SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ESTABLISHES BRAIN GROUPS THAT HABITUALLY ACT IN UNISON.—­Professor Read, in describing the general mental principle of association says, “When any number of brain cells have been in action together, they form a habit of acting in unison, so that when one of them is stimulated in a certain way, the others will also behave in the way established by the habit."[31] This working of the brain is recognized in grouping of motions, such as “playing for position."[32] Scientific Management provides the groups, the habit, and the stimulus, all according to standard methods, so that the result is largely predictable.

METHOD OF ESTABLISHING SUCH GROUPS IN THE WORKER’S BRAIN.—­The standard elements of Scientific Management afford units for such groups.  Eventually, with the use of such elements in instruction cards, would be formed, in the minds of the worker, such groups of units as would aid in foreseeing results, just as the foreseeing of groups of moves aids the expert chess or checker player.  The size and number of such groups would indicate the skill of the worker.

That such skill may be gained quickest, Scientific Management synthesizes the units into definite groups, and teaches these to the workers as groups.

TEACHING DONE BY MEANS OF MOTION CYCLES.—­The best group is that which completes the simplest cycle of performance.  This enables the worker to associate certain definite motions, to make these into a habit, and to concentrate his attention upon the cycle as a whole, and not upon the elementary motions of which it is composed.

For example—­The cycle of the pick and dip process of bricklaying is to pick up a brick and a trowel full of mortar simultaneously and deposit them on the wall simultaneously.[33] The string mortar method has two cycles, which are, first to pick a certain number of trowelfuls of mortar and deposit them on the wall, and then to pick up a corresponding number of bricks and deposit them on the wall.[34] Each cycle of these two methods consists of an association of units that can be remembered as a group.

SUCH CYCLES INDUCE SPEED.—­The worker who has been taught thus to associate the units of attention and action into definite rhythmic cycles, is the one who is most efficient, and least fatigued by a given output.  The nerves acquire the habit, as does the brain, and the resulting swift response to stimulus characterizes the efficiency of the specialist.[35]

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT RESTRICTS ASSOCIATIONS.—­By its teaching of standard methods, Scientific Management restricts association, and thus gains in the speed with which associated ideas arise.[36] Insistence on causal sequence is a great aid.  This is rendered by the Systems, which give the reasons, and make the standard method easy to remember.

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT PRESENTS SCIENTIFICALLY DERIVED KNOWLEDGE TO THE MEMORY.—­Industrial memory is founded on experience, and that experience that is submitted by teaching under Scientific Management to the mind is in the form of scientifically derived standards.  These furnish