(gy Specialization increases the motives of emulation and enterprise, by making it possible for each man to see better what is needed and to make a more exact comparison of results.
(h) 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 ma chine was able to turn out as large a product and earn as high wages as any other employee. The same advantages of spe cialization are found with modifying conditions in educational and professional lines. The marvelous progress of science in recent years has been made possible by each student and in vestigator doing a few things and doing them well.
§ 12. Best adjustment of talents and occupations. Most young people give slight reflection to the choice of an occupa tion. The world is filled with industrial misfits, "round men in square holes," good carpenters spoiled to make poor doc tors. 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 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.
Some occupations have so few chances of advancement that they are called the "blind alley trades," yet to start in them is so easy that they attract the unthinking youth, especially those with impoverished parents. 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 exer cise of intelligent choice.
Since the beginning of the century some serious efforts have been made to meet this difficulty by what is called voca tional guidance. In some of the German schools in recent years the children's aptitudes have been carefully studied, and definite advice has been given. Bureaus of vocational guid ance are maintained now in some American cities. With more careful studies of the strength, health, qualities of sight; hear ing, touch, natural aptitudes and tastes, one of the greatest of social and economic services will be in this way performed.
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 in crease not only the workers' efficiency, but society's abiding welfare.