outline what the writer believes will be recognized as the best type of
management which is in common use. This is done So that the great
difference between the best of the ordinary management and scientific
management may be fully appreciated.

In an industrial establishment which employs say from 500 to 1000
workmen, there will be found in many cases at least twenty to thirty
different trades. The workmen in each of these trades have had their
knowledge handed down to them by word of mouth, through the many years
in which their trade has been developed from the primitive condition, in
which our far-distant ancestors each one practiced the rudiments of many
different trades, to the present state of great and growing subdivision
of labor, in which each man specializes upon some comparatively small
class of work.

The ingenuity of each generation has developed quicker and better
methods for doing every element of the work in every trade. Thus the
methods which are now in use may in a broad sense be said to be an
evolution representing the survival of the fittest and best of the ideas
which have been developed since the starting of each trade. However,
while this is true in a broad sense, only those who are intimately
acquainted with each of these trades are fully aware of the fact that in
hardly any element of any trade is there uniformity in the methods which
are used. Instead of having only one way which is generally accepted as
a standard, there are in daily use, say, fifty or a hundred different
ways of doing each element of the work. And a little thought will make
it clear that this must inevitably be the case, since our methods have
been handed down from man to man by word of mouth, or have, in most
cases, been almost unconsciously learned through personal observation.
Practically in no instances have they been codified or systematically