VERY BAD CONDITIONS AND AN AVERAGED GROUP OF MEN. AVERAGE ATTAINMENT 10 PER CENT.
Each individual starts along the life line AD at A. Some get no farther than 1, others progress as far as Z still others press on tu higher positions until the best man of all, a superman (9) makes D. The position on the line AD is determined by the characteristics of the individual, by heredity, is the same kind of difference as exists between the _eagle and the rooster, in the egg scarcely distinguishable. If all the 9 men that entered at A were of the quality of number 9, they would all ultimately bunch about D.
is now 50 per cent instead of 10 per cent. Under these bettered conditions it is no harder for man 9 to reach 100 per cent absolute than it was under bad conditions to reach 20 per cent absolute. Under both conditions this man is doing twice as much as a normal standard (half of the best record) and any unusual per formance is not a matter for expectation or of requirement but of free will. Men ought not to be permitted to be slackers and we can con sider all workers below the average of their class and group as slackers and near-slackers. Neither has the community any right to de a performance above the average. In war when extra-hazardous work impends vol unteers are called for. Similarily in industrial life, it is a matter for the individual to decide whether he will be 20, 50, 100 per cent better than the average., The obligation of the com munity not to discourage, hinder and prevent super performance is even greater than to pre vent slacking. The world owes its advances and the progress of civilization to the super man, to the Columbus, the Newton.
It is of course possible to collect a group built of superworkers, as in a league base ball team, or in the best college foot ball teams, or in an orchestra, or in a circus, where every living performer is a star. Such groups will always be abnormal, but the superman of one age may be the average man of a better age.
performance of supermen under best conditions is about 10 times as productive as that of the average man under bad conditions.
It is as distinctly the province of efficiency to discover and state best industrial methods as is it the province of moralists to discover and attain universally highest morality, the prov ince of educators to outline and attain uni versally highest knowledge, the province of health specialists to outline and attain for us all highest physical soundness. Efficiency is not
a new phenomena, it has, however, only re cently been clearly recognized and studied. Some of the best examples of efficiency prac tice have been outside of industrial lines. An orchestra is one of the best instances of effi ciency organization and efficiency attainment. The leader is a trained and experienced special ist of great and unusual aptitude. Every worker is a superman, of special aptitude, train ing and experience. He is equipped with mar velously perfect tools or instsuments. The work is also planned in advanoe, with written standard practice instructions, scheduling it most minutely not only as to time but as to quality. The work is dispatched and executed to the fraction of a second. No man plays in dependently but all are exactly adjusted to each other, yet the players like it and thrive under it and the best are abundantly rewarded. But orchestras are very old.
A more modern example is that of the trot ting horse. The trotting horse men, who may not know what the word efficiency means, have nevertheless elaborated the very best plans for attaining it: (1) They began with heredity, counting more on blood and descent as a foundation than on anything else; (2) the dam of the colt and the colt itself are given the best of environment (3) the training begins early and is continuous;. (4) actual experience and tests follow; (5) there is the most skilled leadership.
So much for the physiological and psycho logical problems. Lastly, conditions are stand ardized to the utmost. Harness in all its parts, sulky in all its parts, shoes, track (shape, bank ing and surface). Operations are then stand ardized. stop watch was first used on trotting horses. Race horse men were familiar with fifths of seconds and their value long be fore time studies were thought of in industrial shops. The first photographic motion studies ever made were by Muybridge of trotting horses. Since the record of 2.40 of Flora Temple about 1840, the improvement has been steady to the present record of 1.58. Probably one-half of this is due to improved heredity, the other half to improved environment, train ing, education and accessories. As a conse quence the performance of the trotter is the performance of the superhorse under best of conditions. The best trotting horse can travel at the rate of a mile in two minutes. Under the usual conditions of trail a horse or mule does well to travel a mile in 20 minutes.