No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 365 



was heralded all over the world, and it was a wonderful thing that 

 now, with just the four motions, as it were, this i)iece of workman- 

 ship was being turned out, 1 wonder if any of us have ever tried 

 in the home just how many motions it took to do anything, and then 

 whether, after realizing that we have used up a good many motions, 

 we have tried doing the same thing right over again and using just 

 half that many motions or a less number? And then, friends, if 

 you have succeeded in doing it with a less number of motions, may 

 we not herald to the world that a woman's work, a certain part of 

 it, may be done with less motions; and if it is done with less mo- 

 tions, may not every woman know it, that the fatigue and wear that 

 comes from this constant keeping on and on and on through the many 

 hours of the day may be relieved and that she may find time for en- 

 joyment, for reading or for something else? Have you ever watched 

 two women at work, how one goes about and there seems to be con- 

 tinually that lost motion — not lost motion exactly, but too many 

 motions? Lost motion T mean because she uses so many motions to 

 accomplish a thing, and yet here comes our efficient woman doing the 

 same thing and every movement she makes counts. Perhaps it is 

 only clearing away the dinner table, but she never allows her kitchen 

 table to get in such a clutter that she has to move this and that and 

 the other and then move it back again and then change it on to her 

 tray to go to the cellar, and perhaps the one article has been moved 

 three or four times to get things in order before her tray is ready to 

 go to the cellar or the storeroom or refrigerator or wherever you put 

 it in its place. 



See that the kitchen table is kept so that the thing here goes ex- 

 actly to its place while we find it with our small people who are help- 

 ing us and that we are training to be eflScient workers, or the first 

 thing you know the table is all in a clutter and you have to make 

 half a dozen motions perhaps before you can bring order out. And 

 see the extra work you are making, the extra fatigue there is because 

 you are not efficient. Again perhaps it is housecleaning time and 

 we have come into that time of year that we dread so much, but our 

 efficient worker does not have her house torn up from garret to cellar, 

 but she goes from one room to another at a time and perhaps the first 

 thing she has attended to is her storeroom. The storeroom is in ap- 

 ple pie order and just ready for everything. When she cleans the 

 room here on the second floor, the bedding is ready to be packed and 

 it is pretty slow work this year, isn't it friends, because the weather 

 has been so cold that we could not clean house reallv and do it 

 right, but nevertheless our store room is ready and when the time 

 romes for the winter clothing to go away, the store room and boxes 

 are ready; and immed'ately. when they are ready they may be put 

 yonder where they belong, the blankets may immediately go yonder 

 where they belong; there isn't that lost motion of airing things and 

 getting them ready to be put away and then piling them here in this 

 room and you have got to do something there and they must be piled 

 yonder and covered ui) from the dust. There is a continual lost mo- 

 tion there that is not counting for anything, and so T believe our 

 worker who believes in efficiency is not doing that sort and T care 

 not whether it is in the home or on the farm, it is all the same after 

 all. 



Again I think sometimes that one of the reasons we women have 

 not thought so much about this matter of efficiency is because there 



