Motion Study
A Method for Increasing the Efficiency of the Workman

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF MOTION STUDY 95 accomplished and is accomplishing, there is room and to spare for every worker who cares to enter the field. Co- operation and team work is the crying need. Conservation and comparison of knowledge, experi- ments, data and conclusions are what we need. The various engineering journals are to be commended for recognizing the importance of this, and for furnishing an excellent means for recording and spreading much needed information. The ideal conservator of knowledge in this, as in all other branches, would be the United States government. The government should maintain a permanent bureau, with experiment stations, as is done with the Department of Agriculture. Individual investigators, corporations, and colleges, all would be willing to turn over the results of their work to such a government bureau. The colleges would cooperate with such a bureau, as do the agricultural colleges with the Department of Agriculture. The bulletins of such a bureau would be invaluable to the men in the trades, as are the agricultural bulletins to the farmers. The Department of Agriculture is an excellent model. The form for a department or bureau of trades is all at hand. It is only necessary to translate the language of agriculture into the language of labor. It is only through such a bureau that the trades can formally be standardized. Such a bureau would have two main tasks: (1) To sub- classify the trades; (2) To standardize the trades.