FREDERICK WINSLOW TAYLOR. 871 



He was born in Germantown, Pa., in the year 1856. His early 

 education was in America and two years in France and Germany. 

 He was prepared at Phillips Exeter to enter Harvard in 1S74 l)ut his 

 eyesight failed and he became an apprentice in the Enterprise Hy- 

 draulic Works from 1875 to 1878. Then owing to business depression 

 he took a job as laborer in the Midvale Steel Works, where his ideas 

 on the subject of greater system in the management of industry began 

 to form themselves. Six years from the time of entering the Midvale 

 Company he was Chief Engineer. In 1880 he began at night the 

 engineering course as required at Stevens Institute, where he obtained 

 the degree of Mechanical Engineer in 1883. 



He left INIidvale in 1890, having inaugurated a system of shop 

 management and having increased the output from two hundred to 

 three hundred per cent. From 1890 to '93 he was manager of the 

 Manufacturing Investment Company, operating paper mills in Maine. 

 From then on he was consulting engineer on machine-shop efficiency. 

 He was employed by the Bethlehem Steel Company and there made 

 the investigation on tool steel and with Mr. Maunsel W'hite discovered 

 the process of heat treatment which has revolutionized shop practice. 

 He presented his system of shop management to the American Society 

 of Mechanical Engineers in a paper called "The Piece Rate System" 

 and in 1906, when he was president of the Society, he presented the 

 result of twenty-six years' investigation in an exhaustive paper on 

 "The Art of Cutting Metal." This was a splendid example of scien- 

 tific research by an engineer in active practice of his profession. He 

 died on March 21, 1915. 



The term "scientific management," under which his work will 

 probably be known, was devised by Mr. Taylor and gained currency 

 chiefly through the testimony of Louis D. Brandeis before a committee 

 of Congress on the Railroad Petition for a Raise in Rates. If the 

 writer of the above may be permitted to comment through his per- 

 sonal acquaintance with Mr. Taylor, he would say that the system 

 never was intended or planned to fetter in any way the enterprise of 

 workmen but was thought by the inventor to be a method of promoting 

 ambition and the highest good of every workman as well as of society. 

 His system, scientific management, is simply a plan under which the 

 work of the industries can be done effectively and with a minimum 

 expenditure of energy. It has come to stay because it has called 

 attention to absolutely necessary organization if mankind is to have a 

 real and lasting benefit from the inventions that followed the use of 

 the steam engine and of stored energy. 



I. N. HOLLIS. 



