An Efficiency Expert and Education.

In the first decade of the twentieth century a new system of management that emphasized the most efficient and "scientific" use of resources and labor to increase industrial productivity began taking the American business world by storm. The apostle of this view of efficiency, Frederick W. Taylor, first won renown in the field of engineering. In 1896 the editor of Engineering Magazine called Taylor's first paper on scientific management "one of the most valuable contributions that has ever been given to technical literature." As additional publications followed, Taylor was frequently invited to talk to industrial groups; by 1906 his fame was so widespread that he was elected president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. At the end of the decade there were few people inside or outside the business world who had not heard about Taylor's exciting ideas about efficiency. Impressed...