e, performed under definite limitations, and for
definite social ends, margins will be narrowed and it will become
increasingly necessary to do things in the right way.

The scientific approach to business has made great progress during the
past decade. Out of the hostile criticism to which so-called big
business has been subjected have come several government investigations
and court records, in which policies of different concerns have been
explained, criticized, and compared. Besides, business men themselves
have become less jealous of trade secrets and have shown an increasing
inclination to compare results. A good illustration of this tendency is
seen in the growth of "open price associations" and in the spirit in
which credit men, sales managers' associations, and other business
groups exchange information. In the same spirit, business and trade
journals have given a large exposition of individual experience and
increasing attention to questions of fundamental importance.

More significant still has been the scientific management propaganda.
Mr. Brandeis's dramatic exposition of this movement in the railway rate
cases in 1911 at once made it a matter of public interest. Later
discussion may not have extended acceptance of scientific management,
but it has not caused interest in it to flag. The movement has become
essentially a cult. Its prophet, the late Frederick Taylor, by ignoring
trade-unionism and labor psychology in the exposition of his doctrines,
at once drew down upon them the hostility of organized labor; the
movement was branded as another speeding-up device. More serious than
the antagonism has been the spirit in which some of the scientific
management enthusiasts--not all--have met it. They seem to assume that
their science is absolute and inexorable, that it eliminates disturbing
factors and hence needs no adjustment to adapt it to the difficulties
met in its application. This air of omniscient dogmatism, together with
the disasters of false prophets, has somewhat compromised the movement
and has diminished its direct influence. However, business men have
been stirred up. They have become accustomed to using the words
"science" and "business" in the same sentence. They are in a receptive
attitude for ideas. The indirect influence has been great.

A final, and probably in the long-run the most permanent, influence
making for the extension of scientific method in business has been the
new viewpoint f