80 Materials and Their Handling 



Observation Is Quickened by Interest. When 

 we arc interested in a thing, we observe it con- 

 sciously and keenly. Our eyes are just like the 

 lens of a camera which we may point at a thing, 

 but it is our interest in that thing that clicks the 

 camera and makes the picture in our mind. Where 

 we are interested, we see what is going on and we 

 remember it because we make a clean-cut picture 

 of it in our minds. Where we are not interested, 

 we see very little or nothing of the object, although 

 we pass it and look at it a hundred times a day. 



There are a great many things about our work 

 that are not interesting, because we do them every 

 day we do them as automatically as we dress, 

 almost without thought. By and by, the habit 

 of operation becomes so fixed that we are unable 

 to analyze it and find out whether it is the best 

 way of doing the thing or not. Somebody, to 

 whom the process is not familiar, comes along. 

 He watches us perform the work, then remarks: 

 "Don't you think you would save yourself a little 

 trouble if you did it this way?" That draws our 

 attention to the matter. We become interested 

 again in our own operations and we begin to ob- 

 serve them in detail. It is a fact, then, that a man 

 does not do his best work unless he is interested; 

 he does not observe the work in which he is not 

 interested; and, therefore, he does not improve it 

 or develop in it. For the same reason it is not 

 much use talking to the farmer in engineering 

 terms. He is not interested in engineering, he has 

 not observed it, and, therefore, he does not under- 

 stand it and does not want to understand it. 



