SECTION 31. CONCLUSION CONCERNING CONCLUSIONS. 407 



elements, and then reconstructing it along purely scientific lines, 

 would have been dismissed as visionary. Employers would have 

 contended that such an investigation may occupy months and 

 even years; that it would interfere with production; and that 

 it could not materially improve the practice of their generation. 

 Yet to-day industrial methodology has reached in several direc- 

 tions almost the acme of scientific proficiency. The manner, 

 for instance, in which motion studies, whose aim is the reduc- 

 tion of human movements in operations to the lowest practicable 

 degree, are conducted, would probably not discredit the most 

 punctilious of physicists or chemists. Frequently a year/ or 

 even two years, are spent on doing justice to a single process; 

 machinery is created for the purpose; and the cost of such a 

 study would ruin many a small firm. 



Hitherto only the more elementary processes and the organi- 

 sation aspects have been radically reconstructed (see Conclu- 

 sion 10 for reasoned summary); but this is merely because 

 one must begin with the lowest rungs of the ladder. Gradually 

 the problems of accuracy, resourcefulness, improvement, in- 

 vention and discovery, self-training, initiative, quickness of 

 decision, et hoc omne genus, will be just as thoroughly dealt 

 with as movements of mind consisting of elements capable 

 of being arranged according to an exacting ideal and yet 

 readily acquired by the average individual until an industrial 

 methodology will be elaborated of a character far exceeding 

 in thoroughness our present scientific methodologies. Com- 

 petition a generation ago induced employers to turn away with 

 scorn from the application of scientific methods to the problems 

 of efficiency. Competition to-day is leading many employers 

 to expend appreciable sums in order to increase the efficiency 

 of their establishments by having recourse to the scientific re- 

 organiser. Thus we are faced by the picture of the Cinderella, 

 Industrialism, coming to the aid of the Princess, Science, and 

 building up a system of methodology which is ultimately destined 

 to enhance prodigiously the progress of the physical, biological, 

 and specio-psychic sciences. 



Commerce and Industry have therefore a great future before 

 them. Efficiency means elimination of waste, a studious care 

 not only of materials, but of human beings. Efficiency also 

 means training and organisation. The feverish competition of 

 the past, with the endless suffering which it entailed, the colos- 

 sal waste it was responsible for, and the poor type of morality 

 it encouraged, is hence bound to pass. Its place will be taken 

 by a system of production, accumulation, distribution, consump- 

 tion, finance, and insurance, based on scientific principles, and 

 conducted by communities rather than by individuals. The 

 stupid workman and the grasping capitalist will cease to be, 

 and individual productivity and general well-being will 

 greatly enhanced. Every factory and office will be a laboratory, 



