MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
143 
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND THE WAGE EARNER. 
Efficiency programs are attracting much attention in this country at 
the present time because nearly all of the great expanse of land found 
within the borders of Ihe United States has been taken up and the vast 
natural resources of the nation have been tapped. We are entering a 
period of diminishing returns ; and a period in which increasing atten- 
tion will be directed toward small economies that were not considered 
worthy of notice a generation ago. “The cream has been skimmed off 
the pan of our natural resources.” Also, factory legislation, laws as 
to hours of labor and the activity of labor organizations are tending 
to raise the level of wages and to increase the expenses of operating a 
business. As a consequence, employers are being stimulated to adopt 
more efficient methods. 
Many indications point to the conclusion that modern industrial na- 
tions are passing over the threshold of a new era in industrial and 
social progress. We are about to enter upon a period marked by the 
rapid increase in the use of machinery and of carefully planned methods 
of doing work, — witness, for example, the glass-bottle blowing machine, 
the giant mail order house with its systematized large-scale distribu- 
tion of goods, and the farmer’s use of engines drawing gang-plows. The 
term, “industrial revolution,” has heretofore been applied to the rapid 
adoption of new tools and machines. 
“Social invention” is to be typical of the epoch just ahead. And what 
may be tabulated under the head of social invention, efficiency engineer- 
ing or scientific management? Efficient combinations of labor-saving 
machines, accurate information as to the time and energy required to 
do specific jobs, motion studies of different craftsmen, and psychologi- 
cal studies of the kinds of incentives which most effectively stimulate 
workers to do their work efficiently, — these are some of the important 
planks in the efficiency program. 
Scientific management or efficiency engineering is concerned with two 
somewhat interrelated matters: 1. The efficient systematization of the 
work in a given factory from the engineering or the mechanical point of 
view,— the routing of the work, proper cutting speeds, the care of tools 
and machines, and the like. 2. The second factor is psychological in 
its nature; it relates to the effective methods of “energizing” the workers 
by providing potent incentives and stimulating interest in the work. 
The first is the more simple of the two problems but it cannot be carried 
out successfully without solving the psychological problem. Technical 
improvements in methods will be introduced as were machines of vari- 
ous kinds in spite of the opposition of the wage earners. But the second 
portion of the program of the efficiency engineer cannot be forced thru. 
It cannot be secured by coercion; it can only be effectively carried out 
when the wage earners harmoniously cooperate with the managers in 
working out the proposed plan. The fundamental problem of efficiency 
