A SIX HOUR LAW. 273 



his home comfortable. The condition of the idle man, 

 in everything that relates to improvement, is worse 

 than that of the unresting toiler. 



With these facts, apparent to everyone who will 

 give them a moment's thought, I ask, which is most 

 desirable, the continuance of the conditions of extreme 

 toil on the one hand, and idleness on the other, with 

 the results which are now everywhere seen around us, 

 or the distribution of the work to be done among all, 

 in such manner that everyone may have regular em- 

 ployment, with abundant time for rest, recreation, and 

 improvement, and the means of making homes that 

 are comfortable ? These are matters not to be dis- 

 missed with a curt word and a sneer, but challenge 

 earnest attention. 



The first and most considerable real difficulty is, 

 that much the greater portion of the unemployed 

 labor of the country is unskilled. This fact will be 

 seized upon by the opponents of the measure, and be 

 magnified and distorted in every possible form. Yet, 

 though it be a real difficulty, it will not diminish by 

 procrastination. It must be met and overcome. It 

 certainly is not insuperable. Under the present sys- 

 tem of almost universal production by machinery, the 

 first and great thing to learn by the unskilled is the 

 method of controlling or attending upon a single ma- 

 chine, which may be more or less perfectly accom- 

 plished in a few weeks. The acquiring the manage- 

 ment of a machine, in its constant repetition of the 

 same operations, within a limited range, is widely dif- 

 ferent from what the learning of a trade was fifty years 

 ago, where everything was wrought by hand. But 



