io 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



long ago disappeared, and is no longer here to be laughed at. He 

 was succeeded by one who stayed at home and worked in his own 

 kitchen. The other went out of business because he carne in. 

 He drove the other out, and out to stay ; he will never return ; he 

 demonstrated to people that the old cobbler was not the best re- 

 source for foot-gear, and the moment this was made plain the old 

 system went under ; he saved time in packing and unpacking, in 

 traveling to and fro, in waiting, and in many ways made it more 

 convenient all round, so that it was cheaper for customers and 

 better for the workman to have the new system. 



Later on the kitchen workman had to abdicate in favor of a 

 man with a shop, a grindstone, shelves, better light and heat, and 

 numerous appliances impossible in a farmer's kitchen. When 

 this man had held the fort a while, the regular manufacturer, 

 with a large building for cutting, sorting, storing, and caring for 

 goods, put in an appearance, and the man with the small shop 

 and comfortable loafing quarters stepped out in the same way and 

 for the same reason that his predecessors had. The new-comer 

 could do better service for less money; the manufacturer came 

 because the world knew what it wanted and sought him. The 

 world wanted some one capable of stopping the enormous waste- 

 fulness of the old system. The newest man has made the old 

 cobbler and his ways appear ridiculous, and the operative of to- 

 day lives better than the well-to-do farmer of 1786. If the old 

 way is the better, there is nothing in the way of returning to it, 

 only the one fact that people can not afford to. Let him that 

 thinks the old plan the better start out with his bundle of lasts 

 and kit and try to earn a living in the good old way. 



Attempts at co-operation thus far have generally shown a 

 strong if not fatal tendency to failure because of the difficulty of 

 commanding the requisite skill and faithfulness in management. 

 Co-operators are not willing to pay the price for service which 

 their business needs in order to succeed. They always stand on 

 the theory that the men who conduct great enterprises get too 

 much for doing the business and the operatives too little. In 

 course of time, and usually not very long time, their scheme goes 

 down. This is because in the nature of things no hired person 

 on a salary of fixed amount will all the time keep his wits alive 

 and study into the small hours of the night devising ways and 

 means to make money for other people. They propose in their 

 constitution to take from capital and skill a portion of the profit 

 that has usually been accorded to them and give it to labor ; but 

 after thousands of experiments during forty or more years of good 

 business in this country there is hardly a single case of such un- 

 doubted success as to warrant the assertion that demonstration of 

 feasibility has been attained. The combined skill of all the co- 



