In preparation for this system the writer realized that the greatest
obstacle to harmonious cooperation between the workmen and the
management lay in the ignorance of the management as to what really
constitutes a proper day's work for a workman. He fully realized that
although he was foreman of the shop, the combined knowledge and skill of
the workmen who were under him was certainly ten times as great as his
own. He therefore obtained the permission of Mr. William Sellers, who
was at that time the President of the Midvale Steel Company, to spend
some money in a careful, scientific study of the time required to do
various kinds of work.

Mr. Sellers allowed this more as a reward for having, to a certain
extent, "made good" as foreman of the shop in getting more work out of
the men, than for any other reason. He stated, however, that he did not
believe that any scientific study of this sort would give results of
much value.

Among several investigations which were undertaken at this time, one was
an attempt to find some rule, or law, which would enable a foreman to
know in advance how much of any kind of heavy laboring work a man who
was well suited to his job ought to do in a day; that is, to study the
tiring effect of heavy labor upon a first-class man. Our first step was
to employ a young college graduate to look up all that had been written
on the subject in English, German, and French. Two classes of
experiments had been made: one by physiologists who were studying the
endurance of the human animal, and the other by engineers who wished to
determine what fraction of a horse-power a man-power was. These
experiments had been made largely upon men who were lifting loads by
means of turning the crank of a winch from which weights were suspended,