those immediately around them, there are many different ways in common
use for doing the same thing, perhaps forty, fifty, or a hundred ways of
doing each act in each trade, and for the same reason there is a great
variety in the implements used for each class of work. Now, among the
various methods and implements used in each element of each trade there
is always one method and one implement which is quicker and better than
any of the rest.

And this one best method and best implement can only be discovered or
developed through a scientific study and analysis of all of the methods
and implements in use, together with accurate, minute, motion and time
study. This involves the gradual substitution of science for rule of
thumb throughout the mechanic arts.

This paper will show that the underlying philosophy of all of the old
systems of management in common use makes it imperative that each
workman shall be left with the final responsibility for doing his job
practically as he thinks best, with comparatively little help and advice
from the management. And it will also show that because of this
isolation of workmen, it is in most cases impossible for the men working
under these systems to do their work in accordance with the rules and
laws of a science or art, even where one exists.

The writer asserts as a general principle (and he proposes to give
illustrations tending to prove the fact later in this paper) that in
almost all of the mechanic arts the science which underlies each act of
each workman is so great and amounts to so much that the workman who is
best suited to actually doing the work is incapable of fully
understanding this science, without the guidance and help of those who
are working with him or over him, either through lack of education or