Wednesday, September 15, 2010

The Science of Public Education

The system must come first.
Taylor distilled the essence of Bismarck’s Prussian school training under whose regimen he had witnessed firsthand the defeat of France in 1871. His American syntheses of these disciplines made him the direct inspiration for Henry Ford and "Fordism." Between 1895 and 1915, Ford radically transformed factory procedure, relying on Taylorized management and a mass production assembly line marked by precision, continuity, coordination, speed, and standardization. Ford wrote two extraordinary essays in the 1920s, "The Meaning of Time," and "Machinery, The New Messiah," in which he equated planning, timing, precision, and the rest of the scientific management catalogue with the great moral meaning of life:
A clean factory, clean tools, accurate gauges, and precise methods of manufacture produce a smooth working efficient machine [just as] clean thinking, clean living, and square dealing make for a decent home life.
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3 comments:

Julygirl said...

God Bless the Protestant Puritan work ethic....where were all those Jesuit priests exploring Lake Champlain and St. Louis Mo. and Baptizing the Indians when the protestants were conducting the Industrial Revolution in New England. (Just kidding).

elena maria vidal said...

You're bad. ;-)

tubbs said...

hasn't Academe finally jettisoned Weber's inane silliness?