"Twelve Principles of Efficiency"

“The type for the great newspaper is set up by linotype operators. Apprenticeship is rigorously limited. Some operators can never get beyond the 2500-em class, others with no more personal effort can set 5000 ems. Do the employers test out applicants for apprenticeship so as to be sure to secure boys who will develop into the 5000-em class? They do not: they select applicants for any near reason except the fundamental important one of innate fitness.”

“The schedule is a moral contract or agreement with the men as to a particular machine operation, rate of wages and time. Any change in men calls for a new schedule.”

“We have not put our trust in Kings; let us not put it in natural resources, but grasp the truth that exhaustless wealth lies in the latent and as yet undeveloped capacities of individuals, of corporations, of States.”

“The individual effort method of increasing the reward of the wage-earner includes all that is best in other methods, and attempts to exclude all that is objectionable. Its good points are summed up as follows:”

“Staff standards are not theological abstractions, but scientific approximations, and are evolved for the use of the line, the sole justification of the standards being that they will make line work more efficient. Staff standards being for the benefit of the line and often entrusted to line officials, must be put in the form of permanent instructions so that all may understand what is being aimed at, and deviations by the line be noted and reprimanded.”

“In selecting human assistants such superficialities as education, as physical strength, even antecedent morality, are not as important as the inner attitudes, proclivities, character, which after all determine the man or woman.”