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 hy 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 less 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 

 the 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. Wliitney's system the work 

 was divided with reference to its nature, and several workmen per- 

 formed different operations on the same limb. 



It will be readily seen that under such an arrangement any person 

 of ordinary capacity would soon acquire sufiicient dexterity to per- 

 form a branch of the work. Indeed, so easy did Mr. Whitney find 

 it to instruct new and inexperienced workmen, that he uniformly 

 preferred to do so, rather than to attempt to combat the prejudices of 

 those, 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 

 his first efforts, were soon dissipated, and he had the satisfaction of 

 seeing not only his system, but most of his machinery, introduced 



