MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
145 
for a shorter working day. From the viewpoint of the wage earner the 
second alternative is not repulsive. His ideal is not necessarily maxi- 
mum productivity per worker per day; but a condition in which work 
and recreation are blended for each and every individual. And if econ- 
omics is ‘‘the reasoned activity of a people tending toward the satis- 
faction of its needs,” shall the economist calmly assert that the wage 
earner’s ideal is one worthy only of contemptuous rejection? 
Before passing to a consideration of the conditions which are requisite 
for the successful outcome of scientific management, it seems appropri- 
ate to notice some of. the points made by Mr. F. W. Taylor in his recent 
book, “The Principles of Scientific Management.” These points have a 
direct bearing upon the later discussion of the topic under consideration. 
Mr. Taylor declares that under an adequate system of scientific man- 
agement, “each man should daily be taught by and receive the most 
friendly help from those who are over him, instead of being, at the one 
extreme, driven or coerced by his bosses, and at the other left to his 
own unaided devices.” In this manner, it is urged “systematic soldier- 
ing” on the one hand and injurious speeding-up on the other hand will 
be avoided. But is it reasonable to expect that the workers will will- 
ingly and contentedly leave the determination of the definition of sys- 
tematic soldiering and injurious speeding-up to the inevitably prejudiced 
judgment of their employers? 
The model workman from the standpoint of the typical efficiency en- 
gineer is the vigorous man who freely expends all of liis surplus energy 
during working hours and who utilizes his non-working hours on ly for 
recuperation and preparation for another day’s work. It is not the 
purpose of efficiency engineering to allow the worker to depart from 
the door of the factory at night with more than a minimum of surplus 
energy for recreation, for family life, for civic duties, or for trade union 
activities. In short, I find little in the actual program of efficiency 
engineering which indicates that the wage earner is to be given oppor- 
tunity for individual development, — and I have not overlooked the vari- 
ous paternalistic endeavors classified as welfare work. A human ma- 
chine rather than a man is the “model workman.” I also find little, 
or more accurately nothing, in Mr. Taylor’s book which indicates that 
he appreciates or sympathizes with the viewpoint of the wage earner. 
Mr. Taylor informs us that a long series of experiments has shown 
that an increase in wages up to sixty per cent beyond the wages usually 
paid has a good effect upon the men. But, “on the other hand, when 
they receive much more than a sixty per cent increase in wages, many of 
them will work irregularly and tend to become more or less shiftless, 
extravagant, and dissipated. Our experiments showed, in other words, 
that it does not do for most men to get rich too fast.” But what of the 
efficiency of the corporation which receives large increases in its rate of 
profits? How do such increases affect the alertness of the managers, 
the adoption of improved methods, machines and safety appliances? 
Can the workers or the consumers afford to allow an employing corpora- 
tion to increase its rate of profits? If so, how rapidly and how much? 
This is an unworked field of efficiency engineering. And our efficiency 
engineers are not enthusiastically interested in investigations of 
this sort. 
CC 
Soldiering 
19 
on the part of wage earners in the United States is 
