516 - INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



&quot;that certain work is let to a gang of about ten or thirteen men, as 

 the case may be, and that the proceeds of the work are equally divided 

 amongst them, something extra being allowed to the head man. This 

 system was originated when the formation of canals first began in 

 England.&quot; 



By this union of a few men having joint interests, who 

 laboured under one another s eyes and under the eyes of 

 their head, great efficiency was ensured: one cause of it 

 being that only proved good workers were admitted into the 



gang- 

 Industrial organization thus parallels in its divisions mili 

 tary organization. Among the Romans, who so highly 

 developed this, the larger military bodies contained sub-divi 

 sions decreasing in size down to those under centurions and 

 finally decurions an arrangement followed in principle, if 

 not in detail, throughout modern armies; and, as we have 

 seen, bodies of Roman slaves were in like manner divided 

 into small groups. The like happened in that kingdom 

 which so perfectly carried out the graduated subordination 

 of a stationary army Peru. The workers w r ere grouped into 

 thousands, hundreds, and tens, under their respective classes 

 of officers. And now we see that large bodies of men among 

 ourselves, whose relations are voluntary instead of compul 

 sory, nevertheless fall into simple groups within compound 

 groups, and these within doubly-compound groups. That 

 such modes of organization are necessary for efficient joint 

 action, whether in fighting or in working, will be all the 

 more manifest on noting the parallelism which in this re 

 spect, as in so many other respects, exists between social 

 structures and organic structures. For each large organ in 

 an organism consists of small parts, massed together to make 

 larger parts, which larger parts are similarly massed to 

 gether to make still larger. To form a muscle a number of 

 contractile fibres are enclosed in a sheath. A number of 

 such sheathed bundles are enclosed in a larger sheath; again 

 these composite bundles are many of them united within a 



