individual is allowed free scope for his personal ambition. Personal
ambition always has been and will remain a more powerful incentive to
exertion than a desire for the general welfare. The few misplaced
drones, who do the loafing and share equally in the profits with the
rest, under cooperation are sure to drag the better men down toward
their level.

"The second and almost equally strong reason for failure lies in the
remoteness of the reward. The average workman (I don't say all men)
cannot look forward to a profit which is six months or a year away. The
nice time which they are sure to have today, if they take things easily,
proves more attractive than hard work, with a possible reward to be
shared with others six months later.

"Other and formidable difficulties in the path of cooperation are, the
equitable division of the profits, and the fact that, while workmen are
always ready to share the profits, they are neither able nor willing to
share the losses. Further than this, in many cases, it is neither right
nor just that they should share either in the profits or the losses,
since these may be due in great part to causes entirely beyond their
influence or control, and to which they do not contribute."

Of all the ordinary systems of management in use (in which no accurate
scientific study of the time problem is undertaken, and no carefully
measured tasks are assigned to the men which must be accomplished in a
given time) the best is the plan fundamentally originated by Mr. Henry
R. Towne, and improved and made practical by Mr. F. A. Halsey. This plan
is described in papers read by Mr. Towne before The American Society of
Mechanical Engineers in 1886, and by Mr. Halsey in 1891, and has since
been criticized and ably defended in a series of articles appearing in