July 10, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



43 



However, this weakness is by no means 

 an insuperable objection to the present 

 point of view of educational costs. It is 

 sufficient, at least until the whole subject 

 of cost accountancy shall have been put on 

 a more scientific basis, to do in the educa- 

 tiona;l what is done in the industrial plant : 

 to compute costs on the basis of the work- 

 man-hour, even if the efficiency of the work- 

 man can not be accurately determined nor 

 all the labor be adequately supervised. 



When the management of an industrial 

 plant investigates the question of costs it is 

 for the purpose of determining the exact 

 cost of each article produced, in order that 

 the selling price may be fixed and a profit 

 assured. 



The educational plant disclaims all in- 

 tention of making a profit, and has no cus- 

 tomer, nor any product which is sold. 

 When the management of an educational 

 plant investigates the question of costs 

 what is its purpose ? 



It has been said that it is well "to com- 

 pare the cost of instruction per student 

 hour" — the cost per workman-hour — in one 

 department with the cost in another, and 

 that ' ' high cost will call for explanation and 

 justification." The former assertion may 

 be accepted as true without accepting the 

 latter as a necessary consequence. It is 

 quite as logical to say that low cost will call 

 for explanation and justification. The 

 analogy^ between the industrial plant and 

 the educational institution would seem to 

 be an ignis fatuus destined to lead the in- 

 vestigator wandering into the morass of 

 logical inconsequence. 



5 "Analogy: a resemblance of relations; an 

 agreement or likeness between things in some eir- 

 cumstanees or effects, wben the things are other- 

 wise entirely different. ' ' 



^, f educational 1 , , f an m- 



ihe { ■ J , . , f plant makes i 



t industrial J [a tan- 



tangible 1 J ^ f not to be sold 1 , 

 gible jP'-odnetl ^ ^^ ^^^^ | at a 



profit. In the industrial plant, the lower 

 the cost the greater the profit. Therefore, 



the \ ■ J f • 1 ( Pl^^t should produce at 



the lowest cost possible. This would seem 

 to be the argument. It may be allowed to 

 stand on its own merits. 



In the second place, there can be no valid 

 comparison of the costs of widely dissimilar 

 products. If an industrial plant makes tin 

 cups at a cost of 25 cents and silver cups at 

 a cost of 25 dollars per working hour, surely 

 the high cost of the silver cup, as compared 

 with the tin cup, does not call for explana- 

 tion and justification. If in a factory, in a 

 given number of hours, say one hundred, 

 there are made 1,000 silver cups by 100 men 

 at a cost of 25 dollars each, 100 silver flag- 

 ons by 50 men at a cost of 100 dollars each, 

 and a single silver ewer by one man at a 

 cost of 500 dollars, the costs per workman 

 hour are $2.50, $2 and $5 respectively. 

 Now it may be perfectly true, as has been 

 said, that "the principle of efficiency" — or 

 the principle of economic common sense, 

 for that matter — "demands that the ex- 

 penditure be commensurate with the results 

 produced." But whether the results be 

 commensurate or not can not be determined 

 by comparing expenditures only. Cer- 

 tainly it can not be said that expenditure 

 and results are not commensurate in the 

 case of the silver ewer because the cost per 

 ewer working hour is double the cost per 

 cup working hour. The results may be, for 

 the cups a ten per cent, profit, or $2,500; 

 for the ewer a 500 per cent, profit, or $2,500. 

 Even if the profit on the ewer were only ten 

 per cent., or $50, still the ewer might be a 

 Cellinian masterpiece, which counts as "re- 

 sults" even in business. Mechanical engi- 



