Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators by Helen Marot
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page 5 of 106 (04%)
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processes to the standard of greatest efficiency.
The standard of mechanical efficiency as it was set by Germany was one of refined brutality. During the progress of the war, the significance of that standard is being grafted into the consciousness of the common people of those nations which have opposed Germany in arms. It is the industrial efficiency of Germany, uninhibited by a sense of human development that has made her victories possible. It is that efficiency which has kept a large part of the world on the defensive for over three and a half years. Germany's military strategy is, in the main, her industrial strategy; it represents her efficiency in turning technology to the account of an imperial purpose. But those organizations of manufacturers and business politicians who believe that the same schemes of efficiency will function in America will call upon the people after the war, it is safe to predict, to emulate the methods which have given Germany its untoward strength. While it is these methods which have made much hated Germany a menace to the world and while the menace is felt by our own people, the significance of the methods is but vaguely realized. It is probable that after the war it will be said that it was not the German methods which were objectionable, but that it was their use in an international policy. Before the time for reconstruction comes, I hope we shall discover how intrinsically false those methods are; and how untrue to the growth process is the sort of efficiency Germany has developed. I hope also that we shall realise that a policy of paternalism has no place in the institutional life of our own country. Before the war these German methods bore the character of high success, and they had a large following in this country. There are indeed many thousands of men and women in the United States, who, |
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