shows itself even in the most complicated activities.  The naturalist is inclined to fancy that the study of a philologist must be endlessly monotonous, and the philologist is convinced that it must be utterly tiresome to devote one’s self a life lone to some minute questions of natural science.  Only when one stands in the midst of the work is he aware of its unlimited manifoldness, and feels how every single case is somehow different from every other.

In the situation of the industrial workman, the attention may be directed toward some small differences which can only be recognized after long familiarity with the particular field.  Certainly this field is small, as every workman must specialize, but whether he manufactures a whole machine, or only a little wheel, makes no essential difference in the attitude.  The attraction of newness is quickly lost also in the case of the most complicated machine.  On the other hand, the fact that such a machine has an independent function does not give an independent attraction to the work.  Or we might rather say, as far as the work on a whole machine is of independent value, the work of perfecting the little wheel is an independent task also and offers equal value by its own possibilities.  Whoever has recognized the finest variations among the single little wheels and has become aware of how they are produced sometimes better, sometimes worse, sometimes more quickly, sometimes more slowly, becomes as much interested in the perfecting of the minute part as another man in the manufacture of the complex machine.  It is true that the laborer does not feel interest in the little wheel itself, but in the production of the wheel.  Every new movement necessary for it has a perfectly new chance and stands in new relations, which have nothing to do with the repetition.  As a matter of course this interest in the always new best possible method of production is still strongly increased where piece-wages are introduced.  The laborer knows that the amount of his earning depends upon the rapidity with which he finishes faultless products.  Under this stimulus he is in a continuous race with himself, and thus has every reason to prefer the externally uniform and therefore perfectly familiar work to another kind which may bring alternation, but which also brings ever new demands.

For a long while I have tried to discover in every large factory which I have visited the particular job which from the standpoint of the outsider presents itself as the most tiresome possible.  As soon as I found it, I had a full frank talk with the man or woman who performed it and earnestly tried to get self-observational comment.  My chief aim was to bring out how far the mere repetition, especially when it is continued through years, is felt as a source of discomfort.  I may again point to a few chance illustrations.  In an electrical factory with many thousands of employees I gained the impression that the prize for monotonous work belonged to a woman