BRAIN WORK AN> MANUAL WORK. 2OI 



factory ; full-grown men, with shivering hands and heads, 

 are feverishly binding together the ends of two threads 

 from the remnants of cotton-yarn in the bobbins ; you 

 hardly can follow their movements. But the very fact 

 of requiring such kind of rapid work is the condemnation 

 of the factory system. What has remained of the 

 human being in those shivering bodies ? What will be 

 their outcome ? Why this waste of human force, when it 

 could produce ten times the value of the odd rests of 

 yarn ? This kind of celerity is required exclusively 

 because of the cheapness of the factory slaves ; so let 

 us hope that no school will ever aim at this kind of 

 quickness in work. But there is also the time-saving 

 celerity of the well-trained worker, and this is surely 

 achieved best by the kind of education which we ad- 

 vocate. However plain his work, the educated worker 

 makes it better and quicker than the uneducated. Ob- 

 serve, for instance, how a good worker proceeds in 

 cutting anything say a piece of cardboard and com- 

 pare his movements with those of an improperly trained 

 worker. The latter seizes the cardboard, takes the tool 

 as it is, traces a line in a haphazard way, and begins to 

 cut ; half-way he is tired, and when he has finished his 

 work is worth nothing ; whereas, the former will examine 

 his tool and improve it if necessary; he will trace the 

 line with exactitude, secure both cardboard and rule, 

 keep the tool in the right way, cut quite easily, and 

 give you a piece of good work. That is the true time- 

 saving celerity, the most appropriate for economising 

 human labour; and the best means for attaining it is 

 an education of the most superior kind. The great 

 masters painted with an astonishing rapidity; but their 

 rapid work was the result of a great development of in- 

 telligence and imagination, of a keen sense of beauty, 

 of a fine perception of colours. And that is the kind of 

 rapid work of which humanity is in need. 



Much more ought to be said as regards the duties 



