part one of caste sentiment, whatever can or cannot be done about it.

[Sidenote: American democracy and the efficiency of labor]

Democracy makes for the efficiency of American industry not less than do the great natural resources. If America is to surpass the world in all the great industrial lines, it will be largely because of her ideas and institutions. They lead to greater energy and to a faster working pace in all grades of labor than is found anywhere else in the world. There is danger that as the West is closed to settlement something of the spirit of enterprise will be lost. To Western eyes already the young men in the older East seem to be trammeled by social conventions. In an older community there is less of hopeful ambition; one's position depends more on what his fathers achieved; in the new community, more on what he does himself. If it is true, as wise students declare, that the frontier has been the nursery of our democratic ideas, we may well ask what effect the closing of the frontier will have on our national sentiment and on our material prosperity.

[Sidenote: The balance of advantage between work and leisure]

4. _Custom and national temperament affect the efficiency of labor by determining the normal period of labor time._ After the bare necessities of life are provided for, the worker has a wide or narrow margin of productive energy to use as he pleases. If four hours' work a day would enable him to live, will he work longer or will he stop? The answer is determined by the balance of utility and disutility. Will additional hours of labor yield more gratification than idleness yields? Does the pain of toil repel more than its fruits attract? The use made of spare time differs according to climate, race, and temperament. In the tropics the margin is converted usually into loafing, in the temperate zones largely into objective forms of enjoyment. Individual differences are plainly seen when each man labors on his own field. The prudent man, in the old maxims, makes hay while the sun shines and ploughs deep while sluggards sleep. In the modern larger organization of industry, working hours are much the same for all workers in the establishment. Individual preferences are still expressed, however, in irregularity of employment. In the South some manufacturers have found that on an average the negroes will work in a factory not more than five or six hours a day, working ten hours for four days and lying off two days a week. Such a standard of working hours is the mark of the primitive stage of wants and industrial qualities, although a shortening of the hours of manual labor, as incomes increase above bare subsistence, is in accord with a rational valuation of leisure. A moderate change in that direction cannot but increase rather than diminish the efficiency of labor.

§ III. DIVISION OF LABOR

[Sidenote: Division and exchange of labor]

1. _Division of labor is a term expressing that complex arrangement of industrial society whereby individual workers are enabled to apply themselves to the production of certain kinds of goods, securing others by exchange._ The term "division of labor" is simple, but the thought is a complex one. Its full discussion would cover the whole field of political economy, but only its most essential aspects can here be touched upon. Division of labor and exchange are counterparts and mutually determine each other. Division of labor depends on the extent of the market, and in turn widens its limits. The number of articles that any one would care to produce at one time and place depends upon the opportunity to exchange them. These two aspects of industry thus are inseparable in thought and practice. The worker finds division of labor existing as a social institution and, according as he adapts himself to it wisely or foolishly, it increases more or less his efficiency.

[Sidenote: Division of labor between trades and territories]

2. _Division of labor is primarily between individuals, but appears between trades, territories, and nations._ In division of labor between trades, each worker applies himself to the production of some product or group of products and secures other goods by exchange. A special form of this is territorial division of labor, arising out of differences in soil, climate, and natural products, when each community develops in a high degree some one class of products to exchange in distant or foreign trade. Division of labor beginning because of such natural differences, becomes fixed by habit and training, by the advantage of a larger and regular labor supply, by the economy of nearness to related and tributary industries, and by the use of waste products where industry is conducted on a large scaled. The natural advantages in another district must be large to enable it to start successfully against these acquired economies, and territorial division of labor thus tends to continue for long periods when once established.

[Sidenote: Advantages of division of labor]

3. _Division of labor increases efficiency by: (a) increasing skill; (b) saving time; (c) saving tools and materials; (d) improving quality; (e) increasing knowledge; (f) stimulating invention; (g) encouraging enterprise; (h) economizing talent._ There is a tradition that an ingenious lecturer in one of our universities was accustomed to give to his class eighty reasons why division of labor was of advantage. It is none too many, as every reason for the modern, as contrasted with the primitive, organization of industry should be included. The phrase division of labor is but a synonym for specialization, a word that expresses all that is most characteristic of our complex industrial society. The headings just given may serve, however, to suggest the leading phases of the subject. Repetition of the same task trains the muscles, forms a mental habit, and gives the swiftness and deftness of touch called _skill_. Specialization _saves time_ by making unnecessary the physical change of place for the worker, the frequent shifting of tools, and the mental readjustment required for the undertaking of a new task. Specialization _saves tools_ for, either each kind of work must be most ineffectively done, or there must be provided for each worker a complete set of tools which thus will be used rarely and will rust out rather than wear out. If a few tools are thoroughly used, they yield a larger income on the investment, and require less care and repairs in proportion to their uses. In fact this fuller economic use of machinery and plant where a large product is turned out at one place, is a prime factor in the advantages of large production, a subject to be treated elsewhere much more fully than is here possible. By specialization is made possible a _quality_ of goods never to be secured by the less skilled efforts of the Jack-of-all trades. The specialist steadily grows in _knowledge_ of his materials and of the best processes, and he gains a power of delicate observation and facility in meeting new difficulties that are impossible when attention is divided among a number of tasks. By dividing and simplifying processes, specialization _stimulates invention_. The most complex machines have been developed gradually by combinations and adaptations of simple tools, and the more a process is subdivided, the greater is the chance of hitting upon a device to repeat mechanically the few simple movements. Division of labor increases the motives of emulation and _enterprise_, by making possible the more exact comparison of results. It _economizes talent_ by giving to each the highest task of which he is capable, while fitting the less efficient workers into the minor places made possible by subdivision. In an American wagon-factory, a one-armed man operating a machine is turning out as large a product and earning as high wages as any other employee. The same advantages of specialization are found with modifying conditions in educational and professional lines. The marvelous progress of science in recent years has been made possible by each worker's doing a few things and doing them well.

[Sidenote: Best adjustment of talent and occupation]

[Sidenote: Choice of a life career]

4. _The individual worker, to attain his highest economic efficiency, must select from the occupations made possible by division of labor the one for which his talents are best fitted._ It seems unnecessary to state this almost axiomatic truth, yet the slight reflection given to the choice of an occupation by most young people gives to this statement a very practical bearing. The world is filled with industrial misfits, "round men in square holes," good carpenters spoiled to make poor doctors. It so often happens that the natural aptitude of the youth is the thing last or, in any event, least considered. Unreasoning imitation, family traditions, parental wishes, class pride, social prejudice, childish whim, are often decisive of the life career. Happily in some cases, before too late, the man "finds himself," but too often the poverty of the family and the obstacles to education preclude the exercise of intelligent choice. It is of importance to society as well as to the individual that talent should be discovered in time, that tasks should be fitted to aptitudes, that each member of society should attain to his highest efficiency. The approach to this ideal, made possible by popular education, the decline of caste, the spread of genuine democracy, the progress of social justice, will increase not only the workers' efficiency, but society's abiding welfare.