§ 3. Clothing and housing. Variation in quality and amount of clothing, while of course varying with the climate, is on the whole of less practical effect upon efficiency than that of food. Loss of heat and energy, dulling the powers, stiffening the muscles, causing illness with many trains of evils, make ill-clad workmen inefficient. The cost of clothing enough for comfort is, however, comparatively small, the amount spent for ornament is comparatively high. A man spends about one third of each day in sleep and his physical and mental powers and efficiency in his hours of work depend in large measure on the conditions making for restful sleep, on the comfort, decency, light, ventilation, and sanitary sur roundings in the home. Nearly another third of each worker's life (about half his waking hours) is spent in his house or in its neighborhood, where the sights, sounds, and physical con ditions of streets, alleys, and places of amusement are con stantly helping to determine his fitness for industrial tasks. Even more important are these conditions of the house and surroundings, good air, water, playgrounds for growing chil dren, to enable a population to continue and renew itself with healthy and efficient workers. Many of these conditions are free goods in the country, and the simplest cottage in an open field makes them possible. They become more difficult to secure as manufacturing and densely populated commercial districts grow. People come to live in unnatural conditions, and evils of slums and bad housing appear.
Another third of the worker's life is spent in his work-place, whether it be in the dwelling or in the field, street, store, or factory. Astonishingly little thought has been given, even by men working for themselves, to the effect that the work-place may have on the worker's efficiency. Many employers, how ever, have come to see that it does not pay to have bad factory conditions. Even if the ultimate effects in causing sickness and shortening the worker's life be ignored, the bad immediate effect to the employer is a reduction in the efficiency of the worker. A slight change in the weather affects the working of even a gasoline engine. Is not a worker as sensitive to condi tion of physical comfort and health 1 Any piece of machinery requires to be installed, maintained, and adjusted just right or it will fall short of its full capacity and wear out more quickly. It is so with a man. The best factories are now being planned as carefully as is the machinery, with a view to having excellent conditions of light, heat, ventilation, clean liness, and comfort of the employees. Doubtless much larger and fuller provision of this kind would be to the advantage of employers, as well as for the welfare of the workers and of society in general.
§ 4. Schooling. Education in schools is a most imperfect index of training for industrial tasks. A large part of the purpose even of the elementary schooling is to fit for citizen ship and for the receipt of the large psychic income possible through reading and the understanding of life about one. But one without reading, writing, and other elementary school subjects is in these days unfitted to take part in all but the simplest tasks. The percentage of illiteracy in the 'United
States, tho still considerable, is steadily declining.
The decline in illiteracy accompanies a regular increase in the average period spent by the youth in school, which has risen from 3.4 years in 1870, and 4 years in 1880, to 5.9 years in 1910. Still a very large number of children drop out of school very early as is indicated by these figures.
Many of those that remain get no farther than the fourth grade. An average result, as follows, is • indicated by the statistics: of the children entering the first grade, About 90 per cent attained the fourth grade.
About 66 per cent attained the sixth grade.
About 50 per cent attained the eighth grade.
About 25 per cent entered High School.
About 10 per cent graduated from High School.
About 5 per cent entered a college, normal, technical or professional school.
§ 5. Political security and honest government. If men are to labor in the present and for the future, they must enjoy the protection of a stable and strong government. As the framers of the Constitution expressed it, the function of gov ernment is to insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, and insure the blessings of liberty to the citizen. Directness and certainty of reward are more essential than mere size of reward in insuring action and effort. There must be a close relation be tween work and the fruits of work. Political insecurity weakens this relation and makes the reward dependent on the chance of escaping the highwayman and the foreign invader. For fear of this, many a nation has sacrificed some of the precious elements of liberty, and has submitted to a strong despot. This was the economic motive in the feudal system.
The prevalence of standards of honesty in private and pub lic business is a condition for high industrial efficiency. Cor ruption in government has the same effect as political inse curity; in fact, it is but another form of it. We are accus tomed to the thought that in an Asiatic despotism a worker beginning a task is uncertain whether he will reap the reward, as public officials may at any moment seize upon the fruits of his labor. But in our own country similar evils are not entirely lacking. Assessments often are unfair, and justice sometimes is bought. Men in high executive positions are able to make or mar the fortunes of their followers. Some times a legislator from a country town goes to the state capital poor and returns rich. The spoils system in politics is costly to the community, not merely because a few men successful in gaining office get paid several times as much as they are worth ; it is an economic evil because it tempts many other men to give up steady work. Such examples break down the • The diagram represents 4,367,000 children in the first grade. A very large number (more than two out of three) stay there more than a year, repeating the work. A few never get beyond this point, but all excepting about a tenth attain the fourth grade, tho some take seven or eight years to do it. Then each year several hundred thousands drop out. More than one-half of those in the eighth grade do not enter a high school (or its equivalent).