worker on to efforts beyond his or her strength.

And there are other considerations which make one question the hopes of Mr. Taylor and his followers, that the system can provide a permanent reconciliation of the interests of the employ. er and the employed. After all, at the root of the whole system is the enor mous increase of output of man and machine, and the consequent decrease in the cost of production. Whether the worker is to share in the profits that result must depend very much upon the spirit in which the new knowledge is used by the employer. It is true that if it is used, as Mr. Taylor used it, in the right spirit, and in accordance with the three last principles of scientific management laid down by him, little but good can result. "Each workman has been systematically trained to his highest state of efficiency, and has been brought to do a higher class of work than he was able to do under the old type of management; and at the same time, he has acquired a friendly mental attitude towards his employer and his whole working conditions."

But where so much depends upon the spirit in which the individual em

ployer uses that method, one cannot wonder that the American Trade unions have regarded the whole system with suspicion. The knowledge of the capacity of machines, animate and inanimate, which the system has accumulated is a powerful and dangerous weapon. As one reads the words of these great American manufacturers and capitalists, who ticket and label their men, who move them about in their "yards" like pawns on a chessboard, who talk of them and oil them with bonuses as if they were cog-wheels in a vast machine, it is difficult to avoid from time to time a feeling of horror for the whole system. The scientific manager studies men as if they were machines, the machinery of their minds as well as of their bodies. He not only watches every movement of the workman, stop-watch in his hand, but he is also a psychologist. He will give you a law about the cupidity of the human mind as readily as the law of heavy laboring, which tells us the tiring effect of heavy labor on a firstclass workman. Such knowledge can be, and already has been, used to drive and oppress the workman, as well as to educate and raise him. When the ownership of the Bethlehem Steel Works "passed into the hands of Charles M. Schwab, in 1901, the efficiency engineers were dismissed. But the machinery of their system was kept. Bonuses, premiums, and other inducements for greater exertions on the part of the workers were continued, but without the spirit which had previously made these contrivances part of a larger system. . . . The result was a return to the system of 'drive' such as the world has seldom seen excelled." 1

But though the system may not bring at once the millennium, which many people prophesy from it, its importance should not be overlooked

"Fatigue and Efficiency," by J. Goldmark, p. 200.

either by the worker or the employer. There are practically no limits to its application. It has already been applied, and with remarkable results, to the handling of pig-iron, the laying of bricks, the carrying of messages by office-boys, the testing of ball-bearings for bicycle wheels, the running of elaborate metal-cutting machines. The American trade union has already shown its hostility to the engineer with the stop-watch; the hostility of the English workman will probably be far greater. But the wheels of our industrial system are apt to turn without any reference to the likes or dislikes of the unfortunate people who form part of it. The breaking of machines

The Nation.

never stopped the introduction of machinery, and a system which affects production and industrial efficiency, as scientific management does, is bound to force its way in under the drive of competition. What is to be hoped and worked for is that a fair share of its benefits may fall to labor. It is a hopeful feature of it that it can never be fully successful without a very high form of co-operation between all concerned in it. That is why those who believe that some form of co-operation can be the only solution of industrial problems should consider whether they have not in this system an instrument peculiarly fitted to their hands.

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Sherman, French & Co. publish a new edition of Frederic Rowland Marvin's sermon "Christ Among the Cattle," an earnest plea for the humane treatment of animals, which has already had a wide circulation.

"A

Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin's Child's Journey with Dickens" is a charming account of a rare experience which befell her in her youth, when she had the pleasure of riding in the same seat with Dickens on a train from Portland to Boston, and with childish frankness exchanged views with him upon his own characters and stories,the entertaining parts and the dull parts, and their mutual favorites among the people who figured in them. It is a delightful bit of reminiscence appealing to all Dickens-lovers. (Houghton Mifflin Co.)

Winifred Stuart Gibbs, who is dietitian for the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, and teacher of economic cookery in Teachers' College, Columbia University, is the author of a little volume on

"Food for the Invalid and the Convalescent," which is full of practical suggestions regarding the purchase and preparation of food. The scope of the book is somewhat broader than the title indicates, for there are special menus and diets and careful estimates of the exact cost of providing a sufficient bill of fare for an average family. The "high cost of living" of which so much is said nowadays, would shrink perceptibly if these directions were followed. The Macmillan Co.

A Volume of "Suggestions for the Spiritual Life" by Professor George Lansing Raymond of the George Washington University (Funk & Wagnalls Co.) is composed of twenty or more discourses, most of which have been delivered as college chapel talks at Williams or Princeton,-and most of which also were first given many years ago during the author's early ministry over a church in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Diverse in text and theme, and preached under varying conditions,

they are alike in spirit and purpose and all fall appropriately within the designation indicated in the title. Addressed especially to young men, they touch upon large and vital themes.

Several volumes of serious intent come from the press of Sherman, French & Co. "Christianity and the Labor Movement" by William M. Balch, is an earnest and sympathetic discusion of modern labor problems and an appeal to the churches to take an active part in their solution; "Was Christ Divine?" by William W. Kinsley is a conservative and reverent presentation of the affirmative side of this great question, which supplements the same writer's recent volumes "Man's Tomorrow" and "Does Prayer Prevail?" and like those, is marked by force and clearness and an assured faith; "Mountains of the Bible" by J. J. Summerwell is a description of the mountains which have a prominent place in Bible history, from Ararat to Calvary, and a graphic sketch of the events which made them memorable.

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Tyrol," by F. W. Stoddard, illustrated in color and black and white; "The Cathedrals of England and Wales," written by T. D. Akinson and illustrated in color; a Players' Edition of Louisa M. Alcott's masterpiece, "Little Women," with pictures from scenes in the play; and two new titles in the Burlington Library, Keat's Poems and Kingsley's "Water Babies," illustrated in color.

The "1911 Bible," published by the Oxford University Press on the three hundredth anniversary of the publication of the Authorized Version, is a welcome relief to those Bible readers and students who, while realizing the need of some revision of the 1611 text, in the light of modern scholarship. were disappointed and affronted by the multitude of unnecessary and capricious changes made in the Revised Version. In the "1911 Bible" only such changes are made as were needed to clarify the text. The scrutiny of the text was entrusted to a committee of thirty-four eminent Hebrew and Greek scholars, representing various denominations, universities and divinity schools; and such corrections as have been made do not mar the beauty of the original version. The chapter and verse divisions of the original version have been retained, and there has been added a paragraph division by the simple device of increasing the space between verses where there is a new turn in the thought. A system of chain references enables the reader to trace through the text the special themes which occur in different books, and a new collected-reference system makes it possible to trace the more important occurrences of specially significant words in different passages. The volume is beautifully printed in Oxford black-faced type. Oxford University Press, American branch, New York.

SEVENTH SERIES
VOLUME LVI.

No. 3558 September 14, 1912

VOL. CCLXXIV

CONTENTS

I. The New Political America. By James Milne.

FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 643
DUBLIN REVIEW 652

II. The Futurists. By Thomas J. Gerrard.
III. The Staying Guest. Chapters I and II. By Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick.

(To be continued.)

IV. Young China and Young Turkey. By J. O. P. Bland.

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NATIONAL REVIEW 670

V. The Technique of Controversy. By Cecil Chesterton.

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FOR SIX DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, THE LIVING AGE will be punctually for warded for a year, free of postage, to any part of the United States. To Canada the postage is 50 cents per annum.

Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office or express money order if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered let ter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks express and money orders should be made payable to the order of THE LIVING AGE CO.

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