EFFICIENCY SOCIETY, a movement, not for promoting efficiency in the field where engineers have already done so much, but rather for extending the principles of efficient engineering to all other relations of life. The 18th was the theologic century, when man's chief thought was his relations to the Deity. The 19th was the scientific century, when man was much concerned with his rela tion to nature and its forces. The 20th century will be known as the efficient century, when• the world demanded of every man and institution, as it demanded of every approved machine, that its work be done better, quicker or cheaper, under penalty of discard, and this meant raising the ratio of results achieved to efforts expended, which is the engineer's definition of efficiency. From creation whenever any man made a dis tinct effort to improve his methods or his tools so to get greater results from the time and labor spent, he had in him the elements of the efficiency expert. Steam is as old as the first hot fire under water, and electricity is coeval with the lightning, but the age of steam and electricity is recent. This is the century of efficiency; for in its early years attention was widely drawn to the fact that the progress to which the world aspired was possible only by applying to all of life the lessons learned from machines. Every method, man or institution that maintains its place must prove ability to do something that the busy world wants either better or quicker or cheaper. America leads the world because she studied profoundly her ma chines. She standardized, and thus both im proved output and greatly reduced cost. She cut out every useless part and every needless pound. She added power and speed and elim inated every false motion. As a result she made thousands of useful articles at 50 per cent, 20 per cent, 10 per cent or even 1 per cent of their previous cost in time and labor, i.e., she in creased that efficiency 2 to 100 fold. Man with his machines became as a god. Instead of a birch bark canoe he built ships that would carry all the inhabitants of 20 villages of 400 people each and cost as much as all the land and houses of 100 such villages. He sent trains carrying a thousand people through tunnels and solid rock, under cities and rivers. at 10 times the speed of a footman. He sails under the sea or through the air with the speed and accuracy of fish and bird. He talks as if in the same room across a continent or under the Atlantic. He omits the wire and in a few seconds can send his message to every part of the boundless sea. In his phonograph we hear the familiar voices of those long dead, and on the screen their pictures move exactly as th did in life. Man saw these miracles of effi ciency on every side and began to question strongly everything in life: °Are we giving this more time, thought, labor or capital than absolutely necessary to produce results fully up to efficiency standard, or what the golfer would call Modern life is more or less a race or struggle in which only the fittest can survive the fierce competition between individ uals, corporations, communities, states or na tions. They keep adding speed and power and looking for any useless pound of weight that can be thrown overboard. In the great contests of life the leaders strip like athletes in the Olympic games. But still in a time of coal
famine experts startle us with their claim that we often really use only 5 or 10 per cent of the heat locked up in the coal we burn. Many food supplies yield the farmer who produces perhaps half what he should have, yet the laborer who buys in small quantities pays double what he can afford for that same article. This means low efficiency in the farm-to-family machine. See FARMERS' CO-OPERATIVE MOVE MENT.
College graduates often show unfitness to transact simple business after giving 16 years to training for life, and we cry for more effi cient education. We have countless millions in our churches and they have done great good, yet in great crises of war, panic or plague, we deplore that more of the efficiency of the Amer ican machine is not found in our churches. We hear of millions dying for lack of food and shelter and learn that with our boasted effi ciency in many lines we are the most wasteful nation the world has known. The new idea was that by persistent, systematic study and comparison of experiments and experience we might approximate in the manifold relations of life an increased efficiency comparable to that so obvious in our machines. This great idea appealed to leaders and thinkers in many fields. Over a thousand joined the Efficiency Society organized at a national convention held in the Engineering Building, New York, 18 March 1912. J. G. Cannon, president of the Fourth National Bank, was president, and its officers and committees included many of the best known men in America. Its constitution says °its object is to promote efficiency or percentage of results obtained relative to effort expended in every activity of man and in everything he employs." On 12 Feb. 1916, the National In stitute of Efficiency was incorporated in Wash ington to supplement the work of the older society by making widely available throughout the country the results of research and experi ments as developed and focalized by its com mittees. On its board of governors were lead ers from a dozen different States. The eeneral absorption in the Great War led both Society and Institute to defer much of the work planned, and later they were combined in a single National Efficiency Society incorporated in Washington but with headquarters at 119 West 40th street, New York, where fuller in formation can be had. It publishes a quarterly and has made The Independent its official jour nal, sent weekly to all members. It also pub lishes efficiency monographs from time to time and provides free or at reduced cost books and pamphlets of special interest to its members. It plans meetings and provides speakers, and through its officers and committees tries to focalize and disseminate for the public good anything likely to be widely useful to those specially interested in increasing efficiency. It does not assume to go into details of special callings, which are best treated by their own local and national associations. It is thus a union of those willing to turn over for the common good the results of their own studies, and all such are welcomed to its membership. In friendly co-operation with the leaders of other enlightened nations its ultimate goal can be safely prophesied as "The Federation of the World for Greater Efficiency.* Me vu. Dzweir, President, National Efficiency Society.