Introduction

ALTHOUGH WE LIVE in an industrial age and are dependent for our prosperity and very livelihood on the fruits of industry, we are often in surprising ignorance of its real nature. To most people the word “industry” conjures up something necessary but unpleasant—smoking chimneys, grim masses of building, noise and smell. The idea, which grew up in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, that prosperity and dirt are always found together has by no means died out, in spite of the advances both in industrial and social organization which have taken place since then.