5 8 PRESENT SYSTEM. 



does, there is nothing to mark the delivery of the order, nor to 

 qualify its asserted completion. 



3. Being for his personal information only, the tendency is so 

 to abbreviate the entries as to make them unintelligible to any 

 one else. In case of his absence, sudden sickness or death, the 

 workings of the whole shop may thus be greatly disturbed or 

 suspended. 



4. The book makes no provision for distinguishing jobs in 

 progress from those on which no work has been done ; nor does 

 it exhibit to the foreman or to his superiors the state of the work 

 in his shop at any given time. All this has to be carried in his 

 head. 



5. There being nothing to record his failure to make an entry 

 or to cross off a completed job, the omission can only be detected 

 when in the first case the work ordered is needed elsewhere, and 

 in the second case when it is done twice over. 



6. So, should an entry be overlooked, or while only executed 

 in part, crossed off as if completely done ; or should an order 

 be amended or suspended while in progress ; or should he wish 

 .to record its product, either in gross at once, or by successive 



deliveries ; in these, as in a host of other cases, his memory must 

 still be his main guide. In spite of his book he would still have 

 to remember what to look for, where to find it, and what it meant 

 when found. 



There is a certain economy of attention by which the more 

 active is a man's work, the less is he capable of contemplation ; 

 and foremen's heads may be put to better purposes than having, 

 to bear this constant burden of solicitude about their clerical work. 



7. Passing from the foreman to his book, we find in an arsenal 

 of any size that the great number of orders always in progress 

 makes the task of keeping track of them within the book almost 

 as great as if no book were had. For example, suppose the 

 foreman starts with a fresh book; the trivial orders are soon 

 crossed off, and by degrees the important ones are left mere 

 oases scattered in a waste of entries more or less effete, which 

 has to be slowly traversed every time new work is to be given 



