90 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



mouths and of chewing it, always in the same old way, would 

 become unbearable if routine were of itself a thing detrimental 

 to the well-being of persons and always to be avoided. 



It is to be noted, also, that routine work is not confined to 

 those employments which require the use of machine power. As 

 a matter of fact, machines can be used to advantage only when 

 the thing to be done by the machine is routine work. The tend- 

 ency is, therefore, always to give over to the machine 1 the routine 

 part of any work and to leave the more varied employment to the 

 person in charge. The business of weaving, by the former hand 

 method and by the present machine method, is a case in point. 2 

 Routine work is found quite as frequently in other occupations, as 

 for example, in that of bookkeeping, or of teaching music, or of 

 repairing boots and shoes. It is accompanied, not infrequently, 

 with heavy and exhaustive labor, as in the case of hodcarriers 

 and of stonemasons. If we look to the business of many of our 

 common laborers on the street, or on the railroads and canals, or 

 at boat wharves, we shall find many instances of routine employ- 

 ments such as the worst of machine-driven workmen not only 

 would not but could not endure. 



It is not so much the fact of routine or monotony of work 

 as the far more serious fact of monotony of life which depresses 

 and degrades the workman. 3 The boy who is assigned lessons 



1 New machinery, when just invented, generally requires a great deal of care 

 and attention. But the work of its attendant is always being sifted ; that which is 

 uniform and monotonous is gradually taken over by the machine, which thus 

 becomes steadily more and more automatic and self-acting, till at last there is 

 nothing for the hand to do but to supply the material at certain intervals and to 

 take away the work when finished. Marshall, "Principles of Economics" 

 (3d ed.), Vol. I, p. 341 



2 Nothing could be more narrow or monotonous than the occupation of a 

 weaver of plain stuffs in the old time. But now one woman will manage four or 

 more looms, each of which does many times as much work in the course of the 

 day as the old-time hand loom did, and her work is much less monotonous and 

 calls for much more judgment than his did. Marshall, " Principles of Eco- 

 nomics " (3d ed.), Vol. I, p. 342 



3 As Roscher says, it is monotony of life much more than monotony of work 

 that is to be dreaded ; monotony of work is an evil of the first order only when it 

 involves monotony of life. Marshall, "Principles of Economics" (3d ed.), 

 Vol. I, p. 342 



