Memoir of the Life of Eli Whitney. 243 
prominent features, for the purpose of illustrating its general char- 
acter. 
The several parts of the musket were, under this system, carried 
along through the various processes of manufacture, in lots of some 
hundreds or thousands of each. In their various stages of progress, 
they were made to undergo successive operations by machinery, 
which not only vastly abridged the labor, but at the same time so 
fixed and determined their form and dimensions, as to make com- 
paratively little skill necessary in the manual operations. Such was- 
the construction and arrangement of this machinery, that it could be 
worked by persons of little or no experience ; and yet it performed 
the work with so much precision, that when, in the later stages of the 
process, the several parts of the musket came to be put together, 
they were as readily adapted to each other, as if each had been 
made for its respective fellow. A lot of these parts passed through 
the hands of several different workmen successively, (and in some 
cases several times returned, at intervals more or Jess remote, to the 
hands of the same workman) each performing upon them every 
time some single and simple operation, by machinery or by hand, 
until they were completed. Thus Mr. Whitney reduced a complex 
business, embracing many ramifications, almost to a mere succession 
of simple processes, and was thereby enabled to make a division of 
labor among his workmen, on a principle which was not only 
More extensive, but also altogether more philosophical, than that 
pursued in the English method. In England, the labor of making a 
musket was divided by making the different workmen the manufac- 
turers of different limbs, while in Mr. Whitney’s system the work 
Was divided with reference to its nature, and several workinen per- 
ed different operations on the same limb. 
It will be readily seen that under such an arrangement any person 
of ordinary capacity would soon acquire sufficient dexterity to per- 
“tm a branch of the work. Indeed, so easy did Mr. Whitney find 
= instruct new and inexperienced workmen, that he uniformly 
Prelerred to do so, rather than to attempt to combat the prejudices of 
» Who had learned the business under a different system. 
When Mr. Whitney’s mode of conducting the business was 
brought into successful operation, and the utility of his machinery 
Was fully demonstrated, the clouds of prejudice which lowered over 
first efforts, were soon dissipated, and he had the satisfaction of 
Seeing not only his system, but most of his machinery, introduced 
‘ 
