FUNDAMENTAL SOURCES OF EFFICIENCY BY FLETCHER DURELJ, Ph. D. HEAD OF THE MATHEMATICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE LAWRENCEVILLE SCHOOL AUTHOR OF A SERIES OF MATHEMATICAL TEXTBOOKS PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1914 . COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To My Wife PREFACE The present work is an attempt to analyze the various forms and sources of efficiency into a few elemental principles. It is felt that the study of such primal elements will not only aid in the ...
Read More
FUNDAMENTAL SOURCES OF EFFICIENCY BY FLETCHER DURELJ, Ph. D. HEAD OF THE MATHEMATICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE LAWRENCEVILLE SCHOOL AUTHOR OF A SERIES OF MATHEMATICAL TEXTBOOKS PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1914 . COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To My Wife PREFACE The present work is an attempt to analyze the various forms and sources of efficiency into a few elemental principles. It is felt that the study of such primal elements will not only aid in the mastery of efficiency in a given field, but will prevent this important idea from assuming a narrow meaning and thus leading to limited or even, in some respects, harmful results. The above treatment of the subject also facilitates, on the one hand, the use of efficiency principles in all the various details of work and experience and, on the other, their application in the formation of a general philosophy of life. While the book has been cast in a form adapted to general read ing, groups of exercises have been inserted which, it is hoped, will add to its value if it is used as a textbook in any institution where the principles of efficiency are taught either generally or in any specific field. It is also believed that such a presentation of the principles of efficiency may throw light on the problem of vocational and cultural studies, and perhaps suggest how the study of the principles of efficiency, as such, may be made a central study in educational systems, helping to give both vocational and cultural values to other more conventional studies. The leading ideas contained in this book were suggested to the author when reading the philosophy of Herbert Spencer morethan twenty years ago. The importance of investigating the elements which constitute fitness, that is, efficiency, becomes evident as soon as the principle of the survival of the fittest is recognized. While all the principal ideas in the book were thus arrived at before the present energetic movement toward efficiency in more or less con crete fields arose, new light and many important details have been, obtained from a reading of the publications of the Efficiency So ciety, and the works of writers like F. W. Taylor, Harrington Emerson, and Hugo Miinsterburg. The writer wishes to express his indebtedness to Ida Kruse McFarlane and Charles William Cuno of the Department of Effi ciency, University of Denver, who have kindly read the manuscript and made important suggestions concerning the same. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. DEFINITIONS AND FIRST PRINCIPLES i II. REUSE 15 III. THE UNIT AND ITS MULTIPLIER 34 IV. THE GROUP 56 V. MULTIPLICATIVE GROUPS 70 VI. ORDERS OF MATERIAL 95 VII. EXTERNALITY in VIII. UNIFORMITY AND DIVERSITY 130 IX. EXPENDITURES AND RESULTS 152 X. SYMBOLISM . . . . 164 XL DIRECTIVE 192 XII. KINEMATIC AND DYNAMIC 210 XIII. RHYTHM 230 XIV. DIALECTIC 249 XV. LIMITATION 265 XVI. ERROR AND PARADOX 281 XVII. COMBINATIONS OF EFFICIENTS. SUMMARY 301 XVIII. APPLICATIONS 309 APPENDIX A. THE CATEGORIES AND A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 333 B. HISTORICAL SURVEY 350 CHAPTER I PRELIMINARY SURVEY. DEFINITIONS Recent Advances in Efficiency In the year 1900 a competent authority estimated that the cost of unskilled labor, such as digging dirt and carrying burdens, when done by man unaided, was one thousand times as great as the cost of the same labor when done by the aid of the best steam engines.But even since that statement was made, there has been remarkable progress. For instance the Diesel oil and tar engine, which is. three, or under some circumstances four times as efficient as the steam engine, has been invented and come into use. When he was a young man Harrington Emerson, on one oc casion, had an opportunity to watch the work of digging the Suez Canal...
Read Less
