8 



the women's shoes I make for the men's shoes I must 

 wear. Neither do I supply myself directly with any of 

 the commodities I must consume. I must go to one class 

 of men for the food I eat, to another for the clothes I 

 wear, to another for the house that shelters me ; in fact, I 

 have looked over the two hundred and sixty-five different 

 occupations reported in the United States census for 

 1880, and I believe that at some time in my life I have 

 been indebted for some service to the followers of every 

 one of those two hundred and sixty- five different pur- 

 suits except the corset makers and the undertakers, and, 

 at least, the last of these will yet serve me, as I trust I 

 shall be accorded Christian burial. 



What is true of myself in this respect is true of all 

 other men as well. Each one of those more than two 

 hundred and fifty classes into which the industry of the 

 country is divided, are as dependent as I am upon all the 

 others. 



But the United States census does not tell the whole 

 story, for great as is the number of different occupations 

 reported therein, that number does not by any means re- 

 present the full extent of the subdivision of labor. Boot 

 and shoe makers, for example, are classed as a single oc- 

 cupation. You will find upon investigation, however, 

 that shoemaking in factories is subdivided into more than 

 thirty different branches, and each of those thirty is so 

 different from all the others that a shoe factory operative 

 is through life practically limited to employment in one 

 of those thirty or more special kinds of work. 



Not that it is difficult for any one person to learn to do 

 the work required in the different parts into which manu- 

 facturing is divided, but constant practice in one particu- 



