A SYMPOSIUM ON 
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
 
 EFFICIENCY IN COLLEGE 
 
 ADMINISTRATION 
 
 COMPRISING AMONG OTHERS 
 
 THE PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE EFFICIENCY SESSION 
 
 OF THE TWENTIETH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE 
 
 SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF ENGINEERING 
 
 EDUCATION, HELD AT BOSTON, MASS., 
 
 JUNE 26-29, 1912 
 
 OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY 
 
 ITHACA, N. Y. 
 
 1913 
 
PRESS of 
 
 THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY 
 LANCASTER. PA. 
 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. T. B. Gilbreth 1 
 
 EDUCATIONAL DEMANDS OF MODERN PROGRESS. Harrington Emerson. 4 
 PRACTICE VERSUS THEORY IN THE SCIENCE OP MANAGEMENT. 
 
 F. A. Parklmrst 32 
 
 EDUCATION AND EFFICIENT LIVING. Meyer Bloomfield 32 
 
 THE ENGINEER AS A MANAGER. H. L. Gantt 37 
 
 THE MEN WHO SUCCEED IN SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. H. K. 
 
 Hathaway 46 
 
 THE PLACE OF THE COLLEGE IN COLLECTING AND CONSERVING THE 
 
 DATA OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. Wilfred Lewis 55 
 
 AN AUXILIARY TO COLLEGES IN THE TRAINING OF SCIENTIFIC MAN- 
 AGERS. E. T. Kent ' . 62 
 
 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING SCHOOLS. 
 
 R. B. Wolf 65 
 
 THE TEACHING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING 
 
 SCHOOLS. Hollis Godfrey 69 
 
 TEACHING THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. Walter 
 
 Rautenstrauch 82 
 
 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN THE TECHNICAL SCHOOLS. 
 
 H. F. J. Porter 94 
 
 A BROADENED VIEW OF EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEERING INSTRUCTION. 
 
 L. J. Johnson 108 
 
 ABSENCES FROM CLASSES ONE MEASURE OF INEFFICIENCY. F. P. 
 
 McKibben 112 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EFFICIENCY IN TEACHING. W. A. Hillebrand .... 118 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF COLLEGE SHOP LABORATORIES. W. F. 
 
 M. Goss 129 
 
 SETTING TASKS FOR COLLEGE MEN. S. E. Thompson 133 
 
 DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION AND EFFICIENCY. Hugo Diemer 139 
 
 ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY. William Kent 145 
 
 OPERATING ENGINEERING SCHOOLS UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 H. Wade Hibbard 161 
 
 EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION. G. H. Shepard 182 
 
 THE APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT TO THE OPERATION 
 
 OF COLLEGES. S. E. Whitaker 205 
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN THE COLLEGES. E. F. Palmer 217 
 
 iii 
 
 267887 
 
INTRODUCTION.* 
 
 BY FEANK B. GILBRETH, 
 
 Consulting Engineer, New York, N. Y. 
 
 The purposes of the papers of this session are to show : 
 
 1. What scientific management is. 
 
 2. What it can do. 
 
 3. Its possible bearing upon, and application to, academic 
 efficiency. 
 
 Scientific management is measured, functionalized manage- 
 ment, management that has submitted to measurement, and 
 that has, through the results of this measurement, so divided 
 and arranged its work as to demand and utilize individuality 
 in its workers. 
 
 We may well represent such management by the following 
 functional chart. 
 
 "X-x" represents the division between the planning and 
 the performing. The five circles above the line "x" represent 
 the superintendent and the four functions of the planning 
 department, the five circles below the line "x," the four 
 functions of the performing department and the individual 
 worker. The lines connecting the various circles represent 
 the lines of authority, if read downward ; the paths from which 
 direction and teaching come, if read upward. 
 
 This chart not only shows the method of operation of scien- 
 tific management, but also indicates the universality of its 
 field of application. 
 
 It is this universality that the various speakers and writers 
 at this session will show. They are all men of action, whom I 
 have persuaded to leave their work for today to tell you of 
 their interpretations and applications of the principles of 
 
 * Introductory remarks by Chairman Gilbreth at the session of the 
 Boston Convention of the S. P. E. E. devoted to scientific management. 
 
 1 
 
2 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 scientific management as laid down by its founder, Dr. 
 Frederick W. Taylor. Men of widely varying training and 
 experience, they are all versed in the practice as well as the 
 theory of scientific management, and all believe that through 
 scientific management alone can the problems of the academic 
 as well as the industrial world be attacked and solved. It is 
 to this belief that they have come here to testify today, and 
 they will bring to you such justification for their belief that 
 we know you too must believe. 
 
 With measurement has come the day of science. With 
 scientific management, the result of measurement, has come 
 the application of the laws of science to all work, yours and 
 ours. This is the message that we bring to you today, and 
 it is to this message that I know you desire to listen. 
 
 We all, President Raymond, Dean Anthony, Professor 
 Norris and myself, have cooperated to make it possible that 
 
FRANK B. GILBBETH. o 
 
 this message be brought to you. It has back of it a unity of 
 purpose and will. We ask, now, your cooperation in carrying 
 it to all the great schools and colleges that you represent. 
 Through your cooperation only can it be made possible that 
 scientific management shall come into its own as the great 
 bridge connecting and unifying the academic and the indus- 
 trial worlds. 
 
EDUCATIONAL DEMANDS OF MODERN 
 PROGRESS. 
 
 BY HAEEINGTON EMEESON, 
 President of The Emerson Company, New York City. 
 
 Erie is a fairly peaceful lake, quite navigable by sailors 
 of ordinary prudence and skill. 
 
 Ontario, further down stream, is another peaceful lake, also 
 quite navigable by sailors of ordinary prudence and skill. 
 
 Between the two lakes courses the Niagara River. No 
 amount of skill, no prudential methods insuring success on 
 Lake Erie are of any use in the rapids above and below the 
 falls, especially of no use in the thousand feet of swirl which 
 include the cataract. If the boatman can make the portage 
 from the upper to the lower lake, he may again use his old 
 skill. 
 
 But Lake Ontario narrows into the St. Lawrence and in 
 time this river broadens out into the Atlantic. Even the 
 skill of the French Canadian pilot through the rapids of the 
 St. Lawrence would not avail, would not fit him to navigate 
 either sailer or steamer across the great oceans. The qualities 
 of courage, resourcefulness, calmness will count, but not previ- 
 ously-acquired specific knowledge of streams and shores. 
 
 Time is also a river. It also has its lakes, its rapids and its 
 issuance into a limitless ocean. 
 
 We, voyagers down the river, are now already in the stormy 
 channel between two epochs. As never before in the history 
 of the world has past knowledge, past experience, past skill, 
 counted for so little, and never before in the history of the 
 world have men been so poorly prepared for what was ahead 
 of them. 
 
 Go back in Europe, one, five, ten, fifteen centuries, and it is 
 routine that counted. The lives of 95 per cent, of men and 
 women were fixed by status. The men died of old age near 
 
 4 
 
HAKRINGTON EMERSON. 5 
 
 where they were born, working at their fathers' and grand- 
 fathers' trade. As with Chinese women, it was absolutely 
 necessary to begin mental, physical, moral foot-bindery at the 
 earliest possible age. The Arabs are living to-day as they 
 lived in the time of Abraham. Neither their language, nor 
 their customs, nor their clothes, nor their food has changed. 
 Forty years ago in Germany, in Italy, in Greece little girls 
 were taught to knit and spin and were kept at it every possible 
 minute from dawn until dusk, until death came to them as old 
 women. Routine training was all important because routine 
 work constituted nearly all of the world's work. 
 
 But routine training has not fitted the boatman on the 
 waters of life to cope with the rapids between one epoch and 
 another, has particularly not fitted the boatman who has 
 floated down a narrow river confined by the banks of routine 
 to navigate a limitless ocean. 
 
 At El Tovar, on the brink of the Grand Canon of the 
 Colorado, is a battered boat. It belonged to two inexperienced 
 men who, in it, came down the full length of the river. 
 Although the Colorado is one of the most difficult and danger- 
 ous rivers in the world, even danger can belong to routine. 
 Each rapid is largely a repetition of the others. These men 
 acted with typical routine inspiration. They floated their 
 boat down stern foremost, rowing against the current, point- 
 ing at what was behind and not at what was ahead. 
 
 This simile likening time to a river, likening disturbing 
 epochs to cataracts, likening the future to the limitless ocean, 
 may be picturesque, but I shall justify it. , 
 
 When previous experience of an industrial kind is not avail- 
 able, then we must use contemporary experience of a similar 
 kind. 
 
 Races of plants, of insects, of animals, have met crises for 
 which previous experience was not available. Those who 
 made the most mistakes perished ; those who made the fewest, 
 survived. The survivors can give us suggestions. 
 
 The aphides, plant insects, are normally without wings. 
 One generation succeeds another with monotonous regularity. 
 
b EDUCATIONAL DEMANDS OF MODERN PEOGEESS. 
 
 There is nothing to do but stick fast to the particular plant 
 until its leaves have been devoured or are withered. When 
 famine occurs what do the aphides do? The next generation 
 has wings and flies away. Those who fail to grow wings 
 perish. 
 
 Bees similarly work day after day with all the discipline 
 and habit of routine. It looks as if no change could ever 
 come. Suddenly routine is wholly forgotten. A swarm 
 gathers, abandons the hive, the accumulated stores, the loca- 
 tion, everything that made bee life worth while, and, hanging 
 to some tree, waits while scouts seek some new refuge, the 
 hollow of a tree, a crevice in the rocks. The race of bees is 
 preserved in these crises, not by routine, but by desperate 
 and to man inconceivable initiative. 
 
 Among the migratory birds we find the same hints. The 
 stork is the emblem of domesticity. On the roof tree it 
 occupies the same nest year after year; it is counted on to 
 bring babies to human homes, but when winter comes it 
 forgets domestic routine and departs. A stork marked in 
 Norway was captured a few weeks later in South Africa. 
 
 Hatched in the cool waters of a mountain stream, salmon, 
 when partly grown, swim down and out into the salt sea. 
 Where they stay for three years no one knows. They break 
 away from the routine of the river and go out into a new life 
 for which no previous experience has prepared them. At the 
 end of four years, giving up the routine of the sea, they 
 return to ascend rivers, to leap up waterfalls, to lead a life 
 which is wholly and absolutely new. 
 
 In man, infancy and youth are marked by crises by which a 
 comparatively long period of routine is broken by great and 
 revolutionary initiative. There are sudden and tremendous 
 changes, from ovum to embryo, from foetus to breathing life, 
 from birth to weaning, from childhood to puberty. 
 
 Whether insects, fish, birds or men, when the crises come, 
 only those who develop intiative, who forget routine, who 
 look ahead and not backwards, survive. We therefore find 
 that initiative alternates with routine as part of the law of 
 progress. 
 
HARRINGTON EMERSON. 7 
 
 But are we now in a period of transition, a peculiar epoch, 
 an age requiring for survival initiative and not routine? If 
 we are in such an epoch, then it is immensely important to 
 free ourselves from the trammels of routine and to grow the 
 wings of initiative. Those who do not will perish. 
 
 Let me demonstrate to you by a single example that we are 
 in this epoch of transition. To bring out the difference be- 
 tween the old order and the new, I shall compare the genera- 
 tion of power in China and in America. Make no mistake! 
 The difference is not one of race capacity. The yellow race 
 is as numerous as the white, it has counted among its members 
 great religious teachers, the greatest of conquerors, the 
 greatest of artists, it has evolved a civilization that has en- 
 dured two thousand years. We fear the Chinese as we do 
 not fear negroes, Indians or Mexicans. We fear them on 
 account of their superlative qualities. The difference at the 
 present time between the white and yellow is not one of race 
 capacity but solely of opportunity. 
 
 In China men are paid $0.01 an hour for climbing tread- 
 mills actuating stern wheels which propel river boats. These 
 coolies convert their stored human muscular energy into 
 mechanical foot-pounds. From experience with treadmills in 
 British prisons we know exactly the mechanical equivalent of 
 hard labor. It is a climb of 8,640 feet each 24 hours. This 
 is the limit of human endurance for a succession of days. To 
 convert this into horse-power we must know the man's weight 
 and the number of hours he works each day. The average 
 weight of man is about 150 pounds. A man of this weight 
 climbing 8,640 feet in 24 hours yields 1,296,000 foot-pounds. 
 A horse-power for 24 hours is 47,520,000 foot-pounds. It 
 would therefore take 36.6 Chinamen to yield a continuous 
 horse-power and the wages of these Chinamen would amount 
 to $3.66 per day, or $1,336 a year. 
 
 From Niagara you can buy a horse-power year for $20. It 
 costs the paper mills which have their own power about $12 a 
 year for continuous horse-power. Human energy at $0.10 a 
 day costs one hundred and ten times as much as this water- 
 
8 EDUCATIONAL DEMANDS OF MODEKN PKOGKESS. 
 
 power energy, although the supervising human labor receives 
 an average of $3 a day. 
 
 The substitution of uncarnate energy for human muscular 
 energy has increased wages thirty-fold and has cheapened 
 power to 1 per cent, of its cheapest muscular price. This 
 is not all. When men are used as power generators the supply 
 is strictly limited and can be easily monopolized. Uncarnate 
 energy is without limit as long as there is coal and oil and gas, 
 as long as the sun shines and makes organic fuels or draws 
 up water from the surface of the ocean. 
 
 For strictly limited horse-power at $1,336 a year we now 
 have unlimited horse-power at a minimum price of $12. 
 
 We have brought about this gigantic change in conditions 
 not by adhering to routine but by abandoning it. This 
 example could be paralleled in every direction. 
 
 The ability to use without limit cheap power has revolu- 
 tionized all conditions. To spade up a section of land would 
 take an active man's energy for 500 years. With oil power 
 tractors and gang plows three men can turn over 640 acres 
 of land in 36 hours. It is good hard work to make a broad 
 jump of 20 feet at a speed of 10 miles an hour, rising 4 feet 
 from the ground, but aeroplanes at the international contest 
 this year will fly 80 miles at a speed which may reach 110 
 miles an hour, and fly as easily at an altitude of 5,000 feet as 
 at 50. Formerly a man could carry a maximum load of 
 100 pounds; to-day his trains drag 6,000 tons and his ships 
 carry 30,000 tons. Formerly a man's voice carried 500 feet; 
 now as he sits at his desk he can reach with his voice 20,000,- 
 
 000 people, some of them a thousand miles away. 
 
 I do not consider myself an old man, yet almost nothing of 
 engineering importance to-day was taught when as a youth 
 
 1 went to one of the foremost technical schools in the world, 
 and almost nothing that I there specifically learned has any 
 value to-day. I learned from Weisbach's great work how to 
 design Dutch windmills and overhead water wheels, but not 
 a word of dynamos or motors, of telephones, of gas engines 
 or of gas producers, of storage batteries or of aeroplanes. I 
 
HARRINGTON EMERSON. 9 
 
 was trained looking backwards into the past. I was not 
 trained for what was ahead of me. 
 
 There was never a period since the world began when man 
 had so rapidly to abandon the practices of the past and to 
 put his trust in what his father and mother knew nothing 
 about. 
 
 The changes in the last fifty years have therefore scrapped 
 most of the technical experiences of the past and have pro- 
 foundly modified moral obligations. 
 
 Our parental training, our religious training, our school 
 training and our social training have been governed by the 
 ideals of the routine past. Although progress absolutely de- 
 pended on initiative and to a very small extent on routine, 
 we have not been equipped morally, mentally or physically 
 to do good original work. 
 
 Much of Socialism, for instance, rests on the assumption 
 that the good things in the universe are strictly limited in 
 quantity and if any man has more than the average he must 
 have robbed somebody else. The same assumption underlies 
 the aspiration for suffrage by women. If anything was ever 
 a routine survival from the foolish past it is the idea that 
 suffrage is a panacea. I would give suffrage to those who 
 want it, as I would give away a worn-out garment. Far more 
 important than suffrage is the realization that the home, the 
 school, the church and the ball-room, where men and women 
 work side by side, are cleaner and more efficient than busi- 
 nesses managed by men alone. 
 
 The good things in the universe are not limited. The tele- 
 scope shows that there are billions of suns in reserve, most of 
 them larger and finer than our sun. We have reached out 
 with our nerves of sight and rescued these suns from the 
 bottomless void. We may in time harness their heat for 
 our service, even as we now make the oscillations of the ether 
 carry our messages. Grand opera is no longer limited to the 
 rich, nor moving scenes in distant lands to bold travelers. 
 The phonograph, even making alive the voices of the dead, 
 brings into the lone, cold, winter camp in Northern Alaska 
 
10 EDUCATIONAL DEMANDS OF MODEBN PBOGKESS. 
 
 a wealth of music which twenty years ago no emperor could 
 have commanded. A tramp, for the price of a beer, can sit 
 in comfortable, cool and restful darkness, watching living 
 scenes out of the long ago, scenes that not even the greatest 
 traveler could formerly have witnessed. 
 
 It is not true that the few are growing richer because they 
 are impoverishing the many. 
 
 It is true that our greatest men, the men to whom on 
 account of their initiative we owe most, were not trained to 
 use their great gifts. They received a routine education, and 
 as they found it of no use, like children who have found 
 a box of matches, they did not know how to use the blessing 
 of fire. 
 
 The old rules of the road, the turning to the right, the halt 
 at grade crossings to look and to listen, the speed limit of six 
 to eight miles an hour, cannot be applied to aeroplanes, yet 
 we have tried to keep our Rockefellers, our Carnegies, our 
 Harrimans, our Hills, within routine bounds. We have not 
 even advanced to the state of using modern devices. We are 
 still teaching our children to read fairy tales instead of watch- 
 ing moving pictures ; we teach them to write instead of train- 
 ing them on typewriters ; we painfully drill into them multi- 
 plication tables instead of initiating them into the mysteries of 
 the slide rule; we teach them to add and subtract instead of 
 drilling them on comptometers; we teach them to draw in- 
 stead of carefully training them to use photography ; we have 
 them drum for years on the piano even if they have no 
 musical ability, when they ought to be trained to put a soul 
 into mechanical records. 
 
 What is the fault of the whole educational system? As is 
 always the case, when routine is placed above initiative, we 
 are relying on methods and devices and systems instead of on 
 principles; we codify our laws and add countless new ones 
 instead of branding every one of us with the fundamentals. 
 So absolutely unprepared are we by past training and teach- 
 ing that we would have great difficulty in agreeing as to 
 what the fundamentals are. The need of the age is clearly 
 
HARRINGTON EMERSON. 11 
 
 to see and practice, not a Christian era conception, nor a 
 Crusade conception, not a Reformation conception, not an 
 American revolution conception, but a twenty-first century 
 conception of the golden rule, of ethical ideals worthy of the 
 telephone, wireless, gas engines, aeroplanes and radium. The 
 new era must produce a new man. Will he prove a Franken- 
 stein ? 
 
 I have no right to assume that I can see further into the 
 starry night ahead than any other on the lookout, but it 
 seems to me that what we most need is to come to some under- 
 standing of the relative responsibilities of individual, of 
 corporation and of state. 
 
 The collective average is always weaker than the best units. 
 The average duration of human life is determined by a means 
 in which the shortest has as much weight as the longest. The 
 average wisdom of government is the mean between the fool 
 and the wise man. The way to better man in the aggregate is 
 not to lessen the responsibility of each unit, but to increase it ; 
 to bring, from within, the poorest units up to the level of 
 the present best and to have the present best establish a higher 
 standard. 
 
 What is the particular application to engineering schools? 
 
 Engineers more than any others ought to be able to appre- 
 ciate the value of initiative. The courses in the engineering 
 schools ought to be modified so as to develop initiative. Engi- 
 neering students ought to be taught to distrust all the tradi- 
 tions of the past. The engineering teacher ought to warn 
 away from anything that has already been tried out. The 
 assumption ought always to be that "what is" is probably 
 wrong, and the absurdities of "what is," for instance, a 
 locomotive engineer on the tail end of the engine, ought to be 
 unmercifully pilloried. The student ought to be taught to 
 guide himself, not by landfalls and landmarks, but by the 
 eternal stars. It can be done and it is the duty of teachers 
 of engineering to do it. 
 
PRACTICE VERSUS THEORY IN THE SCIENCE 
 OF MANAGEMENT. 
 
 BY FREDERIC A. PARKHUEST, 
 
 Organizing Engineer, Detroit, Mich. 
 
 It is not the author's intention to imply by the title of this 
 article that practice and theory do not each bear a most im- 
 portant part in the science of management. These two words 
 are symbolic of two chief factions, one for and one against 
 our new science of management. To the layman, scientific 
 management is a theory, pure and simple. To the manufac- 
 turer, who has put his plant under this form of management, 
 it stands for prosperity to the firm and all its employees, a 
 new era of industrial peace and contentment, low costs and 
 high wages. 
 
 It is not at all remarkable that there should be such a wide 
 difference of opinion on this subject. It would indeed be 
 remarkable if it were not so. History repeats itself. "What is 
 now true of scientific management has been in the past true 
 of all great steps or changes, tending to the advancement of 
 the human race. The march of progress in all things would 
 cease were there no obstacles to surmount. Columbus, Watt, 
 Ericson, Morse, Marconi, Langley, Chanute and the Wright 
 Brothers, as well as many others, were each and every one at 
 first considered theorists or cranks. Their dreams of the 
 possibilities of their chosen lines of work at first seemed 
 ridiculous to their contemporaries but the practical applica- 
 tion of their ideas has far outstripped their broadest concep- 
 tion of these subjects. 
 
 There is no doubt that the new science of management will 
 come into its own through exactly the same process of tran- 
 sition. The few chief exponents of scientific management are 
 in exactly the same position as were the inventors and investi- 
 
 12 
 
FREDERIC A. PARKHURST. 13 
 
 gators mentioned above. No one can deny that the field of 
 the organizing engineer opens into vast fields of progress. 
 The benefits which will accrue from the universal application 
 of the new science of management will affect in a greater or 
 less degree all of the working class in this country, eventually 
 the world. The author once predicted that the science of 
 management was ''slowly but surely becoming universal in 
 this country. ' ' That was nearly eight years ago, and he now 
 reiterates the same prophecy. In fact, the striving for effi- 
 ciency in life as well as business is becoming universal much 
 faster than any one, except the best informed, realizes. This 
 is primarily due to the fact that in the last year or two, sci- 
 entific management has been prominently brought to the 
 attention of the entire country on several great occasions. 
 Chief of these are : 
 
 1. The Interstate Commerce Commission investigation last 
 year into the proposed increase in railroad freight rates. 
 
 2. The formation in New York, December, 1911, of the 
 Society to Promote the Science of Management. 
 
 3. The conference on scientific management at the Amos 
 Tuck School of Administration and Finance at Dartmouth 
 College, in October, 1911. 
 
 4. Formation of the Efficiency Society in New York, in the 
 spring of 1912. 
 
 5. Congressional Committee's investigation and report on 
 the Taylor and similar methods of scientific management. 
 
 In addition to the above mentioned events there has been 
 a general exploitation and discussion of the subject in nearly, 
 if not all, of the trade journals, monthly magazines and society 
 transactions, to say nothing of the newspaper reports, etc. 
 All of this publicity has of course had its effect. Fortunately 
 and justly, the majority of the articles and discussions have 
 been favorable in their attitude. The few which have not 
 been so were obviously written by persons scanning the sub- 
 ject superficially or with distorted vision. 
 
 I am sure that all the chief supporters and exponents of 
 scientific management will join me in heartily inviting a 
 2 
 
14 PBACTICE VEKSUS THEOBY. 
 
 thorough and impartial investigation of its principles and the 
 results which follow a practical application of those principles. 
 Such an investigation is the easiest, most logical and surest 
 way of enlightening oneself on the subject. It is unfortu- 
 nate that a number of would-be critics have apparently not 
 made a thorough and impartial study of this subject "on the 
 ground." They have evidently passed the door and guessed 
 as to what was within. They have a perfect right to guess, 
 form their own opinions, etc., for their own personal satisfac- 
 tion. When they attempt, however, to exploit their sup- 
 posed knowledge of the subject to the detriment, intentionally 
 or otherwise, of those directly to be benefited by the adoption 
 of scientific management, it is time they and their followers 
 become enlightened. 
 
 There are undoubtedly many "theorists" who believe that 
 scientific management can be studied, rehearsed and memo- 
 rized in the school room or library and ' ' presto ! " an efficiency 
 engineer is born. It must be acknowledged that many effi- 
 ciency engineers have sprung into the field in just this way. 
 They are full of theory but not the theory, and without the 
 practical knowledge of their subject or of men. 
 
 Many theories may of course be formed by as many differ- 
 ent men. These theories but reflect the scope of each man's 
 imagination or grasp of the fundamentals. There may be 
 many theories as to scientific management, what it is, its scope, 
 value, etc. That these theories vary so widely is but natural. 
 They are due entirely to a lack of understanding, or full com- 
 prehension of the fundamental principles. Mr. Fred W. 
 Taylor defines scientific management as a combination of the 
 following elements : 
 
 A. "Science, not rule of thumb." 
 
 B. "Harmony, not discord." 
 
 C. "Cooperation, not individualism." 
 
 D. "Maximum output in place of restricted output." 
 
 E. "Development of each man to his greatest efficiency 
 and prosperity." 
 
 Many people consider the above combination of elements a 
 
FREDERIC A. PARKHURST. 15 
 
 theoretical proposition which works out easily on paper but 
 will not resolve itself into a practical solution. Let us analyze 
 Mr. Taylor ? s principles separately : 
 
 A. "Science, not rule of thumb." There has been much 
 criticism of the word "science" or "scientific" as applied to 
 the problem of management. Many critics claim that there 
 can be nothing scientific in works-management and that the 
 word so used is incorrect. Webster 's definition of science is : 
 "Systematized knowledge of the conditions and relations of 
 mind and matter; accepted facts and principles as demon- 
 strated by induction, observation or experiment. ' ' If systema- 
 tized investigation and compilation of data pertaining to 
 knowledge of the conditions and relations of mind and matter 
 do not represent the most important feature of proper man- 
 agement, then what does? A common-sense method of pro- 
 ceeding with each piece of work is to find 
 
 (a) What must be done, 
 
 (ft) What material used. 
 
 (c) How must it be done. 
 
 (d) With what tools. 
 
 (e) How long will it take. 
 (/) When will it be done. 
 (g) What will it cost. 
 
 To answer these preliminary questions satisfactorily one must 
 have a complete knowledge of the equipment and material 
 involved, of the qualifications of the individual workers and 
 of the various other elements entering into the completion of 
 each piece of work. This comprehensive knowledge comes 
 through specially trained men, detailed to carry on and record 
 all investigations necessary. It is most certainly in line with 
 scientific methods of procedure. 
 
 B. l i Harmony, not discord. " It is needless to say much in 
 the way of advocating the desirability of harmony over dis- 
 cord. This of course is axiomatic and there can possibly be 
 no sustained criticism of such a feature in any form of man- 
 agement, whether scientific or otherwise. 
 
 C. "Cooperation, not individualism." Another common- 
 sense element which allows of little controversy. 
 
16 PKACTICE VEKSUS THEORY. 
 
 D. "Maximum output in place of restricted output. " A 
 concern to be successful, and to run its business profitably, 
 must realize from its equipment and working force a maxi- 
 mum output and each must maintain that condition if it hopes 
 to stay in business in the face of modern competition. The 
 country is suffering to-day from over equipment in the way 
 of plants and accessories. The result shows a great waste both 
 in first investment and indirect charges including depreciation 
 while the plant is running, to say nothing of the great over- 
 head charge and depreciation in slack times when the plant 
 is lying idle. Why deny that maximum production is too 
 often striven for in a most unintelligent way? As far as the 
 personnel is concerned, maximum production can only be 
 obtained by surrounding them with the elements mentioned 
 above science, harmony and cooperation. 
 
 E. ' ' Development of each man to his greatest efficiency and 
 prosperity. " Here again we have an element which should 
 need but little argument in support of it. In point of fact, 
 however, we often find opinions to be diametrically opposed to 
 what we would naturally expect to find. The trouble, how- 
 ever, is not with the principle involved or with the theory that 
 it is a desirable and necessary thing to strive for this maxi- 
 mum efficiency and prosperity. The cause is often a lack of 
 knowledge of what is involved and a deplorable misunder- 
 standing of the objects and intentions of those striving to 
 bring about maximum efficiency. 
 
 I have discussed these principles at some length and many 
 may think I am going over ground which has already been 
 covered. My object, however, in doing this is to again bring 
 before those who have not clearly analyzed the principles of 
 scientific management what is involved and just what the 
 ideal is. There has been too much taken for granted on the 
 part of some critics. The result has been a certain factor of 
 opposition, which is wholly uncalled for. May this resume 
 help to clear the subject. 
 
 One of the common criticisms heard is to the effect that 
 "scientific management may do for some kinds of work, but 
 
FKEDEBIC A. PAEKHUKST. 17 
 
 it will not do in ours. ' ' The exponent of the science of man- 
 agement must ever bear in mind that he faces an educational 
 proposition continually. It is easy to condemn something 
 which one does not understand. This being an admitted fact 
 and bearing in mind that many of the persons directly affected 
 by the introduction of scientific management are not in a 
 position to understand these things, it behooves every organiz- 
 ing engineer to pay special attention to this one feature 
 namely, education. 
 
 In considering the educational feature one must not over- 
 look the psychological element involved. To the author's 
 mind this is the most important factor in the successful in- 
 stallation of the science of management, and is the one thing 
 which has made failures from what would otherwise have been 
 successes. That such failures have existed cannot be denied. 
 It is equally true that the trouble has never been with the 
 principles involved but usually with the general unfitness of 
 those attempting to carry out the work. Other failures can 
 be traced to the attempt to copy and install some particular 
 feature of scientific management without the rest of the ele- 
 ments necessary. Men attempting to do this usually have a 
 superficial book-knowledge of the subject and are wholly lack- 
 ing in the true conception of the ideals and principles in- 
 volved. Practical shop experience and the ability to handle 
 men are absolute requisites for the successful introduction of 
 the principles by any engineer. 
 
 Before taking up in detail some examples to illustrate the 
 difference between the theoretical feature, or the bare outline 
 of principle, and the practical method of installing those prin- 
 ciples, I want to emphasize the fact that it is not so much 
 what you do in the way of radical changes as in how you 
 make them. Again I repeat that the true conception and real- 
 ization of the psychological element and its bearing on every 
 branch of management work must be recognized as the most 
 important of all the elements. To be successful the organiz- 
 ing engineer must master the psychological feature of each 
 and every problem first, last and always. 
 
18 PKACTICE VERSUS THEORY. 
 
 Now as to the methods used in the practical application of 
 the above mentioned principles, the organizer must thoroughly 
 acquaint his client with what is involved in order to realize 
 from these principles maximum results. Stockholders, direc- 
 tors and officers of the company must be informed as to what 
 may be expected in the way of results. They should thor- 
 oughly study all phases of the problem and try to realize the 
 difficulties likely to be met. Not the least of these will be the 
 idiosyncrasies and biased ideas of some of the personnel. The 
 fact must not be lost sight of that at least some of the older 
 and most valuable employees must be patiently and carefully 
 weaned from some or most of their old traditions and habits. 
 Those of the old school must not be blamed if at first they 
 show ignorance or disapproval of radical changes. Their 
 environment and training is responsible for this frame of 
 mind. These same men will be the most enthusiastic and the 
 strongest supporters of the new regime when they begin to 
 see its advantages. They will be the first to show a new and 
 lasting sense of satisfaction and contentment with the elimina- 
 tion of friction, the maintenance of schedules and the in- 
 creased results easily accomplished with a minimum of mental 
 and physical outlay. 
 
 The period of transition is often a long and annoying one 
 for all concerned. This is due to the many variables to be 
 overcome. Patience and tact will win out in the end if each 
 and every one realizes that every one is human after all. 
 Time is the essential factor, and the time required depends 
 upon the mental attitude of each. The author to-day enjoys 
 the friendship and cooperation of many men now working 
 under scientific management, who at first opposed him at 
 every turn and condemned new methods before sufficient time 
 had elapsed to prove their worth. Men must be shown, edu- 
 cated, led, not driven. It is only the extreme case where in 
 the end a man has to be removed for failure to abide by the 
 new order of things. Study each man's character, find the 
 avenue of approach and he can be educated and made efficient 
 in spite of himself. Many men, particularly those in the more 
 
FREDERIC A. PARKHURST. 19 
 
 responsible positions, have a natural and deeply rooted 
 antipathy for being shown by others. They wish to be known 
 and recognized as the originator of all that is new or an im- 
 provement over the existing order of things. It has been my 
 experience that one of the best and surest ways of handling 
 persons of this make-up is to accomplish the desired end 
 through suggestion. In the majority of cases a few words 
 followed judiciously with concrete examples to illustrate your 
 point will sow the seed of desire. This seed will immediately 
 take root and sprout forth as an original and newly discovered 
 method sure to meet the exigencies of the occasion. This 
 method will not do with all men of this mental attitude. Some 
 will not be influenced or convinced until shown by actual 
 accomplishment. Others can be recruited by the proper pre- 
 sentation of the results of an analytical study of conditions 
 followed by cold, impartial figures. Figures talk, especially 
 if they are always recapitulated into a bare statement of value 
 in dollars and cents. 
 
 Other men will be found in every organization who have an 
 inherent faith in any new departure ordered by their supe- 
 riors. Such cases do not offer the same kind of handicap, as do 
 those above cited. They do offer another possible source of 
 trouble however: that of a too earnest wish to reach the 
 desired goal, without due appreciation of the difficulties and 
 conditions to be overcome and changed. Material difficulties 
 can be removed with comparative ease. Changes directly 
 affecting the personnel are often far from easy and continual 
 restraint must be exercised for this reason. If this restraint 
 is not present the too enthusiastic department head or some 
 subordinate will find himself opposed by a stone wall of per- 
 sonal opposition. Many men can be led but only the few 
 can be pushed. 
 
 Education of the rank and file is fully as important as the 
 education of the principals and heads of departments. The 
 education of the former is much easier, however, when the 
 latter have graduated, so to speak. Let those at the top set 
 the example. Shop men as a rule have the erroneous idea 
 
20 PKACTICE VEKSUS THEORY. 
 
 that their superiors and office force are inclined to consider 
 themselves on a much higher plane and seemingly force them- 
 selves to the necessary intercourse with those beneath them. 
 There is no doubt but that in many cases this condition ex- 
 ists. That it is often so is most unfortunate as well as unneces- 
 sary and most undesirable. One of the greatest advantages 
 of real scientific management lies in the fact that such a 
 demoralizing and disastrous condition of affairs is eliminated. 
 I do not mean to imply by this statement that scientific man- 
 agement is the sole remedy for such a condition, but it is never- 
 theless a sure remedy. In point of fact, under scientific man- 
 agement the rank and file are placed in position to demand 
 and get from their superiors proper working conditions, and 
 as to maintenance of equipment and supply of material, to 
 get cooperation, and the " square deal." Responsibility is 
 placed where it belongs. No one high or low can ''put it 
 over" on another, because the responsibilities and duties of 
 each are clearly defined in writing. The pressure of respon- 
 sibility is not one sided and concentrated in one place, or 
 directed towards the weak. It is equalized. Instead of tur- 
 moil and contention like the troubled and restless sea, which 
 makes smooth running impossible, we have the calm and 
 reliable medium of a harbor sheltered by the bulwarks of 
 harmony. The least opposing influence immediately becomes 
 apparent. It can be localized and remedied at once. 
 
 The best influence is an honest confidence in the entire per- 
 sonnel. An efficient organization with reliable heads and a 
 spirit of cooperation in touch, through these mediums, with 
 all of the personnel, lays the foundation for a lasting and 
 trouble-free industrial or business condition. To bring about 
 these conditions eternal vigilence is necessary. No one must 
 be allowed to harbor any misunderstanding as to the intent 
 of the reorganization. Investigate and trace to its source 
 every disturbing influence. Let no one misunderstand the 
 ultimate object in view. Openly advertise and propound the 
 chief elements or principles of our new science of management. 
 
FKEDEBIC A. PAKKHUKST. 21 
 
 A. SCIENCE, NOT RULE OP THUMB. 
 
 Having observed the above essentials, the next step is to 
 bring under control equipment, methods and output. This 
 has formerly been left to the foreman and bosses. Details 
 and responsibilities have been thrust upon them which should 
 be borne by others. Specialization is the order of the day 
 under scientific management. 
 
 The modern planning room is the first really radical inno- 
 vation. The production clerk, order-of-work clerk, route clerk, 
 material boss, shop engineer, time-study man and speed 
 bosses, are new functional men. These are created to take 
 off of the shoulders of foremen and others, duties for which 
 they are specially trained. Through this department we begin 
 to control shop equipment, methods and material. 
 
 The different planning-room men begin through analytical 
 study of conditions to determine the shop conditions. Work 
 for the shops is planned and distributed in the most efficient 
 way. Delays due to faulty equipment are investigated and a 
 recurrence made impossible. Equipment is tuned up, cared 
 for and kept in repair. The result is that each machine and 
 man is made more productive. There are no waits or delays 
 on account of absence of material with which to work. Some 
 men or machines are not piled up with work while others 
 work from hand to mouth. The work ready for processing is 
 evenly and judiciously distributed. I have known of cases 
 where one third (J^) of a day of man and machine, often 
 of gangs of men, has been wasted, due to such causes. This 
 condition is common; the effect is demoralizing and tends 
 to gradually decrease the daily output per man. Over equip- 
 ment due to lack of planning and to pure guesswork is also 
 largely responsible for a decreased output per capita. Pro- 
 duction clerk, order-of-work clerk, route clerk, and material 
 boss remedy this. 
 
 Having provided for the maintenance of standardized 
 equipment, conditions and flow of material, the methods must 
 be investigated. The shop engineer determines the tools and 
 methods; the time-study boss determines the standard time, 
 
22 PRACTICE VEKSUS THEORY. 
 
 and the data is available for the issuance of instruction cards. 
 The speed bosses then see that the instruction cards are fol- 
 lowed and the standard time realized. 
 
 It will be seen by the above brief explanation that what is 
 ordinarily done by one or two men is done under scientific 
 management by six or seven or more, depending upon the 
 kind of business. What is the result? Each of the chief 
 planning room men becomes highly proficient in his particular 
 branch. Through them it is possible to itemize and analyze 
 into small elements all details of a business. They have com- 
 plete and up-to-date records of all work which has been done. 
 Comparison can be made, both of methods, quality, time and 
 cost. Kelative capacity of machines, men, productive units 
 and departments can be made, and work planned and dis- 
 tributed accordingly. Elemental operations can be standard- 
 ized, and men can be trained to do them in standard time 
 with a minimum of effort. Each man's efficiency can be kept 
 track of and his work and pay regulated, independent of his 
 fellow workmen. The accumulation of data makes possible 
 the correct determination of how much men as well as 
 machines can do daily without undue fatigue and eventual 
 break-down. We can safeguard our machines by not over- 
 loading them, because stresses due to tool pressure, torque and 
 vibration, can be controlled through instruction cards. Fewer 
 accidents will occur on this account because detailed study of 
 operations determines the best and safest way to do a given 
 piece of work. Not many people realize how comparatively 
 few different elemental operations are actually necessary for 
 the performing of all kinds of work in any one trade, until 
 they have analyzed and studied them personally. 
 
 Consider the above carefully and then answer the following 
 questions for yourself. Can any foreman who is in charge of 
 the average sized department with all its variety of equipment 
 and its twenty-five to fifty or more men, keep track of all the 
 above elements and so obtain maximum efficiency? Were he 
 mentally and physically capable of all the work necessary, 
 could he be an expert and highly proficient in so many different 
 
FREDERIC A. PARKHURST. 23 
 
 lines? Could he even find time to both plan and execute on 
 the scale required? Would he be in possession of the data 
 necessary to absolutely control methods, conserve the time of 
 each man, eliminate delays, etc. ? Could he be always fair and 
 just and impartial in handling his men? The answer is most 
 emphatically no. A jack of all trades is master of none. Yet 
 ordinary management often demands of its foreman all of the 
 above and more. 
 
 What will the planning room accomplish for a concern? 
 Combined with bonus system of extra remuneration, it will 
 result in doubling, tripling, and sometimes quadrupling the 
 output of a plant. It will reduce labor costs, including the 
 extra overhead from 30 per cent, to 50 per cent, and increase 
 wages from 35 per cent, to 50 per cent. in some cases even 
 more. 
 
 A word will not be out of place regarding obvious advan- 
 tages of these methods in setting correct rates. It is not un- 
 usual to find piece or premium rates set by the usual guess- 
 work methods that allow a man to earn $7.00 to $8.00 per day 
 for much less return than represents a fair day's work. I 
 have known of several cases where a piece rate was cut nearly 
 in halves because the man was earning about $8.00 per day. 
 After the cut he still earned $8.00. Obviously the original 
 rate was four times what it should have been. The work did 
 not require skilled help and $4.00 per day would be a gener- 
 ous wage. Aside from this, the man was limiting output dur- 
 ing the time he was making on the original rate. He doubled 
 his output when the rate was cut. Had stop watch observa- 
 tions been made by a properly trained time study man, pref- 
 erably one who was skilled in the trade under observation, 
 this could not have happened. The result of improperly set 
 rates need not be discussed here at length. They include dis- 
 satisfaction on the part of the firm; the inevitable cut and 
 continual dissatisfaction on the part of the men ; limitation of 
 output ; increase of discontent and deceit and eventually labor 
 troubles. The elimination of these troubles will save many 
 times more each year than it costs to run a planning room. 
 
24 PBACTICE VEKSUS THEOKY. 
 
 When a foreman sets a rate, he estimates it by using day- 
 work output as a basis. He adds something to it for luck and 
 sets his rate. Actually the rate of day-work under ordinary 
 shop conditions as compared to bonus work under scientific 
 conditions is 1 to 3 or 4 on the average ; some cases 1 to 10 or 
 even more. 
 
 There are certain difficulties to overcome when establishing 
 bonus in a plant accustomed to piece or premium improperly 
 set. These difficulties consist chiefly of a marked difference in 
 the maximum earning power of a man based on a bonus rate 
 set after an itemized time study, as compared to the arbitrary 
 piece or premium rate. The preceding paragraph has ex- 
 plained in part what these differences are. In addition, how- 
 ever, to the difference in the ultimate day's earnings, more 
 trouble is met with in trying to educate the workman to an 
 entirely new viewpoint. This can best be explained by call- 
 ing attention to the fact that what we purchase is a man's 
 time and not his output. It is up to the organization to see 
 that a fair output per day is realized. When this output 
 reaches a fair average maximum, the extra remuneration is 
 in the form of a bonus, the result being an increased daily 
 earning. Comparing a differential bonus scale of prices, how- 
 ever, the tendency on the part of the man is to consider it 
 only as a piece rate. To further illustrate this point, if we 
 have a job that has been paying seven cents (7 c.) a piece and 
 the production has been about fifty pieces per day, the piece 
 rate earning of the man is $3.50. If this method of payment 
 is replaced with differential bonus, the tendency is to com- 
 pare the difference in earnings of the day for the last few 
 pieces. The result is that the man feels he is being paid at 
 only the rate of say, two cents (2 c.) a piece, losing sight alto- 
 gether of the fact that he has been assured of his nominal day 
 rate irrespective of his production. 
 
 The above mentioned troubles are not found where improp- 
 erly set piece or premium rates do not exist. Neither is there 
 similar trouble in establishing bonus rate in a shop which has 
 worked only under regular hourly or daily wage. One often 
 
FKEDEKIC A. PARKHUKST. 25 
 
 has to contend with the natural antagonism of some men who 
 feel that the installation of bonus is some means in disguise 
 of further reducing their earning power. This objection, 
 however, can readily be overcome after the men realize that 
 the rates will be established correctly in the first place, and 
 remain unchanged so long as the piece or job remains un- 
 changed, in design, method or equipment. Of course guaranty 
 not to change rates would as readily apply to piece or premium 
 work under like conditions. The trouble, however, is that 
 piece or premium work is usually priced arbitrarily and so 
 results in unfair rates, both to the man and to the firm. 
 Therefore, it is practically impossible to guarantee any per- 
 manency. 
 
 B. HARMONY, NOT DISCORD. 
 
 This is the second element of the combination defined by 
 Mr. Taylor. How often we hear the criticism that harmony 
 is realized in almost all lines of business and that it has nothing 
 whatever to do with, neither should it be particularly identi- 
 fied with, scientific management. If this is so, and if harmony 
 is such a well-understood and common element, why don't we 
 see more of it in the average manufacturing or industrial 
 establishment? The fact remains that in a great many in- 
 stances, harmony is conspicuous by its absence. Many of the 
 chief reasons for this condition can be traced directly to the 
 case illustrated in the last few preceding paragraphs. Its 
 absence is often due to that great variable the personal factor. 
 This is particularly so in large plants which have grown 
 rapidly and abnormally. Their sudden growth has demanded 
 the mushroom type of organization which must of necessity 
 lack the refinement of one more deliberately planned. 
 
 There are a great many factors tending to create discord, 
 some of which require an immense amount of time to remove. 
 As far as the personnel is concerned, this can be handled and 
 developed in the way previously referred to in this article. 
 When that is accomplished the next move is to inspire every- 
 one with the policy that only the square deal will prevail. 
 
26 PEACTICE VEESUS THEOEY. 
 
 To bring about this condition, extremely strict order of dis- 
 cipline must be maintained and the policy of the company 
 clearly defined so that everyone can work in harmony with it. 
 Each member of the organization must be forced to realize the 
 fact that everyone is employed to work for the company's 
 interests, and cooperate and work in harmony with his asso- 
 ciates. Discrimination of individuals must be absolutely 
 prohibited. This latter dictum is one likely to be far-reaching 
 in its nature. Men have to be trained to lay aside their per- 
 sonal likes and dislikes and to regard their work from an 
 entirely different viewpoint. This is hard at .first, but after 
 they become accustomed to the new order of things and begin 
 to realize the certain advantage, it is as natural to work 
 harmoniously as otherwise, and much more comfortable. 
 
 One of the greatest disturbing elements in connection with 
 building an efficient and harmonious organization is the one 
 of poor pay. It is a mistaken idea on the part of many 
 managers and heads of departments that they are earning 
 money for the company and running their department cheaply 
 by the employment of cheap help. This is as true of office 
 employees as it is of the rank and file. The layman little real- 
 izes the actual difference between output per man as com- 
 pared to large differences in pay per man. For example, 
 many cases can be cited where a man earning $2.50 has an 
 output which can be expressed by unity; by an expenditure 
 of more money for sufficient supervision, proper maintenance 
 of equipment, etc., plus extra incentive to the man for follow- 
 ing instructions and putting up a fair day's work, a pro- 
 duction can be realized which may be expressed by 3 or 4 
 and sometimes much more. 
 
 The difficulties in the way of remedying this condition while 
 promoting harmony are very many. This statement may seem 
 strange, but it is nevertheless true. In many cases the great- 
 est objection comes from those who are eventually to be directly 
 benefited by this change of condition. The average shop man 
 presents another stumbling block by considering his own par- 
 ticular work more or less his private asset, of which the firm 
 
FREDERIC A. PARKHURST. 27 
 
 should know little or nothing. In other words, he feels that 
 the more dependent the firm is upon him for information, 
 the more secure his position with them will be. The fact is 
 lost sight of that promotion is often denied a man because 
 through lack of organization and knowledge on the part of the 
 firm, he is forced to remain in a minor position. When data 
 of each man's ability is in the hands of the firm, advancement 
 can be made commensurate with his ability without in any 
 way tending to disrupt or retard his work or that of his de- 
 partment. In order to bring about this condition and estab- 
 lish a self-sustaining organization, each incumbent of impor- 
 tant positions, including heads of departments, should train 
 and have immediately under him a successor competent to 
 take over his duties and responsibilities at a moment's notice. 
 This condition can pertain to a small organization as well as 
 to a large one. A man may often fulfill the duties of several 
 positions where the duties of one do not require all of his 
 daily time. 
 
 C. COOPERATION, NOT INDIVIDUALISM. 
 
 This element in a general way can be considered in the 
 same manner as harmony. Individualism in the ordinary 
 form of management can be likened to cooperation under 
 scientific management in much the same way as individual 
 effort among a body of men can be compared to well-trained 
 and highly-organized team work. Our modern professional 
 baseball team is probably one of the greatest examples of 
 scientific management before the world to-day. The fact is 
 little realized by the thousands of enthusiastic fans who 
 watch one of our league games. Great enthusiasm is often 
 manifested over some startling or spectacular play on the 
 part of an individual which may appear to be absolutely spon- 
 taneous. The truth of the matter is that the majority of such 
 plays have been carefully worked out by long and tedious 
 practice and intricate time studies. The result is that with 
 the player on base and the ball in a certain part of the field, 
 or in the hands of a pitcher about to be played, the success 
 
28 PBACTICE VEKSUS THEOEY. 
 
 of the proposed play can almost invariably be predetermined. 
 This has been brought down to an exact science. 
 
 It may seem ridiculous to say that the modern battleship 
 is handled and controlled by a planning department; never- 
 theless this is exactly true. The handling of a battery of 
 large guns in record time and the percentage of hits which 
 ten years ago seemed absolutely impossible, involves the co- 
 operation of a great many different men. The use of highly 
 perfected instruments, combined with the predetermined con- 
 dition of the atmosphere, variations and speed of the wind, 
 weight and condition of powder, etc., all enter into the prob- 
 lem. In the report of the battle of Santiago, our patriotic 
 and enthusiastic populace marveled at the feats of gunnery 
 and markmanship displayed by the United States battleships. 
 The truth is that to-day it would be considered a most dis- 
 graceful exhibition. Only five per cent, of the shots fired at 
 Santiago reached the mark and at comparatively short ranges. 
 To-day, under like conditions from sixty-five to seventy-five 
 per cent, of the shots would reach their marks and at ranges 
 mounting as high as eight or nine thousand yards, and at 
 speeds double those involved in 1898. 
 
 In industrial establishments like comparisons can be made. 
 Investigation will show an immense amount of duplication 
 between departments. Similar operations in like trades will 
 be found to vary widely in method and more widely yet in 
 time consumption. Each journeyman has his own particular 
 idea of how his work should be prepared, how his tools should 
 be forged or ground, and the condition of the material with 
 which he works. Thus these elements become great variables 
 because the whim and biased notions of the individual make 
 them so. Standardization of these elements greatly simpli- 
 fies them. Lack of unity of purpose and ideals results in the 
 individual limiting himself and his chances of advancement 
 as well as limiting that most vital of all interests, his earning 
 power. 
 
 Complete cooperation and unity of men, methods and 
 equipment will revolutionize the entire tone and capacity of a 
 
FREDERIC A. PAEKHUEST. 29 
 
 plant. Where departmental functions, both as a whole and 
 in detail, do not thoroughly dovetail into a harmonized whole, 
 friction and disruption will exist. It is a well-known fact 
 that we are not to-day, as a rule, turning out the high-class, 
 all-around mechanics that we did years ago. The reason for 
 this is obvious, although the remedy for it is not so obvious 
 to the layman. There can be no dispute over the fact that 
 scientific management favors the apprentice, handyman and 
 journeyman rather than the firm itself. When organized 
 labor realizes what scientific management actually is, they 
 will find they have much more to gain by cooperation and 
 acceptance of its principles than they can hope to gain by any 
 other method. This statement can be easily proved by investi- 
 gating the plants working to-day under its form of manage- 
 ment. 
 
 It may be well here to cite a remark made by the superinten- 
 dent of a large and well-established industrial plant in the 
 East. In speaking to one of our noted efficiency engineers of 
 the work which was being accomplished, he said that his firm 
 would be thoroughly satisfied if the only benefit they realized 
 from scientific management was the increased wage and 
 higher moral standing of their men and the attendant pros- 
 perity which would accrue from the change. This statement 
 expresses a sentiment which many of the laboring class cannot 
 acknowledge exists on the part of the manufacturer. Such 
 sentiment is growing, however, and that the fact is not more 
 fully realized by the working man is to be regretted. 
 
 J>. MAXIMUM OUTPUT IN PLACE OF EESTRICTED OUTPUT. 
 
 Reference has previously been made in this article to the 
 ratio of production under ordinary management to that 
 under scientific management. A great part of this is due, of 
 course, to the change in organization, plant methods, etc. 
 The balance is due to the increased effort and interest ex- 
 hibited by the men, encouraged by a higher average of wage. 
 The natural incentive on the part of the men is lacking un- 
 3 
 
30 PKACTICE VEKSUS THEOBY. 
 
 less all elements referred to are present. As soon as a better- 
 ment of condition has been realized, men are mentally in a 
 different attitude, and will naturally exert themselves to earn 
 the additional compensation. 
 
 The demoralizing effect of incorrect rate setting cannot be 
 over emphasized. It tends to promote a disposition to deceive 
 and restrict output. Such a condition naturally breeds dis- 
 content and lack of confidence in the management. One must 
 rely largely on the individual's tendency to better his own 
 condition when the opportunity presents itself. When the 
 man learns how to produce his maximum with the prospect 
 of a definite and immediate reward, he finds more pleasure 
 in his work. He is mentally in condition to aspire to do the 
 best that is in him and he develops the natural pride which is 
 more or less latent in everyone. 
 
 E. DEVELOPMENT OF EACH MAN TO HIS GREATEST EFFI- 
 CIENCY AND PROSPERITY. 
 
 This development comes as a natural result of the preceding 
 elements working in accord. The highly-trained and effi- 
 cient men receiving a large weekly pay make better citizens 
 than the inefficient and underpaid. They are enabled to 
 do better for their families, as to housing, clothing, and 
 feeding them, and they are enabled to give their children 
 better education. There are many children of to-day denied 
 the education that belongs to them with the result that their 
 entire after-life is handicapped. They are denied the ad- 
 vancement and opportunities which are more and more becom- 
 ing subject to the individual's mental development. If the 
 little red schoolhouse is to represent one of our chief consti- 
 tutional pillars in which we take so much pride, it must be 
 supported by a high standard of American citizenship. What 
 this really means can only be fully appreciated by the study 
 of home conditions in a largely foreign community employ- 
 ing low-grade and comparatively ignorant help. The develop- 
 ment of a healthy mind and body while young is the only 
 possible mainstay to a cosmopolitan nation such as this 
 
FEEDEEIC A. PAEKHUEST. 31 
 
 United States is growing into. As efficiency will bring about 
 the increase in wages, so it will ultimately result in the 
 decreased cost of the necessities of life. In other words, 
 when we become universally efficient, both individually and 
 collectively, in all walks of life ranging from the farm to the 
 banking house, our net return per capita is going to be 
 greatly increased. 
 
 We must make radical changes in most of our traditional 
 ways of doing things and we must realize a new standard of 
 ideals. This can only be brought about by a long and pains- 
 taking course of hard knocks and experience. Students of 
 this subject should study it from the practical standpoint 
 and by close detailed investigation of its actual workings. It 
 is not in any sense a subject to be learned from books, but one 
 which must be learned from close contact with and thorough 
 understanding of the personal element involved. Only in 
 this way can the psychological conditions be fully appreciated 
 and understood. 
 
EDUCATION AND EFFICIENT LIVING. 
 
 BY MEYER BLOOMFIELD, 
 Director of the Vocation Bureau, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Mankind has passed through various ' ' ages, ' ' picturesquely 
 described by the historian as the, ages of steam, of iron, of 
 steel, of electricity. But all indications, all the signs of the 
 day in which we find ourselves, the industrial unrest, the 
 changes in our legal and political institutions, the acid test of 
 organized enterprise through scientific management, and the 
 transformation of our educational policies, point to an age 
 which transcends in value all the historic ages preceding 
 the age of man that period in which society sets out to dis- 
 cover how the energies of men can be liberated for the most 
 effective living, livelihood, and social service. 
 
 To the engineer and to the methods of our technical schools, 
 the social reformer and the progressive educator owe a larger 
 debt than is generally recognized. The antiquated idea of 
 education as the privilege of a fortunate few, enjoyed for the 
 most part in a cloistered aloofness from the problems of 
 common life, has been fast crumbling away under insistent 
 modern demands for democratic training of "all the children 
 of all the people"; demands arising not only because of the 
 necessity for civic self-preservation, but also because a truer 
 understanding of human capacities makes us all impatient 
 with the present waste of gifts, talents, and human possi- 
 bilities. 
 
 We have been so busy trying to catch up with our tasks of 
 spreading the common schools, lessening illiteracy, and pro- 
 moting good citizenship, that we could not pause long enough 
 to consider differences in human nature and the fundamental 
 importance of differentiating our approach to each individual. 
 In times of stress and emergency we do not inquire too closely 
 into personal merits. All must be dealt with alike, all who 
 
 32 
 
MEYEK BLOOMFIELD. 33 
 
 seek must be supplied. When normal conditions are restored, 
 however, more scientific methods must be followed or the 
 resulting harm may far outweigh the good. So with our 
 schools. As the basic need for the elementary instruction of 
 the masses in elementary subjects is met (and there is yet 
 much to be done in this country) then stock-taking and a 
 scrutiny of methods and accomplishments become a part of 
 intelligent administration. During the extension of popular 
 opportunities for schooling, for several decades past, there 
 have developed the modern schools of applied science and the 
 specialization in the engineering branches. No greater con- 
 tribution to educational progress has come during this period 
 than in the lesson, taught by these schools, of the value of the 
 laboratory and of contact by the student with things as well as 
 with ideas. l ' How can a man learn to know himself ? ' ' asked 
 Goethe. ' ' Never by thinking, but by doing. ' ' 
 
 Two purposes mark any intelligent system of training men ; 
 first, to enable men to know themselves, and, second, to enable 
 them to find themselves. Schooling of the conventional kind 
 leaves out most of the senses in the training scheme; it is 
 devised for inert masses of pupils; its tools are printer's ink 
 and the teacher's voice. President Eliot has pointed out the 
 defect in making our schools for "listening." 
 
 This is surely a stock-taking period in business, in politics, 
 in education. The employer has been complaining of the 
 product of the public school. "We find that nearly half the 
 school children of the land drop out before they even complete 
 the grammar grades. We find, too, that our system of 
 secondary education, admirable though it is in many respects, 
 is ministering mostly to the four per cent, or so of its pupils 
 who go to college, and has scarcely faced the life-work needs 
 of the vast majority who must go to work. This dropping out 
 of school, therefore, of so many unprepared boys and girls at 
 a time when they should be laying the foundations of voca- 
 tional efficiency, is now recognized as a national calamity. 
 Many thorough investigations, one by the United States 
 Bureau of Labor, have shown that pressure of circumstances 
 
34 EDUCATION AND EFFICIENT LIVING. 
 
 accounts for only about one third of this exodus from school 
 to work. Two thirds could have remained to further fit them- 
 selves if opportunity and intelligent organization could have 
 been provided. 
 
 The abrupt ending of school influence for so many on the 
 fourteenth birthday is only one of a train of evils. Dropping 
 out as they do, their entrance into working life is no less 
 deplorable. They do not knew anything about the work they 
 go into and they leave one job for another, just as they left 
 school. Few have any idea of preparing themselves for a 
 career. They drift until manhood responsibilities are upon 
 them; then it is too late to prepare for anything. It is now 
 known that a large part of the misemployment and unemploy- 
 ment problems can be traced to these early blind driftings in 
 the uncharted employments. The school has failed to connect 
 with the vocational needs of its pupils, has failed to take into 
 account the probable careers and experiences of most of its 
 children. On the other hand, the kind of work these young 
 people go into is not of a sort to develop them, to train them, 
 or make anything out of them. Therefore both school and job 
 are now up for investigation. President Eliot has spoken of 
 the "life-career motive" in education. Any education which 
 fails to build on this most fundamental purpose, or fails to 
 arouse an interest in it, does not belong to our militant age 
 of effort and service. Any occupation which does not deepen 
 and enlarge this purpose and motive, which does not in some 
 way offer both a life and a career, is one which probably needs 
 the attention of public opinion and the legislature. 
 
 School and work, then, must minister to the life-career 
 motive, to the bread-winning effectiveness of our workers and 
 citizens. The movement for vocational guidance has grown 
 out of a deep recognition of the price society pays for the 
 aimless driftings, the economic waste, and the social wreckage 
 attributable to the unbridged chasm between school and work, 
 to the unprotected and unguided transition from school life to 
 working life. Vocational guidance looks upon both school and 
 shop as means for investing the capacities of the young people 
 
MEYER BLOOMFIELD. 35 
 
 to their own and society's utmost good. Investment, not ex- 
 ploitation, is the goal. The child's good, and the community's 
 good must be placed above all else. 
 
 Experience has demonstrated that where a school looks in- 
 telligently to the life-career there is hardly any dropping-out 
 problem. The employer, who fulfills his responsibility, re- 
 duces his losses, which in many an establishment amounts to a 
 turn-over of employees every four or five years. If education 
 does not lead to self -discovery, what else does it do? In 
 this desideratum the technical schools have been quite fortu- 
 nate. They have greatly aided their students to find them- 
 selves. Are they all living up to their opportunities and their 
 privileges? There is no little danger of complacency and 
 backsliding on their part. Let me say that vocational train- 
 ing does not in itself carry any guarantee that it will not 
 deteriorate into abstractions and academic routine, that it 
 will not lose touch with reality. With the doors of our 
 technical-training schools wide open, as they should be, there 
 is no assurance that fitness alone will seek admission. Mass 
 instruction here, as in the academic schools, is prevalent. The 
 time for ' ' hand-picked engineers " as a professor in one of our 
 technical schools has phrased it, has gone by. Never was 
 greater need than now to formulate standards and to organize 
 a selective process for the future engineers. This plea is made 
 not so much for the benefit of the schools and the profession, 
 as for the young men who may be misled into wasting years 
 on preparation for pursuits for which they are not fitted and 
 in which they never can be happy. 
 
 The student of the vocations marvels at the unbusinesslike 
 hiring of men in various establishments. The employment 
 manager is supposed to be the mind-reader and fortune-teller 
 of the firm. If his guesses turn out well he holds on to his 
 place. How many firms can you recall which have drawn up 
 specifications of what they need in the way of employees, 
 drawn up their requirements so definitely as to exclude auto- 
 matically those who cannot succeed? "Trial and error" is 
 the prevailing method, with all the waste and discouragement 
 this involves to all parties concerned. 
 
36 EDUCATION AND EFFICIENT LIVING. 
 
 I have not observed that the engineering callings have 
 framed their demands so that parent, teacher, and prospective 
 applicant can base a choice of occupation on the data set forth. 
 Nor have I found a surplus of accessible, vital information 
 concerning the new and most promising developments in the 
 engineering pursuits, chosen to direct attention to the less 
 crowded departments. Many of us believe that the engineer, 
 the technically-trained man-, will more and more rank with the 
 most socially-advanced agencies for the promotion of human 
 welfare, with the practitioner in preventive medicine and the 
 trained philanthropic agent. We have only to look over the 
 contributions to public health, comfort and efficiency, made by 
 our institutions of applied science during the half century just 
 passed, to realize that what has been accomplished for public 
 sanitation, protection of the milk, water, and food supply, 
 factory hygiene, ventilation of public buildings, and elimina- 
 tion of polluting wastes is only prophetic of what is yet to 
 come. Indeed already from the field of the efficiency engineer 
 has come, perhaps, the most important message since ma- 
 chinery came to do man's work, since the factory system re- 
 placed the home as a producing center. Messrs. Taylor, Gil- 
 breth, Brandeis, and others have made the nation think. And 
 in the field of efficiency engineering I find an analogy for 
 what vocational guidance regards as the true function of the 
 school and of education. The teachers are the functional 
 foremen, the courses of study are the planned and routed 
 tasks. The aim of all these forces should be to produce an 
 individual equipped for the scientific management of all his 
 endowments and resources; whose faculties are organized for 
 economy of effort in reaching results, ease in exertion, persist- 
 ence in traveling toward the set goal, and vision to understand 
 his relationship to his fellows. 
 
THE ENGINEER AS A MANAGER. 
 
 BY H. L. GANTT, 
 
 Consulting Engineer, New York City. 
 
 The industrial developments of the past fifty years have 
 been so great as to modify profoundly, if not to revolutionize 
 the methods of living in the whole civilized world. If we will 
 compare the conditions and methods of living just previous 
 to the Civil War with those of today, and itemize these differ- 
 ences, we shall find that they are due in a large measure to the 
 development in the mechanic arts. 
 
 Fifty years ago the peaceful methods of accumulating 
 wealth were substantially those that had been in vogue since 
 the dawn of history, and consisted of buying, transporting 
 and selling, with the lending of money to finance such under- 
 takings. Ancient Persia, for instance, owed its great wealth 
 largely to its position, by which it controlled all the trade 
 routes between India and China on the one hand, and Europe 
 and Africa on the other. 
 
 "When, however, the Greeks extended their colonies along 
 the shores of Asia Minor to the eastern end of the Black Sea, 
 and finally even founded settlements at the eastern end of the 
 Caspian Sea, the conditions began to change. Persia no 
 longer had a monopoly of the trade between the East and the 
 West, for the Greeks had a nearly continuous water route by 
 means of the rivers of southern Russia to their markets on the 
 shores of the Mediterranean. The competition of a cheaper 
 route soon awakened the Persians to their danger, which they 
 tried to avert by the conquest of Greece. Failing in this they 
 were themselves subdued by the Greeks, and the greatness of 
 Persia passed away. 
 
 A continuous series of similar illustrations might be cited, 
 bringing us down to the present time, where a situation simi- 
 
 37 
 
38 THE ENGINEER AS A MANAGER. 
 
 lar to that between Persia and Greece has arisen between 
 England and Germany. 
 
 The other time-honored method of accumulating wealth is 
 that of Rob Boy: "They should take who have the power, 
 and they should keep who can." This method is not only 
 just as much in vogue today as when the tribes living in the 
 mountains made excursions into the valleys and carried off 
 the corn and cattle of their more thrifty neighbors, but it 
 seems to be quite as respectable and to be carried on with far 
 less personal risk. 
 
 In the past these two methods have as a rule been operated 
 by different classes of people who were in the main hostile. 
 In recent times, however, when the physical methods of Rob 
 Roy have been suppressed, more subtle and effective ones 
 have been developed, which apparently do not violate our 
 time-honored laws, and which can be successfully operated in 
 connection with legitimate trade. 
 
 Thus the already wealthy traders and bankers have been 
 able to add to their methods those of the outlaw, and to become 
 in the words of the great Senator Dolliver, whose untimely 
 death was such a loss to the country, "the boldest set of 
 buccaneers the world ever saw." 
 
 In the past the great traders individually exerted but small 
 influence over the markets in which they bought and sold, 
 and prices were governed by supply and demand. Today, 
 however, in this country at least, the great trusts are in many 
 cases able to fix both the buying and selling price of the 
 commodities in which they deal. A dawning realization of 
 this fact was the reason for the enactment of the Sherman 
 anti-trust law, and is now the strongest force behind the agi- 
 tation for a decrease in the tariff. 
 
 Further the enormous wealth thus accumulated has enabled 
 the possessors in many cases to become absolute owners of 
 the sources of wealth and the means of transportation, and 
 their training to get as much as possible and to give as little 
 as possible in return is doing much to increase the present 
 industrial unrest in the world 
 
H. L. GANTT. 39 
 
 While these developments have been taking place, others 
 have been going on which up to this time have produced even 
 greater results. 
 
 The invention of the steam engine, by furnishing cheap 
 power, made possible the factory system of today; but it was 
 nearly a century before the engine was sufficiently perfected 
 and the mechanic arts sufficiently developed, to make the 
 factory system very profitable on a large scale. 
 
 Although the advance of scientific knowledge was very 
 marked during the latter part of the eighteenth century and 
 the early part of the nineteenth, there was a strong feeling 
 that knowledge for its own sake was the true ideal to be 
 striven for, and to make any practical use of it was degrad- 
 ing. Such men, however, as Rankine and Isherwood rose 
 above this prejudice, and although they showed the advantage 
 of applying scientific methods to mechanical problems, and 
 especially to the steam engine, it was not for some years that 
 a large enough body of scientifically educated men was en- 
 gaged in this work to make any substantial progress. 
 
 Soon after the close of the Civil War the need of such a 
 body of men was recognized, and schools were founded with 
 the express object of teaching men how to apply scientific 
 knowledge to industrial problems. In a few years the gradu- 
 ates of these schools began to make their influence felt, and 
 the scientific methods of the engineer began to supplement the 
 empirical methods of the mechanic. 
 
 Labor-saving devices and automatic machinery began to 
 be developed that often multiplied many times the power of 
 the individual to produce wealth, and almost all the 
 machinery in use at that time has been improved and made 
 more efficient. In the art of transportation, the steam loco- 
 motive has been enormously enlarged and perfected, while the 
 electric motor has made possible the rapid transit of our 
 cities with all that implies. The steamship of today has 
 robbed ocean travel of its discomforts, and cut in half the 
 time between Europe and America. The automobile enables 
 
40 THE ENGINEER AS A MANAGES. 
 
 us to travel at sixty miles per hour along country roads, and 
 the aeroplane makes possible a like speed through the air. 
 
 The developments of electricity have been more marvellous 
 still. 
 
 The telephone, the electric light, the wireless telegraph, the 
 long distance transmission are familiar to us all, but we 
 realize their importance^ only when we consider what would 
 happen if they were all destroyed. 
 
 These facts which are so well known are typical of the 
 developments that the engineer and the mechanic have been 
 making in all shops and factories throughout the country, 
 and producing the wealth that has so much increased the 
 splendor of our great cities in the last few years. 
 
 True to his traditions of buying at the lowest price and sell- 
 ing at the highest, the commercial man has continued to apply 
 these principles to all his dealings, including the purchase of 
 labor. The combinations, or trusts, derive their strength and 
 profit, not from their ability to produce more cheaply, as was 
 at first claimed, but largely from their ability to fix both the 
 buying and the selling price. 
 
 The workmen, on their part, recognize these facts, and 
 realize that the only effort to get a greater reward for their 
 work is one backed by force. Hence under these methods of 
 doing business, the growth of trusts on one side, and hostile 
 labor unions on the other, is a natural development. Further, 
 the workmen, realizing that they get but a small share of the 
 increase in wealth produced by greater efforts on their part, 
 or by improved machinery, are not only slow in exerting 
 greater efforts, or adopting improved machinery, but often 
 opposed to both. Thus, much of our industrial development 
 is carried on under conditions where one party and often 
 both are hostile to such developments, for the commercial 
 man is also often opposed to improved methods. Such meth- 
 ods usually cost money to install, and he being interested only 
 in profits, does not see any advantage in effecting economies 
 if his competitor is able ultimately to do the same. Thus 
 where the control of a plant is in the hands of a man of com- 
 
H. L. GANTT. 41 
 
 mercial instincts or training, there is apt to be but little 
 interest in effecting economies that cost money ; and, as many 
 of our plants are under such control, this condition is wide- 
 spread. 
 
 Such a man too often does not appreciate differences be- 
 tween workmen, and groups them into classes of uniform pay, 
 thus discouraging initiative in mechanical production, and 
 driving it into union leadership. Under such management 
 there does not seem to be any possible method of harmonizing 
 the interests of employer and employee, and unless these 
 methods are modified, the industrial unrest is bound to in- 
 crease, with results which no one can foresee. 
 
 Until recently the engineer has regarded his work done, 
 when he has developed an improved machine or apparatus, 
 and proved by operating it for a short while that its capacity 
 was all he claimed for it. It has then too often been acquired 
 by men imperfectly trained mechanically, but who had the 
 commercial instinct highly developed. Such men usually 
 turn it over to a "cheap" man to operate, and its main- 
 tenance is nearly always looked after by a second-rate 
 mechanic, for the commercial man can seldom see why he 
 should have a high-priced man doing repairs. 
 
 The efficiency of the machine naturally decreases, and a 
 factory run on these principles must necessarily be more 
 inefficient still. 
 
 Fortunately this condition is not universal, for the advan- 
 tage of having an engineer for a manager has for years been 
 recognized by some, and the number of such is increasing. 
 This number is not sufficiently great, nor has the engineer 
 yet had sufficient training in the art of management to make 
 untrue the statement, which has been so loudly proclaimed 
 recently, that the majority of our industries are very ineffi- 
 ciently managed. 
 
 In as much as most factories are controlled by men of com- 
 mercial instincts or training, their gauge is necessarily not 
 efficiency, of which they know nothing, but profits, of which 
 they know a great deal. 
 
42 THE ENGINEER AS A MANAGER. 
 
 If we would increase the efficiency of a plant, the problem 
 must be put up to a man who knows at least what the word 
 means. Fortunately the man who knows most about efficiency 
 also knows most not only about the application of science to 
 the mechanic arts, but also about workmen, by whose side he 
 has obtained his knowledge and acquired his skill in the use 
 of tools. This man is th,e engineer. He is the only man who 
 spans the whole gap between the capitalist and the workman, 
 and knows the mental attitude and necessities of each. It is 
 on his shoulders therefore that must fall the burden of har- 
 monizing their interests. 
 
 As said before the engineer has too often been content 
 when he has built his machine or plant, and his training has 
 largely been confined to preparation for this work. Now, 
 however, when the larger responsibility of management 
 thrusts itself upon him, his education and training should 
 include at once the elements of his new duties. 
 
 The greatest problem before us today is not that of de- 
 veloping new and better appliances, but that of properly 
 utilizing those we have. The recognition of this fact has 
 given rise to the tremendous interest in the subject of man- 
 agement which has become manifest in the last few years. 
 Interest, however, is not enough. Knowledge must be obtained 
 before great progress can be made. 
 
 The subject of management may be divided into three 
 groups, management of men, management of machines, 
 management of materials. The one to which the engineer has 
 given the most study in the past has been the management 
 of machines. How to care for materials and to move them 
 through the factory as they are wanted, so that there may be 
 no delay, has been given but little attention. This has often 
 been left more or less to chance, and it is very seldom that 
 we can find a proper system of storekeeping and routing 
 material. We almost never find that material moves along 
 its route according to a prearranged schedule. Such a sched- 
 ule, however, is necessary in order to keep the workmen prop- 
 erly employed, and we have found that proper routing and 
 
H. L. GANTT. 43 
 
 scheduling of material has not only done much to promote 
 harmony and efficiency in every shop in which it has been 
 installed, but has prepared the way for a satisfactory method 
 of managing men. 
 
 The men are thus largely relieved of the innumerable 
 annoyances with which they are troubled in shops without 
 a proper system of management, and where everything is 
 done on the spur of the moment by the direct order of a 
 foreman. 
 
 In studying how to use workmen efficiently, we must recog- 
 nize the fact that they are just as susceptible to petty annoy- 
 ances as their superiors, and that as a rule they are just as 
 anxious to take advantage of any opportunities that are 
 offered them, if they are benefited by so doing. No sooner do 
 we, as a rule, afford opportunities for men to show their 
 ability and to advance themselves, than some begin to come to 
 the front. We must not, however, expect by any system of 
 management to produce a revolution. If we can put in a 
 system by which the workman is benefited and enabled to 
 utilize his powers to the best advantage, although he will 
 gradually recognize it, we must not expect him to do so at 
 once, for his experience in the past has taught him that his 
 employer has no interest in his advancement and will give 
 him only such compensation as he is forced to give. Having 
 lived under such a condition for years, which is necessarily 
 one of antagonism for his employer, time must always elapse 
 before he will believe that the opportunities apparently 
 offered him are real. 
 
 If, however, the work is done under a properly trained 
 engineer, who recognizes the advantages of proper coopera- 
 tion, and is willing to share them with the workmen, we have 
 no difficulty in ultimately bringing him to a proper frame 
 of mind. 
 
 Our difficulty has been mainly with the commercial man, 
 who often seems incapable of considering anybody's interest 
 except his own, and has not yet recognized that the prosperity 
 of all is directly helped by the prosperity of each. As yet he 
 
44 THE ENGINEEE AS A MANAGEB. 
 
 has no idea of what real cooperation means. His idea of 
 cooperation is that of the pack, or herd, whose cooperation is 
 for attack or defense. Geo. W. Perkins and Samuel Gompers 
 are the most prominent public advocates of this kind of 
 cooperation, which aims to spoil the outsiders for the benefit 
 of those in the ring. 
 
 For that broader idea of cooperation which benefits the 
 country and people in general, I refer you to the address of 
 Hon. "William C. Eedfield, before the National Democratic 
 Club of New York City on January 3, 1912, printed as a part 
 of the Congressional Record. Mr. Redfield recognizes the 
 fact that the civilization of today is an industrial civilization, 
 and that the nation that first realizes this fact, and acts upon 
 it intelligently will put itself far in advance of all the others. 
 
 In as much as it must not be expected that the commercial 
 man will thoroughly understand this for many years, it is 
 all the more incumbent upon the engineer to assume the re- 
 sponsibility for showing what true cooperation between em- 
 ployer and employee means. 
 
 The great development of what is popularly known as 
 "efficiency engineering, " but what might more properly be 
 called "management engineering, " is a recognition of the 
 readiness of men having even a little engineering knowledge to 
 assume the new responsibilities. The fact that the movement 
 is still growing, although many now engaged in it must neces- 
 sarily be incompetent, is evidence that some good is being 
 done. How much faster it will grow, when all engaged in it 
 have had a proper preparation for their work ! This prepara- 
 tion it is the duty of the engineering schools to give. 
 
 In as much, however, as the peaceful solution of our indus- 
 trial problems will bring far greater financial gain to the 
 commercial man than to the engineer, it would seem to be 
 to his interest to finance liberally such engineering schools 
 as will undertake this work. 
 
 In the past, merchants and financiers, like nations, have 
 been ever ready to spend money to fight their opponents, 
 even when they realized what enormous losses these fights 
 
H. L. GANTT. 
 
 45 
 
 involved. Now, however, when the way of avoiding such 
 fights becomes clear, it would seem logical for them to invest 
 a small fraction of the money needed for fighting in the only 
 rational scheme that presents itself for the insurance of in- 
 dustrial peace and cooperation. 
 
THE MEN WHO SUCCEED IN SCIENTIFIC 
 MANAGEMENT. 
 
 BY H. K. HATHAWAY, 
 Consulting Engineer, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Perhaps from the subject it might be expected that I would 
 be able to wojk up an instruction card that would enable the 
 would-be scientific manager to achieve, through following it, 
 immediate and unqualified success. The best I can do, how- 
 ever, in that direction is to enumerate what seem to me to be 
 the fundamental elements which, when properly grouped and 
 combined in the right proportions in an individual, enhance 
 his chances of success. 
 These qualities are : 
 
 Steadfastness of purpose. 
 
 Common sense balance. 
 
 Honesty. 
 
 Tact. 
 
 Enthusiasm. 
 
 Appreciation of the value of facts. 
 
 Energy or push (willingness to assume responsibility). 
 
 Experience training education. 
 
 Humility. 
 
 Of the qualifications making up this list it is difficult to 
 say that any one of them is in all cases more important than 
 another. Under varying circumstances each one of them as- 
 sumes, at times, preeminent importance. 
 
 STEADFASTNESS OF PURPOSE. 
 
 The man who is easily discouraged can not hope for success 
 under scientific management. It is to this quality probably 
 more than to any other that, after over twenty years of 
 patient, persistent, and uncompromising struggle, the world 
 
 46 
 
H. K. HATHAWAY. 47 
 
 today recognizes that there is a science of management, and 
 honors Dr. Taylor as its founder. With dogged perseverance 
 he met and overcame what to most men would have been over- 
 whelming opposition, heart-breaking ridicule, and utter lack 
 of sympathy or even understanding from those in whose inter- 
 est he labored. This quality is essential to success, both in the 
 man who desires to apply scientific management to the run- 
 ning of his business, and in those who undertake the work of 
 its installation. The former, as will be attested by owners 
 and managers, to the management of whose business the prin- 
 ciples of Scientific Management have been successfully ap- 
 plied, will have many dark moments when the undertaking 
 seems hopeless, and when the strain imposed upon his faith 
 by the criticism and opposition of his associates and his em- 
 ployees is almost beyond endurance; at such times steadfast- 
 ness of purpose is the only thing that prevents the failure of 
 the undertaking and the loss of months of endeavor. 
 
 There will be times when it is undertaken to put into opera- 
 tion certain mechanism essential to the application of the 
 principles of scientific management that the scheme devised 
 will fail to work, not once but repeatedly ; under such circum- 
 stances the average man would say : ' ' we have tried it and it 
 won't work," and would complacently return to the old 
 method, or proceed to try some other scheme which would 
 in turn meet with the same fate. It is here that steadfastness 
 of purpose is needed in the man upon whom depends the 
 development and installation of the new system. As often as 
 it fails to work he must straighten it out, strengthen the weak 
 points, and start over again, persistently and patiently keep- 
 ing at it until finally the scheme works. 
 
 In such cases it is usually impossible to find any specific 
 reason why the scheme should work finally any more than the 
 first time it is started, and in my own experience I have been 
 amazed to find something that had given so much trouble to 
 get going, that I almost despaired of a successful outcome, all 
 at once, for no apparent reason, commence to work smoothly 
 and easily. The reason for this is probably that there are 
 
48 THE MEN WHO SUCCEED. 
 
 innumerable kinks and obstacles so minute that they are 
 almost invisible which become smoothed out and removed as 
 all concerned gain a better understanding of the scheme. 
 This is somewhat analogous to getting a new engine or other 
 piece of machinery worked down to a bearing. 
 
 The fact that it is easier to "let a thing go" than to make 
 it go is, in many undertakings, accountable for their having 
 an unsuccessful outcome. 
 
 COMMON SENSE BALANCE. 
 
 In the last analysis scientific management is the systematic 
 and consistent application of common sense. It is nothing 
 more or less than common sense : 
 
 To plan what is to be done, before doing it. 
 
 To systematically keep tools and machines in the best work- 
 ing conditions. 
 
 To ascertain what is the best and adopt it as a standard. 
 
 The man who does not use common sense in connection 
 with scientific management has little chance of success. One 
 must have the right sense of proportion and the proper per- 
 spective in straightening out the numerous troubles and dif- 
 ficulties that arise, both during the development stage of the 
 application of scientific management to any business, and in 
 the operation of the business to which it has been applied. 
 
 This qualification one would naturally expect to be pos- 
 sessed by a majority of men, yet it is amazing to see how 
 many men, often brilliant and exceptionally able, fail to suc- 
 ceed simply because they lack common sense while men of 
 rather mediocre talent succeed as a result of its possession. 
 
 HONESTY. 
 
 Any system of management that is not honest is not sci- 
 entific management, nor has the man who is not honest with 
 himself as well as those with whom he is associated any place 
 in it. 
 
 The old style of management bred deceit largely as the 
 
H. K. HATHAWAY. 49 
 
 result of ignorance. For example: the workman constantly 
 endeavored to keep his foreman or his employer from know- 
 ing how much work could be done in a given time. The fore- 
 man in turn was expected by the management to know not 
 only more than they did about the practical end of the busi- 
 ness, but more than any or all of his workmen, and it often 
 took a pretty stiff " bluff" on his part to make them think he 
 knew as much as he knew they expected him to. 
 
 The man who is to succeed under scientific management 
 in any capacity must not be afraid to admit his own mistakes 
 and to correct them, nor must he make pretense to know things 
 that he does not. Workmen appreciate honesty probably more 
 than any other quality in the men under whom they work, and 
 it has been my experience that they meet honesty and frank- 
 ness with honesty and frankness, but that deceitful practices 
 in dealing with them engenders deceit upon their part. I 
 have seen a number of promising men meet with failure in 
 connection with scientific management simply because they 
 were not honest with themselves. There is no place under 
 scientific management for the ''foxy" men or the ones who 
 depend upon ' ' bluff ' ' to get them by. 
 
 TACT. 
 
 This qualification must not be confounded with vacillation. 
 The men in responsible positions under scientific management 
 must be firm and aggressive, but they must also be able to 
 determine when such a course is desirable knowing when to 
 insist and when not to do so. It is found, usually, that in 
 dealing with the higher officials this qualification is called into 
 use to a much greater extent than when dealing with foremen 
 and workmen. 
 
 By tact I mean the ability to present things to men in such 
 a way as to interest them and secure their enthusiastic cooper- 
 ation, whereas if the same thing were presented in a slightly 
 different manner it would result in incurring opposition and 
 animosity. The old saying that "it is not so much what one 
 
50 THE MEN WHO SUCCEED. 
 
 says as the way he says it" is quite true in the matter of 
 presenting totally new and radical ideas to men who are to be 
 affected by their adoption. It is perfectly possible, for ex- 
 ample, to give an order in such a manner that the one to whom 
 it is given will feel insulted, yet the same order may be given 
 in a manner just as unequivocal, but in a perfectly courteous 
 way. 
 
 Avoidance of misunderstandings can be accomplished 
 through being specific and definite in all of one's dealings 
 with others, and would also overcome, in many instances, the 
 necessity for the employment of what is commonly called 
 ''tact." 
 
 ENTHUSIASM. 
 
 An absolute belief in scientific management as an unquali- 
 fied agency of good for all concerned is a prime requisite, and 
 one which the man endeavoring to apply scientific manage- 
 ment must possess in order to inspire others with confidence, 
 and to gain the hearty cooperation necessary to success. 
 
 Enthusiasm is the force that must be depended upon to 
 overcome inertia and to buoy up the spirits of all concerned 
 when progress seems hopelessly slow, and everything seems 
 to go wrong. 
 
 APPRECIATION OF THE VALUE OF FACTS. 
 The first principle of scientific management as enunciated 
 by Mr. Taylor is the development of a science in the place of 
 ' ' rule of thumb ' ' or traditional knowledge. Unless the one who 
 is undertaking to apply the principles of scientific manage- 
 ment possesses this qualification, he will, in the first place, be 
 unable to appreciate the value of this first great principle, as 
 well as being incapable of utilizing the science after it had 
 been developed. Perhaps no other thing has stood so much 
 in the way of industrial advancement as the lack of this single 
 qualification. Innumerable illustrations might be given on 
 this point, but it would take too much time to go into it any 
 further. 
 
H. K. HATHAWAY. 
 
 51 
 
 ENERGY OR PUSH. 
 
 This qualification is as essential in attaining success under 
 scientific management as it is in connection with any other 
 undertaking. In developing and applying the system of sci- 
 entific management to any business, the man who is directing 
 the work must see that real progress is constantly being made 
 at every point. He must be willing to take the initiative, and 
 to assume responsibility, putting his shoulder to the wheel at 
 every point that lags, and encouraging by example as well as 
 by precept those whom he undertakes to direct. 
 
 EXPERIENCE, TRAINING, AND EDUCATION. 
 
 A college education is, other things being equal, of un- 
 doubted value to the man who identifies himself with scien- 
 tific management, either in the management of an industry 
 in which this type of management has been installed, or as an 
 engineer in working out its application to various industries. 
 
 Practical training, however, such as can only be acquired 
 through starting as a workman in the shop and progressing 
 to the position of gang boss, foreman, etc., is, even in the case 
 of a college trained man, an absolute essential. Without this 
 sort of training the graduate of an engineering school is of 
 little use under scientific management, and, until he has ac- 
 quired it, it is not fair either to him or to those who would 
 be under him to put him in a responsible position where the 
 direction of men devolves upon him. 
 
 In speaking of practical training I do not mean working 
 a part of one or two summer vacations in a shop, but a suffi- 
 cient time to master a trade in a machine shop from two to 
 three years. Not only long enough to acquire manual pro- 
 ficiency, but long enough to become acquainted with work- 
 men, to know their point of view, to acquire a respect for 
 them, and to lose any unwarranted feeling of superiority. 
 
 Just as the college graduate is handicapped if he lacks 
 practical training, so is the practical man who has not had 
 an opportunity to go to college handicapped. Either one, 
 
52 THE MEN WHO SUCCEED. 
 
 however, can overcome his handicap if he only is willing to 
 make the necessary sacrifice in order to do so. 
 
 The judgment and foresight that enables one to get results 
 without a pitched battle, to start at the source in correcting 
 an evil or in effecting an improvement that is to be perma- 
 nent, can only be had as a result of experience of a practical 
 nature. As a matter of fact most of the other qualifications 
 that make for success in this line are, to some considerable 
 extent, the outcome of training and education. 
 
 HUMILITY. 
 
 The writer has seen a number of promising men fail com- 
 pletely, or jeopardize their chances of success through de- 
 veloping a case of swelled head. Humility does not necessitate 
 being a cringing sycophant, willing to subserve one's own 
 will and convictions to the whims and opinions of others for 
 the purpose of temporarily gaining their good graces, but it 
 is the opposite of the sort of "bull-headed" ignorance that 
 leads a man to believe that he "knows it all." 
 
 It is the lack of this spirit of humility that leads some 
 men, when placed in positions of authority, to assume an air 
 of superiority toward those working under them, and to dis- 
 regard the laws of decency and courtesy that they observe 
 when dealing with those under whom they work. 
 
 The great discoveries of science, and the inventions that 
 have added so much to the world's advancement have not 
 been made by men who knew it all. 
 
 The more one learns the more it should be apparent how 
 vastly much more there is to be learned, and this must be 
 the constant frame of mind of the man who is to succeed 
 under scientific management. He must size up his own short- 
 comings and regard with sympathy those whose opportuni- 
 ties have been limited, and must have respect for the opinions 
 and knowledge of others, even in the case of the humblest 
 worker. 
 
H. K. HATHAWAY. 53 
 
 MEASURE OF SUCCESS. 
 
 Of course there are various degrees of success under sci- 
 entific management. There is, for example, the degree of 
 success achieved by Mr. Taylor and the men such as Mr. Carl 
 G. Barth and Mr. H. L. Gantt who have been closely associ- 
 ated with him in his work. This is the type of success for 
 which the man making the application of scientific manage- 
 ment to various industries, seeks. 
 
 On the other hand, we have the success of those working in 
 various capacities in the plants where scientific management 
 is being practised, and who owe their success to its influence 
 and the opportunities that it has brought out. A few cases 
 of this sort that have come under the writer's observation 
 may be interesting. 
 
 During the past month two men, both of whom started in 
 the same shop run under scientific management as machin- 
 ists, secured positions paying them $50.00 per week, whereas 
 a few years before they had earned but machinists ' pay. 
 These men had been promoted successively from workmen to 
 functional foremen in the shop, and then to the planning 
 department. The opportunities that came to them were the 
 direct result of their training and development under scien- 
 tific management. 
 
 Under scientific management the ability and worth of each 
 man is brought out and recognized, whereas, under the old 
 type of management, "bluff" frequently masquerades, un- 
 detected, as the real thing. 
 
 A few years ago a concern employing about three hundred 
 people started to install a system of scientific management, 
 and at that time there was employed, in charge of their ship- 
 ping department, a man who had not attracted any especial 
 attention except as an efficient shipping clerk, in which posi- 
 tion his employer would probably have kept him on account 
 of his handling his job well. This department showed up so 
 favorably in comparison with others in the plant, that the 
 consulting engineer directing the development of the new 
 system persuaded the management to place this man in active 
 
54 THE MEN WHO SUCCEED. 
 
 charge of certain features of the work, gradually increasing 
 his scope, until finally, when the new system had been fully 
 developed, the management realized that he was the real 
 superintendent of the plant, and made him so in name as well 
 as in fact. They had formerly had a superintendent in name 
 only. Incidentally the old superintendent was not injured at 
 all, having assumed during the period of development duties 
 for which he had a natural inclination and for which he was 
 better fitted. 
 
 It is not at all uncommon for laborers to become mechanics 
 in plants run under scientific management, nor for the 
 mechanics whom these men succeed, to become functional 
 foremen. 
 
 One of the most interesting cases that has come under the 
 writer's observation is that of a laborer who became first a 
 drill press hand, then an all round machine hand, and finally 
 a gang boss. The surprising feature in this case is that when 
 this man first came under scientific management he could 
 scarcely write could not add 1 1/4" to 15/16". 
 
 These are only a few of a vast number of cases that could 
 be cited, but they serve to show that scientific management is 
 not only a good thing for the employer but for the employee 
 as well. 
 
THE PLACE OF THE COLLEGE IN COLLECTING 
 AND CONSERVING THE DATA OF SCIEN- 
 TIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 BY WILFRED LEWIS, 
 President of the Tabor Mfg. Co., Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 By scientific management is understood that type of man- 
 agement which is made to rest upon certain well-defined prin- 
 ciples, in the application of whic 1 ! the highest efficiency in 
 human labor is attainable. Mr. Taylor has laid down four 
 fundamental principles of management as follows : 
 
 The development of a true science. 
 
 The scientific selection of the workman. 
 
 His scientific education and development. 
 
 Intimate friendly relations between the management and 
 the men. 
 
 These principles have been expanded by other writers into 
 many more, but in their application to any given line of work, 
 the development of the science leads to vast accumulations of 
 data which must be classified and arranged to be available 
 for immediate use when needed, and the question suggested 
 by my subject is: In what way can the college be made to 
 collect and conserve the data of scientific management? 
 
 Hitherto these data have been accumulated at enormous 
 expense, and their possession in the hands of different indi- 
 viduals or companies has meant practically the doing of the 
 same work with slight variations again and again, simply 
 because there has been no common depository of the data ob- 
 tained. If a true science in management is really attainable, 
 there must be a common pool into which the rivulets of in- 
 formation may flow, and out of which broad streams of knowl- 
 edge can be drawn. The mere accumulation of data without 
 intelligent classification and arrangement counts for little, 
 
 55 
 
56 CONSERVING DATA OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 and this fact was borne in upon me very forcibly when, after 
 great diligence in the accumulation of certain records, it 
 became more expedient to make new ones than to attempt to 
 find what was wanted in such a heterogeneous mass of details. 
 
 To a certain extent the scientific selection of the workman 
 can be studied in our colleges, and, by introspection, students 
 can obtain very helpful suggestions as to the career best 
 suited to their abilities; but the scientific education and de- 
 velopment of the workman, and the intimate friendly rela- 
 tions between the management and the men, when applied to 
 teachers as managers and to students as workmen, takes on 
 an unusual significance which may well arrest the attention 
 of thinking men. 
 
 In modern industry, to which these principles are generally 
 applied, the product is some material thing, the output of 
 which is to be increased for the benefit of the labor employed, 
 the management which directs it, and the public which con- 
 sumes it ; but in the college, the product is the workman him- 
 self, a living force fired with the energy of youth and full of 
 promise to himself and all the world beside. The molding of 
 this material for the market which awaits it, or the develop- 
 ment of young men fitted for the battle of life, is surely an 
 industry of preeminent importance, and it can hardly be 
 doubted that the place of the college as an institution for col- 
 lecting and conserving the talents of the rising generation for 
 the best uses of the world depends more upon the scientific 
 management it displays than upon anything else. 
 
 I am not sure that Mr. Taylor had in mind the college as 
 a factory for the development of men when he framed his 
 four great underlying principles of management, but he has 
 always contended that there were no exceptions to their appli- 
 cation, and I am inclined to think the up-to-date college must 
 not only be alive to the importance of scientific management, 
 but it must also absorb and disseminate the principles upon 
 which its own efficiency and that of its alumni can be built 
 up and maintained. 
 
 Scientific management has hitherto been considered chiefly 
 
WILFKED LEWIS. 57 
 
 as a means for increasing the products of labor in industrial 
 operations, and as such it is known to include the wage 
 worker, the employer, and the consumer, in its benefits. If 
 "he who maketh two blades of grass to grow where but one 
 grew before" is a public benefactor, what can be said of him 
 who lights the way for every worker to vastly increase his 
 output and so raises the standard of living throughout the 
 civilized world? 
 
 It matters not whether the principles enunciated are new 
 or old if they are made to bear fruit as living forces, and 
 although scientific management is a new term for the general 
 development of all industry, it is frankly admitted by its 
 chief exponent to have been well established for centuries in 
 certain limited fields, and the following extract from the 
 "Meditations of Marcus Aurelius" shows that he was alive to 
 the wastefulness of misdirected effort nearly eighteen hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 "They will say commonly, meddle not with many things, if thou wilt 
 live cheerfully. Certainly there is nothing better than for a man to 
 confine himself to necessary actions; to such and so many only, as 
 reason in a creature that knows itself born for society, will command 
 and enjoin. This will not only procure that cheerfulness, which from 
 the goodness, but that also, which from the paucity of actions doth 
 usually proceed. For since it is so, that most of these things, which 
 we either speak or do, are unnecessary; if a man shall cut them off, it 
 must needs follow that he shall thereby gain much leisure, and save 
 much trouble, and therefore at every action a man must privately by 
 way of admonition suggest unto himself, What? May not this that I 
 now go about, be of the number of unnecessary actions! Neither must 
 he use himself to cut off actions only, but thoughts and imagination 
 also that are unnecessary; for so will unnecessary consequent actions 
 the better be prevented and cut off." 
 
 But it remained for Mr. Taylor to prepare the way for the 
 accurate determination of a fair day's work by the scientific 
 analysis of the elementary operations and the time required 
 in detail. With these data properly classified and arranged, 
 it is now possible to determine the time required on work 
 
58 CONSEBVING DATA OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 never done before, and when the elementary operations in all 
 lines of industry shall have been so analyzed, classified and 
 arranged, it will be possible to determine the time required 
 for the performance of manual labor under any given condi- 
 tion, and even mental effort to a certain extent can be so 
 formulated. All labor must be resolved by analysis into its 
 elementary units, and these units may then be combined for 
 any desired result. The combinations to a given end may 
 also vary, and the result will depend upon the skill of the 
 expert who prepares the instructions which he must know to 
 be practicable. These instructions are not unlike the labora- 
 tory instructions given to college students when they are 
 expected to do certain things in a very definite and exact 
 way, and very often in a certain limited time, and it may be 
 said that the laboratory method is the method of scientific 
 management in the progressive workshops of to-day. It typi- 
 fies the art of learning by doing, in a very definite clear-cut 
 way. It does not tolerate the initiative of the unskilled, but it 
 gives more freedom to those better qualified to plan and direct. 
 Some of the data of scientific management were therefore col- 
 lected and conserved by our colleges long before the term itself 
 was coined, and if a department were formed for teaching 
 the science of management, it might become the reservoir into 
 which the working data of all industries might be poured for 
 analysis and redistribution in a more helpful form. Such a 
 department would have an important influence upon the study 
 of political economy and trade unionism, and it might help 
 labor to see its real interest in production rather than in the 
 highest possible wages for the least amount of work. It should 
 be apparent to the dullest intellect that the rewards of labor 
 can not exceed the products of labor, that the producers of 
 the world are its principal consumers, that high wages for a 
 low product increases the cost of living, and that a large 
 product adds to the general welfare of the community re- 
 gardless of wages, which can not rise above their source as 
 measured in the actual return of the same labor applied to 
 mining the standard of value, gold. 
 
WILFRED LEWIS. 59 
 
 All this should be apparent but it is not, because the struggle 
 still goes on to get more than is to be had out of everything, 
 and by innumerable strikes and lock-outs, the products avail- 
 able for distribution are continually depreciated and reduced, 
 to the irreparable injury of common labor, which suffers 
 most from its own blind folly. In natural rights all men are 
 equal, and it should be the aim of a beneficent government to 
 insure equal opportunities to all. But in ability to embrace 
 opportunities men will always differ, and compensation must 
 be apportioned to results, if the highest efficiency is to be 
 maintained and the largest product realized. The welfare of 
 common labor depends, therefore, upon the welfare of skilled 
 men who are not content with the same reward and naturally 
 forge ahead. 
 
 Those who cannot direct or control must follow the leader 
 or come to grief, and in taking their proper places in the 
 world of industry they contribute in the fullest degree to their 
 own happiness and that of the community in which they live. 
 The law of supply and demand, freely exercised and applied 
 to individuals, can be safely trusted to distribute the rewards 
 of labor more justly and more advantageously to all men than 
 any of the Utopian schemes which cut out incentive and en- 
 deavor to reduce the leaders of men to the ranks, because with- 
 out incentive, the efforts of able men will be relaxed, and 
 civilization will surely decline. So, in the mining of gold, this 
 industry will not continue unless the product is at least equal 
 to the outlay in salaries, wages, and fixed charges, and what 
 common labor realizes in this industry can not be exceeded 
 in any other industry without stopping or retarding the min- 
 ing of gold upon which the maintenance of high wages 
 depends. The matter of wages is therefore under automatic 
 control, and since it does not affect the welfare of common 
 labor so much as the total output in which labor participates, 
 the main interest of labor clearly lies in the cause of efficiency. 
 But how long will it be before this is recognized by the rank 
 and file, and have we not in the philosophy of scientific man- 
 agement another field for the activities of college men ? Effici- 
 
60 CONSEKVING DATA OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 ency suffers for want of expounders, and a vast amount of 
 energy is misdirected by unworthy leaders to mischievous 
 ends. When properly understood and applied there is no 
 conflict between capital and labor under scientific manage- 
 ment, and capital is recognized as a factor equal in importance 
 to labor itself, without which the condition of labor would 
 indeed be discouraging. On the other hand, the concentra- 
 tion of fabulous wealth in a few hands, when heralded as it 
 is in the newspapers and flaunted in the eyes of the desperately 
 poor, cannot fail to cause discontent with mutterings of resent- 
 ment and threats of violence and revolution. And while it is 
 true that prosperity depends upon the energy born of ambi- 
 tion, the time will surely come when the conditions which 
 permit such monstrous accumulations will no longer exist, and 
 by the operation of beneficent laws, predatory wealth will 
 be automatically returned to the community from which it 
 was drawn. This can be done in such a way as to impose no 
 obstacle to the realization of any reasonable ambition, and 
 yet to make the acquisition of unlimited wealth attended by 
 increasing difficulties. The data of scientific management 
 would then be applied to the functions of government, as well 
 as to ways and means for the accumulation and distribution 
 of wealth, and there is really no limit to their fruitful possi- 
 bilities. 
 
 I conceive it to be the function of colleges to collect and 
 conserve the data of the sciences which they undertake to 
 teach, and if scientific management is to be one of them, the 
 data upon which it rests should be included. 
 
 In my own business, these data consist, roughly speaking, 
 of certain elements which have been arranged in the form of a 
 chart beginning with the charges for general expense divided 
 into auxiliary, business, and manufacturing, followed by 
 classifications for stores, worked materials, tools, machine 
 tools, and materials. These classifications are subdivided and 
 their subdivisions are again and again divided until we finally 
 arrive at our slide rules for machine time and tabulated 
 records for the determination of handling time. The former 
 
WILFRED LEWIS. 61 
 
 apply especially to the particular tools and machines in actual 
 use, and the latter to information more general in character 
 which would be applicable to machine shops anywhere. It 
 may be impracticable to collect and conserve for general use 
 the data for slide rules or the slide rules themselves designed 
 especially for certain machines. This might be done by the 
 machine tool builders, and the results obtained might or might 
 not be their best selling arguments. The handling time, how- 
 ever, is of more general application, and some clearing house 
 should be provided for its reception and distribution to avoid 
 the expense consequent upon the repetition of this work by 
 independent investigators. 
 
 I had thought at one time of the college as the natural 
 depository and distributor of this information, and for this 
 reason I believe my subject was assigned, but we now have 
 engineering societies, some devoted in part to scientific man- 
 agement, others to it exclusively, and this Society for the Pro- 
 motion of Engineering Education, any one of which might 
 act as custodian for the data of scientific management, and 
 with all these avenues open to those interested in the results, 
 it seems to me that the subject belongs more particularly to 
 the Society to Promote the Science of Management than to 
 any other, and that the place of the college is to participate in 
 the results and lend itself as far as possible to the development 
 of a true science from the data obtained. Its help is also 
 needed in the art of teaching, for under scientific management 
 every plant of whatever description becomes in effect a trade 
 school where unskilled labor is trained and directed to a 
 broader and better sphere of usefulness. The acquisition of 
 knowledge is one thing, and the art of imparting it to others 
 is necessarily in the hands of men who have never been trained 
 as teachers. College methods could therefore be studied to 
 advantage by scientific managers, and the mutual interchange 
 of ideas and experiences between managers and teachers could 
 hardly fail to be of great benefit to both. 
 
AN AUXILIARY TO COLLEGES IN THE TRAINING 
 OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGERS. 
 
 BY EGBERT THURSTON KENT, 
 
 Editor of Industrial Engineering, New York. 
 
 The writer has always had a high opinion of the plan inau- 
 gurated by Dean Herman Schneider at the University of Cin- 
 cinnati for the training of engineers, that is, the spending of 
 a portion of the college course which is five years in length 
 in the shops of Cincinnati or nearby towns, during which 
 period in the shops the students work side by side with the 
 regular workmen, receiving instruction and training in shop 
 methods which it would be impossible to give them in the 
 college shop. Although the length of the course seems excess- 
 ive, the plan is an admirable one in many respects for training 
 engineers who are to become machine shop superintendents, 
 managers, or to hold positions of similar character in other 
 manufacturing lines. Without doubt, the same idea could be 
 successfully applied to other lines of engineering work, such 
 as the various phases of civil engineering, electrical engineer- 
 ing, power plant practice, heating and ventilating or any one 
 of the many specialties in which the mechanical engineer finds 
 occupation. 
 
 While scientific management is comparatively new, yet, in 
 a number of industries in this country its principles have been 
 applied with uniform success. These shops, in the writer's 
 opinion, will form the best auxiliaries to the colleges in the 
 training of scientific managers, operating with respect to scien- 
 tific management courses in the colleges, exactly as do the 
 shops of Cincinnati to the engineering course in the Univer- 
 sity of Cincinnati. It is not necessary for the purposes of 
 training an engineer in the principles of scientific management 
 that he study the operation of these principles in a machine 
 shop. The principles underlying scientific management are 
 
 62 
 
ROBERT THURSTON KENT. O3 
 
 the same in every industry, and the student in a management 
 course can study their operation fully as well in a textile mill 
 or a printing establishment, as in a machine shop. It may be 
 that he can study them even better, for in many industries 
 there is not the complexity of operations that obtains in 
 machine work, which might appear to befog the clear discern- 
 ment of the underlying principles. 
 
 The most powerful auxiliary to the college in the training 
 of scientific managers, therefore, is the shop in some line of 
 industry which is operated according to the principles laid 
 down by Dr. Taylor. It is not to be expected that a student 
 should become a finished textile worker, printer or machinist 
 should he use one of these industries as an auxiliary to a 
 management course, but he can learn in the most thorough 
 manner in any of these industries, the principles of routing, 
 of scheduling, of planning, of time-keeping, store-keeping, and 
 he also can learn by acting under the instructions of one of 
 these officials, the functions of the speed boss, the gang boss, 
 the inspector and the disciplinarian. In the planning depart- 
 ment, he can act, always under supervision if necessary, as 
 instruction card man, time and cost clerk, route clerk, etc. 
 
 The plan the writer advocates in the training by colleges of 
 men to fill positions under scientific management, is that each 
 college having such a course arrange with one or more indus- 
 tries in its vicinity to have its students spend a part of their 
 time in that industry, much along the lines that the students 
 in the University of Cincinnati spend their time in the shops 
 of that city. The course should be arranged so that the stu- 
 dents will spend several consecutive days or weeks each month 
 in the shop, performing the functions of one or more of the 
 planning department officials or of the functional foremen 
 out in the shop. 
 
 The writer is of the firm belief that engineering education 
 is of comparatively little commercial value until it is supple- 
 mented by practical training in commercial work, whether 
 that work be shop practice, construction work or any other 
 line which the student elects to follow subsequent to the com- 
 
64 TKAINING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEKS. 
 
 pletion of his college course. This idea applies just as much 
 to engineering work which specializes in management as it 
 does to engineering which specializes in machine design, power- 
 plant practice or any other line of engineering. The student 
 who has studied the theory of management from books and 
 depends upon this theory alone is apt to encounter many pit- 
 falls in his attempt to apply what he has learned. The big 
 problems in management are not those of following a certain 
 fixed set of forms or rules based on the fundamental prin- 
 ciples enunciated by Dr. Taylor. The vital problem in man- 
 agement is that which involves a human element. It is psy- 
 chological and until the would-be manager actually comes in 
 contact with the workmen and comes to understand the atti- 
 tude of the workmen toward all in authority above him and 
 toward his work, he will inevitably fail in his attempt to be a 
 successful manager. This knowledge cannot be gained in the 
 class-room. It must be gained by actual physical contact with 
 the workmen. It is, therefore, the writer's opinion that no 
 college giving a course in scientific management can have a 
 better auxiliary than a close working connection with some 
 industry that is operating under the principles of scientific 
 management. 
 
TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN 
 ENGINEERING SCHOOLS. 
 
 BY EGBERT B. WOLF, 
 
 Managing Engineer, Burgess Sulphite Co., Berlin, N. H. 
 
 It is not my purpose to go into an elaborate discussion of 
 the principles of scientific management, but simply to give 
 briefly my reasons for believing that it should be taught in 
 our engineering schools. In this day of keen competition no 
 manufacturing establishment can be conducted successfully 
 by the old "rule of thumb" methods. This is especially true 
 in that class of manufacturing which has been established for 
 some time and where competition and increased cost of raw 
 materials have reduced the margin of profit. There are quite 
 a number of establishments, such as machine shops, foundries, 
 etc., where the principles of scientific management have been 
 worked out to a very fine point by Dr. Taylor and others. 
 Any one starting out in this line of work need not be put to 
 the trouble and expense of conducting a long series of costly 
 experiments to determine such a question, for instance, as the 
 proper method of cutting metals. A thorough course out- 
 lining these principles can well be added to the curriculum of 
 our engineering schools. This course should describe in detail 
 the methods used in up-to-date machine shops, going into the 
 subject of "time study" work, store system, and general ac- 
 counting, which will undoubtedly save many a young engineer 
 from spending his time going over the ground already covered 
 by others. He could then devote his energies to extending 
 the field still further. 
 
 In some industries the principles of scientific management 
 have been so well worked out that it is hardly any longer a 
 question as to what are the best methods to pursue. If the 
 engineering schools will take up this subject, it will enable 
 the students to profit by the experiences of others, thereby 
 
 65 
 
66 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 tending towards ultimate economy in manufacturing methods. 
 The very excellent treatise on the art of cutting metals, by 
 Dr. Taylor, might well be used as a text-book, even though the 
 student does not intend to follow machine-shop work. A 
 careful study of this book, so that the principles involved are 
 recognized, will assist materially in pointing out the general 
 methods that should be followed in pursuing any line of 
 investigation. These identical principles have been adopted, 
 for instance, in the cooking or boiling of pulp in sulphite 
 digesters. 
 
 A course describing the methods in use in making motion- 
 study might well be added, as this is an important part of scien- 
 tific management. As an illustration of this, there is one large 
 pulp manufacturing concern that was able to save over $200 
 per day in freight paid to the railroad companies, by a careful 
 motion-study to eliminate lost time in the operation of its 
 hydraulic press equipment for pressing moisture out of the 
 pulp. There should also be included a course describing the 
 various methods of rewarding men for their increased effi- 
 ciency. This must be gone into very carefully in order to 
 point out the danger of attempting any kind of piece work or 
 bonus system, without scientifically determining in advance 
 the best methods to follow. Mistakes made by imitators of 
 scientific management might have been avoided if a more 
 thorough knowledge on these subjects had been available. 
 The methods for rewarding foremen and department heads, 
 so that they will be stimulated to their best efforts, should 
 also be studied, as well as those used to determine the depart- 
 mental efficiencies. 
 
 Another important subject is the use of graphical methods 
 for analyzing the results of investigation and keeping track 
 of operating conditions. Considering the extreme simplicity 
 of this method and the impossibility of obtaining intelligent re- 
 sults in any other way, it surely seems that this subject should 
 be given a great deal more attention in our technical schools. 
 There is nothing new, of course, about graphics, but its general 
 application to business is new and should be studied. 
 
EGBERT B. WOLF. 67 
 
 All of this, of course, involves experience and it is highly 
 desirable that the subjects previously referred to in this paper 
 be taught by men who have had experience in putting these 
 principles into operation. In my judgment it would be im- 
 proper and might be productive of harm rather than good 
 if college instructors simply took up the subject by text-book 
 and attempted to teach it. The true principles of scientific 
 management cannot be comprehended in this way alone, as 
 the practicable conditions can only be learned by actual con- 
 tact with the work and have a great bearing on the final con- 
 clusions. If this subject must be taken up by the regular 
 instructors in the engineering schools, they should be given 
 permission and time to go into the manufacturing establish- 
 ments now operating under this system, to become thoroughly 
 familiar with it. After having done this they will be in a 
 much better position to teach the subject in an authoritative 
 and interesting way. 
 
 After having acquired a knowledge of the mechanism of 
 scientific management the student should also be taught the 
 general philosophy of the subject and it would be well to 
 include in this connection a course in biology and practical 
 psychology, for the reason that the true test of scientific man- 
 agement is that it improves and elevates the mental and 
 physical condition of the workman. A wrong impression has 
 been given by some of the opponents of scientific management, 
 who claim that it tends to make automatons of men. If this 
 has been done in any of the industries it is because the true 
 principle has been departed from and for this reason, if for 
 no other, the treating of the subject in a comprehensive way 
 in our engineering schools would be a great advantage, and 
 would tend to prevent mistakes of this character. 
 
 One other thing that scientific management has pointed out 
 very clearly is that the physical condition of the men should 
 be considered to its fullest extent and that the men who are 
 overworked and working in unhygienic surroundings are in 
 the very nature of things bound to be more or less inefficient. 
 A general treatment, therefore, of hygienic law is necessary 
 
68 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 as well as a course in physiology and personal hygiene. A 
 great many men are inefficient largely because they lack a 
 knowledge of how to take care of themselves, so that it is part 
 of the system of scientific management to conduct a campaign 
 of education along these lines. This, of course, cannot be done 
 intelligently unless the men at the head of the organization 
 realize to the fullest extent what this means. 
 
 It seems to me, in view of the fact that our engineering 
 schools are turning out the men who become the heads of our 
 large manufacturing concerns, that it is of the utmost im- 
 portance that they send out their students thoroughly equipped 
 with a knowledge of the principles of scientific management 
 and in this connection I believe that the course should include 
 visits by the students to establishments now operating under 
 this system. This would not .only tend to make the course 
 more interesting, but would fix in a more permanent way the 
 things learned from the text-books. In conclusion, I can say 
 that the large progressive manufacturers of the country would 
 welcome the thought of our engineering schools taking up 
 this subject. 
 
THE TEACHING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 
 IN ENGINEERING SCHOOLS. 
 
 BY HOLLIS GODFREY, 
 
 f. 
 
 Consulting Engineer, West Medford, Mass. 
 
 Two problems confronted the writer of this paper when he 
 began his work : 
 
 First, to take the engineering school as it commonly exists 
 today and use its equipment effectively in the creation of a 
 practicable course for men who desire to follow the profes- 
 sion of industrial or management engineers. 
 
 Second, to take the student as he is and to equip him well 
 for his work, giving him studies which will be of real value 
 and which he cannot as well acquire afterwards in the shop. 
 
 It is merely good management to use all the facilities which 
 now exist in the engineering schools. Their regular courses 
 are, in my belief, admirably adapted to their purposes and 
 admirably conducted as a general thing. I propose to use 
 those courses in the training of the industrial engineers so far 
 as possible. There is room in scientific management for the 
 man trained in every type of engineering. I propose that the 
 student of the science of management shall take three years 
 out of four in some one of the regular courses in engineering, 
 devoting one year's work, made up of half the work of the 
 junior year and half the work of the senior year, to the direct 
 courses in scientific management and to their allied courses. 
 The allied required courses are often given in engineering 
 schools, and are almost always given in the colleges of arts, 
 which commonly exist combined with engineering schools. 
 The direct courses advised here are given in the form pro- 
 posed, so far as I know, in no engineering school, and amount 
 to four half courses. The progress of the work, as will be 
 noted later, requires that the work in scientific management 
 shall be begun in the junior year. I believe that the plan 
 outlined here is practicable and will enable an engineering 
 
 69 
 
70 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 school to make the best use of its present equipment in the 
 training of the industrial engineer. I believe that all the 
 content of these courses can be much better acquired in the 
 engineering school than in the shop after graduation. 
 
 The American undergraduate today, both in the college and 
 in the technical school, appears to me marked by a most pro- 
 found ignorance of industrial conditions, both in general and 
 in detail. Whether that condition comes from modern city 
 life or not it is not the province of this paper to discuss. All 
 the evidence at my disposal goes to show that it exists. I do 
 not believe that any lecture course can conquer that ignorance, 
 for I do not believe that the average student has any basic 
 knowledge, apperceptive basis, if you will, on which to build 
 the theory of the science of management. For that reason I 
 should prefer to make it a prerequisite to the junior and 
 senior courses in industrial engineering that the student elect- 
 ing these courses should be required to spend the sophomore 
 and junior vacations in the shop. I should assign more hours 
 a week to shop or laboratory work than to lecture and reci- 
 tation, but not more laboratory periods. 
 
 It is partly because of the undergraduate's ignorance of 
 industrial conditions and partly because the opportunities of 
 the shop to give training in the science of management are 
 limited, that I state my firm belief that a man trained for four 
 years by the plan outlined here will be far better equipped to 
 handle industrial problems than a man graduating from one 
 of the regular courses who attempts to obtain his knowledge 
 of the science of management in the shop. I had believed that 
 the basic theory of the technical school, namely, that the 
 student could advance far more rapidly in the school than in 
 the shop, had been settled long since. It is on that basic edu- 
 cational theory that I propose the training of the industrial 
 engineer in the engineering school, yet to my surprise I find 
 some engineers proposing to make shop training alone serve 
 the special needs of the industrial engineer, thus proposing a 
 theory which is quite outworn for the other branches of engi- 
 neering. Shop and school are too firmly welded to-day to 
 allow either to stand alone. 
 
HOLLIS GODFREY. 71 
 
 As regards the question of whether it might not prove wise 
 to give one or two extra years to the training of the industrial 
 engineer, I have expressly excluded this proposition from my 
 paper, as I have limited myself to the discussion of the engi- 
 neering school as it is. I, therefore, took the four year course 
 as my basis. 
 
 With the assumption that the work of the student of scien- 
 tific management during the first two years will be the same 
 as that of the student in one of the existing engineering 
 courses and with the assumption that the student has spent 
 his sophomore vacation in the shop, suppose we start the 
 student selecting scientific management, at the beginning of 
 his junior year and discuss the direct and allied courses in 
 scientific management which he will take in the two years 
 before graduation. That brings us directly to the question of 
 what powers and what information should be given the student 
 of this subject. As regards the powers, the best way that I 
 know to obtain some statement of those is to turn to the 
 powers possessed by successful industrial engineers of my 
 acquaintance. 
 
 According to my analysis the essential powers possessed by 
 those successful engineers are the following : 
 
 First, the power of using the work done by other men. That 
 power saves a man from repeating uselessly work done before, 
 saves him from repeating the mistakes of others and enables 
 him to build on the foundation of the best work already done. 
 
 Second, the power of perspective, of adjustment to environ- 
 ment, of seeing the proper relation which a process bears to 
 the other processes in a plant, or that a plant bears to its in- 
 dustry as a whole. 
 
 Third, the power of research, of so collecting, correlating 
 and translating masses of facts as to obtain their meaning. 
 
 Fourth, the power of the making of designs and the carry- 
 ing out of construction in the basis of the facts obtained by 
 research. 
 
 Fifth, the power of expression, gained largely through the 
 study of English, which makes both research and construe- 
 
72 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 tion so intelligible and useful that no time is wasted through 
 unintelligibility. 
 
 After powers comes information or perhaps it would be 
 better to say that powers and information combined bring us 
 to courses allied and direct. The first allied course that I 
 should require of the student is economics. The industrial 
 engineer must work with both men and machines. It is his 
 task to produce, to bring order out of industrial disorder, and 
 the history of economic advance, as well as the advances of 
 present day economic research, must be placed before him if 
 he is not to waste time in repeating needlessly the economic 
 mistakes of the past. The industrial engineer must have the 
 light of economics upon his work. He must be able to use 
 intelligently the new work in economics, but it must never be 
 forgotten that he is personally a scientist, not an economist; 
 that, to use Ely's phrase, he is to deal mainly with natural 
 rather than descriptive science. 
 
 So much for the necessity of the work in economics to which 
 I have assigned a course and a half. Two full years have 
 been assigned to those courses which aid the industrial engi- 
 neer to understand the physical and mental condition of the 
 worker, one year of physiology, hygiene and sanitation and 
 one year of psychology, including experimental psychology. 
 I believe that no single factor is to take more commanding 
 place in the development of the next years in scientific man- 
 agement than the work to prevent the evil effects of the old type 
 of management, of speeding up, of rush work and of disa- 
 greeable and dangerous processes. The effect of industry on 
 the human frame and the human mind, the replacing of false 
 theory with scientifically determined facts as regards the phys- 
 ical and mental condition of the worker, will be a part of the 
 work of every industrial engineer. The graduate in this 
 course must not only have acquaintance with the present state 
 of knowledge in the subjects specified, he must be able to use 
 the advances of knowledge obtained by the sanitarian and the 
 psychologist. 
 
 Of the necessity for a half course in the theory and practice 
 
HOLLIS GODFREY. 73 
 
 of accounting it is perhaps merely necessary to speak of the 
 necessity for the industrial engineer to have a thorough knowl- 
 edge of costs and of their relation to the books of the regular 
 accounting system. The industrial engineer must, in the last 
 analysis, have his eye constantly upon costs, for in no pro- 
 fession is it more necessary not to have the work cost 
 more than it is worth. Summarizing the allied courses we 
 find that the list is as follows: One year and a half of eco- 
 nomics; one year of physiology, hygiene and sanitation; one 
 year of psychology including experimental psychology; one 
 half year of the theory and practise of accounting. I assume 
 that equal amounts of lecture and recitation time are allotted 
 to each full course, so that Scientific Management 1 A and 1 B 
 for example, would use the same number of lecture and reci- 
 tation hours as Economics 1. The laboratory hours required 
 for the Scientific Management courses would be additional 
 to this. 
 
 As regards the content of the allied courses proposed here, 
 it seems to me that the conditions existent in different insti- 
 tutions vary so greatly as to make it impossible at present to 
 advise specifically the ground that these courses should cover. 
 In each case the relations between the direct and allied courses 
 must be determined by the cooperation of the men in charge 
 of the work, and the content of the allied courses will be 
 affected by those relations. I advise specifically here as re- 
 gards the content of the courses in Scientific Management, but 
 I feel that the welding of these courses with those now existent 
 is an individual problem which each institution should solve 
 for itself. 
 
 Turning directly from the allied courses to the direct 
 courses in the science of management, we find that these 
 courses divide naturally into four half courses. Scientific 
 Management 1 A, the first, is intended to give the student a 
 general view of industry and of the principles of scientific 
 management. Scientific Management IB considers the prob- 
 lems presented in the planning of work and of all operations 
 preceding the actual shop operations. It lays especial stress 
 
74 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 upon the lesson to be taught throughout, namely, that scien- 
 tific management is a science to be solved by scientific meth- 
 ods. Scientific Management 2 A takes up the problems of 
 work in the shop with especial reference to the workman and 
 his machine. Scientific Management 2B considers the re- 
 sults of the work done in 1 A, 1 B and 2 A, and takes up prob- 
 lems of costs, of purchasing and of sales and especially con- 
 siders the scientific determination of the policy of a business. 
 Each of these courses is aimed to meet certain definite 
 needs or to furnish certain necessary information. Sum- 
 marizing these needs in the case of Scientific Management 1 A 
 we may say that this course is designed : 
 
 1. To meet the ignorance of the student concerning industry 
 and to give him some understanding of the flow of work. To 
 give him some understanding of the principles of the science 
 of management and of general methods of the scientific attack 
 of industrial problems. 
 
 2. To make him realize the main common factors in in- 
 dustry. 
 
 3. To make him realize the main differing factors which 
 make every plant in every industry a new problem. 
 
 4. To show him the methods of statistical research by which 
 laws and principles are determined. 
 
 5. To train him in observation, to enable him to separate 
 process from process and function from function. 
 
 6. To give him actual examples of the application of other 
 sciences to the problems of management. 
 
 To accomplish the purposes just laid down I propose that 
 the student in this course shall make an examination of four 
 industries, taking one representative plant from each industry, 
 and that he shall examine every step in the flow of work from 
 the first inquiry of the customer to the final settlement of the 
 account, examining these steps broadly without going into 
 their details. To put it another way I propose that the stu- 
 dent in this course shall study the broad divisions of four 
 plants in actual operation, leaving the study of the subdivi- 
 sions to follow in the next three courses. Together with this 
 
HOLLIS GODFREY. 75 
 
 examination of actual conditions I propose that the student 
 shall examine those factors common to all the industries and 
 the factors which are different in each industry. 
 
 Few things are more important in the very beginning of the 
 student's work than to have him see that a system built for 
 a given plant and working admirably for that plant will not 
 apply in another plant as it stands, for the simple reason that 
 the different factors in the second plant require study before 
 the systems involving these new factors can be designed or 
 constructed. It is most essential at the very start to make 
 the student realize that he must rely on science and not on a 
 previously obtained mechanism to solve the problems of each 
 new case, that he must solve his problems by the use of the 
 principles of scientific management and not by the application 
 of any ironclad system. That lesson once learned opens the 
 road to the proper study of the principles of the science of 
 management and of the methods used by that science. These 
 methods are, of course, practically those used by every other 
 science, yet one part of them, the methods of statistical re- 
 search, the proper translation of masses of statistics, the ob- 
 taining of the significant figures, if you will, needs more 
 emphasis in the case of the student of industrial engineering 
 than would normally be required of students in most of the 
 other engineering courses. Our knowledge of methods of sta- 
 tistical research is increasing daily. They offer too valuable 
 a tool for the industrial engineer to be omitted from a course 
 in scientific management. 
 
 In this connection it is important for the student to learn 
 that the mere accumulation and even the correlation of data 
 may have no value and may be an extremely expensive habit, 
 provided judgment is not used in the selection of the data to 
 be studied and provided the data, once assembled and corre- 
 lated, is not rightly translated into usable form. Few things 
 need the control of common sense more than statistical re- 
 search. Few things are more valuable, once that control is 
 exercised. Work in graphical analysis should prove of assist- 
 ance here. 
 
 It is extremely necessary in a course such as is here out- 
 
76 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 lined that the student should be required to test and retest 
 his knowledge. No student should be allowed to complete this 
 course without handing in a report showing a careful study of 
 the main processes in some plant in actual operation, prefer- 
 ably a plant engaged in some industry not among the four 
 industries chosen for the course. 
 
 Having gained his perspective in the first course in scien- 
 tific management the student may begin the study of detail 
 in the second course in which, as has already been said, it 
 seems advisable to consider the planning and preparation 
 processes which occur previous to the passage of the work 
 into the shop. This course involves the detailed study of a 
 group of the main factors involved in management, routing, 
 stores, etc., determining the subdivisions of these factors for 
 individual cases but excluding direct machine operations. 
 Methods of collecting all available data concerning these 
 factors of industry, the making of a science out of the opera- 
 tions of an industry through the collection, correlating and 
 expression in useful form of all data concerning an operation, 
 should be shown here with especial reference to the working 
 out of the first principle of scientific management as given 
 by Dr. Taylor. Mechanisms derived from scientific study and 
 already in use in different places should be considered and 
 basic likenesses in these mechanisms discussed. Differences, 
 existing in different industries, should be considered and it 
 should be made plain that these mechanisms, being based on 
 scientific study of principles, will differ outwardly in different 
 cases but will be basically the same. 
 
 The fact that men and machines, and not machines alone, 
 are studied in the science of management must be brought 
 out here in connection with physiology, hygiene and sanita- 
 tion. The effect of heat, light and air on the workman, the 
 problems of fatigue and the deleterious effect of the rush 
 work of the old type of management should be especially con- 
 sidered here. 
 
 The student in this course should not go back of the point 
 where the orders are transmitted from the sales department 
 
HOLLIS GODFBEY. 
 
 77 
 
 into the factory, but his study of the preliminary processes 
 should begin at this point, pass through the study of design, 
 of preparation of material or stores, through study of the 
 principles of stores, through routing, order of work and the 
 control of work going through the shop, and should include 
 some symbolization and some studies of the general articula- 
 tion and f unctionalization of the planning department. Study 
 of the problems of tools, of time study and of instruction 
 cards, although technically, perhaps, included in this division 
 of the subject, should be left until the following course. 
 
 When the student has completed the course outlined above 
 he should have a fair knowledge of the best practice of indus- 
 trial engineering in its relation to the planning of work. He 
 should have a fair conception of the methods of attack by 
 which industrial difficulties have been solved and the way in 
 which they may be solved by the application of the science of 
 management. He should himself have gained some power in 
 the solution of practical problems and he should be required 
 at the end of this course to prove his ability by the actual 
 solution of an actual problem of the planning room. 
 
 Scientific Management 2 A purposes to take up the prob- 
 lem of the passage of work through the shop from the begin- 
 ning of the first machine or hand process applied to the raw 
 material to the delivery of the finished article to stores or to 
 the shipping room. It involves a study of machine and hand 
 processes but this is but a part of its work. It is in this 
 course that the student first meets the great problem of the 
 task, of the substitution of the justice of science for the guess- 
 work of man as a basis for the cooperation of employer and 
 employee, and meets the problems of education that are in- 
 volved in the theory of functional foremanship. 
 
 We may outline briefly the subject matter of the course as 
 follows : 
 
 1. Study of the task with a view to the elimination of all 
 disagreeable and dangerous elements. 
 
 2. Study of the task with a view to determining the duties 
 of the management in obtaining the right task. 
 
78 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 3. Study of the task with a view to machine improvements. 
 (These studies should be done in the shops of the school.) 
 
 4. Study of the education of the workman. 
 
 5. Study of functionalization in the shop. 
 
 6. Proper methods of instruction card writing. 
 
 7. Proper methods of record. 
 
 The following subjects should also be considered here: 
 
 8. The selection of the workman. 
 
 9. The study of physiological and psychological factors in- 
 volved in certain given cases. 
 
 The student who gains what he should from the course in 
 Scientific Management 2 A should gain far more than the 
 technique of time study. He should make appreciable gains 
 in his power of observation and of analysis. He should gain 
 the conception that time study, far from being a weapon to 
 wrongly speed up a worker, furnishes a means of removing 
 the disagreeable, inefficient and dangerous elements of a work- 
 er's task. He should gain facility of expression in the practice 
 of making out instruction cards, improve his power of choice 
 in the selection of tools for tool lists, and gain a considerable 
 appreciation of the best methods in vogue to-day for the in- 
 crease of the efficiency of men and machines. 
 
 No part of his work should give the student more under- 
 standing of the problem of obtaining the workman's coopera- 
 tion than his study, towards the end of this course, of the 
 problems of the scientific selection and development of the 
 workman as laid down in the second and third of Dr. Taylor's 
 principles of scientific management. The year's work in 
 physiology, hygiene and sanitation which has preceded this 
 course, the work in psychology which goes on with it, should 
 be of great aid to the student in his effort to comprehend these 
 most important principles. 
 
 At the end of this course, the student should present a re- 
 port of a rather comprehensive nature involving the deter- 
 mination and expression of a task. This report should involve 
 not only time studies, but all the expression of the task as 
 shown in the writing of instruction cards, tool lists, work of 
 
HOL.LIS GODFREY. 79 
 
 functional foremen, etc. The work in English should show 
 its value here. 
 
 Scientific Management 2B, the final course, considers the 
 results and records of planning and of work in the shop. It 
 should consider the effect upon design of the records made in 
 both of the previous courses and especially the effect upon the 
 policy of the firm of the weak and strong points brought out 
 by the scientific study of the various problems involved. The 
 latter part of the course should be given up to a general re- 
 view of the whole subject and should give especial considera- 
 tion to the fourth of Dr. Taylor's principles of scientific 
 management, the new division of the total burden between 
 management and operative, as shown in all the courses. 
 
 Summarizing the general subject matter of this course, we 
 may say that this fourth section should concern itself, first, 
 with the proper recording of the work done in respect to time 
 and to costs; second, with methods of wage and bonus deter- 
 mination; third, with methods of inventory taking and pur- 
 chasing curves; fourth, with methods of design in scientific 
 management ; fifth, with a general review. Then, as determin- 
 ing future policy, should come the study of sales curves and 
 cost curves, those great aids in determining what classes of 
 business really pay. 
 
 The wide-reaching possibilities of using the investigations 
 of scientific management in determining the policy of a busi- 
 ness, in respect to design, to classes of product, to choice of 
 customers, and to determining the field of sales has received as 
 yet but little outside notice. Of the two functions of cost, one, 
 the use of costs in determining prices, has received a fair 
 share of attention. The other, the use of costs in determining 
 the most profitable classes of business, receives to-day nothing 
 like the attention that it merits. The work in costs should 
 not only teach the student methods of cost distribution which 
 will distribute every penny expended in a given time upon the 
 product manufactured in that time. It should teach him also 
 to use costs as a constant check upon the progress of his own 
 work and as a guide to the future direction of a business. 
 
80 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 Sales curves added to cost curves throw still more light 
 upon the problems of the most favorable fields to attack and 
 the classes of goods which seem best suited .to both the produc- 
 tion possibilities of the factory and the requirements of the 
 customers. In a great number of the factories of the United 
 States to-day the sales and the manufacturing departments 
 live in a state of warfare. Service is pitted constantly against 
 production. It is peculiarly the province of the industrial 
 engineer to determine by study the actual basis on which the 
 most profitable service and production can be given and to 
 bring the sales department and the factory into harmony. 
 
 The problems of the maximum and minimum quantities to 
 be carried in stores, requires careful study if a plant is to 
 avoid the two extremes of being out of material or of locking 
 up too much money in stores. Both extremes are dangerous 
 and both should be avoided by scientific study and not by 
 guesswork. Work of this sort begun earlier may be amplified 
 in course 2 B. 
 
 The application of these investigations to design, governed 
 largely by the charted studies of time and costs, has pro- 
 duced remarkable results both in the adaptation of design to 
 the needs of the customer and consumer, and in the cutting 
 down of the costs of the article. The final course, Course 2 B, 
 is the place for the discussion of these points. 
 
 At the nd of the course the student should make a report 
 embodying actual reports of time and cost, of sales and pur- 
 chasing curves for a given plant. 
 
 As regards the methods of instruction, lecture, recitation 
 and laboratory are all mingled in about the usual proportions. 
 The laboratory work must largely be done in allied friendly 
 plants, but the present day interest of manufacturers in tech- 
 nical education should make this easily possible. No task 
 setting should, however, be done elsewhere than in the shops 
 of the school. That is too delicate a matter for student hands 
 and involves too many possible difficulties when done by others 
 than experts. 
 
 I left teaching a considerable time ago when I took up 
 
HOLLJS GODFBEY. 81 
 
 the study and practice of the science of management, but 
 I believe I have not lost any of my interest in effective teach- 
 ing or any of my beliefs in education. This paper is the 
 outcome of my interests and beliefs in education and in scien- 
 tific management. And I believe in scientific management 
 because in the period during which it has been my good 
 fortune to have been associated with Frederick Winslow 
 Taylor, I have never found any industrial problem which the 
 science of management would not solve. I have seen with my 
 own eyes marked savings in money, marked advances in serv- 
 ice and production, marked improvement in the condition of 
 the worker. With that personal experience it is perhaps no 
 wonder that I have become an enthusiast on the subject, that 
 I look for its advancement in every way and that the teaching 
 of scientific management should interest me deeply. 
 
 I believe that with the training outlined above, properly 
 given by qualified men and properly assimilated by the pupil, 
 the student should reach the end of his course a thorough 
 believer in the science of management, with the desire and 
 ability to use the scientific spirit in the solution of the prob- 
 lems of industry. He should have a mind that is willing to 
 accept and use all that is best of the work of other men, yet 
 he should be constant in the pursuit of knowledge. The 
 industrial engineer will never be a man who " knows his own 
 business " for he knows that no man can measure or limit the 
 advance of science. Free from dogma and from prejudice, 
 blessed with the open mind and with the equipment of modern 
 science the industrial engineer, so trained, should be prepared 
 to do his part in bringing justice and betterment to every 
 worker everywhere in the new industrial day. 
 
 Note. In the preceding paper I recognize that I present 
 the view of one man, aided by friendly criticisms. The de- 
 velopment of a course of the kind proposed here must be, in 
 the last analysis, the work of many men. It has been my aim 
 throughout this paper to make definite statements which can 
 be definitely shown to be practicable or impracticable in a 
 given case. Deeply interested in the problem as I am, I shall 
 welcome all constructive criticism. 
 
TEACHING THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC 
 MANAGEMENT. 
 
 BY WALTER RAUTENSTRAUCH, 
 Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University. 
 
 The records of this society, the transactions of engineering 
 institutes, articles in the public press and the reports of many 
 conferences give evidence of an ever increasing interest in 
 the subject of engineering education in preparation for service 
 in the manufacturing industries. The remarkable results be- 
 ing accomplished by American manufacturers in the produc- 
 tion of commodities at lower costs than were obtained in 
 earlier years have awakened the people to the possibilities of 
 accomplishment in all lines of human endeavor through a 
 more accurate knowledge of the factors of cost incident to 
 these activities. Efficiency societies, committees of the 
 national and local engineering organizations and special pub- 
 lications devoted to the Science of Organization, Management 
 and Production are springing into being, for the purpose of 
 spreading far and wide a knowledge of those principles of 
 production which have been so effective in the industries where 
 they have been sanely tried. While many commercial institu- 
 tions have been put on a more substantial foundation to the 
 benefit of both producer and consumer, and industries over- 
 burdened with financial obligations, occasioned by errors in 
 operation and management, have been given a new start, yet 
 some manufacturers and managers of the old school have held 
 themselves aloof from partaking in this new movement be- 
 cause of years of prosperity under the older conditions of 
 manufacture. It is not surprising, therefore, to find the 
 same attitude in some of our universities and colleges where 
 the policies are dictated by professors schooled and experi- 
 enced in means and methods of instruction which no longer 
 parallel the modern requirements of engineering service, and 
 
 82 
 
WALTER RAUTENSTRAUCH. 83 
 
 whose knowledge of present engineering practice is mainly 
 derived from text-books. 
 
 Our successful industries to-day are those which have 
 adapted themselves to the changing economic conditions of 
 the times and are not judging their present condition by the 
 results of past performance. So also will it be found that 
 our engineering schools will progress to the extent to which 
 they keep the subject matter of their courses and methods 
 of instruction abreast with the practice of the profession for 
 which they propose to give preparation and also not to judge 
 their excellence by the records of graduates who have become 
 successful in practical life. Serious attempts are being made 
 not only within the universities but without, to have the 
 courses of instruction in engineering more closely identified 
 with modern conditions of service but the changes proposed 
 lead one to believe that emphasis is not being placed on the 
 most important factors. As it has been found true in the 
 case of the factory that modern improvements are wrought 
 not by additions in organization, equipment and accounting 
 but rather by a complete change of policy and ideals even 
 extending to the organic design of buildings and equipment 
 and the occupation of new ground, so also will it be found in 
 the engineering schools that the preparation of young men 
 for engineering service is not much improved by mere addi- 
 tion to the curriculum but there must be complete changes 
 in ideals, methods and means of instruction. Accordingly, 
 therefore, those schools in which the purely technological 
 aspect of engineering problems has for years predominated 
 the courses of instruction, will never effect a successful change 
 when they attempt to retain the old presentation of 
 subject matter and simply add courses in "scientific man- 
 agement" to satisfy the popular demand. No separate course 
 of instruction pretending to deal with the science of organiza- 
 tion, management and production, divorced from vital contact 
 with problems of design and performance in which these prin- 
 ciples are embodied, will ever be effective when standing alone. 
 Whatever instruction is offered in these lines must always be 
 
84 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 paralleled by applications and illustrations in all courses of 
 the curriculum. Universities attempting to teach the ' * science 
 of management " to non-technical students; bookkeepers and 
 accountants engaging in the business of advising manufactur- 
 ers in the matter of lowering the cost of productive processes 
 of which they know nothing, only serve to misguide many an 
 earnest youth who seeks to prepare himself for real and sub- 
 stantial service. 
 
 No one would dare suggest the revision of legal procedure 
 or scientific management of the courts by one not well versed 
 in the law, nor can it be imagined that the great problems of 
 public health should be attacked by one not thoroughly drilled 
 in the science of medicine, yet our great industrial institu- 
 tions are continually embarrassed and even persecuted by men 
 wholly incapable of comprehending their problems. The 
 time is not so long ago when the architectural features of a 
 bridge or a factory building together with the maximum limit 
 of appropriation of funds allowed had more influence in the 
 design of such structures than the relation of their income 
 producing capacities to their cost. The technical excellence of 
 the design and perfection and accuracy of workmanship were 
 matters of considerable pride to producers and were not to be 
 degraded through considerations of a mere utilitarian nature. 
 In some quarters this point of view still lingers and is fostered 
 by municipalities and governments requiring of their engi- 
 neers of public works to judge their expenditures by the 
 limit of appropriation available. But the manufacturing in- 
 dustries compel the engineer to render an entirely different 
 kind of service. Some professors having knowledge of the 
 older form of service, a magnified regard for excellence in 
 technic and a tendency toward the academic, find great diffi- 
 culty in adapting themselves to the pressing demands of 
 modern times. 
 
 No attempt is being made to belittle the worth of a high 
 degree of scientific ability ; we cannot have too much of it in 
 our schools. But it is believed that it alone may be far re- 
 moved from an ability to solve commercial problems. The 
 
WALTER EAUTENSTRAUCH. 85 
 
 most highly skilled artisan may be a very poor man to decide 
 the policies to be followed in manufacturing a line of goods 
 for a given market. So also the most scientific professor, 
 understanding all the laws of thenno-dynamics, may be wholly 
 incapable of selecting the most economic commercial equip- 
 ment of power machinery for a station to meet a given 
 service condition ; or being able to solve the most complicated 
 problems in stress analysis, may not be able to determine the 
 type of bridge which will burden the transportation system 
 with minimum capital charges or perform its service with 
 minimum weight. This feeling on the part of the professor 
 that he possesses a superior sort of knowledge, far above that 
 possessed by the business man is conducive to a wholly in- 
 adequate treatment of the subject he professes to teach and is 
 evidence that he does not appreciate the nature of the service 
 for which his students should be prepared. Any course of in- 
 struction, no matter how excellent in its treatment of scientific 
 facts and methods of analysis, highly desirable as these may 
 be, is incomplete when it fails to impart to the student a 
 knowledge of the conditions under which this information may 
 become commercially serviceable. Our engineering schools 
 are supposed by employers to have for their aim the prepara- 
 tion of young men for service in our great industrial institu- 
 tions engaged in the manufacture of commodities such as 
 shoes, hats, typewriters, jewelry, glassware, brick, cement, 
 soaps, cloth, paper, paints, automobiles, locomotives, steel and 
 iron products in endless variety, form and complexity, and 
 the creation of services such as light, heat, power refrigera- 
 tion, communication, transportation and information. Ac- 
 cording to the 1910 census the manufacturing industries alone 
 in the United States represent an investment of capital of 
 about 13 billions of dollars and produce an annual output of 
 nearly 20 billions of dollars value, employing 6 million people 
 who directly support through these earnings about 25 millions 
 or nearly one fourth of our population. These manufacturing 
 industries, having such important economic relations to our 
 welfare, are brought into being and sustained through the 
 
TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 labors of the engineer and the capitalist supported by the 
 people investing in industrial securities. That the engineer 
 and the capitalist may successfully cooperate, each must 
 understand the laws which condition the existence and pros- 
 perity of the manufacturing industries. As the banker is 
 guided in his investment in industrial securities through his 
 knowledge of their probable earning capacities so the manu- 
 facturer or engineer wisely invests in machinery and plant, 
 materials and the labors of men according to his ability to 
 forecast their probable earning value. That the bond is a 
 mortgage on an electric railway, a gas plant or a municipality 
 is merely incidental to the banker, so also that the commodity 
 is steel rails, alarm clocks, collars, or steam machinery is in- 
 cidental to the manufacturer and engineer. 
 
 Because of the knowledge of scientific facts necessary for 
 the engineer to enable him to deal with these commercial 
 problems it was once believed that instruction in these alone 
 was a sufficient preparation for the practice of the profession. 
 Hence this sort of teaching characterized our engineering 
 schools in the early days and still exists in some institutions 
 at the present time. But the more alert minds in our engi- 
 neering schools, in touch with practical affairs, are aware that 
 this is not sufficient. Thermodynamics most positively indi- 
 cates the superiority of the gas engine over the steam engine ; 
 yet the progress of the gas engine has depended little if at 
 all on this long-known principle but rather on entirely outside 
 practical considerations such as difference in first cost, size, 
 space occupied, repair and maintenance charges, the nature 
 and quantity of labor required for their operation, and 
 the availability of fuel supply in gaseous form. All these 
 conditions and many more enter into the question of true 
 economy and are entirely outside of the consideration of 
 thermodynamic economy. Therefore, any theory of power- 
 generating machinery which fails to include the various 
 factors of cost, including labor as well as capital charges, 
 and their variation with local conditions, is not a complete 
 theory and therefore not a theory to teach engineering stu- 
 
WALTER RAUTENSTRAUCH. 87 
 
 dents. These mathematical laws are very valuable in ex- 
 plaining results attained and preventing attempts at the im- 
 possible but not nearly so useful in that prediction of results, 
 which is the prerequisite for design of whatever sort, as many 
 of their professional advocates have for years taught their 
 students to believe. For many years past the average course 
 of study absolutely ignored all those subjects or methods of 
 treating subjects that were not capable of algebraic formula- 
 tion. The labor and cost questions, although they are at least 
 of equal importance, have been ignored, while the mathemat- 
 ical or purely technological has often been carried to absurd 
 extremes. Those parts of engineering subjects which admit 
 of treatment by the theory of numbers are always beyond 
 doubt absolutely essential. It is not the purpose here to 
 belittle them but rather to place them in their proper position 
 as partially and not by any means wholly preparatory sub- 
 jects. It is indeed important to teach students to lay out 
 machines, to determine the forces in the mechanism, and to 
 proportion the parts for stiffness and strength but it is equally 
 important that they be taught that a variety of machines might 
 be designed to perform precisely the same service, and that 
 there will result perhaps varying degrees of goodness but 
 certainly great variations in cost not only to build them but 
 to operate them. Unless a machine can be built at a cost 
 sufficiently low to meet the demand it will never get beyond 
 the experimental stage and there is absolutely no use in de- 
 signing a machine if its cost of production or operation exceeds 
 what can be properly paid. It is certainly important to teach 
 the students how a bar can be turned round or a plate made 
 flat or how every operation necessary to making a machine 
 may be carried out by a mechanic ; but it is equally important 
 that he should know their relative costs so that he may avoid 
 the expensive operations or reduce their use to a minimum. 
 He should also be taught that the maximum economy in pro- 
 ducing that machine will result when it is made in quantity, 
 and why, and that quantity production will involve changes in 
 design, changes in shop processes because it permits the use 
 
88 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 of special instead of standard tools and finally and most im- 
 portant, that quantity production involves many men and that 
 many men require management that each may produce the 
 maximum for his wages, and that such an organization for 
 economic production is subject to laws and principles of far 
 greater consequence than all the thermodynamics that was 
 ever formulated ; and yet laws of essentially the same nature 
 as those that control the design of his machine. 
 
 The teaching of each subject in the engineering school from 
 this point of view seems to furnish the only means through 
 which an understanding of the foundational factors in the 
 economics of production can be acquired. Any ideal short of 
 this will only serve to further the feeling, all too prevalent 
 even in practice, that the science of production may be con- 
 sidered apart from the very forces which it proposes to control. 
 It is believed therefore that a knowledge of the principles 
 of economic production is a necessary part of every engineer 's 
 equipment, be he designer of machines, structures, water- 
 ways or public works, employee or employer, in order that he 
 may be able to successfully cooperate with or coordinate the 
 labors of many men, working in many fields but all endeavor- 
 ing to create a given commodity or render a service to satisfy 
 a real demand. 
 
 This ideal has been the end toward which every course of 
 instruction in the department of mechanical engineering at 
 Columbia University has for years past been directed. This 
 course of instruction which was developed under the leader- 
 ship of Dr. Charles E. Lucke, head of the department, in- 
 cludes courses in principles of organization, management, cost 
 accounting, wage payment methods, economics and business 
 laws as a necessary part but by no means the whole of an 
 adequate treatment of the principles of economic production. 
 The aim of the course is not to train managers but engineers. 
 Should our studies through personal qualifications prove 
 to be adapted to the problems of management, well and 
 good. Limitation of time will not permit a survey of the out- 
 lines of all courses of instruction given in this institution, but 
 
WALTER EAUTENSTBAUCH. 89 
 
 it is hoped that the consideration of a few will lead to a 
 clearer exposition of what is believed to be a proper presenta- 
 tion of subject matter. To this end there have been chosen 
 the courses in steam power, elevators and conveyors, shop 
 processes, organization and management, and the factory and 
 power plant work required of the students in the second and 
 third summers respectively. 
 
 Steam Power. Three hours and two afternoons. 
 
 Eelation Between the Cost of Power and Thermal Efficiency of the 
 Plant. Commercial Value of Eefinements Determination of engine and 
 boiler ratings and corresponding efficiencies and probable coal and water 
 consumption for plant on given load curve. Essential relation between 
 processes and dimensions of the steam plant. Steam plant refinements 
 for raising efficiency of part or complete plant and relations between 
 dimensions and effect. Use of unit costs of apparatus in estimating, 
 examination of cost sheets to determine prime unit of cost. Cost of 
 power. Fixed and operating charges, ratio of each individual item to 
 total, and effect of labor and fuel rates, load factor and refinements on 
 the fractional part. Value of refinements of design on basis of capital- 
 ized annual saving by comparing the cost of waste and the cost of its 
 elimination, including all charges. Specifications and contracts; standard 
 and special methods and forms for defining purchaser's requirements and 
 builder's proposals, contracts, methods of power plant erection. Design- 
 ing and erecting office organization and field systems. 
 
 The work consists in laying out a simple power plant for assigned 
 units in the drafting room or the detailing of existing general plant 
 drawings, preparation of the bill of materials, estimating the first cost, 
 fixed charges, probable coal, water, labor and supply cost for an assumed 
 load curve and total power cost. The plants so designed or detailed are 
 exchanged by students and redesigned for an increase of 100 per cent, 
 peak and 50 per cent, mean daily load and for the maximum power cost 
 reduction by the use of plant refinements and auxiliaries when it can 
 be shown that additions and alterations will pay. Specifications are 
 written for the alteration and proposals submitted. 
 
 Fourth year Mechanical Engineering. 
 
 Shop and Factory Work. 
 
 Practical Work and Directed Study in the Shops and Drafting Eooms 
 of Eepresentative Manufacturing Establishments with Eeport Each 
 student is provided with a printed copy of the things to be studied and 
 reported on in detail, of which the following is a general summary. 
 
90 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 Machine Shop. Functional operation, characteristics and powering of 
 machine tools, capacities, layout of shop, size of shafting, belting and 
 motors for independent and group drive. Eange of cutting speeds, feeds, 
 depth of cut. Shape and size of tools used. Eeport on specific observa- 
 tions on time of setting work, time of forming and finishing, number 
 of pieces turned out per hour. Facilities for handling work at the ma- 
 chine. Facilities for producing pieces in quantity. Hand processes for 
 finishing and tools used. 
 
 Pattern Shop. Materials of which patterns are made and methods of 
 treating. Machine tools used in the pattern shop, arrangement, capacities, 
 adaptability, handling and storing of material and finished product. 
 
 Foundry and Forge, Description of hand and machine tools and appli- 
 ances used in the foundry and forge. Compositing and treatment of 
 foundry sands. Methods of molding. Time involved. Methods of power- 
 ing, venting and chilling, cooling and finishing, handling the cupola. 
 Composition of the charges and mixtures, temperatures, pressures, time 
 required to charge, to melt, to pour, cool and clean. Appliances in the 
 forge shop. Operation of power hammers, bull-dozers, shears, heating 
 and annealing furnaces and hand processes of forging. Time involved in 
 production. 
 
 Drafting Boom. Standards and conventions used. Filing and marking 
 of drawings and recording of patterns. Bills of material parts to be 
 made standard parts in stock. 
 
 General Management and Organization. Methods of recording time of 
 workmen and their time distribution over different jobs. Paying of 
 men, methods, rates, forms and records used. Drawing of materials used 
 from storeroom and charging to orders. 
 
 Prerequisite course is second year shop work. 
 
 Elevators and Conveyors. One hour. 
 
 Mechanical Handling of Solid Materials by Standard Elevating and 
 Conveying Machinery, Characteristics, Speed, Tonnage and h.p. per Ton, 
 Computations and Adaptability to Special Service Hand handling of 
 materials, limits, cost and conditions warranting use of machinery. Con- 
 tinuous conveyors, screw, bucket, scrapers, pusher, belt and pneumatic 
 types. Intermittent conveyors; telephers, rope and cable ways, cable 
 cars. Loaders, unloaders, storage facilities. Skips, grab buckets, tips 
 and tipples. Short and long hoists, friction drum and direct connected 
 hoists. Pneumatic and hydraulic elevators for freight. Fixed and travel- 
 ling cranes. Passenger elevators, rope and plunger types. Safety de- 
 vices. Automatic weighers of materials; coal and ore storage systems. 
 Excavating machine and dredges. Coal and ore-handling machinery. 
 Railroad terminal and steamship loaders and unloaders. Coke oven 
 
WALTER RAUTENSTRAUCH. 91 
 
 chargers and dischargers. Grain handling. Special adaptation to ma- 
 terial such as sand, plaster, glass, cement, broken rock, coal, coke, pack- 
 ages, barrels, corrosive, erosive, sticky, packing, and hot materials. 
 Third year Mechanical Engineering. 
 
 Shop Processes, Tools and Time Study. Two hours. 
 
 The Economic Elements in Shop Processes, Time and Power per Unit 
 of Surface Finished or Cut and per Unit of Metal Eemoved with the 
 Conditions for Most Economic Production Processes in the shop, func- 
 tional operation of machine tools and limits of economic production, 
 time of setting, handling, forming and finishing of parts for job and 
 repetition work in quantity. Limits of time, power and cost for finish- 
 ing surfaces per sq. in. and removing per cu. in. and per Ib. by hand and 
 machine operations. Machine for performing specific operations, their 
 functional operation, capacities, adaptability and rate of production. 
 Conditions warranting jigs and fixtures for the production of parts in 
 quantity and for interchangeability. Economy of portable tools, devices 
 and methods of inspection. The selection of economic cutting conditions 
 and analysis of recent experiments. Adaptation of economic cutting 
 speeds to machine tools. Labor-saving devices in the pattern shop, tools 
 and appliances used, capacity and adaptability; built-up patterns, single- 
 piece patterns, metal patterns, comparative cost and life of each ; patterns 
 for repetition work, rights and lefts, a line of sizes, interchangeable pat- 
 terns, jobbing patterns, relative economy of alternating practice. Eco- 
 nomic production in the foundry, relative value of various methods of 
 molding large and small parts, core making, venting, pouring and hand- 
 ling the work, managing the cupola. Limits of labor, power and fuel 
 per ton of castings as affected by size and form and fraction chargeable 
 to pattern, molding and cupola and finishing. Processes of forging, 
 hand and machine, conditions warranting power hammers, hydraulic 
 presses, bull-dozers, presses, dies and forming devices for the production 
 of duplicate and standard pieces. Labor and power per Ib. of forging 
 as affected by tools, size and form of work. Heating and annealing 
 furnaces, consumption of gas and oil, labor, power and fuel per unit 
 annealed. Distribution of cost of machine production between different 
 processes, power, labor, material and effect of shop or tool capacity 
 factor on fixed charges. 
 
 Organization and Management. Three hours. 
 
 Manufacturing Organizations and Methods of Cost Accounting Effect 
 of methods of manufacture and capacity on systems of management of 
 mills and factories. Analysis of the elements of factory accounting and 
 
92 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 determination of the factors entering into the cost of production. 
 Methods for keeping record of the cost of labor and materials in the 
 production of specific articles. The determination of establishment 
 charges. Interpretation of costs and use of comparative values. Deter- 
 mination of costs and use of comparative values. Determination of the 
 depreciation of buildings, machinery, patterns, drawings and other assets. 
 Organization and functions of the departments of the business. Pur- 
 chase of raw material and sale of product. Utilization of scrap and 
 waste. Methods of labor compensation. Critical analysis of the methods 
 of accounting in representative factories. Factors affecting the cost of 
 production. 
 
 Fourth year Mechanical and Chemical Engineering. 
 
 Steam Power Plant, Summer Work. 
 
 Eeport based on not less than six weeks' practical work in an Operat- 
 ing Power Plant, including the Output, Load Conditions, Labor and Ma- 
 terial for Operation and Maintenance, Operating Cost per Unit and the 
 Essential Dimensional Eelations between the Various Units and Auxil- 
 iaries Producing this Eesult This work is done entirely by the student 
 in the field, his only assistance being the blank report form which is put 
 into his hands after a brief lecture before leaving the University for the 
 vacation. 
 
 Third year Mechanical Engineering. 
 
 Reference to the catalogue of the school will serve to show 
 how all the courses have been prepared with a view to that 
 interrelation of subject matter so necessary to the broad and 
 comprehensive treatment of engineering problems. While 
 rigorous treatment of the laws of mathematics, mechanics, 
 physics and chemistry obtains in the subject matter of all 
 courses yet the commercial relations and limitations in which 
 these laws operate are as prominently set forth for the pur- 
 pose of developing that judgment so necessary to their proper 
 use. The foundational principles of engineering practice as 
 in the practice of law are comparatively few while their 
 applications and interrelations are by no means simple nor 
 permit of ready interpretation. Accordingly therefore, that 
 the practice of engineering may be presented from the broader 
 point of view and that the economic and technological aspects 
 may have their fullest meaning, there is incorporated a series 
 
WALTER RAUTENSTRAUCH. 93 
 
 of courses, the treatment of which is according to the system of 
 "Case Law." The limitations of human accomplishment and 
 the necessity for authoritative presentation of subject matter 
 required in the search for underlying fundamental principles 
 have lead to the handling of such courses by men who are 
 daily practicing in each of these fields of engineering service. 
 The work of these special lecturers is not accompanied by any 
 departure from the regular methods of instruction pursued in 
 other courses and is not to be confused with the general system 
 of special lectures in isolated and non-related subjects obtain- 
 ing in almost all of our universities and colleges. The prin- 
 ciples of economic relations intertwining these and other 
 courses of a technological nature together with problems of 
 purely commercial aspect are again brought together for ex- 
 position and formulation in courses dealing with the use of 
 materials, machinery and men in administering to the needs 
 of the commonwealth. Thus there has been built that founda- 
 tion upon which a proper consideration of the problems of 
 production will rest and an adequate treatment has been given 
 to that body of principles which in a narrow sense is popu- 
 larly termed the "principles of scientific management." 
 
TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN THE 
 TECHNICAL SCHOOLS. 
 
 BY H. F. J. POBTEB, 
 
 Secretary of The Efficiency Society, New York, N. Y. 
 
 In order to treat in a logical manner the subject which has 
 been assigned to me I shall first define what I understand 
 scientific management to be and then state how I think it 
 should be taught. 
 
 As I understand management, it is the second of the two 
 attributes of government, the first being its form or organiza- 
 tion, and the second its function or action. In order to have 
 good government, there must first be the right kind of organi- 
 zation. When such organization operates we have manage- 
 ment. We must know, therefore, something about the prin- 
 ciples of government before we can obtain proper organization, 
 and after the latter is secured, then management is possible, 
 and how scientific it is, will depend largely on the perfection 
 of the organization. We hear nowadays a great deal about 
 management, systematic, scientific or other, but very little 
 about organization of any kind, and yet, as I have stated, the 
 latter is the more important of the two attributes of govern- 
 ment, because without it the former can not be obtained. 
 
 Now what is the basis of government which involves these 
 subjects to which I shall direct your attention? Government 
 involves the control or direction of people, and we find when 
 we study its history that there are several kinds of govern- 
 ment varying in their fundamental principles, some which 
 include the element of human nature in their program, while 
 others fail to do so ; the first, of necessity, bringing about suc- 
 cessful results; the others constantly resulting in failure. 
 
 In the first place, we know that man is, by nature, a social 
 animal, and as such, seeks the company of those of his fellows 
 
 94 
 
H. F. J. PORTER. 95 
 
 having a common interest. That common interest may be for 
 mutual benefit or for protection from a common enemy. This 
 natural instinct causes men to come together in groups. Now 
 as a natural sequence of this formation of a group for one or 
 the other of the above purposes there is evolved a personality 
 who is generally recognized as best fitted for directing the 
 movement in hand. This is the method of establishing gov- 
 ernment by leadership through a perfectly natural process. 
 This is the earliest and most primitive form of patriarchal or 
 tribal government, and exists to-day whenever small groups 
 of people have simple matters to be attended to, and even in 
 more complex affairs where a committee takes up a project. 
 It is not, however, a stable form of government owing to the 
 changing interests of the members of the group or their loss 
 of confidence in their leader. 
 
 Experience proves also that when a leader finds that he is 
 for some reason losing his power, he makes an effort to retain 
 it and that then usually serious consequences ensue. If, for 
 instance, a rival aspirant to his leadership threatens his over- 
 throw, he resists the efforts to replace him. This resistance 
 leads to his drawing closer to him his adherents and apportion- 
 ing among them privileges in return for which they agree to 
 control certain smaller groups which he can no longer control. 
 Or it may be that the original group has grown so large that 
 the leader can no longer keep in personal contact with all of 
 its members, and is thus forced to divide among those who, 
 he feels, are competent to assume the responsibility, the con- 
 trol of such groups as become formed by one cause or another. 
 Here, it should be noted, that a radical change has taken place 
 in the form of government, and in this change may be seen 
 a fundamental difference in the principles dominating the 
 two forms, one kind being that of the group voluntarily select- 
 ing a leader and, on account of his being their choice, assum- 
 ing responsibility for him and therefore according him their 
 earnest support; the other, that of the group having imposed 
 upon them the choice of another person and being compelled 
 to do what he, who represents interests entirely different from 
 
96 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 theirs, may dictate. This change from volition to compulsion 
 characterized the development in government which took place 
 when a tribe became a nation, and the patriarch a monarch. 
 It is monarchy or oligarchy depending upon whether the ulti- 
 mate authority is vested in one individual or several. It is 
 the change which takes place in the control of every group 
 when it grows so large that one cannot keep in close touch 
 with all its members. One induces loyal support, the other 
 disaffection; one is, therefore, the absolute antithesis of the 
 other. The psychology of the situation gradually developed 
 a return to first principles by a change to democracy where 
 the people themselves say who shall govern them and what 
 shall happen to them. 
 
 In the small industrial groups which formed themselves 
 during the second quarter of the last century throughout the 
 eastern states of our country, the master craftsman and his 
 men worked together in close association and in friendly 
 accord. This was the patriarchal stage of industrial govern- 
 ment. When, however, in the middle of the century, the 
 steam engine and the steel rail made industry no longer de- 
 pendent upon the stream for water power and transportation, 
 factories started up by the thousand at the site of the raw 
 material, and .the industrial groups grew to large proportions. 
 So great was the demand for workmen to compose these 
 groups that the supply in this country was soon exhausted, 
 and the labor market of Europe was tapped. Then came about 
 the change in the control of the factory group which I have 
 indicated had occurred in the political group. The master 
 craftsman became the general manager and delegated his 
 authority to a superintendent and foreman, who, instead of 
 being leaders of the groups over which they were placed, 
 became their drivers. This was the monarchic stage in in- 
 dustrial government. The foreign element, of which these 
 groups became largely composed, were accustomed to sub- 
 servience and readily complied with the form of industrial 
 government which they found established. 
 
 Government has always been an art, and probably always 
 
H. F. J. PORTER. 97 
 
 will be as long as human nature is involved in the relationship 
 between the governor and the governed. Nevertheless, out of 
 the experiences of the past there are now gradually being 
 established, certain principles which are considered funda- 
 mental in the application of this art. In the days of which we 
 are speaking, however, when men were needed to control and 
 direct these factory groups, no such principles had even been 
 considered. The situation presented thousands of industrial 
 groups composed of hundreds of thousands of subservient 
 individuals to be controlled, without anyone informed of the 
 essential principles of either organization or management, to 
 control them. This situation was met by placing over these 
 groups, men who seemed to possess inherent powers of control. 
 In some instances the self devised methods of these men were 
 successful, but in the great majority they failed. In the latter 
 cases compulsion was resorted to in an effort to make the 
 methods which were applied succeed. When we realize that 
 the individual in the factory is absolutely subservient to this 
 control during the greater number of his waking hours it 
 is evident how serious may be its effect upon him. 
 
 So we see that the history of the development of political 
 government has been paralleled by that of industrial govern- 
 ment, that human nature is the element entering into both 
 and that the problems involved in both cases are group prob- 
 lems which vary according to the size of the group. In polit- 
 ical government, the people, realizing the fundamental fallacy 
 in the change from leadership to ruler, have in part rectified 
 it in practically every country in the world, Russia being now 
 the sole exception, by the substitution of democracy where the 
 consent of the governed must be secured regarding the meth- 
 ods of control which are applied to them. But this change 
 has not come about without the stubborn resistance of the 
 ruler to the abdication of his powers. Nor has the complete 
 change as yet taken place according to its advocates, who 
 claim that the faults democracy now possesses can be eliminated 
 only by the application of more democracy, and that this will 
 come about by publicity of the facts, thus establishing en- 
 
98 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 lightened public opinion, which, in the long run, is the im- 
 pelling force which controls the new system. On this point 
 Hon. James Bryce says in "The American Commonwealth' ': 
 
 "Towering over presidents and state governors, over Congress and 
 state legislatures, over conventions and the vast machinery of party, 
 public opinion stands out in the United States as the great source of 
 power, the master of servants who tremble before it. ... It grows up 
 not in Congress, not in state legislatures, not in those great conventions 
 which frame platforms and choose candidates, but at large among the 
 people. It is expressed in voices everywhere. It rules as a pervading 
 and impalpable power like the ether which passes through all things. 
 It binds all the parts of the complicated system together and gives them 
 whatever unity of aim and action they possess. " 
 
 And now since the principles entering political government 
 have been shown to be the same as those involved in industrial 
 government, experience is leading the students of government 
 to recommend that in industrial government similar develop- 
 ments should take place, that compulsory methods should give 
 way to more democratic methods. This thought is expressed 
 in the report of the "Special Committee" appointed by the 
 House of Representatives in Washington "to investigate the 
 Taylor and other systems of shop management" where the 
 statement is made that "government in a mill should be like 
 government in a state 'with the consent of the governed.' " 
 
 This nation has changed during the past one hundred years 
 from an agricultural and trading nation to an industrial one. 
 Our legislatures, state and national, are devoting themselves 
 to questions almost entirely affecting our industries. Our 
 public school system, our free press, and our public forms 
 have given the foreign element, which flocked to our shores to 
 meet the industrial demand, an insight into the benefits of self 
 government. These foreigners, for so many years subservient 
 to compulsory control, have become informed as to the prin- 
 ciples of political democracy and they have now come to realize 
 that although they are in a free country, yet during the 
 greater number of their waking hours they are under personal 
 control regarding which they have nothing to say. They have 
 become restless, and are expressing their dissatisfaction. 
 
H. F. J. PORTER. 99 
 
 At this very time we see taking place in parallel, two very 
 portentous movements. One is political in which the rank 
 and file of the people of the two dominating parties are led by 
 progressive politicians, who, having a great following, demand 
 that the people shall in no sense be governed, but that the 
 representatives of the people shall carry out the will of the 
 people. They believe that the mass of men are better able to 
 govern themselves than are the few to govern them. That 
 the perils from the ignorance of the governed are less than 
 the perils from the selfishness of the governors. The other 
 movement inspired by the same thought is industrial, led by 
 progressive men in the field of industry demanding that the 
 workers shall be represented in the councils of the employers. 
 Resistance is being encountered by both these movements 
 raised by the interests which have so long been entrenched 
 behind special privilege. Great changes do not take place 
 suddenly. It is well that they should! be evolutionary rather 
 than revolutionary. "We must now, as students of history 
 and of events and affairs, take cognizance of these movements, 
 analyze them and determine the direction in which they are 
 tending and from our deductions devise methods of directing 
 them. 
 
 When we have determined the form of democratic govern- 
 ment which we are to have in our nation and in our state and 
 municipal groups, the logic of the situation should lead us to 
 extend it to our industrial groups. We can no longer harbor 
 industrial monarchies and oligarchies in our political democ- 
 racy. The inconsistence is too apparent to be longer retained. 
 People who have learned to think become discontented with 
 inconsistencies. The psychology of the situation is becoming 
 understood. In dealing with human nature in government 
 the latter must be taken into consideration. Dr. Joseph H. 
 Odell, in a recent address, said on the subject of discontent, 
 "Well, supposing we let it alone, what will happen? One of 
 two things. In the first place it may settle down into a 
 permanent and paralyzing pessimism and consign men to a 
 life of spiritless drudgery. They will become an animate, but 
 
100 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 soulless part of the vast mechanism of industrial society. 
 Life, upon those terms, is little better than death. On the 
 other hand, this discontent may become suddenly explosive 
 and result in anarchy. Long brooding over the ills that are 
 not understood, changes a man into an Ishmael and turns his 
 hand against every man's hand. Discontent is a negative 
 quality and when a negative quality becomes active, it grows 
 destructive. "We must know how to transmute a negative 
 element into a positive. We must change discontent into 
 desire. We have done this to a large degree in political affairs 
 and we should use the same means in our industrial affairs." 
 
 The form of our government is its attribute which we call 
 organization. Without a well-defined organization we can 
 have no well-defined system of management. A well-defined 
 organization can be shown on a chart and any organization 
 which cannot be thus visualized is defective and the manage- 
 ment resulting from a defective organization is bound to be 
 defective. 
 
 A government is like a coaching outfit. The coach must 
 be built right for its purpose with all its four wheels of the 
 same size and its axles straight and parallel. The horses 
 must be well matched and strong enough to pull the coach. 
 One must not be a dray horse and another a trotter. The 
 harness must be properly fitted to the horses so that the 
 collars will not chafe and irritate them and the traces must 
 be of the same length, so as to pull evenly and not permit 
 one horse to get his leg over the other horse's trace and inter- 
 fere with him. If all of these requirements are not met there 
 will be danger of the outfit not running straight. Merely 
 speaking to the horses kindly or patting them on the neck or 
 giving them sugar or plying the whip is not going to reach 
 the cause of the trouble. But when this organization is 
 properly arranged so that everything is in its right place 
 without overlapping or interference, then a skilled coachman 
 may get up onto the box and take the reins and guide the 
 coach over such roads as he may meet. There is some assur- 
 ance that it will stay in the middle of the road without any 
 
H. F. J. PORTER. 101 
 
 inherent tendency to go over into the ditch at either side. 
 The man on the box is the manager and upon his general 
 knowledge of conditions and his skill in handling his organiza- 
 tion will depend the efficiency of its team work. This man Is 
 an entirely different one, however, from the one who designed 
 the coach or the harness, although he should have very much 
 to say about the selection of the horses. 
 
 It is not my province here to chart the various schemes of 
 organization which are adapted to different shop conditions. 
 It will be sufficient for present purposes to say that, generally 
 speaking, any organization has four basic departments which 
 may be comparable to the four horses of the coach. They are 
 the financial, the sales, the production and the record depart- 
 ments. Each of these should be as independent in its action 
 as any one of the horses, but all should be so related by their 
 harness as to constitute a team. 
 
 The duty of the first of these departments is to collect and 
 disburse money; to collect the money for the product which 
 the second, or sales department, has disposed of and to dis- 
 burse money to all the other departments for the work which 
 they have done. The duty of the second is to obtain orders 
 for work for the third or production department to perform. 
 
 This latter department converts the orders received, into 
 finished goods. It is dependent upon the second and the 
 first departments for its existence just as the second and 
 first are dependent upon it, and all three must be so equally 
 balanced as to be normally independent or there will be a 
 maladjustment which will cause trouble. 
 
 The fourth or record department is intended to keep account 
 of all that transpires in the other departments so as to main- 
 tain this balance. It receives all the raw material; holds it 
 until it is needed by the production department, keeps track 
 of what the latter does with it, takes it back as finished 
 product, hands it over to the sales department and tells the 
 financial department how much it has already cost, how much 
 more it will cost before it is sold and how much should be 
 added for profit in order that all the departments may be kept 
 in good condition continuously. 
 
102 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 Now a chart of organization of the kind outlined should be 
 drafted before any industrial enterprise gets farther than the 
 stage of being contemplated in order that it may be properly 
 capitalized and promoted. It is essential that such a chart 
 should exist in every enterprise and be in constant view for 
 reference but I think I am safe in saying that 99 per cent, of 
 the enterprises now in existence have none, and 50 per cent, of 
 the managers have never heard of such a thing. The man who 
 can do this work to-day is rare. He is not taught in any school 
 of which I know. He is the man to develop the organization 
 before which no management, which can have the slightest 
 claim to being scientific, can come into effect. I believe he 
 should have a university education first and a special post- 
 graduate course in business organization subsequently. But 
 suppose we have secured such a proper or scientific organiza- 
 tion and we need a man to operate it or perform the work of 
 managing it, what kind of an education should he have? In 
 the first place he should be capable of knowing all about the 
 operation of the organization, i. e., the physical part of the 
 chart so that the finances, the advertising, the celling, the 
 methods of production (including the purchasing), the record 
 keeping (including the stock keeping and the cost accounting) 
 are working as they were intended to work. 
 
 There are schools which have been teaching these subjects 
 independently for some time. There are schools of finance, 
 schools of salesmanship, schools of mechanical engineering and 
 schools of accountancy. These schools make specialists, but 
 there is no school that I know of that teaches all of these 
 branches and their interrelations so that there is not, there- 
 fore, any school that teaches the elements of management. 
 There are colleges and universities in which lectures in some 
 of these branches are given by practical men who have special- 
 ized in them, but from all that I can gather from the graduates 
 of these courses and from the deans of the schools themselves, 
 these courses are as yet only in the primitive or formative 
 stage. So we see that teaching the subject of government, of 
 which organization and management are only parts, has not as 
 
H. F. J. PORTER. 103 
 
 yet been begun. There are not yet, to my knowledge, ade- 
 quate institutions for preparing men to be managers. Nor 
 are there ways of preparing men to go out into the field to 
 diagnose the troubles which afflict existing industrial enter- 
 prises. This will account for the fact that so many essays on 
 the part of "efficiency" or "industrial" engineers fail. They 
 may be competent to improve methods existing in the pro- 
 duction department but by doing so they simply over-develop 
 one of the four wheels of the coach which cannot run satis- 
 factorily with one wheel larger than the rest. The financial, 
 the selling and the record departments must be developed 
 equally to obtain successful results, and the education of the 
 day does not equip a man for all these fields. On the con- 
 trary, the tendency of the times is to develop specialists. 
 
 There have been men who have realized this condition and 
 have organized groups of specialists in these various fields who 
 have been able through the correlation of their efforts to ac- 
 complish success where the single specialist who has tried to 
 cover the whole field has failed. This, to my mind, is the best 
 method of reaching the situation in the present emergency. 
 If I am right in my conjecture, efforts should be made to 
 clarify the situation and let it be understood that schools of 
 government should be established and managers should go 
 there to learn the principles of organization and management. 
 When they have gained a knowledge of these principles, they 
 should realize that they will need specialists as heads of their 
 departments of finance and selling, of production and record 
 and they then, and then only, will be able to secure efficient 
 team work. "We must realize that the great body of the people 
 are employees and that the employer has a greater effect upon 
 his employees physically, morally and mentally, owing to the 
 continuity of his influence over them during the greater num- 
 ber of their waking hours, than their physician, their minister 
 or their teacher. Each of these must have a diploma or a li- 
 cense, therefore the manager whose responsibilities are greater, 
 should not be allowed to assume them until he is properly 
 equipped to do so. We now know that every ruined health, 
 
104 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 every crippled body, every demoralized or warped character, 
 every blunted mind is an industrial or social waste and a 
 charge upon the community, and yet our industrial managers 
 of the past and present have been allowed to furnish this waste 
 in increasing quantities every year. To meet these industrial 
 responsibilities not only calls for a more scientifically-trained 
 intelligence in the managerial chair of the single industrial 
 enterprise than has heretofore been supplied, but it requires a 
 man capable of organizing all the industrial enterprises com- 
 prising an industry so that,' as a whole, it will be a benefit 
 rather than an injury to the State which, grants charters for 
 its existence. To do this properly he must understand the 
 industrial group problems in which his enterprise is a factor. 
 
 It is generally understood that a manager of the modern 
 type is meeting the requirements of scientific management if 
 he operates his individual enterprise efficiently by reducing 
 his wastes of time, effort and material to a minimum so 
 that his product can be marketed at a fair profit. As means 
 to these ends he establishes well-constructed factory buildings, 
 he maintains sanitary conditions, he supplies an environment 
 for his employees that is beneficent. He introduces systems 
 of functional management and time and motion study to 
 ensure fair treatment and equable wage determination. He 
 institutes works committees composed of employees and installs 
 a suggestion system. 
 
 All of these features are excellent as far as they go, but 
 they go nowhere in meeting the larger serious group problems 
 which exist and which no efforts have as yet been made to 
 solve, and which cannot be solved in any one factory or in any 
 group of factories such as compose a trust, but only in the 
 harmonious cooperation of all the factories which compose an 
 industry through the collective administration of the industry 
 as a whole. A knowledge of how to accomplish work of this 
 kind involves questions of government and embodies studies 
 which have little to do with the scientific management of a 
 shop. They are not especially germane to technical schools, 
 but, beginning in the primary schools and continuing in the 
 
H. F. J. PORTER. 105 
 
 secondary and high schools, should follow in the college, the 
 university and the postgraduate school. 
 
 In order that I may make myself clear, let me show by a 
 specific case how intimately the affairs of a community and an 
 industry are related and how helpless is the manager of a 
 single enterprise in that industry with regard to some of the 
 troubles with which he has to cope. The cloak and suit 
 industry in New York City comprises some two thousand 
 shops of various sizes, employing all the way from 25 to 
 300 hands, 80 per cent, of whom are men. The work is what 
 is termed light manufacturing, in which, outside of what is 
 performed on sewing machines, the work is done by hand. 
 The employees are mainly Italians and Russian Jews. These 
 people came from Europe with their packs on their backs, and 
 went directly into the congested East Side tenements of the 
 city to live and worked in the cloak factories under sweat shop 
 conditions. Many, being of a thrifty nature, saved money 
 until they possessed enough to open sweat shops of their own. 
 Thus practically over night they stepped from the employee to 
 the employer class. All they know about organization and 
 management they learned from their employer, who used 
 sweat shop principles. They felt that the only way they could 
 succeed in the market was by more severe " sweating " than 
 their competitors practiced. The result of this unrestricted 
 competition was starvation wages, unlimited hours of work, 
 unsanitary shops, unhygienic conditions of living and un- 
 speakable misery. Such a state of affairs would have been 
 bad enough if it had been continuous, but each year it was 
 made immeasurably worse by two periods of enforced idle- 
 ness. The warm weather trade developed a busy season 
 through three and one half months in the spring, followed by 
 two and one half months of idleness in the summer; the cold 
 weather trade caused a busy three and one half months in the 
 fall and two and one half months idleness in the winter. 
 When it is realized that scarcely a living wage was paid dur- 
 ing the busy seasons, owing to the overcrowded condition of 
 the labor market, it can readily be imagined how poorly pre- 
 
106 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 pared financially the employees were to meet the enforced idle- 
 ness of the slack seasons. Affairs finally reached such a pass 
 that they could no longer be borne, when a strike ensued. It 
 was one of the most severe ever experienced in New York City. 
 It lasted some twelve weeks, bankrupting many of the employ- 
 ers, while some of the employees died from privation. Finally 
 the merchants who needed the product of the factories brought 
 the strike to a close by the formation of an association of the 
 employers and an affiliation of the various unions of em- 
 ployees. Each of these two bodies appointed two representa- 
 tives to a joint board and with them on this board they asked 
 three public spirited citizens to sit. This board was asked to 
 consider the situation and recommend remedies. 
 
 We are not apt to realize how large some of these light 
 manufacturing industries are. In the one described above, for 
 instance, the 2,000 shops contained 80,000 employees, who, 
 with their families, constituted an industrial community of 
 200,000 people, as large as the city of Providence or Indian- 
 apolis. When we consider that this number of people, or a 
 very large proportion of them, were thrown onto the City of 
 New York for support twice each year and that this is only 
 one of several other industries in which similar seasonal fluc- 
 tuations occur, it is not surprising that the city's charity 
 organizations are so strained that the almshouse, the work- 
 house and the jails are crowded ; that the gambling house and 
 policy shop and pool room thrive; that the saloon and dis- 
 orderly house abound ; that the bread line and the park bench 
 are filled. 
 
 The seasonal fluctuation is only one of the difficulties with 
 which the manager in every industrial enterprise has to con- 
 tend and which cannot be remedied even by any amount of 
 scientific management in his individual plant but only by a 
 control affecting the whole industry. The democratic prin- 
 ciple of having the employee represented in the councils of the 
 industry, works well in the instance just referred to and in 
 others as well. The illustration I have given is only one of 
 several which I might mention of industries which have done 
 
H. F. J. POUTER. 107 
 
 the same thing. But all about us we see wastes occasioned by 
 others who have not done it. By some of these wastes our 
 high cost of commodities is easily explained. 
 
 In the block where I live in New York City there are twenty 
 dwelling houses, and an apartment house in which there are 
 twenty-four families. Every morning there come into that 
 block eight different milk companies' wagons, four ice com- 
 panies' wagons, six grocery companies' wagons, etc. The 
 question of distribution can be settled only by organizing 
 these various industries so that the milk industry, the ice 
 industry, the grocery industry do not duplicate their truck- 
 ing in such a ridiculous manner. This means that we must 
 educate our people in the principles of political and industrial 
 science, beginning in the primary school and extending all 
 the way up into the postgraduate schools of business adminis- 
 tration. People should know that the cure of our present 
 troubles will not be by breaking up our industrial combina- 
 tions but by fostering further combinations where labor and 
 capital are represented under public supervision. No man 
 should be allowed to become a manager until he has completed 
 a course in one of the graduate schools. No enterprise should 
 be allowed to exist until it has secured a license obligating it 
 to meet certain requirements and if it lapses in observing 
 them the license should be revoked. This is what I think 
 should be included in a knowledge of scientific management, 
 the only kind that will be really effective in the efficient opera- 
 tion of industry. 
 
 The Efficiency Society, three months old, with already over 
 1,000 members, is now inaugurating a campaign of investi- 
 gation into the results of present methods of management in 
 industrial establishments following up the legislative investi- 
 gation carried out by Congressman Eedfield last winter. A 
 frank and generous contribution of experiences is hoped for 
 by employers, employees, and efficiency engineers. A con- 
 ference on the subject will be held in the fall, at which time 
 it is expected, sufficient data will have been collected to be 
 analyzed and studied, and deductions made for intelligent 
 discussion. We trust that the results will be most helpful. 
 
A BROADENED VIEW OF EFFICIENCY IN 
 ENGINEERING INSTRUCTION. 
 
 BY LEWIS J. JOHNSON, 
 Professor of Civil Engineering, Harvard University. 
 
 I certainly favor efficiency in engineering instruction as well 
 as in other things. I believe that we owe a great debt already 
 to Mr. Taylor, Mr. Gilbreth and the rest for what they 
 have done to wake us up and show us the way on these lines. 
 Particularly do I rejoice that Messrs. Taylor and Gilbreth 
 recognize as indispensable the cultivation of good will between 
 employer and employee by simply making it automatic with 
 honest and intelligent efforts for just and fair relations. They 
 see the moral and human side, hence I believe that they are 
 in a fair way to lead us to success. 
 
 But to my mind efficiency is a pretty broad subject, broader 
 than mere questions of economical production and trans- 
 portation. It involves to an equally high degree the cor- 
 rect distribution of emphasis and attention. This, to my 
 way of thinking, means a high degree of emphasis and atten- 
 tion upon the basic, but sadly neglected (when not mis- 
 directed, perverted, or sterilized) lines of activity, political 
 economy and the science of government. 
 
 For while, of course, it profits us much to extend our 
 already relatively efficient means of production, our work will 
 fall far short of its purpose if we do not do something to 
 put our whole industrial and political structure on a firmer 
 basis through getting in line with the fundamental laws of 
 justice and human nature. If this be done, I feel confident 
 that progress toward self-sustaining industrial order and 
 peace will be not only possible but rapid and certain. Other- 
 wise our present chaotic conditions can hardly fail to grow 
 worse. The " conservative, " as he loves to call himself, who 
 
 108 
 
LEWIS J. JOHNSON. 109 
 
 seeks quiet and peace by sitting on the social safety-valve, and 
 his compeer in social value, the man who seeks to secure relief 
 for bad conditions by putting grit into the bearings of his 
 employer's machinery, are both abroad in the world. The 
 normal man must begin to put efficiency into his citizenship 
 if we are to find the true way out. 
 
 No one, whether lawyer, clergyman, journalist, office- 
 seeker, office-holder or the ordinary academic essayist, is so 
 well equipped, I believe, to deal with this great field of scien- 
 tific management fundamentally and constructively as the 
 man with the engineer's or the applied science man's train- 
 ing and attitude of mind. If we are to have a society in 
 which securely to practice the fine and noble art of scientific 
 management in the production of wealth, the scientific rather 
 than the traditional point of view must, in my opinion, get 
 into effect in our biggest and most far-reaching public 
 relations. 
 
 Our customary habit of thought in business and commercial 
 relations is still nearly as greedy, because as misguided, as in 
 the time of the Pharaohs. Our political machinery, even 
 in this land of progress, has been but little improved since the 
 invention of the steam-engine. Here I believe is an immense 
 and most promising field for scientific management. 
 
 As a first step we should seek and establish a true and sane 
 definition of property. For thus only can the property of the 
 capitalist and of the laborer be secure and a proper economic 
 incentive (and that means a chance for industrial peace) be 
 maintained. This I believe is no insoluble task even if it is 
 largely abandoned for the consideration of far less important 
 matters. In the political field, scientific management would set 
 in motion the old ideas expressed in the Bills of Rights of the 
 early state constitutions. These were particularly well stated 
 a century and a third ago in the Massachusetts Bill of Rights ; 
 well stated, but for reasons then unavoidable, imperfectly set 
 in motion. 
 
 This subject I venture to bring before the society at this 
 time because here is a body of men whose instincts and habits 
 8 
 
110 EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEERING INSTRUCTION. 
 
 are fundamental and constructive who will quickly see, if 
 they do not already see, that, important as scientific manage- 
 ment of the production of wealth certainly is, a scientific 
 management of the distribution of wealth and the main- 
 tenance or establishment, if necessary, of peace, contentment 
 and order in society is even more important, and that it is 
 both their right and duty as citizens to do their full share in 
 this work, and perhaps to take the lead. 
 
 I think that engineers, if no one else, will dare believe that 
 the distribution of wealth in society can be made as automatic, 
 smooth-working, and satisfactory as the circulation of blood in 
 a healthy animal ; that they will realize that such results can 
 come only from proper guidance of natural forces, and not 
 from arbitrary and shallow legislative interference with such 
 forces. I certainly believe that we have only to get in line 
 with the fundamental laws of economics and human nature, 
 and let them, like gravity taking water down hill, do the work. 
 And we need not feel concerned if the school of thought which 
 got humanity into its present and century-old fix, denies the 
 existence of such laws or the possibility of getting into 
 harmony with them. 
 
 The work of the next few decades is a new work, a work for 
 applied-science men and others who can comprehend that 
 there can be no social or industrial peace so long as human 
 traditions, conventions and laws are kept flying in the face of 
 the fundamental laws of the nature of men and things. Noth- 
 ing is so much needed by engineers and applied-science men as 
 a realization of this point of view. It opens to them a vastly 
 broadened prospect of service as citizens and, in common with 
 all other useful workers, greatly heightened satisfactions of 
 the durable sort, to use President Eliot's admirable phrase. 
 Hence nothing can contribute so much to the efficiency of 
 engineering instruction in the biggest and broadest sense, as to 
 make clear to the young engineer-citizens that their training 
 in careful and responsible construction can apply, and ought 
 to be made to apply, to the whole range of civic and industrial 
 problems; and that they need feel neither surprised nor dis- 
 
LEWIS J. JOHNSON. Ill 
 
 turbed if popularly accepted " experts, " apologists for exist- 
 ing evils, oppose their conclusions. George Stephenson had to 
 struggle hard in the face of the " experts" to get recognition 
 for his "travelling engine,'* and the responsibilities and op- 
 portunities of the civic engineer of to-day are perhaps greater 
 than those which confronted the mechanical engineer, George 
 Stephenson. 
 
ABSENCES FROM CLASSES ONE MEASURE 
 OF INEFFICIENCY. 
 
 BY F. P. McKIBBEN, 
 Professor of Civil Engineering, Lehigh University. 
 
 To persons in charge of schools or colleges a study of 
 student absences from classes is of great value, because the 
 absences are to a certain extent a measure of the efficiency of 
 the system. If the system is working well there are few 
 absences from classes. If it is jogging along with friction 
 and kept going only by the continuous effort on the part of 
 those in control, the number of absences will be large. Viewed 
 from this standpoint, therefore, efficiency can be said to vary 
 inversely as the number of absences. In analyzing the 
 problem of absences at any institution one should first make 
 a systematic study of the underlying causes. Such an in- 
 vestigation will show that students absent themselves from 
 classes because of the following reasons: Poor teaching; lack 
 of interest on the teacher's part; uninteresting subject matter; 
 sickness, either of the student or of his friends or relatives; 
 conflicts between recitations because exercises in two different 
 subjects occur at the same hour; other legitimate matters 
 which take students away from their work ; idleness ; laziness ; 
 dissipation; and youthful neglect. 
 
 There are two general ways of dealing with the absence evil. 
 In one, frequent written tests during the term and a final 
 examination constitute the basis for determining each 
 student's standing. In this system no attention is paid to 
 absences by the instructor except that the student is graded 
 zero at each written test or examination from which he absents 
 himself. Clearly, the effectiveness of this method is dependent 
 upon excellence of instruction and upon keeping the students 
 ignorant as to when written tests are to be given. This is a 
 good system, because few students will be absent if they realize 
 
 112 
 
F. P. MCKIBBEN. 
 
 113 
 
 that a written test may be given at any exercise and that an 
 absence from such a test is of very decided value in determin- 
 ing their academic status. The other system, which is in 
 vogue at some schools, is that in which each student is graded 
 
 
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114 
 
 ABSENCES A MEASUKE OF INEFFICIENCY. 
 
 frequently during the term upon daily recitations and upon 
 written tests regarding which he has been previously informed 
 as to their time of occurrence. In this system a number of 
 absences is fixed for each subject, constituting a maximum 
 limit beyond which the student must not go in absenting him- 
 self from class without suffering the penalty imposed for 
 exceeding the limit. The penalty usually consists in exclusion 
 from the final examination in the subject in which the absence 
 
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 Tbfa/ Ho. Obsences from all Causes 
 Civil Engineering Dept, Lehigh University. 
 
 limit has been exceeded and the limit bears a certain relation 
 to the number of exercises per week in the subject. For 
 example, if there are three recitations per week in a subject 
 the exclusion limit might be fixed at six, which is double the 
 number of exercises per week. This ratio is too high; four 
 would be a better absence limit in such a case. The very 
 existence of an absence limit makes some students feel that 
 they are allowed to take these absences, even though their 
 
F. P. MCKIBBEN. 115 
 
 grades for exercises from which they are absent be zero, hence, 
 this system is conducive to absences on the part of a few 
 students if for no other reason than the inherent disposition in 
 man to take all that is coming to him. Some students do not 
 realize that the absence limits set are to meet unforeseen and 
 unavoidable contingencies. It is unfortunate that the great 
 number of worthy and careful students should be subjected to 
 strict rules simply because there are a few irresponsible mem- 
 bers in their ranks. 
 
 Believing as I do that absences are conducive to the forma- 
 tion of bad habits, which take time after graduation to over- 
 come, and that an employer notices in many ways the effect 
 of "dilly-dally" habits formed in college, I have tried to 
 reduce their number in exercises taught in the civil engineer- 
 ing department at Lehigh University. That the effort has 
 been successful is shown by the accompanying diagram and 
 table, wherein it appears that in the six years beginning with 
 the college year 1906-1907 the total number of absences in the 
 department has been reduced from 4,217 in that year to 1,564 
 in the year 1911-1912. During this same period the per- 
 centage of absences has fallen from a maximum of 7.9 in the 
 second term of 1906-1907 to a minimum of 2.4 for the first 
 term of 1910-1911. The percentage of absences in any term 
 is obtained by dividing the actual number of absences in all 
 subjects by the product of the number of students and the 
 number of exercises, and multiplying the quotient by 100. In 
 the accompanying table every absence from exercises in the 
 civil engineering department is included, whether occasioned 
 by sickness, neglect, athletics, conflicts between two different 
 subjects occurring at the same time ; in fact, from every cause 
 whatsoever. 
 
 This reduction has been accomplished by showing the stu- 
 dents that it is for their good that they be present, by publish- 
 ing the figures to show that an evil existed, by trying to make 
 the exercises so interesting and important that students wished 
 to attend, by unceasing watchfulness over and persuasion 
 with those who showed carelessness, and finally where all 
 
116 
 
 ABSENCES A MEASURE OF INEFFICIENCY. 
 
 EXCLUSION. ABSENCE LIMITS FOR SUBJECTS TAUGHT BY CIVIL ENGI- 
 NEERING DEPARTMENT, LEHIGH UNIVERSITY, 1911-1912. 
 
 
 Subject. 
 
 Class. 
 
 Number of 
 Exercises per 
 Week. 
 
 Exclusion 
 Limits. 
 
 
 ^ Bridge design 
 
 Senior 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 
 Sanitary engineering . .. 
 
 Senior 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 Senior 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 
 E. M. graphic statics 
 
 Senior 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 
 Strength of materials 
 
 Junior 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 a 
 
 Testing laboratory 
 
 Junior 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 E. E. construction 
 
 Junior 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 H ' 
 
 
 Junior 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 to 
 
 C E graphic statics 
 
 Junior 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 M. E. graphic statics 
 
 Junior 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 
 Elem. niech. of materials 
 C E construction 
 
 Sophomore 
 Soph omore 
 
 1 
 2 
 
 2 
 3 
 
 
 Stereotomy . 
 
 Sophomore 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 
 ' Mechanical drawing 
 
 Freshman 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 
 Subject. 
 
 Class. 
 
 Number of 
 Exercises per 
 Week. 
 
 Exclusion 
 Limits. 
 
 
 Bridges 
 
 Senior 
 
 4 
 
 c; 
 
 
 Cement and concrete 
 
 Senior 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 
 Steel buildings 
 
 Senioi 
 
 2 
 
 Q 
 
 a 
 
 E. E. construction 
 
 Junior 
 
 2 
 
 Q 
 
 
 Hydraulics 
 
 Junior 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 ^ ' 
 
 Bridges 
 
 Junior 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 p 
 
 Railroad surveying 
 
 Junior 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 
 Hydraulic laboratory 
 
 Junior 
 
 1 
 
 o 
 
 02 
 
 C. E. construction 
 
 Sophomore 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 
 Land surveying. 
 
 Sophomore 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 Descriptive geometry 
 
 Freshman 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 other means failed by enforcing strictly the rule regarding 
 exclusion from final examination where the absence limit had 
 been exceeded. This exclusion meant that the student under 
 discipline was compelled to repeat the subject in class. A 
 very forceful argument that sets the students to thinking 
 about this matter is that pertaining to the financial aspect of 
 the question. Let it be supposed that a student has 18 class 
 exercises each week for 30 weeks or 540 exercises during his 
 college year and that the total cost of his year's stay at 
 college is $810.00. If he is absent once he has wasted $1.50. 
 assuming that each exercise is of the same importance; 10 
 
F. P. MCKIBBEN. 117 
 
 absences means the loss equivalent to $15.00. Of course, the 
 reasoning here is far from logical, because a boy will not lose 
 the entire lesson by being absent from the recitation if he 
 has devoted some thought to the lesson at home, but there is 
 just enough basis for the argument to make some students 
 understand the point involved and to make them improve their 
 attendance. 
 
THE PROBLEM OF EFFICIENCY IN TEACHING.* 
 
 BY W. A. HILLEBRAND, 
 Professor of Electrical Engineering, Oregon Agricultural College. 
 
 President Jordan, of Stanford University, tells the story 
 of a prominent entomologist who began his study of organic 
 science under Professor Agassiz. The young man was at 
 first given a fish to study with the brief instruction to find 
 out by observation all that he could about it. After some 
 twenty minutes or half an hour he reported to his instructor, 
 only to be told to go back and look some more. His real 
 observation began when he picked up a pencil and commenced 
 to draw, but after noting with painstaking effort apparently 
 all that the exterior of the specimen could reveal, he was 
 informed that he had overlooked the most significant fact of 
 all. For two days he pondered over the enigma until it oc- 
 curred to him in a dream, that the fish is symmetrical. In 
 his stubborn insistence that the student work out his own 
 salvation, backed doubtless by a personal magnetism that 
 spurred him to the effort, lay the genius of Agassiz as a 
 teacher and in that same spirit lies the essence of good teach- 
 ing today and for all time. 
 
 Most people acquire knowledge of a new subject slowly and 
 with difficulty and what a student does acquire he must win 
 for himself, as a rule laboriously. How true this is will be 
 vouched for by any teacher who holds himself responsible 
 for seeing that his students absorb the information which 
 he strives to impart. 
 
 In a recent article Professor Paine, of the University of 
 Illinois, describing the work in that institution, cites the daily 
 
 * This paper was first presented, by request, at the December meeting of 
 the Portland section A. I. E. E., and subsequently printed in abstract in 
 the Journal of Electricity, Power and Gas. 
 
 118 
 
W. A. HILLEBRAND. 119 
 
 problem as an essential feature, whereby, to use his own 
 words, * ' The student finds out for himself, ' ' a laborious proc- 
 ess but, where effectiveness is the goal, the only one which 
 the author believes practicable. 
 
 In my own classes I have for five years given the following 
 problem : 
 
 "An arc light which behaves as a dead resistance consumes 
 seventy volts at the arc with a current of six amperes : Find 
 the reactance in ohms of a choke coil to be placed in series in 
 order that the arc may operate properly from a one hundred 
 ten volt circuit." Each year regularly fourteen out of fif- 
 teen men will add algebraically the reactance and resistance 
 volts, although for a week or ten days they have been success- 
 fully solving problems with complicated series and multiple 
 groupings of resistance, capacity and inductance. A similar 
 experience would await when, later in the semester in the 
 study of transmission lines, the reactance and resistance drop 
 would again be added algebraically. All of these problems 
 had to be corrected and returned by the student and much 
 time could have been saved to all concerned by a word from 
 the instructor. 
 
 When this fact concerning the difficulty with which knowl- 
 edge is acquired is once accepted, it becomes the fundamental, 
 underlying principle of any educational institution that 
 adopts it and largely determines some of its most important 
 pedagogic questions such as the attitude of the student to- 
 ward his work, of the teacher toward the student, and the 
 provision of adequate funds that the work of instruction 
 may be prosecuted in accordance with the accepted ideal. 
 It will be an important factor in deciding how a given subject 
 shall be presented by the teacher, that is, whether the best 
 results are to be obtained by lectures, recitations from a text 
 book, a course of problems, laboratory experiments, or through 
 a combination of these methods. The questions concerning 
 the number of students in a given course who can be effect- 
 ively taught in a single section, of the number of sections 
 that, with justice to all, particularly the instructor, one 
 
120 PROBLEM OF EFFICIENCY IN TEACHING. 
 
 man can handle, and also questions as to whether the faculty 
 of any department is undermanned and of whether funds of 
 the institution shall be devoted to extending the work to 
 new departments or strengthening those already in existence, 
 are problems which may be solved intelligently only through 
 the application of our guiding principle. 
 
 In considering the question of the efficiency of technical 
 instruction, on which alone the author claims to speak with 
 any authority, two important facts must be borne in mind: 
 First, that in most of the colleges in America which offer 
 technical courses, instruction in a large number of quite 
 unrelated branches is also given; and secondly, that every 
 college is in honor bound to its students whom it ostensibly 
 prepares for life, to offer in every department of its curricu- 
 lum a minimum number of courses which the nature of each 
 subject and the precedent set by other schools of similar grade 
 have declared standard. For instance, in electrical engineer- 
 ing there must be offered in the junior year an introductory 
 course of lectures or recitations with correlated laboratory in- 
 struction in dynamo electric machinery, followed the next 
 year by similar but more advanced courses and one course in 
 the elements of engineering practice as applied to enterprises 
 which utilize the electric current. More can be and generally 
 is offered but this is the irreducible minimum which the 
 institution obligates itself to undertake as soon as it adver- 
 tises a department of electrical engineering. 
 
 Like its near relation, the business corporation, nearly 
 every educational institution has but limited funds with which 
 to carry out the plan definitely outlined in its founding 
 grant or by the policy of its governing board. It inevitably 
 follows, that if an aggressive and capable departmental head 
 in Greek, botany, or mathematics is unduly favored with 
 appropriations to expand the work which he so successfully 
 directs, every other department of the university or college 
 must suffer in proportion as its own income is thereby depleted. 
 
 Upon every department head or faculty therefore, devolves 
 the responsibility of analyzing their particular situation, of 
 
W. A. HILLEBRAND. 121 
 
 deciding upon the minimum equipment and personnel neces- 
 sary to adequately serve the students as local conditions de- 
 mand, and to insist that the necessary appropriation be 
 granted. To prove one's case is often by no means easy, 
 especially in view of the fact that other departments doing 
 a somewhat similar work may be handling relatively much 
 larger numbers. Accordingly, during the fall of 1910, the 
 author made an effort to determine the amount of time actu- 
 ally taken by the courses he was conducting, with the idea 
 of determining the number of courses and students which 
 one instructor under similar conditions and with like ideals, 
 can handle. 
 
 For an entire semester, or nearly four months he kept a 
 detailed record of the disposition of his time, itemized under 
 headings which endeavored to account for every period of the 
 working day, down to as brief an interval as five minutes. 
 Upon a sheet of paper on his desk was recorded the time of 
 every interruption of routine work or of every change from 
 one form of activity to another. When away from the desk 
 similar record was kept in a memorandum book. 
 
 Time was charged against the following, and averaged, in 
 some cases, for a week of five days, although the record com- 
 prised the entire seven, but as class instruction covers only 
 five days it is. assumed that work for the university was per- 
 formed in that time, in order to give a standard day. 
 
 Hours per Week. Hours per Day. 
 
 1. Preparation for class 5 :45 1 :09 
 
 2. Class-room instruction 5 :45 1 : 09 
 
 3. Correcting reports and papers 17:35 3:31 
 
 4. Interviews 9 :20 1 :52 
 
 5. Miscellaneous . .11:55 2:23 
 
 Total 50:20 10:04 
 
 It was not until after my record had been completed, that, 
 in reading Bulletin Number Five of the Carnegie Foundation, 
 I discovered that Mr. Cooke had obtained similar information, 
 with a doubtless similar purpose, from the physics teachers 
 at the eight institutions which he visited. 
 
122 PKOBLEM OF EFFICIENCY IN TEACHING. 
 
 This shows a heavier schedule than was actually carried, 
 owing to the fact that preparation and correction of reports 
 were carried on over Saturday and Sunday, but is fair if it is 
 understood that the last two days are left absolutely free. 
 
 During the five days of instruction an uninterrupted 
 period of not more than two hours could be counted upon. 
 
 About three quarters of an hour a day were occupied in 
 conferences with other members of the same or allied depart- 
 ments, which, although conditions were exceptional, was alto- 
 gether too much. The author was a prime offender. 
 
 The amount of time, over an hour a day, devoted to student 
 interviews and the number thereof, which would run as high 
 as eight or ten in a single day, seems unavoidable when the 
 nature of the course is considered. The students had two 
 laboratory periods a week with an inflexible ten-day limit for 
 reports, in which were to be answered numerous questions 
 concerning apparatus handled in the laboratory experiments. 
 In view of this fact and of the exigencies of schedule it seemed 
 impracticable and unfair to keep office hours at which time 
 only consultations might be held. This meant a reduction 
 in efficiency on the part of the instructor, frat it was con- 
 sidered essential to the best interests of the student. 
 
 As it stands, the schedule is too heavy because time should 
 be allowed him for study and investigation outside of that 
 which he may feel inclined to take from his family and social 
 duties. This is necessitated by the demands made upon the 
 engineering teacher by his college, which requires that he 
 keep up to date, by the profession which looks to him as an 
 authority on the theoretical side which the man in practice 
 often lacks the time to study, and by his students who come 
 to him with questions on a wide range of topics. In my 
 opinion, six hours a day is as much as any man in the teaching 
 profession should be required to devote to work of instruction 
 either by way of actual teaching, conference, or preparation. 
 
 The courses conducted by the author, either solely or in 
 conjunction with others, were as follows : 
 
 1. A course of lectures to freshmen requiring two hours a 
 
W. A. HILLEBBAND. 123 
 
 month and a total of thirty hours for the semester in con- 
 ferences. 
 
 2. A recitation course to fifteen seniors of three periods 
 a week on alternating current machinery. There were as- 
 signed five problems and six examinations, making a total 
 of 165 papers whose correction required an average of four- 
 teen minutes each. Each problem submitted had to be re- 
 turned by the student, if incorrect, until marked satisfactory. 
 
 3. Laboratory course to the same fifteen seniors, in which 
 twenty experiments, each requiring a report, were assigned. 
 My share was the reading of these reports, which were first 
 handed in preliminary to the experiment and then after per- 
 formance, resubmitted until accepted. Three hundred re- 
 ports averaged forty-one minutes each total time. 
 
 4. Course of lectures to twenty juniors, one period a week. 
 Nine reports required, one hundred eighty total, averaging 
 eight minutes each. 
 
 A few words as to the conduct of these courses are now in 
 order. Numbers three and four constituted the burden of the 
 work. They were closely correlated, laboratory instruction 
 in a given subject preceding the class room study thereof by 
 one or two weeks, it being our belief, supported by experience, 
 that although it increased the difficulty in preparing for and 
 running an experiment, such difficulty was more than com- 
 pensated by the advantage to the student in having had some 
 physical contact and experience with a machine before at- 
 tempting to master the theory. 
 
 An idea of the effort that was made to force the student 
 to do as much as possible of the work himself and develop his 
 power to observe and reason, is given by the following inci- 
 dent. One of the boys stepped into my office for information 
 which could have been briefly and directly given but instead, 
 eighteen minutes were consumed in an effort to make him solve 
 the difficulty for himself. All work submitted by the student 
 was rigorously scrutinized throughout and no observed error 
 in spelling or grammar was allowed to pass uncorrected, but 
 the opportunity which such a series of reports offer as studies 
 
124 PEOBLEM OF EFFICIENCY IN TEACHING. 
 
 in composition was not taken advantage of for lack of time. 
 
 An attempt will now be made to determine the amount of 
 work of the sort previously outlined which one man can 
 effectively handle, it being assumed that similar ideals and 
 methods will be adhered to, and that six hours shall consti- 
 tute a day's work. 
 
 Then, one instructor can read the reports on seven experi- 
 ments performed per day in the senior laboratory, provided 
 he does nothing more. The extra hour is allowed for con- 
 ferences. If he also handles the section during the three 
 hour laboratory period, then he can read the reports of three 
 or four men. If he is in charge of the laboratory and respon- 
 sible for the coordination and development of its facilities, 
 the burden of report reading should be largely taken off his 
 shoulders, entirely so if he conducts any other courses be- 
 sides this one. In a progressive institution, whether it be 
 rapidly growing or not, the work of coordination and develop- 
 ment will easily take from one quarter to one third of a man's 
 time, even if he has a mechanical assistant to attend to that 
 end. 
 
 In the class room study of machinery performance, a class 
 of thirty juniors or seniors should be split into two sections, 
 for the weight of authority agrees that for most instructional 
 work of any kind, wherein the work is of a nature that requires 
 personal supervision, the limit of efficiency is passed when 
 the number of students in a section is more than twenty-five. 
 Two such sections, meeting three times a week, can be handled 
 profitably by one man whose time will be completely appro- 
 priated in preparation, recitation and correction of papers if 
 daily problems are assigned which must be successively re- 
 turned by the student until correct. His time will be con- 
 sumed as follows, for the week: 
 
 Preparation 3 hours. 
 
 Class 6 hours. 
 
 Correction of papers, 3 X 30 X i 22 hours. 
 
 or the total of 28% hours out of a maximum thirty allowable. 
 
W. A. HILLEBKAND. 125 
 
 Since ample time is to be allowed the instructor in which 
 properly to do his work, equal justice must be granted the 
 student, which means few credits, preferably not over fifteen 
 or sixteen in the junior and senior years, and, in the case of 
 men who will take proper advantage of their opportunity, 
 often a less number is profitable in promoting more intensive 
 study and effort. 
 
 If, in such a course, the assignment of one or more prob- 
 lems every day is deemed neither necessary nor desirable, 
 then more time for other work is left both student and 
 instructor. 
 
 Assuming three men to handle the above group of seniors, 
 in a laboratory course wherein each student spends three 
 hours a week, and one recitation course of two sections, meet- 
 ing three times a week, which would be a light schedule for 
 so many instructors, it is seen that in a year of thirty-two 
 weeks, five thousand, seven hundred sixty (5,760) student 
 hours of instruction will have been offered, or nineteen hun- 
 dred twenty (1,920) per man. By a student hour is meant 
 one hour nominally spent by a student with his instructor. 
 
 In the courses given by the department of electrical engi- 
 neering at the Oregon Agricultural College there will prob- 
 ably be offered this year, seven thousand, three hundred 
 (7,300) student hours of instruction, or with a faculty of 
 two and two thirds men, for two instructors are shared by 
 this and the department of physics, twenty-seven hundred 
 forty (2,740) student hours per man. The imaginary schedule 
 is admittedly light, which places our Oregon institution almost 
 in the same class, as regards opportunity. 
 
 Since the question of efficiency in teaching is inseparably 
 bound up with that of finance which provides the necessary 
 funds, it should be of interest to ascertain, if only in an indi- 
 vidual case, what the cost of instruction may be or actually is. 
 
 The courses offered by our department this year are as 
 follows : 
 9 
 
126 PROBLEM OF EFFICIENCY IN TEACHING. 
 
 Junior laboratory course 2 semesters, 2 credits each. 
 
 Junior recitation course 2 semesters, 3 credits each. 
 
 Senior laboratory course 2 semesters, 2 credits each. 
 
 Senior recitation course 2 semesters, 3 credits each. 
 
 Senior design course 2 semesters, 2 credits each. 
 
 Senior thesis course 1 semester, 2 credits. 
 
 In the junior class there are eighteen men and in the senior 
 class eleven with a total of 7,300 student hours and 413 credit 
 hours, which totals can not be deduced alone from the above 
 table. 
 
 The cost of instruction is subdivided as follows: 
 
 Teaching salaries, labor and supplies used solely by the depart- 
 ment in connection with the above enumerated courses .... $4,325.00 
 
 College administration and maintenance, electrical department 
 
 share 899.00 
 
 Fixed charges, interest and depreciation 1,360.00 
 
 Total $6,584.00 
 
 Administration and maintenance cover the expenses of the 
 executive, registrar and business offices, publications and care 
 of grounds apportioned in the proportion of the number of 
 students taking work in our department to the total regis- 
 tration. A better division would perhaps be founded on the 
 proportion of student hours instruction to the total for the 
 college, but these figures are not available. This item of ex- 
 pense also covers janitorial service and heating, apportioned 
 in the ratio of floor space occupied by our department to the 
 total floor space, estimated, of the college. 
 
 Fixed charges include interest at four per cent. This 
 figure is the one used by Mr. Cooke in his report to the Car- 
 negie Foundation. It seems legitimate to charge interest 
 because the college plant was provided by the taxpayers of 
 the state with funds which might otherwise be productive. 
 
 Depreciation is figured at the following rates: buildings, 
 2 per cent.; electrical equipment, 5 per cent.; power plant, 
 5 per cent. ; wire plant, property of college, 8 per cent. ; heat- 
 ing plant, 4 per cent. ; printing office equipment, 5 per cent. 
 
W. A. HILLEBBAND. 127 
 
 (a) Students enrolled in electrical courses 30 
 
 (6) Total enrollment of full course students 1,066 
 
 Eatio, afb = .0283, or 2.83 per cent. 
 
 Sq. Ft 
 
 (c) Floor space occupied by department 4,135 
 
 (d) Floor space, class rooms, laboratories and offices in Mechan- 
 
 ical Hall, home of electrical engineering department . . 17,230 
 Ratio, c/d = .25, or 25 per cent. 
 
 (e) Floor space for entire college (estimated) 353,000 
 
 Eatio, c/<? = .012, or 1.2 per cent. 
 
 Fixed charges were computed and apportioned to the de- 
 partment as follows: 
 
 Mechanical Hall, $30,000 X (.02 plus .04) X .25 $450.00 
 
 Departmental equipment $8,500 X (.04 plus .05) 756.00 
 
 Campus lands, $15,000 X .04 X .0283 17.00 
 
 Power plant, $19,000 X (.04 plus .05) X .0283 48.00 
 
 Wire plant, $5,000 X (.04 plus .08) X .0283 17.00 
 
 Heating plant, $34,000 X (.04 plus .04) X .012 32.00 
 
 Printing plant, $5,500 X (.04 plus .05) X .0283 14.00 
 
 Administration offices, $5.500 X (.02 plus .04) X .0283 17.00 
 
 $1,360.00 
 
 Although the estimated value of land on the campus is 
 about $200,000.00 only the approximate purchase value was 
 used in computing cost. 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 Eatio salaries, etc., to total cost 65.5 
 
 Eatio administration and maintenance to total cost 13.6 
 
 Eatio fixed charges to total cost 20.9 
 
 Cost per student hour, $6,584.00 -f- 7,300 equals $.90. 
 
 Cost per student credit, $6,584.00 -f- 413 equals $15.95. 
 
 For every registered hour a student spends with an in- 
 structor in our department it costs ninety cents. It is inter- 
 esting to note that this value lies within the range reported 
 by Mr. Cooke as the cost per student hour in physics at eight 
 prominent Eastern and Middle Western colleges and uni- 
 versities. His costs average $.87. 
 
128 PROBLEM OF EFFICIENCY IN TEACHING. 
 
 Assuming that the salary roll should vary about as the 
 number of students, the cost of instruction may be repre- 
 sented by the following formula, where x equals the number 
 of credit hours in courses offered by the department: 
 
 Annual cost = $2,259.00 + 10.50z. 
 
 10.50 covers salaries, etc., per credit hour in 1911-12. The 
 amount which annually must be provided to run the depart- 
 ment is given by the formula 
 
 899 + 10.50z + y, 
 
 where y is the annual equipment appropriation, which may 
 vary from nothing to whatever the authorities feel can be 
 afforded. 
 
 Doubtless the most perplexing question confronting every 
 college president concerns the distribution of the annual ap- 
 propriation. The author believes that a careful analysis of 
 costs would be of material assistance in answering this ques- 
 tion, and that, in general, a low cost per student hour will be 
 a sign of inefficiency. 
 
 In striving for efficiency in teaching as in any other en- 
 deavor, we believe it necessary to possess a clear realization 
 of the end sought, of the method which shall be followed and 
 of the equipment and personnel required. Some conception 
 of the necessary expense is also considered desirable. 
 
THE ADMINISTRATION OF COLLEGE SHOP 
 LABORATORIES. 
 
 BY W. F. M. GOSS, 
 Dean of the College of Engineering, University of Illinois. 
 
 The shop laboratory has for many years constituted an 
 important factor in technical education. The "Worcester 
 Polytechnic Institute, which began its work in November, 
 1868, gave a prominent place to such laboratories. A shop 
 laboratory was organized at the University of Illinois in 1870. 
 An elaborately equipped shop for the administration of graded 
 courses of practice, in conformity with the so-called Russian 
 system, was established at the Massachusetts Institute of 
 Technology in 1876, at Purdue University in 1879, and soon 
 after in various state universities and in other institutions. 
 
 Several important results have followed the establishment 
 of these shop laboratories. Their work has interested the 
 public. In the early development of engineering courses in 
 the state institutions of the Mississippi Valley and the West, 
 it was important that the work undertaken should be readily 
 interpreted by the public. The forgings, the patterns, the 
 castings and the finished machines resulting from the work 
 of students in the college shops were accepted by the sup- 
 porters of these institutions as evidence of the practical char- 
 acter of the work done by the college. Many institutions 
 which began with the simple processes of the shop, have so 
 stimulated the confidence of their supporters that they have 
 been able gradually to build up courses of greater breadth and 
 value. It is especially true of the state universities, that the 
 shop laboratories, with the field instruments used in survey- 
 ing, have served as stepping stones in the upbuilding of the 
 present-day broad and admirable courses of study and 
 practice. 
 
 Advocates of the movement have looked upon the work of 
 
 129 
 
130 ADMINISTRATION OF COLLEGE SHOP LABORATORIES. 
 
 the shop laboratories as of the highest importance from an 
 educational point of view. Such work has trained students 
 to an understanding of the nature of materials, and has 
 afforded them practice in many of the fundamental processes 
 which underlie all construction. Its purpose has been not to 
 make men skilful manipulators, but to give them an under- 
 standing of the principles governing manipulation. Not only 
 have the shop laboratories accomplished this purpose, but 
 they have bestowed upon students certain incidental advan- 
 tages. The fact that a graduate in mechanical engineering 
 has been able to run a lathe has often supplied a way for his 
 admission to an establishment, in the management of which 
 he has later become an influential factor. In the early days 
 of the technical school, the fact that the engineering graduate 
 could make tests and calculate the efficiency of a boiler, 
 counted for little, but the fact that he could take his place in 
 a shop and do things which the practical men of the shop were 
 paid for doing, at once gave him value in the opinion of the 
 men who were influential in determining his future career. 
 
 Many changes have affected the engineering industries 
 since shop laboratories first made their appearance, and many 
 new conditions have arisen which must be taken into account 
 when one attempts to define the present-day conduct of such 
 laboratories. Much of the shop work formerly done by the 
 college is now being very well done by the secondary school. 
 The practicing engineer and the corporation manager, who 
 employ the technical graduate, no longer require him to be a 
 skilful manipulator. The employer is now willing to accept 
 at its face value a candidate's ability to apply correct theory 
 in the analysis of practical problems, and he does not insist 
 that he shall be able to compete with skilled workmen as a 
 workman. A demand has developed for men possessing other 
 characteristics the characteristics of the well-trained theorist 
 and analyst for men who understand the principles under- 
 lying the work of the mechanic, and who through the applica- 
 tion of these principles can aid in a large way in increasing 
 the efficiency of the establishment they serve. The people 
 
W. F. M. GOSS. 131 
 
 contributing to the support of the technical school no longer 
 require the activities of the shop laboratory to convince them 
 of the value of the engineer's training, for they see in the 
 work of men who control the engineering activities which are 
 going on all about them, a better and a broader definition of 
 the true functions of the engineer. 
 
 From these considerations it should be apparent that the 
 ideals which hitherto have stimulated the work of the shop 
 laboratories are sustained by arguments which are losing force 
 as time proceeds. So true is this that the question is already 
 fairly before the technical school as to whether the existing 
 shop courses which have served so long and so well shall be 
 entirely abandoned. If not abandoned, they must be placed 
 upon a new plane of excellence. 
 
 In the opinion of the writer, the time has come when the 
 shop laboratory should cease to be content with a grade of 
 work possible in a secondary school ; its work should possess a 
 quality and character which is only possible in the environ- 
 ment of the technical school. This implies that the work of 
 the shop laboratories must be interrelated with that of other 
 technical courses, that such laboratories must cease to use 
 equipment which was purchased one or two decades ago, and 
 that they must cease to be satisfied with methods of adminis- 
 tration which, in the actual shops, have already passed out 
 of existence. If the shops are to mean anything worth while, 
 they must not only respond to the great and significant 
 changes which have been going on outside, but they must 
 have their part in leading such changes. Their work must 
 not stop with a routine; it must proceed to the development 
 of research that new principles may be established. This 
 means that the administration of laboratories which are to 
 serve such purposes must be in the hands of broadly trained 
 men and that sufficient funds must be available to permit their 
 operation on a scale far beyond that which most of our institu- 
 tions have as yet thought possible ; it means that such labora- 
 tories will take their place with courses of instruction touch- 
 ing the principles underlying systems of shop production just 
 
132 ADMINISTEATION OF COLLEGE SHOP LABOEATOEIES. 
 
 as the steam-engine laboratory has taken its place in con- 
 nection with class room courses in thermodynamics. 
 
 This conception makes the problem of the modern shop 
 laboratory one of large proportions, and its solution presents 
 a field of endeavor which the officers of technical schools will 
 find full of promise. 
 
SETTING TASKS FOR COLLEGE MEN. 
 
 BY SANFOKD E. THOMPSON, 
 Consulting Engineer, Newton Highlands, Mass. 
 
 In nearly all colleges there are certain studies designated 
 by students as "snap'* courses. Where the elective system is 
 in full force, it follows inevitably that a student can select 
 courses that will permit him to obtain a degree with a remark- 
 ably small amount of brain exercise during any one of the 
 four years of residence. 
 
 At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the institu- 
 tion with which I am most familiar, and I presume also at 
 other technical universities, "snap" courses are hard to find. 
 For the attainment of a degree in science, a student must 
 follow lines of study which are closely prescribed. Yet even 
 in these schools, noted for their "grinds," there is a marked 
 difference between the amount of work required by different 
 departments and by different instructors in the same depart- 
 ment. Furthermore, different lessons and exercises in the 
 same course frequently vary to a great extent in the time 
 required for preparation or performance. 
 
 Partly as a result of such variations, a common complaint 
 of employers of college graduates and technical school gradu- 
 ates is on the ground of the inability of the latter to attack 
 a job in aMbusiness-like manner and complete it in a reason- 
 able time their lack of "know-how-to-work." Frequently 
 along with this is the failure to realize that a simple error in 
 addition or subtraction may be even more serious from a com- 
 mercial or engineering standpoint than an error in method of 
 computation. In filling positions in my own organization 
 where the applicant is a recent graduate, my first question is 
 with reference to what practical work he has done before or 
 during his college course; can he turn out a piece of work 
 
 133 
 
134 SETTING TASKS FOR COLLEGE MEN. 
 
 not only in the proper way, but quickly and accurately ? We 
 frequently hear the statement true, however, only with a 
 portion of the students that a man is not good for anything 
 until he has been out of college at least two years. For an 
 engineer, a knowledge of mechanics is a fundamental require- 
 ment, but except where mathematical analysis is required, I 
 prefer to instruct a man in method rather than in accuracy 
 and speed. He will learn the former quicker than he will the 
 latter. 
 
 The problem of developing more fully this power of accom- 
 plishment is no simple one, and I do not refer to the matter 
 in a spirit of criticism I speak from the standpoint both of 
 an employer and of a lecturer in two universities but with 
 a view to calling more definite attention to this point, with 
 the object of suggesting a definite line which may be followed 
 for inducing improvement. 
 
 The difficulty of estimating the task of a student in shop 
 work by guess was called to my attention recently in a tech- 
 nical school which I was visiting with a class of graduate stu- 
 dents from a neighboring university. The task given to the 
 boys was the making up of wooden boxes, and the time to make 
 up two boxes was estimated at 1J hours. The boys knew they 
 were being watched and, boy fashion, tried to make a record. 
 One of them completed his first box in 12 minutes and his 
 second in 11 minutes, about one-fourth the time scheduled. 
 This boy worked too fast, at a speed greater than he could 
 maintain throughout the day and produce good results. On 
 the other hand, the estimated time was unquestionably too 
 large. The proper time for the task lay somewhere between 
 the two. 
 
 In the shops of one large institution in this vicinity and I 
 am told that it is one of the few in the country which go as 
 far as this the instructor has scheduled the time that it 
 ought to take for each of the regular pieces of work to be done. 
 While not given specific times for the tasks, the student is 
 expected to accomplish a certain amount of work during the 
 term. This is a step in the right direction. It would be 
 
SANFORD E. THOMPSON. 135 
 
 still better for the instructor to have records based on unit 
 times, which should be so accurate that the student could 
 accomplish each job within a definite fixed time, a record of 
 his actual performance being kept on file. 
 
 To see how some of the students actually worked, compared 
 with the task that would be expected of a machinist working 
 under scientific management, one of my assistant engineers 
 made time studies of certain operations in the shops referred 
 to. These times were then compared with the times that would 
 be fixed in practice for such jobs for a man to do the work and 
 receive a bonus. In one case the result was very good indeed, 
 the student's time being 43.2 minutes against a task time of 
 30.2 minutes. The ratio between these is no more than would 
 be expected between an average man and a man working 
 under task and bonus. In the other case the student occupied 
 four times the task time. The times of the operations are 
 given in the following table. The unit times are not given 
 individually but are grouped together into definite operations 
 for comparison. 
 
 In the operation of the task in practice, the man must turn 
 
 BORING A f" AND A f|" HOLE COMPLETELY THROUGH AND A f" HOLE 
 |" DEEP IN A PIECE OF CAST IRON 4" Xl" X 1" THICK. 
 
 Hill & Clarke High Speed Drilling Machines. 
 
 Student's Task 
 Time, Time, 
 
 Minutes. Minutes. 
 
 Drilling 3 holes 6.47* 1.44 
 
 Clamping and handling piece 12.76f 1.03 
 
 Setting drills and drawing center 13.55 3.30 
 
 Changing drills 1.70 1.13 
 
 Beaming 4.97 4.00 
 
 Cleaning up and lost time 5.12 
 
 Total time 44.57 10.90$ 
 
 * Includes 2.14 minutes calipering hole. 
 
 t The bed of student 'B drilling machine was not adjustable for these 
 times, while the task times are given for an adjustable bed. This ac- 
 counts for a considerable part of the difference in this item. 
 
 I Includes allowance for lost time and delays. 
 
136 SETTING TASKS FOB COLLEGE MEN. 
 
 MAKING LIVE CENTER FOB 12" EEED ENGINE LATHE FROM 6" X 1^" 
 DIAMETER PIECE OF MACHINERY STEEL. 
 
 Eeed 12" Engine Lathe with High Speed Tool Steel. 
 
 Student's Task 
 Time, Time,? 
 
 Minutes. Minutes. 
 
 Preliminary work (getting correct taper) etc 7.56 5.00 
 
 Bough turn, main portion 5.00 3.70 
 
 Finish cuts, main portion 3.02* 4.62f 
 
 Turn small end 2.10 0.50 
 
 Pile and fit 7.45 3.50 
 
 Eough turn joint 4.25 1.65 
 
 Trim joint 3.62 2.50 
 
 Adjusting tools (operations not exactly alike) 4.97 7.50 
 
 Turning end for end and handling 1.26 
 
 Extra work and lost time (including handling) .... 5.28 
 
 Total time 43^25 3023* 
 
 out a product of a definite quality and in a definite time in 
 order to receive his bonus. Why in such work as the shop 
 and the laboratory, where the same pieces of work occur year 
 after year, should not the tasks be set in advance, not simply 
 according to the judgment of the instructor, not by records of 
 past performance that may or may not be accurate, but by a 
 really scientific analysis? 
 
 That this can be done is not merely theory, for it has been 
 worked out to a limited extent in practice. In a certain 
 school, tasks in the chemical laboratory were set by actual time 
 study. Such work as this naturally lends itself to exact analy- 
 sis. In another case, tasks were worked out in classes of work 
 that at first thought would seem not susceptible of scientific 
 analysis, viz., the reading and studying of scientific text. In 
 both instances the work was carried out by Mr. Hollis God- 
 frey, who was at the head of the department of science in the 
 institution referred to. 
 
 For a period extending over three years, studies were made 
 
 * Making one rough cut and one finish cut at same feed as for rough 
 cut. 
 
 t Making two finish cuts at less feed than for rough cuts. 
 $ Includes allowance for lost time and delays. 
 
SANFOBD E. THOMPSON. 137 
 
 on the times taken by the slow, the quick, and the average 
 boy and girl, to perform the routine experiments in the 
 chemical laboratory, and out of some seventy tasks set on the 
 basis of these tests, only three were found to be too long for 
 the average student. The tasks were figured with an allow- 
 ance for discussion of work by instructor and another allow- 
 ance for writing out notes so that the slow student was 
 required to devote extra time to his work. One of the assist- 
 ants was given the function of seeing that the chemicals and 
 supplies were provided for each exercise to avoid delay on 
 that account. 
 
 For the setting of tasks for reading or studying scientific 
 text, 100 pupils were timed to find how long it took them to 
 read a certain number of pages for the first time, the second 
 time, and the third time, it having been found that three 
 readings were necessary on an average to assimilate matter of 
 this character. 
 
 For other classes of study, such as the reading of literature 
 or the reading of history, a fewer number of readings would 
 naturally be required and a different time per page. 
 
 For mathematical calculations, such as slide rule work and 
 compiling of tables requiring multiplication and division, I 
 have found it possible to set tasks in my office, paying for 
 this clerical work in accordance with the actual amount of 
 work accomplished. 
 
 These illustrations are cited simply for the purpose of indi- 
 cating the possibility of setting tasks for work done with the 
 brain alone as well as that done with the hand or the machine. 
 
 If I am correct in my criticism, that different lessons and 
 courses in different departments permit a wide range in the 
 amount of work required by the students, then the problem 
 is worth consideration. Like any problem worth studying, 
 the solution cannot be given offhand, and only general sugges- 
 tions can be made as to the method of handling it. 
 
 In our schools and colleges more attention is being given to 
 the personal element. In our city schools we now frequently 
 find a vocational department. It should be possible to take 
 
138 SETTING TASKS FOB COLLEGE MEN. 
 
 another functional step in the direction I have named by 
 delegating to a definite group of men the function of studying 
 and comparing the work required by the different courses 
 and departments. To do this properly, a scientific analysis 
 must be made and time observations taken upon students. 
 Then with the advice of the individual instructors the courses 
 could be definitely planned. Just as the task time fixed for 
 certain machines and men in one shop may be applied to 
 similar machines and men in another shop, so having once 
 determined the unit times for a certain course, the same 
 units could be readily adapted to a similar course in other 
 schools. 
 
 In making this suggestion, I am well aware that I shall 
 be met with the stereotyped objection that "you can set tasks 
 for other kinds of work but you can 't set tasks for this, ' ' but 
 from my experience I know that it is possible to make a 
 scientific analysis and to set tasks in practically all kinds of 
 work. It may not be economical to set tasks in all kinds of 
 work in cases for example where the operation is repeated 
 only occasionally. If a course of study or laboratory or shop 
 work is outlined simply for a single year and is not to be 
 repeated, there may be a question whether the setting of tasks 
 is worth while. If, on the other hand, as is usually the fact, 
 the same course is repeated year after year with only a few 
 changes, that can readily be provided, for if the analysis of 
 the operations has been properly made, the scientific layout 
 of the work is practicable. 
 
DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION AND 
 EFFICIENCY. 
 
 BY HUGO DIEMER, 
 Professor of Industrial Engineering, Pennsylvania State College. 
 
 During the past three years in conducting the department 
 of industrial engineering at the Pennsylvania State College, 
 we have held regular weekly meetings of the department. At 
 these meetings there has been the freest discussion of ques- 
 tions of policy and organization, as well as questions dealing 
 with methods. The results have been extremely gratifying. 
 There is no question in the minds of any of the members of 
 the department but that the meetings have resulted in co- 
 operation, enthusiasm and accomplishment of results, which 
 under old methods of organization, would have seemed im- 
 possible. Among the matters which have been taken up by 
 the department are the following: 
 
 Consideration of courses and establishment of new courses 
 including: (a) courses leading to a degree, (6) topical courses. 
 
 Two new courses leading to a degree have been established ; 
 namely, the four years * course in industrial engineering and 
 the four years' course for teachers of manual training. 
 
 New topical courses have been introduced as follows: 
 furniture design and construction, painting, pipe-fitting, 
 plumbing, sheet-metal work, time and motion study, lecture 
 and recitation courses in machine-shop methods, in foundry 
 and pattern shop methods, in factory accounting, factory 
 economics and factory planning. 
 
 A canvass has been made by the department of schools in 
 Pennsylvania teaching industrial training, manual training, 
 vocational training and the trades ; ascertaining their methods 
 and facilities. The department is establishing a laboratory 
 and museum of industrial education. 
 
 A committee of standards of the department determined the 
 duties, responsibilities, authority, routine and teaching 
 schedule of each member of the department, and has put them 
 into writing and also in the form of a graphical chart. 
 
 139 
 
140 DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION AND EFFICIENCY. 
 
 The department has initiated cooperative extension work 
 with the local school system. 
 
 We have introduced planning systems and detailed instruc- 
 tion cards into all of our shops. 
 
 We have established an apprenticeship system. 
 
 We have developed our construction shops on a commercial 
 and self-sustaining basis. 
 
 Among other matters taken up by the department and 
 carried through to a successful finish are the following : 
 
 Establishment of departmental accounts on a double 
 entry system. 
 
 Reviewing of recently published books bearing on sub- 
 jects taught by the department. 
 
 Selection of books to be purchased and magazine sub- 
 scriptions. 
 
 Distribution of expenses and allotment of fees. 
 
 Arrangement of equipment, of offices, files, desks, etc. 
 
 Alterations in lighting and power transmission systems. 
 
 Records of grades, absences and departmental regula- 
 tions as to excuses from work and how it is to be made up. 
 
 Continuous inventory of stores and equipment, together 
 with proper depreciation charges. 
 
 First aid to the injured. 
 
 Methods of teaching manual work, including : comparison 
 of French, German, Russian and Swedish methods as well 
 as methods in vogue in various American schools. 
 
 Kinds of shop work acceptable for entrance requirements. 
 
 Schedules of instructors; subjects and rooms. 
 
 Use of equipment by students outside of class time. 
 
 Lectures by visitors. 
 
 Maintenance and repairs to equipment. 
 
 Summer school courses for teachers to be offered by the 
 department. 
 
 Standardizing, filing and indexing of drawings, catalogs 
 and other memoranda for reference. 
 
 In this outline of the work accomplished at our department 
 meetings and in my discussion on the results of experience in 
 
HUGO DIEMER. 
 
 141 
 
 teaching scientific shop management t I have outlined some 
 definite and concrete accomplishments. In view of the above 
 results attained it may not be out of place to add a few 
 thoughts and suggestions to accompany the many others 
 which have been made in the direction of furthering academic 
 efficiency. 
 
 I believe there is a splendid opportunity in the colleges and 
 universities for work in providing means for attaining higher 
 efficiency by the individual instructor and for the develop- 
 ment of loyalty and enthusiasm among members of the in- 
 structing force by systematic investigation and resultant 
 action. 
 
 A systematic canvass made of all members of the instruct- 
 ing force in which each member would be asked just what is 
 needed in his work to make him more efficient, and from each 
 department and sub-department head as to what is needed to 
 make him and the respective members of the teaching force 
 under his jurisdiction more efficient, would if carried out in 
 the proper spirit result in the accumulation of many sug- 
 gestions. Some of these suggestions would be impracticable ; 
 some of them would be negative; but it is reasonably certain 
 that there is a sufficient number of members in every teaching 
 force with sane and positive constructive ideas for betterment, 
 to guarantee that such a canvass would result in the securing 
 of many ideas possible to carry out. 
 
 Talking from the point of view of a man who has spent a 
 goodly number of years in commercial work and has seen 
 capable men develop in the employ of large corporations, it is 
 my opinion that few educational institutions are inefficient 
 because of insufficient working hours or an insufficiently hard 
 day's task demanded of the instructor. In industrial work 
 men of the mental calibre of college instructors are provided 
 far more help in the way of stenographers, clerks and drafts- 
 men than is provided in colleges. In industry, a department 
 head is encouraged to avail himself of whatever help is needed 
 
 t PROCEEDINGS, Vol. XIX., p. 153. 
 10 
 
142 DEPAKTMENTAL ORGANIZATION AND EFFICIENCY. 
 
 in the way of stenographers, clerks and draftsmen to make 
 him a more effective producer. In practically every college in 
 the United States the individual instructor must be his own 
 stenographer, keep his own records, and do his own drafting, 
 thus reducing his productivity and efficiency in his specialty 
 from twenty to eighty per cent. In practically every college 
 in the United States, department heads are insufficiently pro- 
 vided with stenographic, clerical and drafting help and must 
 make negotiations with administrative officers for the loan of 
 such help from their offices which have also usually an insuffi- 
 cient supply of it. 
 
 In very few colleges in the United States are individual 
 instructors provided with private study rooms where they can 
 study free from interruptions at certain definite periods. In 
 attempting to introduce commercial efficiency some governing 
 boards and administrative authorities require instructors to 
 be at their desks during college hours. Such a requirement 
 if accompanied by private study-rooms would be no hardship 
 and would be welcomed by most teachers, as it would tend to 
 shorten the necessary night work which must be done by every 
 teacher, no matter how competent, in the preparation of his 
 next day's work. This constant night work by all capable 
 teachers, much of which must be done after social functions 
 and night meetings of faculties and committees, is usually not 
 realized by critics outside the educational field. 
 
 At the Pennsylvania Railroad Company's School for Ap- 
 prentices at Altoona there are three teachers. These teachers 
 are provided the entire daily services of a man who acts as 
 clerk and stenographer. As a result the instruction papers, 
 notes, references, records, etc., are in excellent order. If the 
 industries consider it worth while to do away with avoidable 
 fatigue and also with clerical work by teachers not trained 
 in that direction, why should not educational institutions ? 
 
 Are educational institutions systematically providing for 
 the development of the individual instructor so that he may 
 see more efficient methods and himself become more efficient? 
 So far as concerns visits to other institutions they are not. 
 
HUGO DIEMEK. 143 
 
 While engaged in industrial work I have frequently had 
 occasion to show methods of the establishments with which I 
 was connected, to engineers, superintendents, foremen, and 
 cost department clerks who were sent out on visiting trips by 
 other establishments for the purpose of acquainting them with 
 the methods of other companies. To some extent such visits 
 are made by members of college teaching staffs. However, 
 they are usually made by deans or heads of departments and 
 generally only on such occasions as the establishment of a new 
 laboratory or the equipping of a new building. Such trips are 
 seldom instituted and authorized for teachers in the ranks to 
 be taken at times when the work is in active progress at the 
 institution visited. 
 
 In addition to the systematic inquiry into means for de- 
 velopment of individual efficiency, I would recommend a 
 similar systematic canvass as to means for development of 
 loyalty. Systematic and continuous efforts must be made 
 to make the individual teacher's work inspiring and to get 
 each man interested in his work. The system of promotion 
 must be such as to afford numerous examples whereby ambi- 
 tion may be preserved. Fair play for all and the avoidance 
 of sharp practices in dealing with employees have been recog- 
 nized as vital principles in developing loyalty in the indus- 
 tries, and these same principles should prevail in all educa- 
 tional organizations. The individual teacher should be en- 
 couraged to undertake tasks of public service, to do research 
 work, consistent with his teaching duties, and to write papers 
 over his own signature. The progressive department head 
 will realize that such encouragement of the individual teacher 
 will tend to strengthen his department and add to the prestige 
 of the department head. Social recognition, graciously ac- 
 corded to the individual teacher by the department head in 
 introducing him and his work to visitors on public and semi- 
 public occasions, will do much to develop loyalty. 
 
 I believe the foregoing phases of academic efficiency are 
 worthy of more attention than has been accorded them in 
 the past. 
 
144 DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION AND EFFICIENCY. 
 
 In my discussion on the results of experience in teaching 
 scientific management I dwelt particularly on a single phase 
 of our four years' course in industrial engineering, namely, 
 the class in machine shop time study. We have already gradu- 
 ated three classes in our four years' course, and a brief out- 
 line of the classes peculiar to this course may be helpful. The 
 course is identical with the other engineering courses in the 
 freshman and first semester of the sophomore year. In the 
 second semester of the sophomore year a lecture and reci- 
 tation course is introduced on foundry and pattern shop 
 organization and methods. In the junior year classes are in- 
 troduced in machine shop organization and methods, a course 
 in machine shop time study and English economic history in 
 the first semester. In the second semester manufacturing 
 accounts and factory economics are taken up as well as Amer- 
 ican economic history and logic. In the first semester of the 
 senior year, factory economics is continued with especial 
 attention to scientific management. Principles of economics, 
 labor problems, corporations and finance, and also psychology 
 are taken up this semester. In the second semester of the 
 senior year a designing room course in factory planning is 
 taken up, also contracts and specifications, a continuation of 
 corporations and finance, also an option as to political parties, 
 railroad economics, or money and banking. 
 
 The mathematics, science and language work is identical 
 with that in all our other engineering courses, while the 
 machine design, heat engineering, electrical engineering, and 
 experimental engineering may be said to represent about as 
 much electrical engineering as is given to mechanical engi- 
 neering students and about as much mechanical engineering 
 as is given to electrical engineering students. 
 
 Our four years' course in industrial engineering is a de- 
 cidedly different training in scientific management from a one 
 or two hours' per week class in which an attempt is made to 
 combine theory of accounts, contracts and specifications, cost 
 accounting and scientific management, using a single text for 
 the entire combination. 
 
ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY. 
 
 BY WILLIAM KENT, 
 Consulting Engineer, Montclair, N. J. 
 
 About ten years ago I was asked by the president and 
 general manager of a large manufacturing corporation to 
 advise him how to improve the performance of his boiler house. 
 During the previous winter it was pushed to its utmost to 
 deliver enough steam to run the engines and to keep the 
 buildings warm, and the next winter, on account of extensions 
 to the factory and increased output, the demand for steam 
 would be still greater. Before beginning my work the presi- 
 dent told me something of the history of the company, and of 
 how he came to be the general manager. It had grown in 
 fifty years from a small concern to a large one, occupying 
 several blocks of ground. The business was the manufacture 
 of a variety of shelf hardware. He had for several years been 
 a director and the manager of the sales department, and on 
 the death of the former factory manager the directors insisted 
 on his taking the place, although as he said he knew nothing 
 about running a factory. He started in to learn how by 
 calling in the best outside expert advice available. He was 
 paying $10,000 for a year's services of a highly skilled expert 
 in machinery, jigs, and methods of manufacturing, who was 
 making a revolution in the shop, which amply justified the 
 high price paid for his services. This man said he knew noth- 
 ing about boilers, and therefore I was called in to tackle the 
 boiler problem. Incidentally the president told me that the 
 catalogue of the products made by the concern contained 
 14,000 items, each of which involved patterns, jigs, templates, 
 storage, book-keeping, records and correspondence. Probably 
 half of these items were either obsolete or in very small 
 demand, and another large fraction were unprofitable to 
 handle. Another $10,000 might have been properly spent in 
 
 145 
 
146 ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY. 
 
 making a selection of which of the 14,000 items should be 
 abandoned and in printing a new catalogue. 
 
 In regard to the boilers, the president told me I could get 
 all information available from two men, the superintendent of 
 the factory and the chief engineer, who were at loggerheads. 
 One had told the president one story about the boilers, and 
 the other an opposite story, and he did not know which one to 
 believe. He called the superintendent into the office to tell me 
 his story, and, dismissing him, called in the engineer who told 
 me the other story. I then had the engineer take me through 
 the whole factory, including the power plant. On my return 
 to the office I told the president that the engineer had told the 
 facts, and that the superintendent had not because he was 
 ignorant; he knew nothing about a power plant and never 
 would know, for his bump of conceit was too great to permit 
 of his learning. I reported further that the trouble from lack 
 of steam was not the fault of the boilers there were about 
 25 of them, crowding the boiler house to its capacity, and 
 there was no available land for an addition to it they were 
 making as much steam as they should be called on to make 
 with due regard to economy of fuel; but the trouble was 
 entirely owing to the great waste of steam throughout the 
 factory in winter time. Live steam was used for heating, and 
 numerous traps were wasting both steam and hot water. As 
 a result of my investigation an exhaust-steam heating system 
 was installed, and that stopped all complaints of the insuffi- 
 cient supply of steam. 
 
 This long story about a factory may seem to have nothing 
 to do with academic efficiency, but there are several points of 
 resemblance between its condition and that of some educa- 
 tional establishments. They, like it, are suffering from in- 
 efficient management continued through a long period of 
 years ; they have too many items in their catalogue ; heads of 
 departments at loggerheads; a board of directors who are 
 capitalists, but who know nothing of the details of the business 
 they are supposed to direct ; a president and general manager 
 who is well versed in the advertising part of the business, but 
 
WILLIAM KENT. 147 
 
 knows nothing of the best ways of producing its product. The 
 factory, however, has two points of difference from and advan- 
 tages over the college. (1) The competition of its rivals forces 
 it to improve its methods, while the college has no such 
 stimulus to improvement. (2) The manager of the factory re- 
 ferred to, knows that he knows nothing about the best way of 
 running a factory and therefore calls in outside expert assist- 
 ance, the manager of the college thinks he knows it all, and 
 therefore has no need of advice. 
 
 I said some educational establishments, not all. There are 
 others, and this brings me to another story. It is about a 
 university. 
 
 A certain large university more than twenty-five years ago 
 had an engineering college that was already suffering from 
 dry rot, although it was only about ten years old. It had a 
 good location, excellent buildings and equipment, and ample 
 funds, yet the college had lost prestige, and the number of 
 students was decreasing. The president of the university 
 knew nothing about engineering education, but he was wise 
 enough not to pretend to know anything about it. He asked 
 half a dozen or more consulting engineers and engineering 
 professors to visit the college and independently to give him 
 written reports as to what ought to be done to improve it. 
 I was one of the visitors. I found that the college was 
 divided into two independent departments, one theoretical 
 and the other practical, each presided over by a professor who 
 was responsible only to the president. I spent a morning 
 with one of these professors and an afternoon with the other. 
 Each told a tale of woe, about the utter worthlessness and 
 total depravity of the other man. I advised the dismissal of 
 both, and the appointment of a man who was big enough to 
 be the head of the whole college. Some months were spent 
 by the president of the university in getting these reports and 
 in interviewing different experts, including men whose names 
 had been suggested as qualified for the position. He selected 
 the right man, gave him full authority, approved his every 
 request, and the trustees gave him everything he asked for in 
 
148 ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY. 
 
 the way of competent assistants and additional equipment. 
 The theoretical professor resigned, and the practical one grace- 
 fully subsided into a minor subordinate position, where he 
 gave no trouble. The college grew with great rapidity. In 
 ten years it was in the front rank of the engineering colleges 
 of the world, which position it still holds. 
 
 Note the points of similarity between the factory and the 
 university as related in these two stories. Each was suffer- 
 ing from inefficient management, each had a president who 
 was ignorant of the details of the business, but who was 
 conscious of his ignorance and was willing to take advice from 
 outside. In each case the advice was taken, with the best 
 possible results. 
 
 My subject is entitled Academic Efficiency. I use this short 
 term merely because it has been used before to mean the 
 efficiency of educational methods, and it may be necessary to 
 explain that the word "academic" here means relating to an 
 academy or educational establishment, and not, as it some- 
 times means, "unreal" or "unpractical." The word effi- 
 ciency is often used with different meanings. Dr. Eliot, ex- 
 president of Harvard University, in his little book on ' ' Educa- 
 tion for Efficiency" defines it as "effective power for work 
 and service during a healthy and active life," and he says 
 1 ' national education will be effective in proportion as it secures 
 in the masses the development of this power and its applica- 
 tion in infinitely various forms to the national industries and 
 the national service." The engineer uses a more restricted 
 and technical definition, the quotient of output divided by 
 input, or the relation or ratio of the result achieved to the 
 effort in obtaining it. Mr. Harrington Emerson objects to 
 this definition as insufficient in its not including an equitable 
 standard of achievement or output as one of its factors, and 
 defines efficiency as the "relation between an equitable 
 standard and an actual achievement," or "the relation be- 
 tween what is and what could be." 
 
 Strictly speaking, the engineer's definition is limited to 
 cases in which both the input and the output may be 
 
WILLIAM KENT. 149 
 
 measured in the same unit, or in units that are convertible one 
 into the other, such as foot-pounds and heat-units, but it is a 
 convenient definition for many cases in which neither the 
 whole output nor the whole input are capable of accurate 
 measurement in similar terms. For example, 
 
 "We spend or give: We get or gain: 
 
 Input. Output. 
 
 Time, Money or saleable goods, 
 
 Money or raw material, Health, 
 
 Physical labor, Recreation, 
 
 Mental labor, Education, 
 
 Nervous energy, Satisfaction. 
 
 Health, 
 Wear and tear of machinery. 
 
 If we take the engineers' definition expanded in this way 
 so as to include in the input every conceivable kind of expendi- 
 ture and in the output every conceivable kind of achievement, 
 it will apply to every activity of man. The efficiency while 
 it cannot be stated in figures, as a percentage, is measured by 
 the value of the output in relation to the input or expendi- 
 ture. Thus a business man may spend every one of the items 
 listed under the head of input, and measured by a money 
 standard the result may show a high efficiency, but measured 
 by a broader standard, in which the result as to health is a 
 negative quantity, it is most inefficient. Then if he takes to 
 playing golf he may spend time, money and physical labor, 
 and gain health : The efficiency by the money standard is zero, 
 but by the broader standard, including health, recreation and 
 satisfaction, he may consider that the efficiency of the opera- 
 tion is 100 per cent. 
 
 A college spends all the items listed under " input." Its 
 efficiency is zero from the money standard, for its business is 
 not to make money, and may be high or low measured in the 
 other items listed under output. By Mr. Emerson's defi- 
 nition, the relation of an equitable standard to the actual 
 achievement, or the relation between what is and what could 
 
150 ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY. 
 
 be, we compare the actual output in health, recreation, educa- 
 tion and satisfaction, with what might be realized under the 
 best possible conditions of system and management. Are the 
 results what they ought to be in kind, in quality or in quan- 
 tity, and if they are not, what are the defects and how can 
 they be remedied? 
 
 In the big factory of which the story has been told, the 
 product included 14,000 items, many of which should have 
 been abandoned, and much of the inefficiency was due to the 
 factory's making products that should not have been made. 
 When an efficiency expert begins his operations in a factory 
 his first questions are : What kind of product is made ? Why 
 is it made ? Why not abandon it if it is not profitable ? The 
 same questions might be asked of a college. The next set of 
 questions covers the quality. Is the quality too highly refined 
 and too costly, so that its market is limited ? Is it too common 
 and cheap, so that it has to be brought into competition with 
 the poorest goods on the market? Is it out of date and un- 
 fashionable? Is the quality what it ought to be, and if not 
 what are the reasons, and how can it be improved? Surely 
 these questions may be asked of a college, and it is the gen- 
 eral belief that the answers would not be complimentary to 
 the college. There are serious defects in the quality of the 
 college product. 
 
 Next come questions as to quantity. Is the factory turning 
 out too much of one kind of goods, so that the market is 
 glutted and the price too low ? Is it turning out too little, so 
 that it is not doing as much business as it might do? Is it 
 turning out too much of one kind and not enough of another ; 
 and if so, what changes should be made so as to establish a 
 proper balance? Is the college overcrowding the professions 
 with men who are not needed in them ? Is it failing to supply 
 the demand for the kind of men who are needed? The com- 
 mon opinion is that both of these questions must be answered 
 in the affirmative. The last report of the Carnegie Founda- 
 tion for the Advancement of Teaching says, ' i In almost every 
 state of the Union there are more colleges in name than the 
 
WILLIAM KENT. 151 
 
 country needs or can afford. They have been started without 
 much regard to the ultimate educational demands weak and 
 often superfluous colleges. In many cases their existence 
 makes impossible that of good high schools which would far 
 better serve the educational interests of the community." 
 
 After these questions of kind, quality, and quantity of 
 product are considered, then comes the question of cost per 
 unit of product and of possible methods of reducing that cost. 
 In the factory the solution of these questions is one of great 
 difficulty and complexity. It includes the items of location, 
 buildings, machinery, system of organization, functional fore- 
 manship, statistics, accounting, planning of work, routing it 
 through the shop, methods of payment of wages, keeping 
 high-priced men only on high-priced work and finally time- 
 study resolved into its elements, that is motion-study. I 
 quote from Frank B. Gilbreth's new book on Motion Study: 
 
 "There is no waste of any kind in the world that equals the waste 
 from needless, ill-directed, and ineffective motions. . . . Tremendous 
 savings are possible in the work of everybody they are not for one 
 class, they are not for the trades only; they are for the officers, the 
 schools, the colleges, the stores, the household, and the farms. ... It 
 is obvious that these improvements must and will come in time. But 
 there is inestimable loss in every hour of delay. The waste of energy 
 of the workers in the industries today is pitiful. ... In the meantime, 
 while we are waiting for the politicians and educators to realize the im- 
 portance of this subject and to create the bureaus and societies to under- 
 take and complete the work, we need not be idle. There is work in 
 abundance to be done. Motion study must be applied to all the indus- 
 tries. Our trade schools and engineering colleges can: 
 
 ' ' 1. Observe the best work of the best workers. 
 
 "2. Photograph the methods used. 
 
 "3. Eecord the methods used. 
 
 "4. Eecord outputs. 
 
 ' ' 5. Eecord costs. 
 
 "6. Deduce laws. 
 
 "7. Establish laboratories 'for trying out laws/ 
 
 "8. Embody laws in instructions. 
 
 "9. Publish bulletins. 
 
 ' ' 10. Cooperate to spread results and to train the rising generation. ' ' 
 
152 ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY. 
 
 Mr. Gilbreth refers to motion-study of the industries that are 
 producing material wealth, but his words may be applied to 
 the industry of educating men and women, that is to the 
 schools and colleges. 
 
 The methods of reducing the cost per unit of product in 
 industrial concerns have now been reduced to a science by the 
 management experts, Taylor, Gantt, Emerson, Parkhurst and 
 others. In educational circles, only the merest beginning has 
 been made. Bulletin No. 5 of the Carnegie Foundation for 
 the Advancement of Teaching, a quarto pamphlet of 134 
 pages, entitled "Academic and Industrial Efficiency/' con- 
 tains a report by Morris Llewellyn Cooke of the investigation 
 of the department of physics of eight different colleges or 
 universities. Mr. Cooke has had several years' experience as 
 expert on management of industrial works, and is now Di- 
 rector of Public Works of the city of Philadelphia. His 
 report is only a preliminary one, and covers little more than 
 a statistical investigation of the cost of instruction in physics 
 per student-hour, and some observations on methods of ad- 
 ministration, and on the economical use of buildings and of 
 the time of the professors and instructors, in all of which he 
 found great differences. The total cost of physics per student- 
 hour at Harvard was $1.08 and at Wisconsin $0.60. Of these 
 totals the interest on plant and equipment and administrative 
 expense account is $0.53 at Harvard, and $0.18 at Wisconsin. 
 There are differences in the colleges which are far more im- 
 portant, however, than those that can be expressed in dollars 
 and cents. For example, Mr. Cooke found one in which the 
 professors showed the heartiest interest in the progress of each 
 individual student, and another in which "every time the 
 students were mentioned, there were evidences that the teach- 
 ers had in mind the students' scholarly inferiority and way- 
 wardness. ' ' 
 
 The cost per student-hour for any subject may be obtained 
 as in Mr. Cooke 's investigation. It will be a far larger task 
 to determine the efficiency of the student-hour that is what 
 return in valuable education the student gets for the expendi- 
 
WILLIAM KENT. 
 
 153 
 
 ture of the thousands of student-hours that he spends in col- 
 lege. We have as yet no standards of measurement by which 
 educational efficiency can be satisfactorily measured, but it 
 cannot be doubted that some day such standards will be found, 
 when well qualified experts are employed to find them. For 
 a method of obtaining such a standard in English composition, 
 see the writer's paper in Proceedings of the Society for the 
 Promotion of Engineering Education in 1907 on "An Experi- 
 ment in Teaching English to Freshmen in a University. " 
 
 Efficiency, according to the engineers' definition, is the rela- 
 tion of output to input, or the relation of the result to the 
 effort and cost expended in achieving it. From the college 
 student's standpoint, the input is four years of time and say 
 $2,000 to $4,000 in money. The output is what he receives 
 for that amount of time and money. Let us put what he re- 
 ceives in tabular form under two heads, life and study. 
 
 Life - 
 
 Acquaintance. 
 
 Companionship. 
 
 Fraternity. 
 
 Social Activity. 
 
 Athletics. 
 
 Beading. 
 
 Leisure. 
 
 Travel. 
 
 Moral Uplift. 
 
 Study -< 
 
 Cultural 
 
 Technical 
 
 Vocational 
 
 Curious 
 
 Disciplinary. 
 Informational. 
 Foundations of 
 Science and Art. 
 
 Eelating directly 
 to life work. 
 
 i: 
 
 Non-useful or 
 dilettante. 
 
 How many hours out of the 24 in a day are student-hours, 
 and how many are devoted to so-called college life? Is his 
 time properly divided between the activities of life and study? 
 Of the student-hours is there the proper balance between the 
 cultural and the other branches? How and by whom is this 
 balance determined ? Which of the courses are prescribed and 
 which are elective, and why? What text-books are used, and 
 why? Are particular courses taught by the text-book and 
 recitation method, by the lecture and note-book method, by the 
 problem method, or by the laboratory method? Is each 
 teacher free to use his own method or is the method deter- 
 mined by a department head or committee or by other 
 
154 ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY. 
 
 authority? What experimental pedagogical work has been 
 done to discover the relative efficiency of different methods? 
 What are the results of such experiments? Have they been 
 reduced to statistical form and published? What is the ad- 
 ministration doing to improve educational efficiency ? Is there 
 any method employed to measure the relative efficiency of 
 different teachers, or of the same teacher in different years or 
 when using different methods ? How are the tenures of office, 
 promotion, salary, etc., determined? How are poor teachers 
 got rid of or transferred to other positions in which they may 
 be more efficient? What is the organization of the college, 
 and what are the efficiencies of the board of trustees, the presi- 
 dent, and the heads of departments? If an investigator like 
 Mr. Cooke, or preferably a commission of investigators, were 
 to report to the Carnegie Foundation answers to these ques- 
 tions after a year's examination of a dozen or more institu- 
 tions of learning, it is safe to say that an appalling lack of 
 efficiency would be disclosed. The commission would find 
 every grade of goodness and of badness in the teaching staff, 
 teachers generally overworked, underpaid and dissatisfied and 
 on the lookout for positions elsewhere. It would find self- 
 perpetuating boards of trustees responsible to nobody, indi- 
 vidual trustees chosen not for any educational qualification, 
 but solely because they are men of wealth and influence; 
 presidents chosen through personal or political favoritism, 
 whose ideas of education are those of the middle ages, and 
 whose methods of government are those of the tyrant. It 
 would find the conditions mentioned by President Benton, of 
 the University of Vermont, in his inaugural address, 1911, 
 namely, the election of new members of the faculty dependent 
 entirely on the dictum of the president, "the administrative 
 office a veritable cesspool where unpleasant experiences are 
 deposited," "a coterie of professors painfully sycophantic in 
 the presence of their 'lord and master' and bitterly denun- 
 ciatory of him when left to themselves," "reprehensible 
 hypocrisy by those who teach," etc. President Benton seems 
 to be unaware of the fact that the sycophancy and hypocrisy 
 
WILLIAM KENT. 155 
 
 which he thus bewails are the inevitable results of government 
 by an ignorant despot, and that they can be done away with 
 only by a radical change in the system of government. I do 
 not wish to be understood as believing that the conditions 
 thus described are universal. There are many institutions in 
 which there is no autocratic government, and in which the 
 government approaches in some respect to democratic ideals, 
 where free speech is possible, where merit is recognized and 
 rewarded, and where the teaching methods are constantly 
 being improved. Here and there we find evidences of at- 
 tempts to find the best methods, and of new experiments in 
 education whose results are very promising, for example, Pro- 
 fessor Franklin's improvement at Lehigh in the method of 
 teaching laboratory physics; the examination of the English 
 teaching in different technical schools by Professor Earle, of 
 Tufts College; the introduction of the preceptorial system at 
 Princeton; Professor Schneider's cooperative system in Cin- 
 cinnati ; the university extension work at Wisconsin ; the in- 
 vestigation by a committee of the Society of American Bac- 
 teriologists of the teaching of microbiology ; and Dr. Eumely 's 
 experimental preparatory school at Interlaken, Ind. 
 
 Mr. Harrington Emerson has written a book entitled "The 
 Twelve Principles of Efficiency." He wrote it with especial 
 reference to the efficiency of manufacturing establishments, 
 but the principles may be applied to educational institutions. 
 They are the following : (1) Clearly defined ideals. (2) Com- 
 mon sense. (3) Competent counsel. (4) Discipline. (5) The 
 fair deal. (6) Reliable, immediate and exact records. (7) 
 Despatching. (8) Standards and schedules. (9) Standard- 
 ized conditions. (10) Standardized operations. (11) Writ- 
 ten standard practice instructions. (12) Efficiency reward. 
 The investigating committee might use this list of twelve prin- 
 ciples of efficiency in its examination of the colleges and find 
 to what extent they are in operation. 
 
 Suppose that the Carnegie Foundation were to have an in- 
 vestigation made such as is here suggested, what good would 
 it do? The same good that Mr. Cooke's investigation of the 
 
156 ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY. 
 
 cost of the student-hour did, and something more. It would 
 call public attention to the subject, and might lead some uni- 
 versities to reform some of their methods. It would reveal 
 how bad things are, which is the first step toward reform. 
 The report would be denounced as Mr. Cooke's has been, by 
 college presidents and by editorial writers of conservative 
 ways of thinking, as utterly subversive of all the ancient edu- 
 cational ideals, and involving "a gross and fundamental 
 error. ' ' But it would set men thinking. It would show them 
 that some universities and colleges and some educational 
 methods are better than others, and give the public some 
 knowledge which would enable them to select the best colleges, 
 and some educators of a progressive turn of mind the infor- 
 mation they are looking for in regard to methods. 
 
 The best possible result of such a report, however, might be 
 that it might induce some multi-millionaire to think that he 
 had a duty to perform in helping to improve the efficiency of 
 educational methods, by contributing the funds that would 
 be required to carry on an educational experiment similar in 
 extent to the experiments carried on by Mr. F. W. Taylor in 
 the Midvale and Bethlehem Steel Works. It required more 
 than twenty years of labor and the expenditure of some hun- 
 dreds of thousands of dollars to carry on his experiments on 
 tool steel, which have revolutionized machine-shop practice, 
 and on scientific management, which bids fair to cause a far 
 more important revolution in all our industrial systems. Mr. 
 Taylor's system of management cannot be adopted without 
 many modifications by an educational institution, but his 
 system of experimentation can be. It is simply the careful 
 collection of all the facts by an expert, their study by mathe- 
 matical methods, the making of experiments to get more facts, 
 their further study, and careful reasoning to arrive at cor- 
 rect conclusions. It takes years of time, thousands of dollars 
 of money, and can only be undertaken, with any probability 
 of reaching valuable results, by a scientific expert who is en- 
 tirely unhampered by old traditions. The motto of the con- 
 servative is ' ' whatever is, is right, ' ' that of the scientific expert 
 
WILLIAM KENT. 157 
 
 is, ' ' whatever is, is apt to be wrong ; I am going to test it and 
 find out whether it is right or wrong. ' ' 
 
 Here is the outline of an educational experiment to take 
 ten years of time and cost half a million of dollars less money 
 by the way than one second-class university has spent on its 
 equipment for athletics within a few years, and less than has 
 been paid by some millionaires for a couple of paintings. 
 
 Appoint a commission of five well educated men who are 
 not connected with any educational institution, say a minister, 
 a doctor, a farmer, a merchant and an engineer, to secure a 
 wide diversity in points of view. Pay them $5,000 a year 
 each for the first year, and a smaller sum in succeeding years, 
 when their time will not be fully occupied, and provide them 
 with an office, stenographer and clerk, and funds for traveling 
 expenses. Let them spend a preliminary year in investigating 
 actual educational conditions in this country, collecting facts, 
 statistics and expert opinions, on which they should prepare a 
 report. They should also report their opinion on what should 
 be the course of education of a boy between the ages of 14 and 
 16, if he intends to go to work in the mechanical trades or 
 in commerce at the age of 16, also what should be the course 
 from 14 to 18 (1) if he intends to go to work at 18, (2) if he 
 intends to enter a general college, (3) if he intends to enter 
 a technical school. The second year the experiment is to be 
 begun. Select a hundred boys who are ready to enter high 
 school, of the majority of whom there is a reasonable prob- 
 ability that they will, if they prove fitted for it at 18, take a 
 college course. Rent a preparatory school, or a portion of 
 one, and have the boys taught, by selected teachers, in the 
 courses laid down by the commission. Provide enough tutors 
 or preceptors to insure that the education of the boys is 
 properly supervised and that their time is not wasted. Con- 
 tinue their high school education, for as many of them as 
 stay in school, for four years. During all their time the com- 
 missioners are to be studying methods of teaching, and 
 methods of measuring the efficiency of teaching, preparing 
 practical standards of examination, not merely to test the 
 11 
 
158 ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY. 
 
 memory of the scholars, as in ordinary examinations, but to 
 test their mental and bodily powers. Find out not only what 
 the boys know, as a mere act of memory, but what and how 
 they think, and what they can actually do. Test not only the 
 hundred boys, or as many of them as remain, but also boys in 
 other high schools, by the same standards or by other stand- 
 ards that may be proposed by the high school teachers. Cul- 
 tivate the same spirit of emulation for success in scholarship 
 that now exists for success in the athletic field, but give them 
 also enough athletics and other recreation to develop their 
 bodies as well as their minds. Train them also in hygiene, in 
 morals and in manners, to make them not only scholars but 
 gentlemen. 
 
 During these four years the commissioners are also studying 
 college administration, courses, methods of teaching, and effi- 
 ciency, and determining standards of measurement of effi- 
 ciency. When the boys are through their preparatory course 
 of four years, send them to such colleges as have been selected 
 for them, have them take the courses for which they are fitted, 
 provide tutors for them, and watch their progress through 
 the college, testing them by predetermined standards in com- 
 parison with other college students. At the end of the four- 
 year college courses, the commission is to report on the whole 
 eight years' experiment. It will be found that many mis- 
 takes have been made, but probably not so many as would be 
 made in an ordinary eight-year course of high school and 
 college. The success of the experiment is not to be judged 
 by the success of these selected boys, but by the value of the 
 information obtained and reported on by the commissioners 
 as to the various methods of teaching and of college adminis- 
 tration and by the acquirement of standards by which aca- 
 demic efficiency may be measured in the future. 
 
 During the whole of the eight years' experiment the boys 
 should be required to keep a diary in which they record what 
 seem to be the most important items concerning their educa- 
 tion, and they should once a year present to the commissioners 
 a written report of their progress, keeping a copy for their 
 
WILLIAM KENT. 159 
 
 own future use. Four years after they have graduated from 
 college, when their minds are sufficiently mature, they should 
 be asked to write critical reports of their educational career 
 as it then appears to them. A study of these reports by the 
 commission, which should be continued in existence for that 
 purpose, would no doubt furnish fruitful ideas for further 
 educational progress. 
 
 Cecil Ehodes did a noble work in establishing the founda- 
 tion of the Ehodes Scholarship in Oxford. Andrew Carnegie 
 has done a grand work in establishing the Carnegie Institute 
 for Scientific Research and for the Advancement of Teaching. 
 Equally grand will be the work of him who shall establish a 
 foundation for the application of the methods of scientific 
 management to the improvement of academic efficiency. 
 
 This proposed plan is merely a suggestion. There may be a 
 better plan, but whatever it may be it will take years of hard 
 work and a large sum of money to accomplish the desired 
 results. It might be undertaken by the Carnegie Foundation 
 for the Advancement of Teaching, by the Russell Sage 
 Foundation, or by the government, but the funds of these 
 foundations are probably already fully employed, and judg- 
 ing by the past non-activity of the government in educational 
 matters it might take twenty years of agitation before Con- 
 gress could be induced to make the necessary appropriation. 
 The government has a department of agriculture which is 
 making experiments for the farmer, to enable him to grow 
 larger and better crops, a bureau of forestry which is trying 
 to conserve our forests, a bureau of mines which is experi- 
 menting on improving the methods of mining and on the 
 prevention of accidents. It has also a bureau of education, 
 which publishes statistics of schools and colleges and some 
 interesting papers on educational subjects, but which has 
 never investigated academic efficiency or carried on an edu- 
 cational experiment. All educational reforms in this country 
 have been originated by individual philanthropists or by indi- 
 vidual universities. They do not come about by normal 
 process of evolution in the educational world or by govern- 
 
160 ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY. 
 
 mental action, with perhaps a single exception, the Morrill 
 Land Grant Act of 1862, just fifty years ago. We therefore 
 must look for a millionaire philanthropist to begin the great 
 educational experiment which will lead to improving the 
 methods of training our future citizens. 
 
 Our modern educational literature, addresses of college 
 presidents and school superintendents, proceedings of socie- 
 ties, etc., all show the prevailing consensus of opinion that 
 there is something seriously wrong with our whole educational 
 system, and that instead of getting better it is constantly 
 tending to grow worse. There exists also a great amount of 
 ultra-conservatism and of mental inertia relating to the sub- 
 ject. It is high time that something practical be done in the 
 way of reform. 
 
OPERATING ENGINEERING SCHOOLS UNDER 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 BY H. WADE HIBBAED, 
 Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Missouri. 
 
 Privileged by an assignment from Chairman Gilbreth of 
 this meeting on academic efficiency to present an opinion upon 
 operating engineering schools under scientific management, 
 the writer will attempt to suggest an analysis such as might 
 be made by an efficiency engineer employed to investigate an 
 industrial business. 
 
 A teacher who has had any experience in the improvement of 
 industrial efficiency must be keenly conscious of the special 
 difficulties of this problem. The mere statement that the raw 
 material is an unstandardized boy and the product is an 
 improved man even less standardized, instead of pig iron and 
 a turret lathe, should hint at one unsurmountable difficulty. 
 Mr. Pritchett's introduction to Engineer Cooke's report to 
 the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching 
 recognizes that "scholarly and spiritual leadership is the 
 highest quality of college efficiency and the one most neces- 
 sary to attain." The total absence as yet of any unit for 
 measuring the efficiency of men engaged in teaching and 
 research increases the difficulty. The writer, in a recent dis- 
 cussion with President Hill, of the University of Missouri, 
 must agree with him that "the best way to be conceived for 
 killing the entire spirit of research would be to attempt to 
 estimate a man's value in terms of the quantity of his output. 
 It would tend to make still more mechanical the work of men 
 who ought not to be mechanical at all, for teaching and 
 research are matters that cannot be reduced to mechanism." 
 
 Scientific management of shops finds a large field in trans- 
 ferring to the more intelligent managers most of the brain 
 
 161 
 
162 SCHOOLS UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 work which was but indifferently performed by the far less 
 mentally capable individual operatives. The college differ- 
 ence is obvious. 
 
 To enumerate all the differences is a function of the destruc- 
 tive critic, the doubter and the pessimist. The constructive 
 mind, overlooking none of the difficulties, but giving careful 
 consideration to all, would better attempt to discover the many 
 applications of the principles of scientific management to 
 engineering schools. To the efficiency engineer, introducing 
 scientific management in the industries, nothing is more com- 
 mon than to hear an owner say that his plant stands alone for 
 its problems, or that a department presents peculiar diffi- 
 culties which must exempt it from the proposed line of 
 improvements. 
 
 Hopeful indications are that engineering teachers to a man 
 are desirous of adopting those innovations which probably 
 will be improvements ; that some of the most surprising results 
 of scientific management have appeared in the very offices of 
 the managers; that everywhere the industries are recognizing 
 the necessity of bringing the human side of production up to 
 the high degree of excellence already attained by the machin- 
 ery side; that the preceding has its counterpart in the new 
 courses given to engineering students upon the principles of 
 man-management or scientific discipline; and that the indus- 
 trial world is coming more and more to feel that all work is 
 done under certain broad principles, whose application to one 
 industry is very little different from the application to any 
 other. 
 
 Colleges are not dreading change, but the strife by which 
 some seek to bring it about. College professors may well 
 scrutinize changes advocated by business men, lest they be 
 without sufficient respect for the verdict of time. Ordinary 
 business thinks in short cycles, without much regard to what 
 follows; a university is not a weather vane, but stands for 
 what has proved wise progress through the years. Engineer- 
 ing professors have always sought to profit by suggestions 
 from the outside world, are most frequently recruited from 
 
H. WADE HIBBABD. 163 
 
 that world, often return to it for a summer or longer, and 
 believe heartily that only good can come to an organization 
 when a friendly hand turns the public's searchlight upon its 
 resources, aims and methods. That the hand is non-academic 
 is well, for in every line of work the outsider may see con- 
 spicuously the wastes to which slow growth or long custom 
 have blinded the eyes of the insider. 
 
 Management is the science and art of accomplishing a given 
 end with economy of means. A science is a systematic and 
 orderly arrangement of special knowledge ; an art is the actual 
 performance of something. The art is the doing; the science 
 is the knowing why and how. If "man's greatest study is the 
 study of man," then the education of an engineering student 
 is subject matter for the application of management of the 
 highest type. 
 
 The philosophy of management is having as many defini- 
 tions today as the term philosophy itself. Though philosophy 
 is the most ancient of sciences, yet Webster gives it at least 
 twelve definitions. It reminds one of the many definitions of 
 the second law of thermodynamics. Taylor, who for thirty 
 years has been led by the scientific spirit of inquiry to investi- 
 gate management of men, calls scientific management a cer- 
 tain combination of elements which have existed in the past, 
 namely, old knowledge so collected, analyzed, grouped, and 
 classified into laws and rules that it constitutes a science, 
 accompanied by a complete change in the mental attitude of 
 the working-man as well as of the manager, toward each other, 
 and toward their respective duties and responsibilities ; also a 
 new division of the duties between the two sides, and intimate, 
 friendly cooperation to an extent that is impossible under the 
 philosophy of the old management. The managers assume the 
 burden of gathering all the traditional knowledge which in the 
 past has been possessed by the workmen, and then of classi- 
 fying, tabulating and reducing this knowledge to rules, laws 
 and formulas. 
 
 Taylor further summarizes this whole combination as 
 follows : 
 
164 SCHOOLS TJNDEK SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 1. Science, not rule of thumb. 
 
 2. Harmony, not discord. 
 
 3. Cooperation, not individualism. 
 
 4. Maximum output, in place of restricted output. 
 
 5. The development of each man to his greatest efficiency 
 and prosperity. 
 
 The efficiency engineer has two lines of work, the analytical 
 and the synthetic or creative. The first furnishes reliable and 
 intimate knowledge of affairs as they are. It is always a 
 delight to see the appearance of hidden matters as the result 
 of minute analysis. Nothing is too small or too broad for 
 investigation, the microscope or the telescope being used as 
 needed. 
 
 The second line, based upon the first, creates the improve- 
 ments. Some of the creative may accompany the analysis 
 from the first, but the far-reaching improvements obviously 
 come later. 
 
 A quotation from C. B. Going may conduce to a better 
 appreciation of the service of the efficiency expert to the 
 school of engineering. Going says, "He deals with ma- 
 chinery; but not so much with its design, construction or 
 abstract economy, as with selection, arrangement, installa- 
 tion, operation and maintenance, and the influence which each 
 of these points or all together may exert upon the total cost 
 of the output." 
 
 "He deals with materials; but not so much with their 
 mechanical and physical constants, which are strictly tech- 
 nical considerations, as with their proper selection, their 
 standardization, custody, transportation and manipulation." 
 
 ' ' He deals very largely with methods ; but the methods with 
 which he is particularly concerned are methods of performing 
 work, of securing high efficiency in machinery and men, of 
 handling materials and cost per unit handled, of keeping 
 track of work-in-progress and graphing the situation so that 
 the manager may have an instant controlling view of all, of 
 recording times and costs so that the efficiency of the per- 
 formance may be compared with predetermined standards, of 
 
H. WADE HIBBAED. 165 
 
 detecting causes of low efficiency or poor economy and apply- 
 ing the necessary remedies.' 7 
 
 "He deals with management, that is, with the executive 
 direction of the whole organization." 
 
 "He deals with men themselves and with those psycholog- 
 ical influences which concern their thoughts, purposes and 
 emotions, and stimulate their ambition, enlist their coopera- 
 tion and insure their most effective work. ' ' 
 
 "He deals with markets, with the economic laws affecting 
 them and the mode of creating, enlarging and controlling 
 them." 
 
 It may be suggested that the following phases of scientific 
 management are applicable to the operation of an engineering 
 school. This paper is not offered as the final solution, but as 
 a modest feeling towards the possible end. It is in part based 
 upon our two years of experience in teaching scientific shop 
 management to senior mechanicals at the University of 
 Missouri, upon which a paper was read to this Society one 
 year ago. 
 
 Scientific management requires : 
 
 I. A complete analysis and criticism of the organization, 
 with graphic representation, showing lines of responsibility, 
 with extent and limitations of duties. 
 
 II. Analysis of the financial administration. 
 
 III. Analysis of the equipment, including buildings. 
 
 IV. Every act of man and machine to be investigated, and 
 by minute scientific analysis its elements determined and its 
 laws found. 
 
 - V. Decision as to how each act can best be done, together 
 with the 
 
 VI. Selection of men fitted to do the work. 
 
 VII. Training of men so selected to do the work in the way 
 determined to be the best, each man being developed to his 
 greatest efficiency and prosperity. 
 
 VIII. By adequate supervision and proper incentive, ensure 
 that the men practice the best methods all the time, securing 
 and continuing maximum output. 
 
166 SCHOOLS UNDEB SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 IX. Team-work, without hampering a wise individualism. 
 
 X. Cooperation between managers and men. 
 
 XI. Building up of an advisory cabinet or staff, if the 
 Emerson idea seems preferable and the old line officers are 
 retained ; or organizing functional foremanship, if the Taylor 
 idea seems preferable. 
 
 XII. Delimiting the respective duties of officers and cabinet, 
 or manager and functional foremen. 
 
 The above work seems vast and is vast. In the introduction 
 of scientific management at a New England paper mill, 1,500 
 time studies were taken in the first three months and there 
 were 18,000 time studies in one schedule report. A great 
 national corporation having 22 plants and 300 miles of rail- 
 way approached an efficiency engineer with a proposition to 
 undertake the introduction of scientific management to be 
 completed in fifteen years. 
 
 But in the engineering school as in the industrial plant, 
 improvement ought to become apparent early in the applica- 
 tion of a part of the above twelve requirements. In the 
 paper mill, though six months were spent in the time study 
 of the calender department, within three days the efficiency 
 of the calendar machines was raised from 64 per cent, to 
 72 per cent. Emerson wants to show savings very soon after 
 starting work in a plant. Shop efficiency can be raised from 
 60 per cent, to 90 per cent, without any personal incentive 
 such as bonus payments, simply by making things ' ' right ' ' in 
 standard or ideal materials, equipment and methods. Emer- 
 son outlines a dozen principles of efficiency, and only one is 
 efficiency reward. If organized labor objects to the bonus 
 system, an efficiency engineer may attain almost his entire 
 improvement without introducing the reward. In the engi- 
 neering school, only so much or so little, and at different speeds, 
 of the above twelve requirements may be introduced as is 
 deemed advisable. 
 
 How may the twelve requirements of this paper be applied 
 to the university ? 
 
H. WADE HIBBABD. 167 
 
 I. In making the analysis and criticism of the organization, 
 beware of advocating a panacea or specific for all ills. Prin- 
 ciples and ideals must constantly be kept prominent, while 
 " systems " must vary with the conditions. 
 
 The form of organization of universities appears to be what 
 is known to the efficiency engineer as ' ' line ' ' or unf unctional- 
 ized control, whether it be one-man power or committee power, 
 and with many combinations. Sometimes the centralized 
 control is on paper only, each different college and even a 
 large department as physics being autonomous in control of 
 its affairs, buildings, discipline, work of its faculty and 
 curriculum. 
 
 The one-man power burdens the man with too many func- 
 tions; committee control means compromises, and they leave 
 business in such shape that it must be thrashed over again and 
 often reversed; and departmental autonomy prevents solidar- 
 ity of the university and cooperation between departments 
 and allows abuses to continue. 
 
 To quote from Cooke. "The first great object of organiza- 
 tion is to make each individual count for his maximum. Hence 
 he must do those things for which he is best suited. Almost 
 invariably under committee management is seen the spectacle 
 of several men, experts in their own specialties, all simulta- 
 neously wasting precious time in deciding questions outside 
 their own field, which could be better and far more quickly 
 decided by a single expert, whose time may be worth less than 
 that of any one of the committeemen. Modern industrial 
 management seeks to relieve the head men of all possible 
 routine, such as is the bulk of committee work, and so enables 
 them to give their entire time to progress. At the same time, 
 these heads are kept constantly informed, through carefully 
 prepared and summarized * exception' reports, as to all unusual 
 matters of vital import. 
 
 "One-man and committee management should be replaced 
 by functional or staff management, where the effort is made 
 constantly to have each man perform those functions which 
 he is best fitted to perform, and to prohibit him from inter- 
 
168 SCHOOLS UNDEE SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 fering in the performance of those functions about which he 
 is not specially qualified to give an opinion. A man is thereby 
 safeguarded in the performance of the highest kind of work 
 he is competent to perform. ' ' 
 
 Starting with the board of trustees, it should determine the 
 broad and general policies for the university, and leave the 
 president alone in his executive function. "The world's 
 experience has demonstrated the utter impracticability of 
 doing executive work under the management of more than one 
 man. Even in a partnership, one man will have absolute 
 charge of production and another of finances and sales. 
 
 "Applied to the college, the work would be divided into 25 
 or 50 functions, in each of which some one person will be 
 supreme, under the determined standards controlling him. 
 This is quite different from 50 positions, the occupant of 
 each having many functions to perform." The successful 
 teacher or administrator will become known and hence valued, 
 because his ability is as functionalized and definite as that 
 of the research worker. A professor will gladly be relieved 
 when a central agency or functioner is found to do certain 
 work better than he. If a man feels weak in one function 
 which he has to perform because of overlapping of duties, he 
 can secure help from a specialist in that function. A profes- 
 sor will commonly be directed by several functional guides, 
 but he in turn will not be upset by those who are almost ignor- 
 ant of his work or duties. 
 
 I have listed 209 different activities of a professor. The 
 high-priced presidents of great corporations would not dream 
 of attempting to perform such a variety of functions. For 
 present purposes, only 84 of these will be mentioned. The 
 time available for the preparation of this paper has not per- 
 mitted a careful analysis and grouping, consequently it is not 
 made clear which duties are sufficiently related to be grouped 
 under one functioner. 
 
 A professor 's activities cover : 
 
 Teaching in Kecitation 
 
 Lecture Laboratory 
 
H. WADE HIBBABD. 
 
 169 
 
 Drafting 
 
 Computation 
 
 Field work 
 
 Seminary 
 
 Examinations on his own work 
 Class discipline 
 Friendship with students 
 Breadth of culture 
 
 for professor, and 
 
 its encouragement for student 
 Kesearch 
 
 for professor 
 
 for students 
 
 Methods of student study 
 Student engineering society 
 Inspection tours 
 Foreign lecturers 
 Summer positions 
 Graduate positions 
 Alumni list 
 
 Employment bureau for alumni 
 Registration 
 Issuing stores 
 Issuing apparatus 
 Laboratory deposits 
 Control of student activities 
 City moral cleanliness 
 New apparatus 
 
 Needs 
 
 Choice 
 
 Markets 
 
 Installation 
 Regular supplies 
 Repairs 
 Repair shop 
 Inventory 
 Deterioration 
 
 Out-of-dateness 
 New library books 
 Use of library 
 Catalog library 
 High school 
 
 Standards 
 
 Curricula 
 Engineering curricula 
 
 and progress 
 
 Other engineering schools 
 Relations with the profession 
 College catalog 
 
 College and department circulars 
 Engineering experiment station 
 Engineering bulletins 
 University extension 
 
 by correspondence 
 
 by centers 
 Summer school 
 
 Advertising and public sentiment 
 Student grades 
 Grading methods 
 Electives for engineers 
 Schedules for classes 
 Use of rooms 
 Lighting plans 
 Supervision of teaching 
 Improvement of teachers 
 Employment of new teachers 
 
 Acquaintance with foreign 
 
 teachers 
 
 Pedagogical progress 
 Work in engineering professional 
 
 societies 
 
 Work in this Society 
 Writing 
 Problems of 
 
 Buildings 
 
 Grounds 
 
 Janitors 
 
 Power house management 
 Problems of 
 
 Heating 
 
 Lighting 
 
 Water service 
 Fire 
 
 Prevention 
 
 Extinguishment 
 Bookkeeping 
 Appropriations 
 Personal typewriting 
 Hektographing 
 Lantern operation 
 
170 SCHOOLS UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 The above are too many duties to make it probable that com- 
 plete functioning can be applied. In a small industrial plant, 
 one man may be given four fairly related functions as a 
 maximum. Such a man sharply defines his duties in each 
 function, and he works for the time being as that one func- 
 tional foreman. Then later on he works as another functional 
 foreman. Much of the above professor's work can be grouped 
 and functional men used. What cannot, might be left intact, 
 and an expert staff assembled to guide it. Such changes 
 should be slow, organizing first those functional activities 
 which can be well done. It is generally best not to compel 
 everybody to use a given functional agency when it is first 
 started. "A purchasing agent, on assuming his duties, will 
 find his time fully occupied in buying for those who are 
 anxious to utilize his services. It is of importance that those 
 who first come in contact shall be impressed with the efficiency 
 and genuine helpfulness. ' ' Though professors are more intel- 
 ligent than workmen and gang bosses, yet human nature is 
 much the same everywhere. 
 
 II. Analysis of the financial administration. 
 
 The several colleges in a university, and the several teaching 
 or research departments in the colleges, correspond to the 
 several plants and manufacturing departments of a corpora- 
 tion. To each college and department should be charged its 
 direct expense and share of "burden," "overhead" or gen- 
 eral expense. The sum of these charges should cover the 
 entire expenditures of the university. In this way only is it 
 possible to know how costly is a college or department, in 
 comparison with the work which it is doing. There is here 
 not the least intimation that a very costly small department 
 should be the one first discontinued. There may be many and 
 overwhelming reasons why it should be retained. But it is 
 right that the trustees should know the facts, and then act 
 without ignorance. 
 
 The above carries the idea, of course, that when an annual 
 appropriation is made to a department, based upon a pre- 
 
H. WADE HIBBAKD. 171 
 
 viously prepared budget, every payment authorized by the 
 department should be paid out of the department's fund. 
 This puts emphasis for economical buying upon the teachers 
 of the department. 
 
 Conversely, every department must be credited with its 
 earnings. 
 
 Not a dollar should be spent without its passing through the 
 university treasurer. 
 
 There should be printed and full and minute publicity 
 given to all receipts and expenditures. 
 
 Careful distinction should be had between repairs and re- 
 placements versus new equipment. 
 
 The accounting department has three functions: auditing 
 expenditures and vouchers, the up-to-the-day state of the 
 business, costs as related to the most practicable and illumi- 
 nating units. Where there is doubt as to the conditions or 
 reasons for affairs, then accounting subdivides the financial 
 data into the smallest units, for minute study, grouping as 
 needed. 
 
 The results for study are put into graphical form for easy 
 comparison, and into curves to show progress or retrogression. 
 A graphical picture of statistics appeals simply and effectively 
 to the eye, and thus carries its meaning instantly to the mind. 
 
 The eye is readier than the mind to read and compare dif- 
 ferences in size or shape or slant. Columns of figures do not 
 show differences so emphatically. 
 
 An official with many duties must economize his time by 
 the use of graphical reports. 
 
 The higher the official, the more should his work lie in 
 determining policies, leaving details and routine for his well- 
 chosen subordinates to do. Curves show him tendencies and 
 desirabilities, and enable him to choose policies. 
 
 Statistics, if plotted into curves, very early indicate tend- 
 encies. If these are objectionable, they can be corrected long 
 before they would have become noticeable in columns of 
 figures. 
 
 Everything has a cause. Often the cause is well hidden. 
 
172 SCHOOLS UNDEB SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 Until recent years, the cause was unknown of yellow and 
 chagres fevers. The Panama canal is being built, not by engi- 
 neers, but by the investigators of infected mosquitoes. The 
 writer respectfully wonders why Mr. Cooke did not turn this 
 graphics light upon the causes of statistics so faithfully 
 gathered for his report to the Carnegie Foundation for the 
 Advancement of Teaching. 
 
 Changes, improvements, extensions and added facilities 
 show their relative values by their several inclinations in the 
 curves affected. 
 
 Plotted information tends to prevent erratic expenditures 
 and to insure steady improvement. 
 
 For the purchasing agent, the plotting of manufacturers' 
 price lists often reveals irregularities. These are due some- 
 times to erratic loading of "burden/' or to errors in cost 
 keeping, or to local difficulties in workmanship when sizes pass 
 a critical point. Such knowledge of price lists puts the pur- 
 chasing agent in a more commanding position, from several 
 points of view. He may even change an order, after of course 
 consulting with the department issuing the requisition, for a 
 size or make fully acceptable to the department. 
 
 Diagrams often catch the small things which run up the 
 cost to departments, they prevent slackness and waste, and 
 have been known even to catch theft. 
 
 Much use has been made of curves plotted with years as 
 abscissae, to prophesy the future and determine thus the finan- 
 cial requirements. Three years ago the New York Central 
 Lines saved the expenditure of an already appropriated two 
 million dollars by such a graphical prophesy. 
 
 When two curves of cause and effect are to be plotted, if the 
 respective magnitudes of the units are extremely different, the 
 plotting should be done upon cross section paper printed to 
 the logarithmic scale, as explained in Railway Age Gazette 
 for June 25, 1909. The plotting is just as simple as on ordi- 
 nary paper, but tells the eye the facts much better. 
 
 As regards a purchasing department, the university is very 
 different from the industrial world. This ought to be cor- 
 
H. WADE HIBBAED. 173 
 
 rected at once. A railroad buys a far more varied line of sup- 
 plies than a university. The writer speaks from knowledge, 
 for he has been a railway mechanical engineer in close contact 
 with railway storekeeping. But just as in the railway, so the 
 expert services of the professors will be used in buying things. 
 The professor needs not to burden himself with the purchase 
 of standard articles, in order to retain control of the purchase 
 of a prism on which he is an expert. 
 
 The new purchasing agent will easily show great savings, 
 by his larger quantities, by buying on a low market, by taking 
 the discounts in quick payment of invoices, and in short by 
 being an expert in his function. To quote briefly from sev- 
 eral excellent pages in Ennis : 
 
 "The buyer must thoroughly know the markets which he 
 enters. The trade papers, conference with other buyers, 
 friendly relations with sellers, personal search into the history, 
 conditions and prospects of industries with which he as a 
 buyer comes in contact all these help. He is a speculator, 
 and he should be at least as well posted on the market for 
 commodities in which he speculates as is the grain operator 
 on weather conditions in the Northwest. If he is far-sighted, 
 he will see many opportunities for advantage by accumulating 
 staple stocks at times of low price. He must then use his 
 expert knowledge to influence the requisitioning or storeroom 
 departments to anticipate their requirements/' 
 
 After all, the chief value of the purchasing department is 
 not in the money saving, but in being able to secure (1) the 
 articles best adapted to the purposes, (2) an increase in the 
 speed of delivery, and (3) a greater convenience in making 
 the purchase. 
 
 A stores department should be found profitable. Many 
 departments use the same sorts of supplies, and by good reason 
 time, money and convenience should be saved. 
 
 III. Analysis of equipment, including buildings. 
 
 A detailed study of the use of buildings, rooms and equip- 
 ment will reveal many wastes. Cooke 's report shows the brief 
 use of costly rooms. There are three ways to improve on this. 
 12 
 
174 SCHOOLS UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 1. Publicity in the use of rooms, including the number of 
 students accommodated. 
 
 2. A schedule of hours and rooms arranged by a function- 
 alized officer each spring for the next year. This may be the 
 duty of the registrar. 
 
 3. A rental price to be placed upon each room, and the rent 
 to be paid by the departments using them. Conversely, when 
 a building is given to a department by a special donor, the 
 department may legitimately be paid rent by another depart- 
 ment needing to use some of the rooms. 
 
 Occasionally a room may be used more continuously, hence 
 more efficiently, by having an ante-room with rolling tables 
 upon which lecture exhibits may be kept and then rolled out 
 into the lecture room when needed. 
 
 Rooms used by the larger number of students should be on 
 the ground floor. 
 
 Avoid the many useless store rooms, where junk accumu- 
 lates. Keep junk cleaned out and sold or thrown away. 
 
 All rooms and equipment should be kept neat, for the good 
 of the students. 
 
 An excellent plan is in operation at the University of Mis- 
 souri, whereby junior and senior drafting rooms are put to 
 extended use when no classes are scheduled. Each student 
 has a desk and locked drawer. The room is kept locked, but 
 each student has a key. These rooms thus become the "engi- 
 neering offices" of the students. There they naturally meet 
 after a lecture and discuss the subject, they make their labora- 
 tory and other problem computations, a teacher drops in in- 
 formally, the rooms adjoin the "students welcomed" engi- 
 neering library. One student is foreman in charge and 
 responsible for order. Breakages, lost keys and missing lights 
 are paid for out of the students * laboratory deposits. The 
 Student Branch of the Am. Soc. of Mech. Engrs., after its 
 twice-a-month engineering meeting in a lecture room, adjourns 
 to the senior or junior mechanical drafting rooms for a light 
 "feed" and social hour. 
 
H. WADE HIBBAED. 175 
 
 Ventilation is vital to efficiency, and in design or use of 
 rooms should never be overlooked. 
 
 Buildings should be planned for right enlargement accord- 
 ing to a pre-conceived plan. 
 
 Equipment and appliances of every sort must be inspected 
 to determine whether of best available and in the best condi- 
 tion for use. If not in use, the sentiment that defers disposal, 
 lest they might possibly come into use some day, should be 
 sternly repressed. Sell or throw away the obsolete junk, for 
 it is in the way and has to be kept clean. 
 
 IV. Every act of man and machine to be investigated, and 
 by minute scientific analysis its elements determined and its 
 laws found. 
 
 This means that the acts of the professor, as partially out- 
 lined in section I of this paper, and all the acts of the student, 
 are to be subjected to the Motion Study of Gilbreth's book, 
 modified to suit academic conditions. The engineering schools 
 should cooperate in this work, parcelling out different por- 
 tions to different schools. The benefits will begin soon after 
 the research begins. An outline for some of this work has 
 been made, but this paper is already getting too long. 
 
 The work will be vast, but it should not be felt as stunning. 
 The Watertown Arsenal in Boston, though one of the most 
 thoroughly ' ' efficiencyized, ' ' has not yet put in many improve- 
 ments clearly needed there and in use elsewhere. 
 
 V. Decision as to how each act can best be done. 
 
 Having listed, analyzed and investigated each act, the syn- 
 thetic construction must follow. This was in part discussed 
 immediately subsequent to Taylor 's five summaries in this 
 paper, in Going's quotation. It is based on the belief that 
 there is one best way to do any one thing, and that usually 
 this best way can be determined by scientific methods. Every 
 effort is made to discourage the practice of deciding matters 
 on anyone's personal opinion. A most careful study is made 
 of the facts above gathered. They are pored over and reasoned 
 over, time and again. There must be a reason for every thing. 
 
176 SCHOOLS UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 The investigator will probably be mixed and troubled, but 
 after he has timed one job for thirty times, he will have 
 acquired good judgment and will finally be able to decide 
 upon each elementary motion and each elementary allowed 
 time, which will be permitted to enter into the standard or 
 ideal time and method for doing that job. 
 
 The standard act or "operation* 7 of course means that there 
 are standard conditions and standard equipment. These are 
 to be provided for under the previous headings. 
 
 The best ways for doing all the acts mean a saving for the 
 professor, student and university, of time, energy and money. 
 
 VI. Selection of men fitted to do the work. 
 
 There are in this matter two opposed opinions, with all the 
 gradations which completely fill the middle ground. One 
 group of efficiency engineers would lay down hard and high 
 standards, and then hunt for men to measure up to them. The 
 result would be a picked body of workers. 
 
 The other group would be more flexible, and by taking a 
 body of workers as they found them, would highly educate 
 those who had capacity for high achievement, but also improve 
 and use those who could never hope to keep up with the leaders. 
 It remains for the future to see which method will work out 
 better with professors as the men to be improved or selected, 
 and the students as the material. Functional foremanship 
 may develop a bureau for the placing and exchange of teach- 
 ers fit for a function. In the industries, it is certainly easier 
 to find a functional foreman and easier to break him into his 
 new position, than the old time military foreman trying to 
 perform all functions. 
 
 VII. Training of men so selected, to do the work in the way 
 determined to be the best, each man being developed to his 
 greatest efficiency and prosperity. 
 
 To train a man, he must be put into possession of a knowl- 
 edge of the best method you expect him to follow. Scientific 
 management provides the workman with standard tools. 
 There will need to be worked up standard lectures for the 
 
H. WADE HIBBAKD. 177 
 
 younger teachers to use. A professor must not consider his own 
 lecture notes and his teaching mechanisms as his own private 
 11 stock in trade." These standard lectures are to be found in 
 the physics department of the University of Toronto. As 
 there explained by the professor in charge, "All the members 
 of the department use them as the basis of their lectures. 
 Our men are made available for class work earlier. These 
 notes, being available for our instructors, leave their time free 
 to develop other and new lecture courses, or to carry on 
 research. ' ' 
 
 Such standard lectures aid in a careful thinking out of a 
 lecture, and when rightly used are harmless to desirable in- 
 spiration (not the "inspiration of the moment"). 
 
 It may be best to buy such notes outright, or to engage new 
 men with the understanding that part of their time is to be 
 given to working up such standards. 
 
 It is of course to be well understood that this idea of stand- 
 ardizing is not to be applied to students in such a way as to 
 enable them to avoid thinking out the personal and vital solu- 
 tion of the problems for themselves. 
 
 All the best methods of section V will be reduced to the 
 form of complete instruction sheets for use later in teaching. 
 
 There will be expert instruction in teaching methods. 
 
 Committee meetings will be standardized, and so the wasted 
 time cut out. All routine work will be done for the professor, 
 such as mimeographing, issuing stores, taking of inventory, 
 room scheduling, typewriting, etc. He will also be relieved 
 from all the higher functions for which a better man can be 
 found, leaving him free to develop his own function or 
 specialty to the very highest degree of perfection free from 
 interference. Every man will be in a place where he can 
 best develop. 
 
 There will be a definite day of work, with more close appli- 
 cation during the established hours, and then relaxation. Both 
 professors and students will be obliged to rest one day in 
 seven. The time studies in mental fatigue will have deter- 
 
178 SCHOOLS UNDEB SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 mined the class schedules for students and professors so that 
 there will be proper rest intervals during the day. 
 
 VIII. By adequate supervision and proper incentive, en- 
 sure that the men practice the best methods all the time, 
 securing and continuing maximum output. 
 
 A new central bureau will have as its function : Inspection. 
 In the industries, it would be a silly sort of inspection to have 
 the very piece workers, who planed or drilled the article, in- 
 spect it and pass it on to the stock room as perfect. So 
 examinations will be given not by the teacher of the boys 
 examined. 
 
 The entire scholastic record of a student will be taken, and 
 every department will know what he is doing in all his other 
 departments. 
 
 A proper discipline will require the same attendance at 
 class and in the university as though the student were in an 
 industrial organization, where one "cut" would bring a 
 serious reprimand, and the second "cut" would probably 
 cause him to lose his position. 
 
 Efficiency rewards will be arranged for speed with excel- 
 lence upon such work as kinematic and thermodynamic 
 problems. 
 
 There is need to get professors to work not harder, but more 
 efficiently. 
 
 There is almost no "proper incentive" needed, for it is a 
 body of employees made up of most intelligent owners. Each 
 teacher is desirous of doing a full amount of work, yet does 
 not want to spoil a loved course by being overworked in other 
 courses or ways. The feeling of ownership of the university 
 by the faculty workers decidedly obliterates one feature of 
 need of application of a principle of scientific management. 
 The point can best be illustrated by a quotation from the Pitts- 
 burgh paper of 1911* in which the writer was joint author. 
 ' ' Scientific management is not a natural outgrowth of systems 
 or even of system. It is not an evolution. It is rather a 
 
 * Proceedings, Vol. XIX, p. 19. 
 
H. WADE HIBBAED. 179 
 
 reversion to type. A great industry under scientific manage- 
 ment closely resembles in its essentials the small shop, in which 
 the owner and his few men intimately connected with him 
 were studying and working intelligently and harmoniously 
 with a view to perfecting the operation. The unscientific large 
 shop has a manager most distantly removed from a vital con- 
 nection with the operation, and the latter is left to those 
 unable to give it intelligent study." 
 
 An effective organization must stimulate by the force of 
 example. Hence every man should have specific and visible 
 individual duties, which all other men can see he performs 
 well. The "dispatching" of the industries becomes here the 
 assignment of work to teachers by the proper authority, after 
 of course proper advice has been taken from staff specialist. 
 If the department is operated under functional foremanship, 
 the dispatching will be done by the expert whose function 
 that duty is. 
 
 Every teacher must be made to feel a sense of personal pro- 
 prietorship in the work for which he is chosen. 
 
 IX. Team work, without hampering a wise individualism. 
 The Cooke report recommends in every university a "gen- 
 eral research board," whose duty it would be 
 
 (a) To organize the general policy of the institution in the 
 matter of research, 
 
 (b) To bring about as much cooperation as possible between 
 the departments, 
 
 (c) To correlate as much as possible research work going on 
 in different sciences, 
 
 (d) To procure assistance for those needing it, 
 
 (e) To pass upon the expediency of undertaking any given 
 project, 
 
 (/) And to keep constant track of the progress of work and 
 of its cost. 
 
 The writer would like to add to duty (b) that the coopera- 
 tion should extend to other universities, to include also the 
 shipping of both apparatus and students to the places where 
 they will fit best. 
 
180 SCHOOLS UNDEK SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 All teachers should keep closely in touch with each other, 
 in office calls, walks, sports, clubs, and elsewhere. 
 
 There should be frequent (at least monthly) informal con- 
 ferences of a small group of professors to discuss " progress 
 policies" for the institution. 
 
 Understudies should be ready to fill any man's place at a 
 moment's notice, should he be taken ill or be called elsewhere. 
 The teacher should himself be training his own understudy. 
 
 One should never disparage a teacher when talking to 
 another teacher, or to a student. 
 
 A teacher or officer with larger responsibilities should unload 
 certain of his responsibilities upon other men, thus not only 
 giving them the valuable training, but also releasing more of 
 his time for consideration of the larger policies of future 
 progress for the school or department. 
 
 Conversely, every man to whom responsibility is given 
 should gladly assume his duty and make his decisions himself 
 and accept whatever blame or credit may be his due, rather 
 than try to shift his responsibility upon the man above him. 
 It is his duty, nay privilege, to relieve the man above of all 
 the work possible. 
 
 In introducing new plans, it should be remembered that 
 evolution is safer than revolution, and that the new plan 
 should be thought through to its results from every point of 
 view. 
 
 For profiting by intimate colleague associations, one should 
 analyze into elements the successes and failures of others, 
 learning the efficiency beatitude "Blessed be the man which 
 learneth from experience, but thrice blessed be he which learn- 
 eth from the experience of others." 
 
 X. Cooperation between managers and men. 
 
 XI. Building up of an advisory cabinet or staff, if the 
 Emerson principle seems preferable and the old line officers 
 are retained; or organizing functional foremanship, if the 
 Taylor principle seems preferable. 
 
 A suggestion is offered for a staff of experts for a university 
 
H. WADE HIBBABD. 181 
 
 president. These men may also be professors or adminis- 
 trative officers, but their primary duty should be as the presi- 
 dent's aids. Their functions are as follows: alumni, build- 
 ings and grounds, department needs, discipline, equipment, 
 finances, legislation in state, pedagogy, relations among the 
 colleges and the departments, relations with other universities, 
 research, selection of professors, student activities. 
 
 XII. Delimiting the respective duties of officers and cabinet, 
 or manager and functional foreman. 
 
 Acknowledgment is made for extracts, sometimes condensed 
 and without quotation marks, from the following authors on 
 efficiency: Cooke, Emerson, Ennis, Evans, Gantt, Gilbreth, 
 Going, Jacobs, Taylor. 
 
 In conclusion : 
 
 ' ' Well, what of it ? " Some one will say : many of the effi- 
 ciency suggestions in this paper are minor, almost the non- 
 essentials ; that the teacher 's ability to understand a student 's 
 difficulties, to lead him into right scientific methods, to stop 
 teaching when a student has been taught enough, to inspire, 
 has not been touched upon nor greater efficiency pointed out. 
 
 To reply: the efficiency engineer, at work in an industrial 
 plant, does not attempt to give fundamental brains to a man- 
 ager and his subordinates. He does not give the inspiring 
 soul to a superintendent. There are qualities of soul which 
 the Creator alone gives to leaders in the industries and in 
 teaching. The purpose of this paper is to show how an effi- 
 ciency engineer might relieve a leader's soul from present 
 handicaps, petty and huge, and enable it thus to work more 
 efficiently. 
 
 May I join Mr. Cooke in full sympathy with the spiritual 
 significance of university life, and with him quote from Presi- 
 dent Eliot: "Education for efficiency must not be material- 
 istic, prosaic or utilitarian ; it must be idealistic, humane and 
 passionate, or it will not win its goal." 
 
EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 
 
 BY GEOEGE H. SHEPARD, 
 
 Associate of the Emerson Company, New York. 
 
 The principles of efficiency are definitely known. The fol- 
 lowing table compares the two most famous statements of 
 them: 
 
 TAYLOR 's STATEMENT. 
 The Four Elements of Scientific 
 Management. 
 
 EMERSON '3 STATEMENT. 
 
 The Twelve Principles of Effi- 
 ciency. 
 
 The development (by the manage- 
 ment, not the workman) of the 
 science of the work, with rigid 
 rules for each motion of every 
 man, and the perfection and 
 standardization of all imple- 
 ments and working conditions. 
 
 The careful selection and subse- 
 quent training of the workers 
 into first class men, and the 
 elimination of all men who re- 
 fuse or are unable to adopt the 
 best methods. 
 
 Supernal Common Sense. 
 Competent Guidance. 
 Standardization of Conditions. 
 Standardization of Operations. 
 Determination of Standards. 
 
 Ideals. 
 Discipline. 
 
 Bringing the first class workman 
 and the science of the work to- 
 gether, through the constant help 
 and watchfulness of the manage- 
 ment, and through paying each 
 man a large daily bonus for work- 
 ing fast and doing what he is 
 told to do. 
 
 An almost equal division of the 
 work and responsibility between 
 the workman and the manage- 
 ment. All day long the manage- 
 
 182 
 
 Fair Deal. 
 Efficiency Eeward. 
 
 Immediate, Adequate and Reliable 
 Records. 
 
 Standard Practice Instructions. 
 
GEOEGE H. SHEPAED. 183 
 
 ment work almost side by side Planning and Despatching, 
 with the men, helping, encour- 
 aging, and smoothing the way 
 for them, while in the past they 
 stood one side, gave the men but 
 little help, and threw onto them 
 almost the entire responsibility 
 as to methods, implements, speed 
 and harmonious cooperation. 
 
 To resolve all efficiency into certain definite principles was 
 a service comparable to the analysis of all matter into a limited 
 number of chemical elements. The principles of efficiency are 
 applicable to absolutely all human activity, and, though dis- 
 covered in industry, by the aid of them, the Emerson Com- 
 pany has done betterment work in an institution as remote 
 from industry as a hospital. Just as, by applying the tests 
 for the different chemical elements, a qualitative analysis can 
 be made of any substance, so by searching for the presence in 
 any work of each of the principles of efficiency, a qualitative 
 analysis of its efficiency can be made, that is, it can be de- 
 termined in what respects the work is efficient and in what 
 inefficient. In this paper I submit to the Society such a quali- 
 tative analysis of American engineering education. A suffi- 
 cient reason for my using Emerson's principles is that they 
 are to me familiar tools. A college, of course, has its business 
 side, an enquiry into the efficiency of which has been con- 
 ducted by Morris L. Cooke and reported to the Carnegie 
 Foundation under the title of "Industrial and Academic 
 Efficiency." This paper is confined to the educational work 
 of the technical college. Probably many of the suggestions 
 that I make will be considered impracticable ; but it is only by 
 the successful accomplishment of things that the so-called 
 "practical man" thus condemns off-hand, that the science of 
 efficiency has attained its actual measure of achievement. 
 
 I. IDEALS. 
 
 The ideals of a college, at least of its faculty, are commonly 
 known as the "college policy." I suppose that every college 
 
184 EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 
 
 faculty talks in faculty meetings about its " policy" and 
 thinks that it has one; but that sacred thing is likely to be 
 composed of a number of rather unrelated dictums, like "We 
 do not accept substitutions except in kind," and "We dis- 
 courage the admission of special students"; while a college 
 policy in the sense of a clearly defined ideal, toward which, in 
 all its activities, it is constantly, consciously, and consistently 
 striving, is apt to be lacking. 
 
 The German technical university has a definite and clear 
 ideal. It is to be the leader and guide of German industry 
 in the application of science to its work. This ideal has the 
 support of the state, the faculty, and the students. The pro- 
 fessor is expected to be, and is, a producer of new knowledge, 
 of which German industry receives the benefit; and this is a 
 principal cause of German scientific and industrial eminence. 
 Students are a by-product, of which twenty-five per cent, or 
 more are reclaimed. Now a single correct ideal does not make 
 efficiency, but it is a step in the right direction ; and certainly 
 the German technical university has it. 
 
 At the head of the American university is usually a board 
 of regents or of trustees, who are not supposed to be educators 
 and whose ideal for the technical college, if they have any, is 
 probably best expressed in the words of the Morrill Land 
 Grant Act ' ' to teach such branches of learning as are related 
 to agriculture and the mechanic arts." That means, to pass 
 along the rudiments of technical knowledge to successive 
 classes of undergraduates. Far from the professors being 
 supposed to be fountains of new knowledge, they are con- 
 sidered to do well if they can keep their own attainments 
 abreast of the progress of industry. For the achievement of 
 this ideal the regents or trustees are dependent upon a faculty 
 which is usually thoroughly permeated with the German ideal. 
 In the usual American technical college the ultimate authority 
 does not recognize or support the ideal of discovery of new 
 knowledge, therefore research cannot be efficiently carried on ; 
 the faculty accepts with reluctance, as something forced upon 
 it from above, the ideal of merely giving instruction and 
 
GEOBGE H. SHEPAED. 185 
 
 strives futilely to follow its own ideal. A certain famous 
 American physicist, after stating the researches that he ex- 
 pected to make during the next session of his university, 
 was asked: "What will you do with your students ?" 
 "Neglect them," was the reply. Neglect of students does 
 not tend to efficiency of teaching. 
 
 It behooves every American college faculty to consider seri- 
 ously what the ideal of the institution really is, not what the 
 faculty would like it to be; and, unless reform, rather than 
 efficiency, is sought, to bend its energies to the loyal support 
 of that ideal. On the other hand, I have before stated to 
 this society my belief that a college teacher cannot com- 
 mand the respect of his students sufficiently to secure high 
 efficiency unless they recognize him as a first-hand authority 
 and source of knowledge in his subject instead of a mere con- 
 duit from original sources to his students. It therefore be- 
 hooves the ultimate authority of the university to accept the 
 ideal of production of new knowledge and properly to support 
 the pursuit of it. There can be only low efficiency where the 
 two ideals are in conflict. There can be fair efficiency, in the 
 pursuit of either ideal where it alone is held and is con- 
 sistently followed. There can be high all-round efficiency only 
 where both ideals are recognized and harmonized. 
 
 Another ideal that requires clear definition is whether the 
 college is to give a broad general grounding in the funda- 
 mentals of engineering, or is to give a highly developed, but 
 narrow, education in some specialty. The former is becoming 
 more and more recognized as the only proper ideal of the 
 undergraduate courses, the second being reserved for graduate 
 specialists. In spite of this, the teachers, having necessarily 
 developed into specialists, tend to try to develop even under- 
 graduate students into specialists in their own lines. Also 
 the curriculum, under the care of these same specialists 
 gradually becomes overgrown with specialties. The professor 
 of electrical engineering, for example, thinks that a three-hour 
 course in wireless telegraphy is something without which no 
 one can properly be called an electrical engineer. The senior 
 
186 EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 
 
 "eleetricals" are carrying only twenty- two semester hours, so 
 of course they can take on three more. At the next faculty 
 meeting, therefore, the professor recommends a three-hour 
 course in ''wireless." Faculty courtesy, of course, requires 
 that the professor should have what he wants in his own 
 department, so behold the hapless senior electricals carrying 
 twenty-five semester hours. Meanwhile the preservation of a 
 curriculum well balanced in the fundamentals of engineering, 
 being everybody's business, is nobody's business. 
 
 II. SUPERNAL COMMON SENSE. 
 
 The efficiency principle of supernal common sense requires 
 nothing less than the application to the work in hand of all 
 the wisdom and knowledge that can be brought to bear upon 
 it. It is a very grateful task to the technical professor to rub 
 this principle into the industrial manager, who is prone to 
 employ a cheap and uneducated draftsman to work out by 
 empirical thumb rules from a hand-book, problems which the 
 professor knows would be much more cheaply and efficiently 
 done by himself, on a basis of real science, and for a large 
 fee. This is one of the vexations of the professor's career. 
 Let us, however, consider the technician in the act of teaching. 
 
 When, as dean of the engineering college of Syracuse Uni- 
 versity, I tried to apply the principles of efficiency to the work 
 of that college, I found myself at once in the thick of prob- 
 lems of psychology and pedagogy. Considering that all teach- 
 ing is an application of these two sciences, it has ever since 
 seemed to me strange that from my first day as a young 
 instructor I was not placed under their guidance, for it is self- 
 evident that there can be no efficient teaching except in 
 obedience to their laws. I was struck also by the fact that 
 those students who had athletic ambitions were training to 
 keep their bodies in the best possible condition, but all stu- 
 dents, as far as conserving their brain power was concerned, 
 were living haphazard lives. It seems plain that the man 
 who wishes to use his brain at maximum efficiency should live 
 under a proper regimen of diet, exercise, sleep, recreation, 
 
GEOBGE H. SHEPAKD. 187 
 
 and study ; in other words, should train as assiduously as the 
 athlete, and much more continuously. 
 
 Now in psychology, pedagogics, and physical training, I 
 had precisely that little knowledge which is a dangerous thing. 
 Moreover I had not time to master these subjects. Any tech- 
 nical teacher is likely to find himself in very much the same 
 situation. Our own subjects are big enough to absorb all of 
 our time and labor without any prospect of our ever attain- 
 ing exhaustive knowledge of them. In as far as we allow 
 ourselves to be diverted from them, our proper usefulness is 
 diminished. The solution is to be found in the application of 
 the next principle. 
 
 III. COMPETENT GUIDANCE. 
 
 The facts which I have stated in the last two paragraphs 
 lead me to believe that every technical college should have 
 as staff advisers an expert professional teacher, and a physi- 
 cian who has specialized in physical training, while efficiency 
 itself should be under the charge of an efficiency engineer. 
 Those members of the Society who are not familiar with staff 
 organization are referred to Mr. Harrington Emerson's books, 
 " Efficiency as a Basis of Operation and Wages " and "The 
 Principles of Efficiency." In special cases still other staff 
 officers might be necessary. I am satisfied that in any case, 
 the three above mentioned are essential to the best efficiency. 
 I mention here only the chiefs of staff. Each chief should, 
 of course, have such subordinate assistance as is required by 
 the amount of work on hand. Undoubtedly most boards of 
 university regents or trustees would object on the ground of 
 expense to the employment of pedagogic, medical, efficiency 
 and other staff. It is difficult to convince even university 
 authorities that brains are really needed in the conduct of an 
 institution, and that, though they are costly, in the end they 
 pay better than any other investment. It must be recognized 
 that knowledge is the price of efficiency, and they who will 
 not pay for the former cannot have the latter. Those of us 
 who have the good fortune to belong to colleges which are 
 
188 EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 
 
 parts of universities, can probably appeal to the self-sacrificing 
 spirit common to teachers, to obtain the assistance of experts 
 from the other faculties. At Syracuse I laid my pedagogic 
 and pyschological problems before Dean Street of the Teach- 
 er's College, and found him more than willing to advise me. 
 If, by similar means, an actual demonstration of improved 
 efficiency can be made, a basis will be secured on which to 
 appeal to higher authorities for financial support. 
 
 Another difficulty which will have to be met is unwilling- 
 ness to accept staff assistance. Some teachers will doubtless 
 feel affronted by the suggestion that their work should be in- 
 spected, and that they should be advised by a pedagogic staff. 
 Probably very few students will at first accept the idea that 
 they should go into training for their scholastic work. These 
 difficulties are to be overcome, precisely as the objection of 
 industrial workers to staff guidance is overcome. A selected 
 few are first to be found who appreciate and willingly accept 
 staff guidance. The efforts of the staff are at first to be con- 
 centrated on these, and upon them a demonstration is to be 
 made that they profit by those efforts. The benefits received 
 by them will make others more willing to accept the same 
 advantages, and the work can gradually be extended. 
 
 Dealing, as we do, with immature youths, the proctor 
 system of the English universities would be a valuable addi- 
 tion to our staff. The function of the proctor is to keep in 
 close touch with a group of students assigned to him and to 
 advise them both as to college and outside affairs. All of us 
 know that our students, notably the freshmen, would benefit 
 greatly by close touch with a wise and friendly adviser. The 
 technical faculties are too heavily burdened for them to 
 assume this function. I wish it to be clearly understood that 
 I do not anywhere in this paper advocate adding to the labors 
 of the present teachers. On the contrary they should be 
 relieved. In supervising students by proctors, it is necessary 
 to remember that too close keeping of an adolescent in leading 
 strings is fatal to his development, a fact which nature has 
 recognized by giving him a strong instinct to rebel against it. 
 
GEORGE H. SHEPABD. 189 
 
 At the same time, lie is not yet fit for complete self -guidance. 
 The situation is critical and calls for careful selection of the 
 proctors and for their classification as junior officers of the 
 psychological staff. If, in conjunction with betterment work 
 in the institution itself, courses in efficiency could be given 
 therein for which credit would be given, selected upper class 
 men who were taking the efficiency course could be made 
 proctors over the freshmen as part of its work. I mention 
 this only as a temporary expedient, recognizing that better- 
 ment work in a university must prove itself before financial 
 support can be got for it. As soon as possible the proctors, or 
 tutors, should be regular salaried officers of the university 
 administration. They will doubtless pay for themselves. In 
 an institution where the students pay tuition, a proctor would 
 not have to save many from the various pitfalls which drop 
 the unwary from the rolls, in order to earn his salary. In 
 state universities the economy would return to the public in- 
 directly, but really, by saving students from failure, by guid- 
 ing them into careers for which they were suited, and by 
 enabling them to graduate with sounder bodies and better 
 minds and characters. 
 
 IV. DISCIPLINE. 
 
 In the matter of discipline, the American institution of 
 learning has a tremendous advantage. Those who are ac- 
 customed to think of discipline only in terms of the man-of- 
 war would probably, on a superficial examination, be im- 
 pressed that there is no discipline in the college; but that is 
 far from the fact. With all their free and easy ways, college 
 students are obedient ; and they usually regard their teachers 
 with respect, and often with affection. Moreover, they are 
 filled with an overflowing love for, and loyalty to, their Alma 
 Mater, which, though sometimes mistaken in its expression, is 
 very real and offers an unfailing appeal to them on behalf 
 of all right action. It would be to any industrial organiza- 
 tion an asset of untold value to have among its employees 
 an espirt de corps at all approaching "college spirit." 
 13 
 
190 EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEEEING EDUCATION. 
 
 With local variations, there is, in the main, only one direc- 
 tion, in which improvement in discipline suggests itself to me. 
 That is in the more careful selection of young men for the 
 engineering profession. I am not speaking here of the edu- 
 cational requirements for admission. To all of us cases are 
 familiar of students, struggling along in the technical colleges, 
 who are totally unfit to be engineers. I remember one young 
 man who turned in a design of a boiler, with the mouth of 
 the furnace blanked off by a solid steel plate, and who after- 
 ward found a more congenial career on the stage. Of course 
 the "bust-notice" usually gets rid of most of these, but there 
 are many who have too much brains for that, who drag along 
 to their own unhappiness and the despair of the faculty, and 
 to ultimate failure in life, unless they go into some other work 
 before they are too old. It should be one of the functions of 
 the proctors to find such cases very early in their student 
 careers, and to bring them to the attention of the faculty. 
 The latter should advise, and should have authority, advice 
 failing, to drop from the student rolls those unfit for the 
 engineering profession. 
 
 V. THE FAIR DEAL. 
 
 Under the head of the fair deal we can gladly mark the tech- 
 nical college 100 per cent, (minus) and let it go at that. While 
 the college has not attained absolute perfection, that industry 
 is indeed a shining light, in which the workers have as much 
 confidence as prevails in a college in the justice of the admin- 
 istration. Such confidence is a great advantage in undertak- 
 ing betterment work. For example, the dropping of students 
 for unfitness for the engineering profession, advocated above, 
 could not be undertaken by any faculty in whose fair dealing 
 the students did not have confidence. 
 
 VI. STANDARDIZATION OF CONDITIONS. 
 
 The purpose of standardization of conditions is not only to 
 make conditions constant, or standard, but to make them as 
 
GEOKGE H. SHEPARD. 191 
 
 suitable as possible to the work in hand. The idea of adapta- 
 tion is quite as prominent as that of standardization. Adapta- 
 tion, of course, works both ways. Adaptation of conditions to 
 the work is most desirable, but is often impossible. Man has 
 been obliged, in the main, to adapt his work to his conditions ; 
 that is, to do what his circumstances allowed. Far be it from 
 me to decry a noble effort to do needed work under adverse 
 circumstances. Humanity owes its progress to the fact that 
 heroes, saints, and martyrs have sacrificed even their lives in 
 such attempts, but that is aside from efficiency, which is the 
 subject of the present paper. 
 
 Under the head of adaptation, or standardization of con- 
 ditions, there is more need of a propaganda among the finan- 
 cial authorities of colleges than among the members of this 
 society, who like other college professors, are undoubtedly as 
 insistent on proper equipment for their departments as they 
 can be without becoming completely disliked in the president's 
 office. Among the financial authorities, equipment is often a 
 case of cutting the coat to fit the cloth ; but, when a university 
 puts a half million dollars into a gigantic stadium and another 
 quarter million into a gymnasium, while its engineering col- 
 lege is turned off with a niggardly equipment, it is plain that 
 its administration is inappreciative of the application of this 
 principle of efficiency in technical education. 
 
 It is also obvious that a college should not undertake work 
 for which, by location or otherwise, it is manifestly unsuited. 
 One cannot think, for example, that a school of marine engi- 
 neering is likely to be highly efficient in an inland college 
 remote from any more striking example of naval architecture 
 than a canal boat. If we had had pedagogic guidance, we 
 should long ago have recognized the superiority of the 
 practical-theoretical method of teaching, which is followed 
 only by the few institutions that have adopted the cooperative,, 
 or part time, plan over the theoretical-practical plan which is 
 still followed by most. If we had designed a man on the 
 drawing board and then built him in the shop, we should 
 probably have made him so that he would have inquired first 
 
192 EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEEKING EDUCATION. 
 
 Why ? and then What 1 and then How ? He would have been 
 a highly intelligent creature whose career would have conie 
 to an end the first time he was confronted by an unknown 
 and unanalyzed danger. Imagine him in the path of a speed- 
 ing automobile. It would be time to telephone for the under- 
 taker, before he had satisfied his philosophic mind that there 
 was sufficient reason for a quick dash to safety. Man, being 
 the product of a long struggle against adverse conditions, has 
 been so firmly impressed by heredity with the necessity for 
 quickly deciding How, and of the inadvisability of bothering 
 with What and Why, unless the thing later seems worth while, 
 that his mind will work that way, even when, on the whole, it 
 would be rather better if he reversed the process. Much as 
 we may deplore his perversity, we shall succeed best by operat- 
 ing him in his natural direction of working. 
 
 Hence we shall teach best, if, instead of pouring academic 
 knowledge into our students for four years, and then turning 
 them loose to find, on their own resources, its relation to prac- 
 tical industry, which seems strangely indifferent to their learn- 
 ing, we bring them, before and during their college courses, 
 into actual working contact with industry and coordinate 
 their academic instruction as closely as possible with their 
 practical experience. This is a standardization of conditions 
 which, by cooperation with industry, is within the reach of all. 
 
 VII. DETERMINATION OF STANDARDS. 
 
 For the sake of brevity, I shall discuss under this head only 
 one standard which the technical college conspicuously lacks. 
 That is one of student capacity. How much work of any 
 given subject can a student reasonably be expected to do in 
 an hour ? How many of us are there who can answer such a 
 question, even with reference to our own subjects only, on 
 any basis of real knowledge ? The most of us probably know 
 only that as students, we ourselves succeeded in learning 
 about so much per lesson. How much time had we per lesson ? 
 How much time ha.s the student now ? How many of us know, 
 not guess, the answers to these questions ? In the face of these 
 
GEORGE H. SHEPARD. 193 
 
 uncertainties, the inevitable tendency of the specialist, who 
 realizes much better the infinite ramifications of his own sub- 
 ject than he does its relative unimportance in the general 
 scheme of things, is to pile onto his students always a little 
 more and a little more, until the task becomes an impossi- 
 bility. The result is inevitable. On the one hand the student 
 must resort to cramming, to memorizing, to bluffing, in order 
 to get through. On the other hand the teacher, for the sake 
 of his own reputation, must not appear to be unable to com- 
 municate his knowledge to a reasonable proportion of his 
 students, the only tangible evidence of which knowledge is a 
 passing mark reported to the registrar. Hence a continual 
 loading of the subject is bound to result in a continual de- 
 crease of thoroughness on the part of the student, and a con- 
 tinual lowering of scholastic standards on the part of the 
 teacher. I was once one of the assistants of a very eminent 
 engineer, who had the habit of handing out to us more work 
 for a day than we could do in a week. Fortunately one of us 
 soon discovered that he forgot the tasks, as soon as he had 
 assigned them, and kindly gave the rest of us the tip. There- 
 after, I received orders for the most preposterous tasks with- 
 out either a protest or a smile, did what I could and forgot the 
 rest, which my chief also very kindly did. The results, be- 
 tween the overloaded student and the specialist professor, are 
 bound to be similar. 
 
 There is need here for some time study work of the very 
 highest grade. The idea of time study of mental work may 
 strike some as impracticable; but Dr. F. W. Taylor wrote 
 me that the first time studies of which he ever knew, and which 
 first suggested the idea to him, were made by Professor Went- 
 worth on work in algebra, when Taylor was one of his stu- 
 dents, and that Wentworth based his assignments of lessons 
 on these studies. As soon as it has been determined what the 
 students can reasonably be expected to do, that much should 
 be assigned to them and no more, and they should then be 
 absolutely required to do it. The result can not fail to be 
 a great improvement in thoroughness ; and, while the diploma 
 
194 EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEEKING EDUCATION. 
 
 may not certify that graduates know so much, it will mean 
 that they really know a great deal more, beside which the 
 moral training of always fairly and squarely meeting a 
 reasonable requirement, will be of inestimable value. 
 
 VIII. STANDARDIZATION OF OPERATIONS. 
 
 I have been told that Gantt classifies the human race into 
 routine workers and experts. There is something like that in 
 his book, "Work, Wages, and Profits," but I cannot say 
 where I got it in precisely that form. This is by way of 
 apology to Mr. Gantt, if I have misquoted him. Anyhow, the 
 routine worker can do only what he is told, as he is told to 
 do it, following over and over a beaten path, until he attains 
 speed and skill as habits. The expert is constantly confront- 
 ing new conditions, under which, by the application of invari- 
 able principles, he works out methods in infinite detail to meet 
 each particular case. 
 
 The betterment man is accustomed, in industry, to blaze the 
 trail for routine workers. In the technical college he is to im- 
 prove the education of embryo experts, who are themselves 
 to become pioneers. It would be fatal to their development 
 to make them work according to hard and fast rules such as 
 are set before the routine workman. On the contrary, prob- 
 lems must be set before them which they must be left to solve 
 as nearly on their own resources as possible. Only by so 
 doing can they attain the necessary independence and self- 
 reliance. The industrial operation is standardized in order 
 that the routine worker may do it in the most efficient way. 
 It is vastly less important that the student should do his work 
 in the best way than that he should do it himself. An excel- 
 lent paper along this line was contributed to the American 
 Society of Mechanical Engineers some five years ago by Dr. 
 Lucke, under the title of "The Function of Laboratory 
 Courses." After myself experiencing conviction of sin as a 
 result of that paper, I entirely withdrew from my senior 
 laboratory students all written instructions for their work 
 
GEOKGE H. SHEPABD. 195 
 
 and required them to work out their own solutions of labora- 
 tory problems. Nevertheless this led to a standardization of 
 the operation of such solution along the following lines : 
 , 1. The assignment of a problem ; for example, to determine 
 the thermal efficiency of some engine over its complete range 
 of load ; 
 
 2. A preliminary lecture, giving only so much explanation 
 as was absolutely necessary; 
 
 3. The division of the students assigned to a problem into 
 certain standard committees, 
 
 The Foreman, and Committee on Stations and Duties for Ex- 
 perimental Work, 
 Committee on Apparatus, 
 Committee on Runs and Logs, 
 Committee on Final Report, and 
 Committee on Prediction of Result ; 
 
 4. The rotation during the year, of each student through 
 all the committees, so that he gained an experience of all 
 phases of laboratory work ; 
 
 5. The preparation by each committee of a report on its 
 part of the problem, comprising definite instructions for the 
 conduct of the further work ; 
 
 6. A seminar in which each committee presented its report, 
 which formed the basis of action by the whole squad ; 
 
 7. A preliminary report on the problem from the whole 
 squad ; 
 
 8. The performance of the experimental work under direc- 
 tion of the foreman, in accord with the preliminary report ; 
 
 9. The calculation of results by the whole squad under 
 direction of the foreman ; and 
 
 10. The submission of a final report by the whole squad. 
 The above is submitted as a concrete example of the fact 
 
 that it is possible to standardize operations and at the same 
 time to put upon the student the responsibility of solving his 
 problems for himself. It would be an impertinence for me 
 to offer to my fellow members any further suggestions as to 
 
196 EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 
 
 the standardization of their own operations. As to the stu- 
 dent, many of his operations might be standardized with 
 improvement in his efficiency, and without decrease of his 
 independence. For example, it was not until my own fourth 
 year in college that I learned how to study a technical text. 
 Until that time, when the author said, "It is obvious that," I 
 immediately set to work to dig out for myself the conclusion, 
 which in most cases was very far from obvious to me. I 
 finally found that the author usually gave his reasoning on 
 the next page, a discovery that has saved me many a weary 
 hour since. Doubtless it developed my cerebral tissue to think 
 for myself the thoughts of Cotterill, Remsen, Thurston, and 
 their peers; but, for a college boy, the task was almost too 
 much, as some narrow escapes from being sent home pain- 
 fully impressed upon me. Probably others have failed from 
 similar causes, who might have been saved to professional 
 careers merely by standardization of the operation of pre- 
 paring a lesson. 
 
 IX. STANDARD PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS. 
 
 I have often had occasion to advise a student to take a tutor, 
 not to teach him the subject, but to show him how to study it. 
 At present such occasions come to a college teacher in a hap- 
 hazard way. If he is interested in his students and enquires 
 into the troubles of any of them who are not getting along, 
 or if he is the man to attract their voluntary confidence, he is 
 likely to have such opportunities. If he is absorbed in his 
 subject to the exclusion of human interests, he may not care 
 or even know how his students are getting on. In this 
 country we are apt to condemn a man of the latter type, but 
 he is more apt than the other to know his subject, and no man 
 can teach what he does not know himself. To know exhaust- 
 ively a subject in up-to-date engineering is one man's job, and 
 the only way to enable him to do it at high efficiency is to 
 relieve him of distractions in other directions. The college 
 teacher's business should be his subject, and the responsi- 
 
GEORGE H. SHEPARD. 
 
 197 
 
 bility for student welfare should be in the hands of a separate 
 corps of workers; while the head of the college should be re- 
 lieved of the details of both kinds of work, but should be a 
 man broad enough and big enough to dominate both classes 
 of workers and to control and coordinate their work. 
 
 The proctors should find out, as a matter of regular duty, 
 instead of leaving it to the teachers to find out by chance, 
 whether any young man is working inefficiently; and, if he 
 needs standard practice instructions, they should have the 
 means, by conferences with the pedagogic, psychological, and 
 medical staff, and by reports to the head of the college of 
 needed action, to make sure of his getting them. 
 
 Standard practice instructions along other lines, for ex- 
 ample the notation of drawings, may with advantage be pro- 
 vided, and commonly are; but these are matters of detail, 
 which vary with local conditions, and do not admit of gen- 
 eral discussion. 
 
 X. PLANNING AND DESPATCHING. 
 
 In the application of the efficiency principle of planning 
 and despatching, the technical college is far ahead of most 
 
 i 
 
 Period of ITIaxi | 
 
 mum Power 
 
 Time 
 
 FIG. 1. 
 
 industries. The curriculum as a whole is planned from the 
 outset, subjects are arranged in logical sequence, and the time 
 allotted to each is predetermined. Classes are despatched as 
 to hours and rooms, a year in advance. If, however, we ex- 
 amine the basis of scientific knowledge for our elaborate plan- 
 ning and despatching, the bubble of our satisfaction is imme- 
 
198 EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 
 
 diately pricked. For example, why is the standard period 
 for a recitation or lecture one hour? I have been unable to 
 find any better reason for it than that the hour is a clock unit. 
 
 Now it is known that in mental work, the relation between 
 time and power is somewhat as shown in Fig. 1. First there 
 is a period of decreasing power, similar to the "warming up" 
 in athletics; then a period of increasing power; then one of 
 nearly constant power, a maximum plateau; and then fatigue 
 sets in with continually decreasing power until complete ex- 
 haustion is reached. Also it is known that, in the early stages 
 of fatigue, rest brings quick recuperation; while, after ex- 
 haustion is approximated, recovery is slow and rest must be 
 long. If every one had the same curve of time-power, it 
 would be easy enough to find the time of maximum power 
 ordinate ; but there are great individual differences. In some 
 cases the time of warming up is inappreciable ; in others it is 
 very long. Some individual curves show an absence of the 
 maximum plateau. With these individual differences, is it 
 feasible to find a composite curve of which the period of 
 maximum power will approximate the general average? Or, 
 if not, is it feasible, in drafting room and similar work, for 
 individuals to recognize their own periods of maximum power, 
 and to work accordingly ? The composite period of maximum 
 power being determined, how many such periods per day will 
 produce the maximum efficiency? What should be the inter- 
 val between such periods? Perhaps the psychologists know 
 the answers to these questions. My own transfer to better- 
 ment work in industry has made other matters so much more 
 pressing that, for myself, I have been obliged to retire them 
 from present consideration. As far as I know, the psycho- 
 logical, pedagogic, and medical staff have a good piece of work 
 cut out for them to find the answers. Probably original re- 
 search will be needed; but efficiency engineers would not get 
 far, if they were daunted by such a necessity. 
 
 When we know how long a student ought to work at one 
 time, when we know how many hours he ought to work in a 
 day, and how many days in a year, we shall be able intelli- 
 
GEOEGE H. SHEPAKD. 199 
 
 gently to determine the number of semester-hours he ought 
 to carry. When we have time standards for the students ' 
 work, we shall know how many semester-hours should be as- 
 signed to each subject. Let us not be scared by the number 
 of such standards required. A certain large industrial com- 
 pany has sixty thousand such. When we know student 
 capacity and have time standards for each subject, we shall 
 be able to build up a curriculum with scientific accuracy in- 
 stead of by rule of thumb. If the result should be an increase 
 of the number of years of the course, I should regret it ; but, 
 if it is necessary to pay that price to secure efficiency during 
 the engineer's working years, it must be paid. I expect that 
 general betterment, in education as in industry, will so greatly 
 increase working capacity that there will be no such necessity. 
 Connected with any effort to establish time standards for 
 subjects, there is bound to be a vigorous pruning, an analysis 
 of subjects into their fundamental principles, and a concen- 
 tration of effort on instruction in these, and in practice work 
 in their application, together with the cutting out of all dead 
 wood, and, in undergraduate courses at least, of refinements 
 which are of interest only to the specialist. Such an elimina- 
 tion of waste labor will in itself very highly conduce to aca- 
 demic efficiency. 
 
 Coming to detail despatching, many students are in great 
 need of its application to them individually. Some years ago 
 a senior came to me and complained that he did not have time 
 to do his work. I said to him " Getting your work into your 
 time is a good deal like getting your clothes into your trunk. 
 If you stand across the room and throw things at the trunk, 
 just as you happen to find them, you have to get several fel- 
 lows to sit on the lid ; but, if you fold things neatly and stow 
 them in orderly fashion, you probably have the top tray 
 empty. Sit down and let us make out your weekly schedule. " 
 The schedule being made out accordingly, showed no work 
 from one o'clock Saturday afternoon until eight o'clock Mon- 
 day morning, whereupon I filled in for Saturday afternoon 
 "Physical exercise in the open air." This young man had a 
 
200 EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEEEING EDUCATION. 
 
 very particular chum in the coeducational department; and 
 nearly every Saturday afternoon for the rest of his course, I 
 met him walking with her, whereupon he used to hail me with, 
 ' ' You see, professor, I am sticking faithfully to my schedule. ' ' 
 An efficient staff of proctors would have got hold of this young 
 man in his first week in college, and the course of true love 
 might have run smoothly, not only through the senior, but 
 the junior and sophomore, and perhaps even through the 
 freshman year, and that without neglect of lessons, by virtue 
 of running on schedule time. 
 
 XI. IMMEDIATE, ADEQUATE AND RELIABLE RECORDS. 
 
 The technical college has an abundance of educational 
 records which in the main are immediate, adequate, and re- 
 liable from the point of view of the faculty, and adequate and 
 reliable, but not immediate enough, from the point of view of 
 the student. Their reliability may seem questionable, seeing 
 that the marks which a student receives, represent merely a 
 teacher's general estimate of the value of his work; but ex- 
 perienced markers, working independently, will grade the 
 same within a few per cent., if they have time enough to work 
 with reasonable care, so that, unless the faculty is obliged by 
 overwork to mark hastily, the records ought to be substantially 
 reliable. It is my own belief that a student ought to know all 
 of his marks very promptly. Yet I have known a worthy 
 professor to move, and his faculty to pass a resolution, for- 
 bidding teachers to acquaint the students with any marks; 
 and, unquestionably many teachers prefer not to tell what 
 marks they give. I could never bring myself to much patience 
 with this attitude. It always seemed to me like mere shirk- 
 ing. If a teacher gives a mark, he ought to be able to justify 
 it by good reasons ; and those teachers who willingly tell their 
 marks are not bothered by unreasonable complaints from stu- 
 dents, nor do they give cause for reasonable complaints. 
 
 At my own Alma Mater it was the custom to post on each 
 class bulletin board at the end of each week the names and 
 
GEOBGE H. SHEPABD. 201 
 
 marks of all students whose average for the week was unsatis- 
 factory in any subject ; and, one month before the end of each 
 semester, the names of all students who were in danger of fail- 
 ure at the end of the semester. Such timely warnings doubt- 
 less prevented many failures; and, except that notice of de- 
 ficiency might better be privately given, the customs are cer- 
 tainly worthy of imitation. Not only the student concerned 
 but his proctor should be informed at once when he begins 
 to receive failing grades and the proctor should at once in- 
 vestigate and start remedial measures. 
 
 XII. EFFICIENCY REWARD. 
 
 The principle of efficiency reward must be considered with 
 reference to students and faculty. The student has a form of 
 nominal efficiency reward in the marks which he receives ; but, 
 unfortunately, there are not many students to whom one pass- 
 ing mark is any better than another. In fact some students 
 regard any surplus of mark above barely passing as a waste 
 of effort and an indication of personal inefficiency. On the 
 other hand, athletics offer, in bodily vigor, excitement, ap- 
 plause, admiration, and the coveted block letter, an immediate 
 and highly prized efficiency reward. Social affairs and stu- 
 dent politics offer also excitement, applause, admiration, some 
 power, and very enticing pleasure. In contrast the rewards 
 of scholarship seem few and empty. It is no wonder that so 
 many students are diverted from the supposed main purpose 
 of the college. 
 
 By way of increasing the rewards of scholarship in ways 
 that make an immediate appeal to the student, such societies 
 as Tau Beta Pi and Sigma Xi, are of undoubted value. Their 
 usefulness will be increased by such marks of distinction as 
 the institution can bestow on the local chapters. The main 
 solution of the difficulty is to impress upon the student that 
 knowledge is the thing of value, and that, if he gets it, 
 marks and even diplomas and degrees are negligible quantities. 
 
 While various means to this end at once suggest themselves, 
 it seems to me that the most powerful is to give the student 
 
202 EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEEBING EDUCATION. 
 
 an object lesson in the need of scientific technical knowledge, 
 to make him feel his lack of it, by bringing him from the 
 outset of, and throughout his college course into close practical 
 contact with industry by means of the cooperative, or part 
 time, method of instruction. Any one who doubts this, has 
 only to compare those of his own students who have had prac- 
 tical experience with those who have not. While the former, 
 from necessity of spending much of their time and energies in 
 self-support, may be only fair, or even inferior scholars, they 
 do not fail from lack of interest in their work. Once the stu- 
 dent realizes that knowledge is what he is after, and not marks 
 and degrees, his efficiency reward becomes immediate, auto- 
 matic, and unfailingly just. 
 
 Turning to the faculty, there are four ways in which effi- 
 ciency should be rewarded : (1) by salary, (2) by social stand- 
 ing, (3) by promotion, and (4) by opportunity. 
 
 As to salary, including under this head old age and service 
 pensions, the subject has been worn threadbare, and there is 
 no profit in discussing it in any length in this paper. The 
 mere fact that the best men are being continually drawn away 
 from teaching into industry and that our ablest engineers are 
 to be found in practice and not in professorships, as in Ger- 
 many, is proof enough that the reward of our teachers is 
 inadequate. When any institution undertakes betterments, one 
 of the first uses that must be made of financial economies re- 
 sulting from greater efficiency of the material side of the insti- 
 tution, from immediate, adequate and reliable cost-keeping, 
 from using costly steam heat to warm buildings in use, instead 
 of to kill the campus grass, and from efficient use of buildings 
 and equipment now idle a large part of the time, is to increase 
 the compensation of its teachers. 
 
 As to social standing, the situation is not bad ; but such dis- 
 tinguished consideration as attaches to a university professor- 
 ship in Germany, would, of course, hold many men to the 
 teaching career in this country in spite of more lucrative 
 opportunities in practice. 
 
 As to promotion, efficiency reward is here directly opposed 
 
GEOKGE H. SHEPABD. 203 
 
 to the commonly accepted ideal. The very university presi- 
 dent who fails utterly to support research by his faculty, who 
 looks upon it in fact rather as a diversion from their proper 
 work of teaching, will, if he has an important position to fill, 
 seek a man "whose name will strengthen the institution. " 
 That means inevitably a man who has been in some way a 
 discoverer of knowledge, because mere teaching and adminis- 
 tration, no matter how faithfully and well done, make one 
 known only to his own students. If the ideal is to continue 
 to be merely "to teach such branches of learning as are re- 
 lated to Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts/' in order to 
 attain efficiency in its pursuit, efficiency reward must be based 
 upon it ; and, when promotion is possible, it must be bestowed 
 upon the efficient teacher. If, without sacrificing our own 
 ideal, we are to adopt in addition, as we should, the German 
 ideal of leading and guiding industry in the application of 
 science to its work, the ultimate financial authorities of our 
 institutions, and finally society itself, which in the end must 
 bear the burden of all education, must learn to support both 
 teaching and research, and appropriately to reward efficiency 
 in both. 
 
 As to opportunity, a motive which, to a man of the right 
 type for a college teacher, is quite as compelling as the desire 
 for financial reward or for academic or social position, is the 
 ambition for honorable fame as one who has rendered dis- 
 tinguished service. To the college teacher the means which at 
 once suggests itself to that end is research. The substantial 
 denial of such an opportunity in our technical colleges, re- 
 moves from them one great and highly prized efficiency 
 reward. I count among my most valued friends one of our 
 most distinguished practicing engineers, a man of surpassing 
 character and of wonderful devotion to altruistic service. 
 Some years ago he was one of our most distinguished technical 
 teachers, in an institution ranked by all as among the best, 
 and by many as the best in this country. Shortly after his 
 leaving teaching for practice, I said to him that I should have 
 thought that he would have stayed in teaching in order to 
 
204 EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEEEING EDUCATION. 
 
 develop his ideas by research and invention. He replied: 
 ' 1 1 saw that there was no chance for me to do anything of that 
 kind there. " 
 
 XIII. FINANCIAL RESULTS. 
 
 It may be objected that the proposals above, all tend to 
 greater, not less expense. This is the stock objection of the 
 unconverted captain of industry to all suggestions of greater 
 efficiency. Inevitably betterment work increases the ratio of 
 indirect to direct expense; but experience in industry has 
 fully shown that it increases even more the ratio of produc- 
 tion to total cost, so that the final result is a decrease of unit 
 cost. Similarly in education ; by causing institution, teachers 
 and students to cooperate in the pursuit of the same adequate 
 and correct ideals; by applying to teaching its own sciences; 
 by placing the workers under competent guidance; by the 
 more thorough elimination of the unfit through discipline; 
 by fair dealing with all concerned; by standard practice in- 
 structions for the performance of standardized operations ; by 
 the extension of the present system of schedules of classes into 
 one of schedules for individuals as well; by the basing of all 
 planning upon scientifically determined standards of capacity 
 under standardized conditions; by making records immediate 
 as well as adequate and reliable; by rewarding the efficiency 
 of teachers, and by causing students to appreciate the effi- 
 ciency reward which they have ; the result is bound to be an 
 increase of working capacity of both teachers and pupils : and 
 this, in the end, is bound to reduce cost per unit of product. 
 
THE APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGE- 
 MENT TO THE OPERATION OF COLLEGES. 
 
 BY S. EDGAE WHITAKEE, 
 Consulting Engineer, Hasbrouck Heights, N. J. 
 
 Manufacturers and business men often look upon their own 
 undertakings as peculiarly different from every other ap- 
 parently similar business. It will not be surprising that 
 every college may feel that it has problems unlike any other, 
 and of greater difficulty. Naturally, the men connected with 
 the colleges and universities look upon their duties as some- 
 thing entirely distinct and apart from those which occupy the 
 attention of people in other walks of life. Yet, as a matter 
 of fact, these problems are very much alike. 
 
 A college is a big business enterprise. Its product is the 
 attainment of high ideals in scholarship, in character develop- 
 ment and culture, and the preparation of youth for the 
 activities of life and for intellectual and spiritual leadership. 
 In place of mechanical output, its product is men. But the 
 element of cost enters in just as much as in any other business 
 enterprise, that is, we want to get as much as possible for the 
 money. We cannot always measure the value of the output 
 in dollars and cents, yet every one likes to feel that the money 
 which he contributes to educational and philanthropic pur- 
 poses is well expended, and future benefactions often depend 
 on showing a high efficiency. 
 
 One of the points that show the need of Scientific Manage- 
 ment is that many institutions have difficulty in running on 
 their endowment income and tuition fees, and find themselves 
 constantly face to face with a deficit or at least hampered in 
 the extensions and expansions they would like to make. It 
 may well be that a critical examination of the expenditures 
 and methods of some of our colleges may be more helpful to 
 14 205 
 
206 APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 them than more money. Again, the professors complain that 
 so much of their time is taken up by correcting examinations 
 and assigning marks, and maintaining records, petty details, 
 deadening routine, that they have not the freshness and the 
 buoyancy of intellect that leads to creative thought, to ad- 
 vancement along the lines of research. 
 
 In his report to the Carnegie Foundation, Mr. Morris 
 Llewellyn Cooke has stated "A further increase in the effi- 
 ciency of the teaching staff will be obtained through such 
 specializing as will come as the result of functional manage- 
 ment. There are some things that are clear. During the 
 interviews which the writer had with college professors, he 
 found them spending time in taking inventories, keeping track 
 of appropriations, mimeographing examination papers, and 
 handling routine correspondence. These things are clerical 
 work, and should be handled outside the teaching field, and 
 not as a part of the teacher's duties. In addition, there are 
 many other things, including management of the buildings, 
 which might easily be centralized and done better by officials 
 who can devote their time exclusively to them. Such changes 
 would leave the professor more time for the work for which he 
 is especially fitted. 
 
 "The manifold duties carried on by the college professor 
 seem overwhelming. I saw a single individual personally 
 assume the direction of a large building including labora- 
 tories, machine shops, power plants; maintain order and 
 discipline among seven hundred at times boisterous spirits; 
 direct and inspire a teaching force of a score of rather 
 unusually able men ; and keep in touch with a large body of 
 graduates. The college professor does not realize how many 
 distinct functions he performs. The high-priced presidents 
 of our railways, banks and steel companies would not dream 
 of performing this variety of functions. They would refuse 
 to do so because they know they could not do them well? 
 
 "This part of raising the efficiency of the college professor 
 will have to be done by building up central agencies for doing 
 much of the work he does now, and for doing it so much better 
 
S. EDGAE WHITAKEB. 207 
 
 than he possibly can, that he will be glad to relinquish his 
 responsibilities in these respects." 
 
 In contrast with the commercial and industrial world, there 
 will be found a general lack of intensiveness and snap every- 
 where pervading the universities and colleges. There is no 
 haste in attending recitations and plenty of time and leisure 
 to discuss matters with those met on the way. The professor 
 is occasionally five or ten minutes tardy in meeting his class. 
 If the young man is to succeed later in life, he must realize 
 the necessity of intensive application to his work during that 
 time when he is assigned tasks; he must realize that an hour 
 of his time is a valuable thing and cannot be carelessly 
 wasted. 
 
 In an address before the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. 
 Taylor, referring to graduates of technical schools, said "Why 
 is it that these young men are discontented and of practically 
 little use during the first year or two after graduating ? To a 
 certain extent, this is unquestionably due to the sudden and 
 radical change from years spent as boys, almost solely in 
 absorbing and assimilating knowledge for their own benefit, to 
 their new occupation of giving out and using what they 
 have for the benefit of others. To a degree, it is the sponge 
 objecting to the pressure of the hand which uses it. To a 
 greater degree, however, I believe this trouble to be due to 
 the lack of discipline and to the lack of direct, earnest and 
 logical purpose, which accompanies to a large extent modern 
 university life. 
 
 "As to college discipline, it cannot be good training for 
 after life for a young man deliberately to be told by the 
 university authorities that he can flagrantly neglect his duties 
 sixty times in one term before any attention will be paid to 
 it, while, if in business, the same young man would be dis- 
 charged for being absent two or three times without per- 
 mission. The boy who joins the football squad is given no 
 sixty cuts a season, nor is he allowed to choose what he will 
 do. He does just what some one else tells him to do, and 
 does it at the time and in the manner he is told and one or 
 
208 APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 two lapses from training rules are sufficient cause for ex- 
 pulsion from the team. 
 
 "I believe it is possible to so train young men that they will 
 be useful to their employers almost from the day that they 
 leave college, so that they will be reasonably satisfied with 
 their new work, instead of discontented, and to place them 
 upon graduating one or two years nearer success than they 
 now are; and this can best be accomplished by giving them 
 an earnest purpose through six months' contact early in their 
 college life with men working for a living; by rigidly pre- 
 scribing a course of studies carefully and logically selected, 
 and with some definite object in view, and by subjecting them 
 to a discipline comparable with that adopted by the rest 
 of the world. 
 
 "Of all the habits and principles which make for success 
 in a young man, the most useful is the determination to do 
 and to do right all of those things which come his way each 
 day, whether they are agreeable or disagreeable. 
 
 "Is not the true object of all education that of training 
 boys to be successful men? I mean men successful in the 
 broadest sense, not merely successful money-getters, successful 
 first in developing their own characters, and second, in doing 
 their full share of the world's work." 
 
 The need of scientific management is further shown by the 
 limited use of the rooms in college buildings. As an in- 
 stance, it is reported that the president of the University of 
 Wisconsin conducted an investigation of one of the main build- 
 ings of his institution, and found that the rooms in it devoted 
 to teaching were used, on an average, only three hours a day. 
 This is about the average amount of use in many instances in 
 several other universities and colleges. The proper assign- 
 ment and utilization of the rooms during the year would 
 double the capacity of the college buildings. 
 
 In illustration of the point of using, or not using, the same 
 room for different purposes, Mr. Cooke has described two large 
 lecture rooms. "One of them at the Massachusetts Institute 
 of Technology was reserved for a lecture which took place 
 
S. EDGAK WHITAKEB. 209 
 
 six mornings in the week at eleven o'clock. Owing to the 
 fact that the room was made more or less a storehouse for 
 physics apparatus, it was rarely allowed to be used for any 
 other purpose. On the other hand, at the University of 
 Toronto, the far-sighted professor in charge of the department 
 had seen to it that in the construction of his lecture table 
 every wire and pipe had a connection both above and below 
 the floor, so that on an hour 's notice it could be removed and a 
 piece of flooring already provided be put in place and the 
 room turned over to the Cercle Francaise. Instead of having 
 a fixed blackboard back of the lecture table, he had both the 
 board and the partition back of it so suspended that when the 
 room was to be used for theatrical purposes, they could be 
 raised entirely out of view, thus providing both stage and flies 
 for a neat little theatre. The professor also insisted that 
 all apparatus be removed from this and the other lecture halls 
 at the conclusion of the exercises at which the apparatus was 
 used." 
 
 Further, so large an investment as is represented by the 
 grounds and many valuable buildings, and the expensive 
 equipment of the modern college plant ought not to permit 
 the buildings to remain vacant and idle during four months 
 of the year. In a few instances, as at Columbia and at Har- 
 vard, this is to some extent overcome by summer schools, 
 which have the advantage of unusual facilities and equipment, 
 and should be made to yield an income. 
 
 There are four general principles in scientific management 
 and they are all applicable to a college or to a university; 
 but the economies to be attained through them come about 
 only through the hearty cooperation of everybody who is 
 concerned. 
 
 " FIRST, A LARGE DAILY TASK. 
 
 "Each man in the establishment, high or low, should daily 
 have a clearly defined task laid out before him. This task 
 should not in the least degree be vague nor indefinite, but 
 should be circumscribed carefully and completely, and should 
 not be easy to accomplish. 
 
210 APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 "SECOND, STANDARD CONDITIONS. 
 
 "Each man's task should call for a full day's work, and at 
 the same time the workman should be given such conditions 
 and appliances as will enable him to accomplish his task with 
 certainty. 
 
 "THIRD, HIGH PAY FOR SUCCESS. 
 
 "He should be sure of large pay when he accomplishes his 
 task. 
 
 "FOURTH, Loss IN CASE OF FAILURE. 
 
 "When he fails he should be sure that sooner or later he 
 will be the loser by it. ' ' 
 
 But, it is argued, a college has to do with spiritual and in- 
 tellectual development and the higher mental and moral 
 attainments and interests of life. Undoubtedly this is so, and 
 it is just what we are aiming to accomplish through scientific 
 management, by so readjusting present working conditions as 
 to enable the professors and their staffs to grow and have the 
 opportunity to consider the higher ideals and properly guide 
 the college boys thereto. A high-salaried man should not be 
 doing those things which a lower-salaried man can do very 
 nearly as well. Some one else should do these things for him. 
 
 The term "functional management" is given to that phase 
 of scientific management which provides that each man from 
 the highest salaried to the lowest shall have as few functions 
 as possible to perform. 
 
 Historically, there has been a good deal done in the line of 
 functional management since early days. In the old district 
 school, one teacher taught everything in the grade. Now, 
 even in the elementary schools, the best of them, one teacher, 
 who is particularly good at reading, or geography, or music, 
 teaches the reading or the geography or the music for several 
 grades and often has no other subject to teach. This is, of 
 course, the case in colleges, for the teaching is departmental. 
 Now this is unconsciously the beginning of functional manage- 
 ment, although not technically so called. Scientific study and 
 the conscious application of the principles of management will 
 bring about still further improvement. 
 
S. EDGAB WHITAKEE. 211 
 
 Most of the teachers in colleges are men of rare ability who 
 have devoted years to training themselves in a special branch 
 of knowledge. It is a matter of supreme importance to them 
 that they should be able to devote every possible minute of 
 their valuable time to the use of this training and knowledge. 
 Each individual in an organization should count for his 
 maximum. 
 
 Under functional management, a man is protected in the 
 performance of the highest kind of work he is competent 
 to do and relieved of the things which can be accomplished by 
 other agencies. Applied to the college, this functional method 
 will mean that the work of any institution will be divided 
 into a large number of functions, and that in each of these 
 functions some one person must be supreme. There is a wide 
 difference between dividing all the work into a certain number 
 of positions, the occupant of each position having many func- 
 tions to perform, and dividing the work into a certain number 
 of functions, with some one person supreme or expert in each 
 function. 
 
 Functional management is based on the belief that there 
 is one best way to do a given thing. This best way can be 
 determined by scientific methods and expressed in complete 
 detail in writing as a standard. 
 
 Now how will this help the teacher? Everything must be 
 done to conserve his time. The higher his position, the greater 
 will be the incentive to do this. One of the principal ways of 
 doing this will be in having much of his routine work done 
 for him. Undoubtedly the work would not be done quite as 
 well as the teacher could perform it, and yet it would pay 
 if the time of the professor thus saved could be utilized in 
 more important duties, and the direct return to him would be 
 his ability to command a larger salary as a result. For in- 
 stance, examination papers are often mimeographed or type- 
 written. The professor ought not to be obliged to do this 
 himself. There should be a recognized department from which 
 he is entitled and expected to receive a definite mechanical 
 service of that sort. 
 
212 APPLICATION OP SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 One thing could be done as an entering wedge. Four pro- 
 fessors, not necessarily teaching the same subjects, could 
 arrange together to occupy the full time of a low-salaried 
 instructor, who would perhaps do no teaching or lecturing, 
 but would lighten their labors in the line of correcting exam- 
 ination papers, tabulating results and marks and keeping 
 records, and furnishing them with carefully written reports 
 of the results. He could even conduct examinations, and 
 edit and typewrite the professor's notes and lectures, with 
 the result that each of the professors would be able to take 
 one class more, and would much prefer so doing to carrying 
 on the routine work previously burdening them. Such service 
 would enable them to possess a broader outlook and consider 
 the big things in their respective fields. 
 
 It may be argued that the professor cannot keep in close 
 touch with the individual members of his classes and know 
 how his classes are assimilating what he furnishes them, with- 
 out his actually correcting the examination papers. The 
 answer is that it is possible for the papers to be returned to 
 the professor for his perusal without his being required to put 
 himself in the critical mental attitude necessary to detect each 
 error and determine and affix the exact percentage of excel- 
 lence. On the other hand, his mental attitude would be one 
 of constructive study and to attain this, a perusal of every 
 paper would not be necessary. 
 
 Again, there are many courses that remain practically the 
 same from year to year, and which in the presentation require 
 special apparatus or much mechanical preparation. At pres- 
 ent, most of this is done by the man who delivers the lecture 
 or by an assistant who has been trained to do this through 
 years of practice. In industrial establishments, more com- 
 plicated work than this is frequently done by ordinary work- 
 men under written instructions. There is no reason why, for 
 each lecture there should not be written instructions in com- 
 plete detail, specifying exact locations, etc., with lists of 
 apparatus, to be given to a low-salaried man. The man might 
 even actually go through the performance of the experiments 
 
S. EDGAB WHITAKEB. 213 
 
 in order that the time of the professor might not be wasted 
 when he went over them preparatory to the lecture. This 
 would relieve the professor of much subordinate work that 
 consumes his time. 
 
 In organizing these functional activities, the best progress 
 will be made by doing things as gradually as they can be well 
 done. It will not be best to require everybody to use a given 
 functional agency when it is first started. Duties will be 
 willingly relinquished to those who will discharge them more 
 efficiently, if thereby relief to do larger things is attained. 
 A purchasing agent will find his time profitably occupied in 
 doing the buying for those who are anxious to use his serv- 
 ices, particularly if they are impressed with his efficiency and 
 genuine helpfulness. It will be better for him to make a few 
 purchases and make them right, than to force his services on 
 those who do not feel that they require them. For the result 
 will be that practically every one will turn over the purchas- 
 ing to him within a year or two, without the necessity of his 
 forcing his services upon them. People are always glad to be 
 relieved of trouble. 
 
 Many of the activities of the college are similar to those of 
 ordinary business, such as the buying of supplies for the main- 
 tenance and care of buildings, for individual laboratory work, 
 the various forms of printing, reports and catalogues, station- 
 ery and office supplies. 
 
 The receiving and paying out of money demands an ac- 
 counting system as comprehensive as that of many a large 
 manufactory or public service corporation. Oftentimes, the 
 care of the college funds is merely a side issue of a man 
 whose mind and inclinations are trained along entirely differ- 
 ent lines, along lines of purely intellectual and spiritual pur- 
 suits. This, however, is a business matter and should be in 
 the hands of a shrewd, level-headed and far-sighted business 
 man or at least should be handled in a modern business way. 
 
 The trustees want to know what things cost and the average 
 institution can give only summaries, and is unable to give a 
 correct analysis or a satisfactory comparison with previous 
 
214 APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 years. There should be a competent officer, who should devote 
 his entire time to the work, whose business is to study costs, 
 to analyze expenditures according to the teaching depart- 
 ments. For the teaching departments in a college or uni- 
 versity are the equivalent of the manufacturing departments 
 of an industrial enterprise. To each should be charged its 
 own direct expense and its proportionate share of all the 
 indirect expenses. The entire expenses, direct and indirect, 
 including the administration, should be divided among the 
 various teaching departments. Such an officer should advise 
 department heads monthly as to the amount of expenditures 
 under their appropriations, and should have authority to 
 prevent expenditure in excess of an appropriation. 
 
 The general features of college life, as the library, the 
 chapel and the gymnasium, are operated only because they 
 concern teaching. Following the industrial custom of charg- 
 ing overhead expenses to the various manufacturing depart- 
 ments in proportion to the wages paid in those departments, 
 the net expense of such general features of college life might 
 be charged to the various teaching departments in the propor- 
 tion of their teaching salaries. 
 
 The dormitories, however, as usually operated are pro- 
 ducers of income. If, however, a fiscal year shows a deficit 
 instead of an income from the operation of the dormitories, 
 the excess of expense over income may be charged against the 
 teaching departments in a manner similar to the case of the 
 library. The expenses of a building may be charged against 
 the building and at the end of the year divided among the 
 departments using the building in proportion to the number 
 of hours in use. 
 
 The fact should be established among all departments that 
 there must be some relation between expense and the amount 
 of work done. At most colleges this can be done by the pres- 
 ent accounting staff at no increase in cost. 
 
 The typical college building usually has its own janitor. 
 There should be a superintendent of grounds and buildings, in 
 charge also of the power plant and of all shops, with the re- 
 
S. EDGAE WHITAKEB. 215 
 
 suit of better service under centralized management. This 
 superintendent may have the direction of a corps of janitors, 
 resulting in improved service and standard and uniform con- 
 ditions of cleanliness. Methods of housekeeping may be care- 
 fully and critically studied and scientifically analyzed, and 
 the best method for each kind of work may be accurately 
 described in writing and adopted as the standard. 
 
 Many colleges have dormitories. The average college presi- 
 dent has very little idea of the number of helpers really needed 
 in the kitchen, the most convenient arrangement of the dining 
 rooms, and the most efficient method of caring for a large 
 dormitory. The result is that if he happens to hire a good 
 steward or chef, the dining room may be cared for economic- 
 ally and efficiently ; if he has a good superintendent, the sleep- 
 ing requisites and supplies may be bought with wisdom. There 
 is more likelihood that he will get a poor and indifferent 
 employee and the college will suffer in discomfort. If from 
 scientific study of conditions, certain standards along these 
 lines were adopted, it would be comparatively easy to require 
 a new steward or manager to accomplish definite results at 
 given times with a definite number of helpers. Instead of 
 depending on chance, the college would have the accumulated 
 wisdom of its past, in a definite form, recorded in writing, 
 upon which to go ahead and make progress. There would 
 then be no necessity for, nor immediate likelihood of aimless 
 drifting. Many a man, when given a standard plan, is able 
 to work satisfactorily in accord with it, and may even improve 
 it. If he depends on his own initiative altogether, he may 
 fail entirely or at the best attain only indifferent success or 
 the commonplace. 
 
 An industrial establishment has found the services of the 
 inspector very helpful and profitable in maintaining the 
 quality of its product. It may be possible that the college 
 should have a similar inspecting agency, to attain uniformity 
 in class-room methods, as to quality of teaching and as to 
 class-room discipline, with the motive of quietly averting those 
 conditions that might result in serious harm. Such an in- 
 
216 APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 spector might develop methods of training men for the teach- 
 ing staff, for in many institutions most of the assistants are 
 recent graduates without either the teaching, training or 
 experience with the world that would be helpful to them in 
 their relations with the students. As standards are adopted 
 in a college, it will be necessary to have an agency whose 
 special function will be to see that such standards are properly 
 formulated and maintained in force. This duty might be 
 assigned to the inspector. 
 
 The development of the function of purchasing agent will 
 naturally lead to the concentration of supplies of all kinds 
 in one central storeroom, from which everything used in all 
 departments may be obtained, at a great saving of time, money 
 and convenience. 
 
 The economical use of the buildings, the planning whereby 
 the various rooms may be utilized each for many more hours 
 per day might be one of the duties of the registration depart- 
 ment. And in consequence, the registrar should be responsi- 
 ble for the planning of the hours of the day when courses are 
 to be given, for he has the records indicating the desires of 
 the students as to the courses which they wish to take. If 
 rightfully and tactfully handled, many students would be led 
 to plan out their courses more intelligently and more con- 
 sistently, and the assignment of classes to rooms could be 
 more easily handled. 
 
 Among the results of the application of scientific manage- 
 ment, there will be a more genuine and hearty cooperation 
 among the colleges and universities, in the interchange of 
 helpful information and data, and even of members of the 
 teaching staff, who will find themselves as much at home in 
 the atmosphere of one institution as in another. Owing to 
 the adoption of standard methods and standard records based 
 on scientific study, comparisons of costs and efficiencies will 
 lead to more intelligent administration and the more effective 
 training of men for coping with the practical problems of 
 to-day. 
 
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN THE COLLEGES.* 
 
 BY EARLE F. PALMEE. 
 Instructor in English, The College of the City of New York. 
 
 The article in Applied Science entitled "The Place of Mo- 
 tion Study in Scientific Management, " by Frank B. Gilbreth, 
 despite several defects in style, is not only an authoritative 
 statement of what motion study is, what it has done and what 
 it proposes to do for business ; but is also a clear and concise 
 review of what scientific management itself is. It would seem 
 impossible to give a more comprehensive review of the benefits 
 attendant upon the introduction of what he calls "func- 
 tional" management. The diagrams make this already clear 
 exposition lucidity itself. On reading the article one wonders 
 why the scheme is not immediately installed, not only in every 
 manufacturing plant, but in every corporation and business of 
 whatever kind. It would seem that as soon as the plan is 
 understood, adoption must follow spontaneously. Of course 
 the thought comes into every mind to which the idea of scien- 
 tific management is new: " This would require ideal men." 
 But even with men as we find them to-day, under the most 
 adverse conditions, the scheme has so many advantages that 
 one would think it should at least be given a trial. 
 
 Perhaps it is difficult for the average business man to get 
 the idea termed ' ' functional. ' ' Those interested in any enter- 
 prise too may say : ' ' How can four foremen run my establish- 
 ment?" Or the proprietor of a smaller concern may declare 
 1 ' I can run my whole business myself ; why do I want four, 
 let alone eight men around me?" Such a man must fail to 
 realize that the numbers stand for functions not persons and 
 that "9" may stand for 98 or 1998 as well as for one. As 
 
 * An abstract of the paper by Frank B. Gilbreth, which is referred 
 to by Dr. Palmer, will be found as an appendix to this article. The 
 editor would suggest to those who are not familiar with Mr. Gilbreth 's 
 paper, that the abstract be read first. 
 
 217 
 
218 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN THE COLLEGES. 
 
 soon as the idea of scientific management gets into the mind 
 of any fair, earnest worker for the benefit of humanity, it 
 must be recognized as the only, because the ideal, way to carry 
 on work. Modified of course as it must be to suit every indi- 
 vidual concern, the plan will be found triumphantly spread- 
 ing industrial peace and prosperity in the years to come. 
 
 The place of motion study will be of more or less importance 
 depending upon the kind of output contemplated ; but in every 
 department it is of far more moment than at first appears. I 
 am thinking of it in connection with the work of education, 
 not humorously as did the author of "Motion Study at Saint 
 Catherine's," but seriously with an appreciation of what 
 hardship might be saved the little boys and girls, the growing 
 youths of our country by a carefully considered plan to ease 
 the unnecessary wear and tear of school and college life. 
 
 Because it is far easier to say to a sick man, "Thy sins be 
 forgiven thee," than it is to say, "Arise and walk," the ap- 
 plication of scientific management to school an-i college will 
 be difficult. People are not agreed as to what the product to 
 be expected is ; they have not agreed on a definition of educa- 
 tion. Any one can see whether he has a piano in the house 
 or not, but no one can see whether or not a young man 's mind 
 is properly trained. Just this is the difficulty; what do you 
 want college to do for a young man? Ought it to fit him to 
 harmonize with his environment, to prepare him to study one 
 of the so-called learned professions? Or is your theory any 
 one of the thousand other ideas that are floating about as to 
 just what education is? If one knows what the product 
 desired is, one might even get it from the colleges as they are 
 managed to-day; but if one has no idea of what he expects 
 from an education, how can he hope to be satisfied even under 
 the most ideal management? If a boy is sent to school to 
 learn to read Latin ; and if at the end of a certain time he can 
 read Latin, but cannot build a steam engine, there ought not 
 therefore be a complaint of the failure of this college-bred 
 man. 
 
 Though I have said there would be difficulties in applying 
 
EAKLE F. PALMEK. 219 
 
 Scientific Management to education, it would be interesting 
 to apply Mr. Gilbreth's diagram and vocabulary, not to the 
 phase of ' ' education ' ' which has to do with the business side 
 of college life, but with the work of real education itself. 
 
 No. 9 would be the teacher at work in the class of from 
 twenty to forty students, whose brains would be the product. 
 The teacher must impart instruction, give and record marks, 
 etc., etc. In any college to-day No. 9 would be made up of 
 instructors in a large number of subjects, each assigning work 
 to his students on the theory that his is the only subject. 
 Take the teacher of English composition, for example, who 
 meets his class two hours a week. Work enough to take up 
 the student's entire time is suggested. Indeed if the course 
 in composition occupies a term of sixteen weeks, the student 
 must spend much of his time studying the theory of com- 
 position, examining the work of masters ; and he must be con- 
 stantly practicing, if he himself is to be able to write, which 
 accomplishment ought to be the test of the product. How 
 well must he be able to write? Standardize? Surely we 
 shall be "going some" when school and college composition 
 is standardized ! But unfortunately this boy has other things 
 to do in this same sixteen weeks. He must study chemistry, 
 logic, a foreign language or two, mathematics, physics; must 
 spend time in the gymnasium; attend the meetings of his 
 fraternity ; take part in the various college activities and have 
 some social life at the same time. Think of the poor brain 
 of that boy, the product on which No. 9, the various teachers, 
 work. It just hardens to save itself that's all. He is told 
 at the end that he has an education. Nobody knows what an 
 education is, as was stated before; so it is easy to say to a 
 boy at the end of four years, "You are an educated man 
 now." This to my mind is a crime. If scientific manage- 
 ment can offer any reform, it will indeed be a happy day for 
 the people among whom it is introduced. 
 
 Indeed it would seem that the only means of salvation lies 
 in the introduction of scientific management. For each of the 
 other functions, as marked out in Mr. Gilbreth's diagram, 
 
220 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN THE COLLEGES. 
 
 would step in to help solve the problem. Here comes No. 8, 
 Mr. Inspector, who is called in college, assistant professor. 
 No, he would have to be more than that, for the assistant 
 professor would control only one subject, say English, and in 
 a college as large as the College of the City of New York, 
 would have twenty men under him. So the difficulty grows, 
 all the time, because the college of necessity must be divided 
 into departments. The trouble is that the student has only 
 one brain and only twenty-four hours in each day; and if he 
 takes work in six departments, he is bound to be swamped 
 under the present system. It would seem impracticable to 
 assign him to only one department each semester. He would 
 never get through at that rate. To return to Mr. Gilbreth's 
 terms however: No. 9 must be considered the instructor in 
 the department of, say English ; No. 8 the assistant professor 
 in the English Department, who no doubt would be able to 
 include functions No. 7, 6 and 5 (it being understood all 
 the time, that the departments of music, drawing, physics, 
 Latin, Greek, German, French, Spanish, Italian, mathematics, 
 public speaking, physical instruction, mechanical arts, polit- 
 ical science, philosophy, education, etc., etc., are equipped in 
 the same way). 
 
 No. 4, the function of discipline as it appears in the factory, 
 has to do only with Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and not at all with 
 the product. In college that function would be difficult, and 
 still confined to each department, but complicated by the fact 
 that it musit include as well, the product or student body. 
 For this reason it ought to include not only one but every 
 department. No. 3 is usually performed by a special officer, 
 called the curator or syndic, with a staff of clerks. This is 
 one function which (touches closely the business problem which 
 I am not considering at all in this paper. The instruction 
 card function 2 is included in the work of the professor. 
 Here again is a great problem, because the instructions are 
 given to the teacher by the professor in his department, with- 
 out any real consideration for what the student has to do in 
 the other departments, and must be so given if that subject is 
 
EAELE F. PALMEK. 221 
 
 to be adequately treated, which it cannot be if the other 
 subjects are given the treatment that they ought to receive. 
 Function No. 1 is also looked after by the professor in each 
 department. There is in almost every department a pre- 
 scribed course. The student must (take certain subjects in a 
 certain order, and may elect other subjects in that department 
 after a certain grade has been reached. The great problem 
 here is not so much the routing in each department as the 
 routing through the various departments. 
 
 This is the live question in the colleges to-day; and a long 
 article might be written on the way it is failing of solution 
 because each head of department feels that the importance of 
 his subject demands all the time that has heretofore been 
 assigned to it. 
 
 Cooperation, coordination, a proper balance in assignments, 
 and incidentally the student's rounded development, 
 would certainly be furthered by the introduction of scientific 
 management. 
 
 15 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THE PLACE OF MOTION STUDY IN SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.* 
 
 I can best describe "The Place of Motion Study in Scien- 
 tific Management ' ' by first showing you two kinds of manage- 
 ment. The first has been called traditional or military man- 
 agement, each man being responsible to one man above him 
 and in charge of all below him. Traditional management is 
 used in military and at times in religious and political organi- 
 zations. The division is by men and by grades of men rather 
 than by functions. The second plan of management is called 
 functional or scientific management. Here the division is by 
 functions, the first functional division being the separation of 
 the planning from the performing. While each function is 
 spoken of as being represented by one person, yet it may 
 denote such a number of individuals as may be necessary. 
 
 The functions in the planning department are: (1) Eoute 
 Clerk and Order of Work Clerk; (2) Instruction Card Clerk; 
 (3) Time and Cost Clerk; (4) Disciplinarian. Those in the 
 performing department are: (5) Gang Boss; (6) Speed Boss; 
 (7) Repair Boss; (8) Inspector; (9) Individual Worker. 
 
 Each individual worker comes in touch with eight men or 
 departments, not as a servant of eight masters, but as a 
 student of eight teachers. 
 
 No. 1. The route clerk plans in advance the path of each 
 piece of material as it passes through the shop. His function 
 is not simply to look after the details of the moving, but to 
 determine the entire transportation career of the material. 
 Often the route clerk is able greatly to simplify the path of 
 materials by rearrangement of machinery. I have had one 
 case in my experience where in a woodworking shop it was 
 
 *An abstract of a paper by Mr. Frank B. Gilbreth, read before the 
 University of Toronto Engineering Society, Friday, March 8, 1912. 
 
 222 
 
APPENDIX. 223 
 
 cheaper to have the machinery placed on heavy pieces not 
 fastened to the floor and to move it around to accommodate 
 the peculiarities of sequence of events of each large order. 
 The route clerk embodies his conclusions graphically in route 
 sheets and charts, and they are worked out in detail by the 
 instruction card department. 
 
 No. 2. The instruction card clerk must work out with the 
 greatest detail instruction cards for each part of the work 
 represented by the route sheets and charts, to show : first, the 
 worker how to perform the particular work shown on the in- 
 struction card, and second, the foreman what he is (to see that 
 the worker does perform and just what he must teach the 
 worker in order that he may perform his work to conform to 
 the instruction card. 
 
 After the worker has performed his task, a return of the 
 time his work took, together with the cost, is made to the time 
 and cost clerk, No. 3, who figures out the payrolls, the bonuses 
 and the cost of performing each task. 
 
 No. 4. The disciplinarian is the man who orders all matters 
 pertaining to disciplining. He must be a broad gauge man 
 and must be able to keep peace in the organization, to antici- 
 pate and prevent misunderstandings and to arbitrate fairly 
 such disagreements as actually took place. 
 
 The fifth function or first in the performing department is 
 that of a gang boss. The gang boss of to-day is not of the 
 " strong arm" type of man, but one who can teach the worker 
 methods shown on the instruction card. He must see that the 
 worker performs the work in the exact manner and to the 
 exact amount required. In order to get his best work, it is 
 usually necessary to pay him a bonus for each man under him 
 who in turn earns his bonus, and a double bonus if every man 
 in the gang earns the bonus. It is readily seen how such a 
 method should bring out cooperation which is essential to 
 scientific management. 
 
 The speed boss, No. 6, sees that the machinery moves at 
 exactly the right speed called for on the instruction card. 
 The speed of a buzz planer or of a circular saw is dangerous 
 
224 MOTION STUDY IN SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 when too slow. The speed of a flywheel is dangerous when too 
 fast. The most advantageous speed is called for on the in- 
 struction card, and the speed boss must be able to show the 
 worker how this speed may be maintained. 
 
 The repair boss, No. 7, not only carries out repairs after 
 breakdowns occur, but by periodic inspection and overhauling, 
 prevents as far as possible such breakdowns. 
 
 No. 8. The inspector's work differs from that of the old 
 type inspector in that it results in constructive rather than 
 destructive criticism. The inspector under traditional man- 
 agement often comes around after the work has been done, 
 condemns it and walks away. It is the duty of the inspector 
 under scientific management to stand near the worker hand- 
 ling a new piece of work to see that he thoroughly understands 
 it. In this way time, labor and material are saved. 
 
 As for the individual worker, No. 9, it will be seen that he 
 receives not only an instruction card, telling him what he is to 
 do, how he is to do it, how fast he is to do it, the quality of the 
 work to be done and the bonus he will receive for doing it, 
 but he receives personal teaching. The gang boss, the speed 
 boss, the repair boss and the inspector are ready to help him 
 when needed, and the functional foremen of the planning de- 
 partment are ready, at call, to explain their instructions. 
 
 Having shown the principal functions of scientific manage- 
 ment and their relation to each other and to the individual 
 worker, we are ready to concentrate on motion study. 
 
 The three most obvious economies to be obtained by motion 
 study would be to use (1) the fewest motions, (2) the shortest 
 motions and (3) the least fatiguing motions. These, however, 
 are but a few of the savings that may be obtained. For 
 example, a man should be given the work for which he is best 
 adapted, not as in one case that came under my observation 
 where the tallest of men performed a task that kept his hands 
 almost constantly within six inches of the floor and where the 
 smallest of men assisted in packing boxes in a pile about seven 
 feet high. 
 
 Motion study is a part of function No. 2 of the planning 
 
APPENDIX. 225 
 
 department and is an aid in making out the instruction 
 card which must show how each operation may be done 
 most economically. With motion study we class time study 
 which is very intimately related to it. Motion study theo- 
 retically is supposed to furnish measurable units for time 
 study, but the units are so small that they have not until 
 recently been timeable. Now, however, ordinary photographs, 
 stereoscopic photographs and motion picture photographs 
 enable us to measure various motions with great accuracy. 
 The results are quicker teaching, automaticity of motions and 
 less fatigue. These all permit much faster motions. 
 
 There are a great many " variables that affect the motions" 
 and I give here a partial list which will give a fair idea of 
 what we mean by the term. The variables may be divided 
 into three kinds, (1) the variables of the worker, (2) the 
 variables of surroundings and equipment, (3) variables of the 
 motion itself. Under (1) we have anatomy, contentment, 
 creed, earning power, health, temperament, etc., under (2) 
 appliances, clothes, entertainment, ventilation, lighting, 
 quality and size of material used, special fatigue eliminating 
 devices, etc., under (3) acceleration, automaticity, combination 
 with other motions, cost, effectiveness, foot-pounds of work 
 accomplished, length, path, etc. 
 
 The scheme of motion study is to discover perfection and to 
 perpetuate it automatically. After having determined the 
 right motions, the right times for the motions, and having 
 grouped them into cycles, we then determine the amount of 
 rest that must be allowed to overcome fatigue. This will give 
 us the standard task for the standard man who is the best 
 man obtainable. 
 
 Now that we have so much literature on the subject of scien- 
 tific management, why is it a fact that the progress has been 
 so remarkably slow? The answer is that many people who 
 are thoroughly familiar with the functions and duties of the 
 men and of the various departments are not familiar with the 
 pitfalls that are ever present. As has been said before, the 
 entire scheme is dependent upon the hearty cooperation of 
 
226 MOTION STUDY IN SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. 
 
 everybody in the organization, and workmen have been de- 
 ceived so many times in the past that they are naturally 
 suspicious and feel that scientific management must be 
 smothered while it is still young. Again, it may be that 
 the reason why the benefits of learning the right motions at 
 first are not recognized is because the teachers do not know 
 what the right motions are. On the other hand there has 
 never been a case where scientific management has been put 
 in properly that all the workmen did not realize that it was 
 the best form of management for them. 
 
 Now that there have been many successful demonstrations 
 of scientific management where workers receive much higher 
 wages than ever before and where costs of production are 
 lower than ever before, it seems unfortunate that the terrible 
 wastes that are going on under traditional management should 
 continue, and I hope that this university will consider seri- 
 ously the study of scientific management, not only for the 
 education of the young men who are going out in the world 
 as engineers, but also with the idea of establishing a station 
 for the collection of motion study and time study data, 
 working in cooperation with similar colleges in the United 
 States and Canada and also with various organizations who 
 are doing good work towards investigating and disseminating 
 information regarding scientific management, particularly the 
 Society to Promote the Science of Management. 
 
 The problem is too great for any one firm, corporation, or 
 college; in fact, this is work in which all English-speaking 
 nations should unite as we have already done in our investiga- 
 tions of matters pertaining to medicine, agriculture, and the 
 animal industries. 
 
 I hope to see an international bureau for the study, for 
 the collection, study, cataloguing and dissemination of data 
 relating to scientific management, that the workmen of all 
 countries may be benefited and that unnecessary wastes may 
 be eliminated. 
 
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