EDITORIAL. 
per cent. had been recorded. Another factor of importance is the reduc- 
tion in the amount of spoiled work. The cost of lighting forms only a 
small proportion, in some cases less than 1 per cent., of the wages bill. 
Good industrial lighting is therefore amply justified on economic as 
well as on humanitarian grounds. 
STANDARDIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
The American Society for Testing Materials has recently held its 
annual meeting at Atlantic City, N.J. One of the special features 
of the meeting was the great expansion of co-operative work with other 
societies, and with testing and research laboratories. From the papers 
read at the meeting, it is evident that there is great activity in the 
United States in every branch of research relating to engineering work 
and building construction. At the Conference, various matters were 
dealt with under the head of Standardization; and, dealing with the 
subject of International Standardization, one speaker asserted that 
“Nothing will promote international trade co-operation and good 
fellowship so much as the establishment of .vide and mutually satis- 
factory standards,” some of which he said are the metric system, the 
centigrade thermometrical seale, an international coinage system, and the 
like. 
Special attention is being paid in the United States to the stan- 
dardization of reinforced concrete. The American Society of Civil 
Engineers, the American Railway Engineering Association, the American 
Concrete Institute, and the Portland Cement Association have joined 
with the Society for Testing Materials in forming a Committee to 
arrange for an organization to deal with the subject of Standardization 
of Reinforced Concrete. : 
LARGE SCALE EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH IN AMERICA. 
The Hon. W. C. Redfield, Secretary of Commerce in the United 
States, in giving recently an account of what is being done in the 
States to restore industry to a peace basis, and to improve it in the 
future, stated that the industrial success of Germany arose out of two 
causes—first, the appreciation of the science which underlay each 
industry, its study and its application in the industry; and, secondly, 
the training of the mind as well as the hand of the worker, so that he 
should understand both how to do a thing properly and why that was 
the proper way. Néither in Great Britain nor in America has scien- 
tific research or vocational training been conspicuous, or even visible, 
in industry. Both are now being introduced in America as quickly as 
possible. Experimental cotton and woollen mills, a paper mill, and a 
rolling mill, have already been established, and other industrial labora- 
tories are to follow; so that any problem which affects a whole industry 
can be at once worked out on a practical scale. In England, the Indus- 
trial Research Associations being established in connexion with the 
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research are making similar 
provision for their particular industries. On the educational side, in 
the States the Federal Board for Vocational Education is distributing 
large and increasing sums to each State of the Union to insure to every 
worker a knowledge of the why of his wark. 
BOD 
