Page:Principles of scientific management.djvu/101

97 were slow—(the substitution of girls with a low personal coefficient for those whose personal coefficient was high)—the scientific selection of the workers.

The illustrations have thus far been purposely confined to the more elementary types of work, so that a very strong doubt must still remain as to whether this kind of cooperation is desirable in the case of more intelligent mechanics, that is, in the case of men who are more capable of generalization, and who would therefore be more likely, of their own volition, to choose the more scientific and better methods. The following illustrations will be given for the purpose of demonstrating the fact that in the higher classes of work the scientific laws which are developed are so intricate that the high-priced mechanic needs (even more than the cheap laborer) the cooperation of men better educated than himself in finding the laws, and then in selecting, developing, and training him to work in accordance with these laws. These illustrations should make perfectly clear our original proposition that in practically all of the mechanic arts the science which underlies each workman^s act is so great and amounts to so much that the workman who is best suited to actually doing the work is incapable, either through lack of education or through insufficient mental capacity, of understanding this science. A doubt, for instance, will remain in the minds perhaps of most readers (in the case of an establishment which manufactures the same machine, year