SELECTION UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT TO-DAY.—­At the present day, the most that Scientific Management can do, in the average case, is to determine the type of men needed for any particular kind of work, and then to select that man who seems, from such observations as can be made, best to conform to the type.  The accurate knowledge of the requirements of the work, and the knowledge of variables of the worker make even a cursory observation more rich in results than it would otherwise be.  Even such an apparently obvious observation, as that the very fact that a man claims that he can do the work implies desire and will on his part to do it that may overcome many natural lacks,—­even this is an advance in recognizing individuality.

EFFECT OF THIS SELECTION.—­The result of this scientific selection of the workman is not only better work, but also, and more important from the psychological side, the development of his individuality.  It is not always recognized that the work itself is a great educator, and that acute cleverness in the line of work to which he is fitted comes to the worker.

INDIVIDUALITY DEVELOPED BY SEPARATING OUTPUTS.—­Under Scientific Management the work of each man is arranged either so that his output shows up separately and on the individual records, or, if the Work is such that it seems best to do it in gangs, the output can often be so recorded that the individual’s output can be computed from the records.

PURPOSE OF SEPARATING OUTPUTS.—­The primary purpose of separating the output is to see what the man can do, to record this, and to reward the man according to his work, but this separating of output has also an individual result, which is even more important than the result aimed at, and that is the development of individuality.

Under Traditional Management and the usual “day work,” much of the work is done by gangs and is observed or recorded as of gangs.  Only now and then, when the work of some particular individual shows up decidedly better or worse than that of his fellows, and when the foreman or superintendent, or other onlooker, happens to observe this is the individual appreciated, and then only in the most inexact, unsystematic manner.

Under Scientific Management, making individual output show up separately allows of individual recording, tasks, teaching and rewards.

EFFECT ON ATHLETIC CONTESTS.—­Also, with this separation of the work of the individual under Scientific Management comes the possibility of a real, scientific, “athletic contest.”  This athletic contest, which proves itself so successful in Traditional Management, even when the men are grouped as gangs and their work is not recorded or thought of separately, proves itself quite as efficient or more efficient under Scientific Management, when the work of the man shows up separately.  It might be objected that the old gang spirit, or it might be called “team” spirit, would disappear