Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T18:35:22.610Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Uniting Management and Education in Pursuit of Efficiency: F.W. Taylor’s Training Reform Legacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Lucy Taksa
Lucy Taksa*
Affiliation:
The University of New South Wales
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This historical case study demonstrates the importance of education to the diffusion of management ideas and strategies. The article explains how management and education came to be united in the pursuit of efficiency and how they came to use similar assessment techniques to ensure the achievement of this goal. Documenting F.W. Taylor’s interest in education, it reveals how scientific management, as promoted by management ‘gurus’, consultants, managers, educational administrators and related professionals, came to influence the early twentieth century reform of education and training in both the USA and Australia. It shows how Taylor’s methods, principles and philosophy were transformed into a scholastic program, and how this program was infused into the administration and content of teaching and learning offered in NSW schools, technical colleges, universities and adult education, with long-term implications for the training of managers, students and workers.

Type
Meeting Report
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , April 2007 , pp. 129 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2007

Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank the two anonymous referees and editor Anne Junor for their helpful comments.

References

Alexander, F. (n.d.) Sydney University and the WEA, 1913–1919, unpublished draft, (Courtesy Mitchell Library, Sydney).Google Scholar
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1912) ‘Report of Sub-Committee on Administration on the present state of the art of industrial management’, Transactions, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Vol. 34, pp. 1131–1150.Google Scholar
Atkinson, M. (1915) ‘Democracy and efficiency’, in Irvine, R.F. (Ed.), National Efficiency, Victorian Railways Printing Branch, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Australian Manufacturers’ Journal, 25 November 1913, pp. 4–5, 8, 12–13; 25 August 1916, pp. 5, 36.Google Scholar
Barcan, A. (1988) Two Centuries of Education in New South Wales, NSW University Press, Sydney.Google Scholar
Barraclough, S. (1905) Annual address to Engineering Section, Proceedings of the Royal Society of NSW, 39.Google Scholar
Barraclough, S. H. E. (1908) Memorandum to Professor Warren on the General Organisation of the Engineering School (24 September) in S.H.E. Barraclough, Personal Papers, Group10, University of Sydney Archives.Google Scholar
Barraclough, S. (1914–1915) The War — Australia and the engineer’, Presidential address, Proceedings of the Engineering Association of NSW, 30, pp. 225–227.Google Scholar
Barraclough, S. Correspondence with R. Thurston, Series 3, Folder 3, Sir S.H.E. Barraclough, Personal Papers, Group P.10, University of Sydney Archives.Google Scholar
Beeby, G. (1912, 1913) Correspondence with Taylor, F.W. (1 November, 10 February) in Frederick W. Taylor Collection, Samuel C. Williams Library, Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Bendix, R. (1974) Work and Authority in Industry: Ideologies of Management in the Course of Industrialization, University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Board, P. (1903) Report on Primary Education, NSW Department of Public Instruction, Government Printer, Sydney.Google Scholar
Board, P. (1909a) Report Following Upon Observations of American Education, NSW Department of Public Instruction, Government Printer, Sydney.Google Scholar
Board, P. (1909b) ‘Mental science and education’, Presidential address to Section J. (Education): Proceedings of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 12, pp. 703–711.Google Scholar
Board, P. (1919) ‘Training For citizenship’, in Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), Adolescent Education: Report of a Conference Promoted by the WEA of NSW in October, 1919, The WHB Printing Co., Sydney.Google Scholar
Board, P. (1923) ‘Vocational training and the community’, Australian Journal of Philosophy and Psychology, 1(1), pp.45–51.Google Scholar
Boehm, E. (1979) Twentieth Century Economic Development in Australia, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Boggs, C. (1976) Gramsci’s Marxism, Pluto Press, London.Google Scholar
Braverman, H. (1974) Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, Monthly Review Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brody, D. (1980) Workers in Industrial America: Essays on the Twentieth Century Struggle, Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Burge, C. O. (1904) Presidential address, Proceedings of the Royal Society of NSW, 38, pp.7–10.Google Scholar
Burke, P. (1981) ‘The “discovery” of popular culture’, in Samuel, R. (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Callahan, R. (1962) Education and the Cult of Efficiency, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Churchward, L. G. (1979) Australia & America 1788–1972, Alternative Publishing Co-operative Ltd., Sydney.Google Scholar
Cobb, J. (1986) ‘Nangle, James’, in Nairn, B., Serle, G. (eds.) Australian Dictionary of Biography, 10, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, p.661.Google Scholar
Cochrane, P. (1980) Industrialization and Dependence: Australia’s Road to Economic Development, 1870–1930, University Of Queensland Press, St. Lucia.Google Scholar
Cochrane, P. (1983) ‘Job security: The frontier of control’, Arena, 64, pp. 121–130.Google Scholar
Cochrane, P. (1985) ‘Company time: Management, ideology and the labour process, 1940–1960’, Labour History, 48, May, pp. 54–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooke, M. (1910) Academic and Industrial Efficiency: A Report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Bulletin No. 5, New York.Google Scholar
Cooke, M. (1924) ‘The influence of scientific management upon government — Federal, state and municipal,’, Bulletin of the Taylor Society, 9(1), pp. 31–38.Google Scholar
Copley, F. (1969) F.W. Taylor: Father of Scientific Management, Vols. 1 and 2, Augustus M. Kelly Publishers, New York (originally published in 1923).Google Scholar
Curlewis, Justice H. (1918) Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Effects of the Workings of the System known as the Job and Time Cards System introduced into the Tramways and Railways Workshops of the Railways Commissioners, NSW Parliamentary Papers, 6.Google Scholar
Davis, M. (1975) ‘The stop watch and the wooden shoe: Scientific management and the Industrial Workers of the World’, Radical America, 9(1), pp. 69–95.Google Scholar
Deacon, D. (1985) ‘Taylorism in the home: The medical profession, the infant welfare movement and the deskilling of women’, The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 21(2), pp. 161–173.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Deacon, D. (1989) Managing Gender: The State, the New Middle Class and Women Workers 1830–1930, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Dodge, J. (1905–6) ‘A history of the introduction of a system of shop management’, Transactions, AMSE, 27, p. 723.Google Scholar
Dore, R. (1967) Education in Tokugawa Japan, Routledge, Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Drury, H. (1922) Scientific Management: A History and Criticism, Columbia University Press, New York (originally published 1915).Google Scholar
Edwards, R. (1979) Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century, Basic Books, New York.Google Scholar
Eggleston, F. (1915) ‘The effect of industrial legislation in Australia upon the ideals and aspirations of the workers’, in Atkinson, M. (ed.), Trade Unionism in Australia: Report of the Conference Held in June 1915, WEA, Sydney.Google Scholar
Ficker, N. (1917) Australasian Manufacturer, 10 February, p. 23.Google Scholar
Fisher, B. (1967) Industrial Education: American Ideals and Institutions, University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Foster, L. (1986) High Hopes: The Men and Motives of the Australian Round Table, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1987) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Penguin, London.Google Scholar
Friesen, G., Taksa, L. (1996) ‘Workers’ education in Australia and Canada: A comparative approach to labour’s cultural history’, Labour/Le Travail, 38, Fall, pp. 170–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gable, R. (ed.) (1989) Raymond Williams, Resources of Hope Culture, Democracy, Socialism, Verso, London.Google Scholar
Gantt, H. (1908) ‘Training workmen in habits of industry and cooperation’, Transactions, AMSE, 30, pp. 1037–1048.Google Scholar
Gantt, H. (1917) ‘Manager and workmen’, Australasian Manufacturer, 20 January, pp. 21–22.Google Scholar
Gantt, H. (1919) Work, Wages and Profits, The Engineering Magazine Co., New York.Google Scholar
Gay, Edwin F. (1972) ‘Academic efficiency’, in Dartmouth College Conferences, First Tuck School Conference — Addresses and discussions at the conference on scientific management Held October 12, 13, 14, Nineteen Hundred and Eleven, Hive Publishing Company, Easton.Google Scholar
Gilbreth, F. (1973) The Primer of Scientific Management, Hive Publishing Company, Easton (originally published in 1914).Google Scholar
Gilson, M. (1924) ‘Scientific Management And Personnel Work’, Bulletin of the Taylor Society, 9(1), p. 39.Google Scholar
Goldmark, J. (1912) Fatigue and Efficiency, Russell Sage Foundation, New York.Google Scholar
Gordon, D., Edwards, R., Reich, M. (1982) Segmented Work, Divided Workers: The Historical Transformation of Labor in the United States, Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Graff, H. (1981) ‘Literacy, jobs and industrialization’, in Graff, H. (ed.), Literacy and Social Development in the West: A Reader, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Haber, S. (1964) Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era 1890–1920, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Hall, S. (1981) ‘Notes on deconstructing ‘the popular”, in Samuel, R. (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Harris, N. (1914) Industrial Efficiency, A series of lectures delivered at the Victorian Railways Institute, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Hathaway, H. (ed.) ‘Tributes to Frederick W. Taylor’, Transactions, ASME, Vol. 37.Google Scholar
Headrick, D. (1988) The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850–1940, Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Heerma van Voss, L., van Holthoon, F. (1988) ‘Introduction: Popular culture, local culture, working class culture. Problems of definition and comparison’, in van Voss, L., van Holthoon, F. (eds.), Working Class and Popular Culture, Stichting Beheer IISG, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Heydon, C. (1914) Correspondence with Taylor, F.W. (31 August 1914, 31 December) in Frederick W. Taylor Collection, Samuel C. Williams Library, Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Heydon, C. correspondence with Harrison, Birge (no date) in Frederick W. Taylor Collection, Samuel C. Williams Library, Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Higgins, H. B. (1914, 1915) correspondence with Frankfurter, Felix (3 July 1914, 8 July, 14 February) in Higgins Collection, MS.2525, Australian National Library.Google Scholar
Hoare, Q., Smith, G. (eds.) (1971), Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, Lawrence & Wishart, London.Google Scholar
Hoxie, R. (1915) Scientific Management and Labor, D. Appleton and Company, New York.Google Scholar
Humphreys, G. (1986) Taylorism in France, 1904–1920: The Impact of Scientific Management on Factory Relations and Society, Garland, New York.Google Scholar
Hunt, E. (1972) Scientific Management Since Taylor, Hive Publishing Co., Easton (originally published in 1924).Google Scholar
Irvine, R. (1915a) ‘National organisation and national efficiency’, in Irvine, R.F. (ed.), National Efficiency, Victorian Railways Printing Branch, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Irvine, R. (1915b), ‘Trade unionism and efficiency’, in Atkinson, M. (ed.), Trade Unionism in Australia: Report of the Conference Held in June 1915, WEA, Sydney.Google Scholar
Irvine, R. (1919) ‘Teaching economics to adolescents’, in WEA, Adolescent education. Report of a conference promoted by the WEA of NSW in October, 1919, The WHB Printing Co., Sydney.Google Scholar
Jackson, J. (1907) ‘College and apprentice training’, Transactions of the A.S.M.E. 29, pp. 473–526 (including discussion).Google Scholar
Kanigel, R. (1997) The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency, Little, Brown and Company, London.Google Scholar
Kendall, Henry P. (1972) ‘Unsystematized, Systematized, and Scientific Management’, in Dartmouth College Conferences, First Tuck School Conference, Addresses and Discussions at the Conference on Scientific management Held October 12, 13, 14, Nineteen Hundred and Eleven, Hive Publishing Company, Easton.Google Scholar
Kimball, Dexter S. (1917) ‘The Relation of Engineering to Industrial Management’, Transactions, AMSE, 39, pp. 560–561.Google Scholar
Knibbs, G. H., Turner, J. W. (1905) Report of the Commissioners on Primary Secondary, Technical and Other Forms of Education, NSW Parliamentary Papers, 4.Google Scholar
Kroeber, A. L. (1940) ‘Stimulus Diffusion’, American Anthropologist, 42, Jan—March.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larson, M. (1977) The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis, University of California Press, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Law, J. (1917a) ‘Industrial efficiency’, Proceedings, Royal Society (RS) of NSW, Vol. 51.Google Scholar
Law, J. (1917b) ‘The new industrialism’, Australasian Manufacturer, 24 March, pp. 19–20.Google Scholar
Layton, E. (1974) ‘The Diffusion of Scientific Management and Mass Production from the US in the Twentieth Century’. Paper presented to the International Congress of the History of Science, The 14th Proceedings, Vol. 4, pp. 377–86.Google Scholar
Littler, C. (1978) ‘Understanding Taylorism’, British Journal of Sociology, 29(2), pp. 185–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macintyre, S. (1986) The Oxford History of Australia: 1901–1942, The Succeeding Age, Vol. 4, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, A. (1920) An Adventure in Working Class Education, Longmans, Green & Co., London.Google Scholar
Mayo, E. (1919) Democracy and Freedom: An Essay in Social Logic, WEA Series 1, Macmillan & Co. Ltd., Melbourne.Google Scholar
McGuffie, C. (1986) Working in Metal: Management and Labour in the Metal Industries of Europe and the U.S.A. 1890–1914, Merlin Press, London.Google Scholar
Megaw, M. R. (1966) Some aspects of the United States’ impact on Australia, 1901–1923’, Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Sydney.Google Scholar
Merkle, J. (1980) Management and Ideology: The Legacy of the International Scientific Management Movement, University of California Press, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrell, J. (1914) Correspondence with Taylor, F.W. (10 November) in Frederick W. Taylor Collection, Samuel C. Williams Library, Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Murray-Smith, S. (1966) ‘Technical education: The lines of development’, in Sanders, C. (ed.) Technical Education for Development, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands.Google Scholar
Muscio, B. (1917) Lectures on Industrial Psychology, Angus & Robertson Ltd., Sydney.Google Scholar
Nangle, J. (1915–1916) Report of the Superintendent of Technical Education for the Year 1914, NSW Parliamentary Papers, Vol. 1.Google Scholar
Nangle, J. (1917–1918) Report of the Superintendent of Technical Education For 1916, Report of the Minister of Public Instruction for The Year 1916, NSW Parliamentary Papers, Vol. 2.Google Scholar
Nelson, D. (1975) Managers and Workers: Origins of the New Factory System in the United States 1880–1920, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.Google Scholar
Nelson, D. (1990) Frederick W. Taylor and the Rise of Scientific Management, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.Google Scholar
Noble, D. (1977) America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism, Alfred A. Knopf, New York.Google Scholar
Northcott, C. (1918) Australian Social Development, Columbia University, New York.Google Scholar
NSW Minister of Public Instruction (1914) Annual Report for the Year 1913, NSW Parliamentary Papers, Vol.1.Google Scholar
NSW Minister For Public Instruction (1915–1916), Annual Report for the Year 1914, NSW Parliamentary Papers, Vol.1.Google Scholar
Parkhurst, F. (1912) Applied Methods of Scientific Management, John Wiley & Sons, New York.Google Scholar
Phillips, G. (1919) ‘Vocational selection’, in WEA, Adolescent Education: Report of a Conference Promoted by the WEA of NSW in October, 1919, The WHB Printing Co., Sydney.Google Scholar
Proudfoot, P. (1984) ‘The development of architectural education in Sydney’, Historical Studies, 21(83), pp. 197–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redfield, W. (1914) Correspondence with Taylor, F.W. (5 November) in Frederick W. Taylor Collection, Samuel C. Williams Library, Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Reiger, K. (1985) The Disenchantment of the Home: Modernizing the Australian Family 1880–1940, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Rickard, J. (1976) Class and Politics: New South Wales, Victoria and the Early Commonwealth, 1890–1910, Australian National University Press, Canberra.Google Scholar
Roe, M. (1984) Nine Australian Progressives: Vitalism in Bourgeois Social Thought 1890–1960, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia.Google Scholar
Rowse, T. (1978) Australian Liberalism and National Character, Kibble, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Russell, W. (1907) ‘Industrial education’, Transactions, AMSE, 29, pp. 1121–1143. (including Discussion).Google Scholar
Sider, G. M. (1980) ‘The ties that bind: Culture and agriculture, property and propriety in the Newfoundland Village Fishery’, Social History, 5(1), pp. 1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snow, D. (1991) ‘Transforming children’s labour through schooling’, in Martin, J., Taylor, K. (eds.) Culture and the Labour Movement, The Dunmore Press, New Zealand.Google Scholar
Stabile, D. (1984) Prophets of Order, South End Press, Boston.Google Scholar
Stark, D. (1980) ‘Class struggle and the transformation of the labor process’, Theory and Society, 9(1), pp. 89–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taksa, L. (1991) ‘Defence Not defiance: Social protest and the NSW General Strike of 1917’, Labour History, 60, May, pp. 16–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taksa, L. (1992) ‘Scientific management: Technique or cultural ideology?’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 34(3), pp. 365–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taksa, L. (1993) All a matter of timing: The diffusion of scientific management in New South Wales, prior to 1921, Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of NSW.Google Scholar
Taksa, L. (1995) ‘The cultural diffusion of scientific management: The United States and New South Wales’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 37(3), pp. 427–461.Google Scholar
Taksa, L. (2003) ‘“Education from the working-class viewpoint” versus “instruction in civic efficiency”: The Workers’ Education Association, the Australian Quest for National Efficiency and Struggles over Citizenship’, in Bowden, B., Kellett, J. (eds.), Transforming Labour: Work, Workers, Struggle and Change, Proceedings of the Eighth National Conference of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Brisbane Labour History Association, Brisbane, pp. 303–311.Google Scholar
Taylor, F. W. (1895) ‘A piece-rate system, being a step toward partial solution of the labor problem’, Transactions, AMSE, 16, June, pp. 856–903.Google Scholar
Taylor, F. W. (1903) ‘Shop management’, in F.W. Taylor (1947), Scientific Management, Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York (originally published in the Transactions, AMSE, Vol. 24, pp. 1337–1456).Google Scholar
Taylor, F. W. (1911a), The Principles of Scientific Management, Harper & Brothers, New York.Google Scholar
Taylor, F. W. (1911b) ‘The principles of scientific management, in Dartmouth College Conferences, First Tuck School Conference — Addresses and Discussions at the Conference on Scientific management Held October 12, 13, 14, Nineteen Hundred and Eleven, Hive Publishing Company, Easton.Google Scholar
Taylor, F. W. (1912) Taylor’s Testimony Before the Special House Committee, in Taylor, F.W. (1947), Scientific Management, Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York (originally published as: Report, Special Committee to Investigate the Taylor and Other Systems of Shop Management, 62nd Congress, Second Session, House Report 403, 1912).Google Scholar
Taylor, F. W. (1916) ‘Government efficiency’, Bulletin of the Taylor Society, December, pp. 7–13.Google Scholar
Thompson, C. B. (1916) ‘Distributing a foreman’s duties’, Australasian Manufacturer, 21 October, pp. 10–12.Google Scholar
Thompson, C. B. (1917a) ‘The stop watch as inventor’, Australasian Manufacturer, 13 January, pp. 10–12.Google Scholar
Thompson, C. B. (1917b) ‘How to pay for work’, Australasian Manufacturer, 3 February, pp. 19–20.Google Scholar
Thompson, C. B. (1917c) The Theory and Practice of Scientific Management, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.Google Scholar
Turner, I. (1979) Industrial Labor and Politics: The Dynamics of the Labour Movement in Eastern Australia 1900–1921, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney.Google Scholar
Turner, G. (1920) ‘Works schools and their methods, in NSW Board of Trade, Apprenticeship in Industries, No. 5, Government Printer, Sydney.Google Scholar
University of Sydney (1917, 1923) Annual Reports and Statistics of [Joint Committee For] Tutorial Classes, Department of Adult Education, Sydney University Archives.Google Scholar
Urwick, L. (1957) The Making of Scientific Management, Vol. 2, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, London.Google Scholar
White, R. (1981) Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688–1980, George Allen and Unwin, Sydney.Google Scholar
Williams, R. (1961) The Long Revolution, Penguin, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, R. (1976) Culture and Society, Penguin, Harmondsworth.Google Scholar
Whitelock, D. (1974) The Great Tradition: A History of Adult Education in Australia, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia.Google Scholar
WEA NSW, First Annual Report, 1914; Second Annual Report, 1915; Third Annual Report, 1916, WEA, Sydney.Google Scholar
Zerzan, J. (1984) ‘Taylorism and unionism: The origins of partnership, Telos, 60, Summer, pp. 140–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar