mind. It must therefore fit the mind of the worker as well as his hand and his arm.

The importance of having tools which help to keep the worker in an agreeable frame of mind is not so much in the fact that he can do more or better work in a given minute or a given hour, though there is something in that. The chief importance lies in the fact that he can keep at it for more minutes, more hours, more days, and more years. Some rare geniuses are able to work regularly and all the time, "taking infinite pains" and apparently never tiring. Most of us, however, are desultory creatures who have to coax ourselves to work steadily. It is easier to coax ourselves to work properly if our tools are such as we delight to handle and our workshop is a place where we delight to be.

Coaxing ourselves to work. The writer remembers a venerable farmer who seemed to be the very embodiment of the spirit of work. The habits of a lifetime had got into his very bone and muscle. Work seemed to be his chief pleasure and idleness his chief pain. Yet he confided to the writer that he feared that he lacked the moral character which was necessary to set a gatepost properly. He knew that it ought to be set four feet deep,- that if it were set less deep than that, the gate would sooner or later begin to sag and give trouble. Yet, when he was actually digging the hole, he found his courage and his determination gradually weakening. When it was three feet deep it "looked deep enough," and unless he rallied all his moral force he would stop somewhat short of the necessary four feet. As another means of supporting his character and encouraging himself to do what he knew he ought to do, he never undertook to dig a post hole unless he had all his tools in the best possible shape. It was harder to persevere with poor tools than with good tools. A new tool in which one takes some pride is a great help in such times of moral strain.

Aside from their effect upon the quantity and quality of the work which a person can do, handsome tools contribute their

share to the sheer joy of living. Those people who are not obliged to work have the same need as others for pleasing effects. Not having any use for tools or other objects of utility, they take to collecting useless objects, somewhat after the fashion of the bower bird. That bird, it will be remembered, gathers bits of glass, colored string, broken china, bright pebbles, and spreads them before her nest, for no purpose, apparently, except the pleasure of looking at them. Now tools may be just as beautiful as the greater number of those useless objects which people of leisure and bower birds collect for their own delectation. Those who work spend a large portion of their time with their tools and in their shops, more than they are likely to spend anywhere else except in their own homes. Next to the adornment of their homes, the adornment and beautification of their working places must furnish them the pleasure of living.

Pride in work. The spirit which regards work as a more or less repulsive necessity - which tries to cover up in many ways the evidences of work is probably responsible for a large part of the neglect which we have shown to our working places. Naturally enough a person who regards work merely as a disagreeable necessity — something to be ashamed of and avoided on every possible pretext is not likely to spend very much money on the polishing or adornment of his tools or the beautification of his working place.

No rural neighborhood, for example, is quite so desolate as those from which people retire as soon as they have accumulated enough to enable them to live in town. Farmers who retire as soon as they possibly can afford to do so are not likely to spend much money in adorning their farmhouses or in making the neighborhood attractive. It is only where you find farmers who are glad that they are farmers, — who expect to remain farmers and whose children look forward to the same career, that you find the farms, the homes, and the community adorned and embellished with the evidences of civilization.

No town or section of a town is generally quite so unattractive as the place where the people work. It has not occurred to many of the owners of these working places that the people really live there a good portion of their lives, and that if they cannot get a part of their joy of living there, they will miss a good deal of it. No doubt this is partly due to the fact that the owners themselves live elsewhere. In this respect a factory district resembles a farming district whose land is owned by absentee landlords. The surplus which the land affords is all spent somewhere else, where the owner lives, — in adorning and embellishing his home; there is none left to adorn and embellish the countryside. Similarly, the surplus which the factory yields is spent somewhere else, usually as far from the factory as the owner and his family can get.

If it were not for the fact, referred to above, that we have inherited certain aristocratic traditions (or else that we try to ape those who have) and are rather anxious to get away from the sources of our incomes, we might find it possible, in some cases at least, to live near our places of business. If we all did so, we should spend our money there and should also, if we could afford it, beautify those surroundings as we now beautify the suburban districts where we live.

It is astonishing how much of the fashion of the world is due to the desire to avoid the appearance of having to work, or even to advertise the fact that one does not have to work. In old times certain Chinese magnates used to allow the fingernails to grow to extraordinary lengths as a visible sign that they did not have to work. The binding of the feet of the girls is said to have had the same origin. The train, which only lately was a fashionable necessity for every lady in Christendom, answered much the same purpose.

Seeing that we have been so anxious either to avoid work or at least to avoid the appearance of having to work, it is not strange that we have done very little to make our work agreeable. The opposite tendency shows itself once in a while,

however, as in the case of those New England shoemakers of an earlier day who coöperated to hire readers to read to them while they plied their trade. Such people cannot be kept down. They built up a great shoemaking industry in New England. One finds good workmen who delight in nice tools, tools with which it is a pleasure to work, and who, if they have an opportunity, adorn their shops with flowers. A good farmer usually likes to work with a handsome team, well groomed and harnessed. The team is to him both a consumers' good and a producers' good. There is not much doubt that such a farmer works more cheerfully and more steadily, and that he finds life more enjoyable, than he would if he tried to get along with an ill-matched, unattractive team. It is reasonable to suppose that we should all do better and more persistent work, and get more enjoyment out of life, if we took some pains to make the conditions of our work attractive. If this is so, it is a matter of great economic importance and one which will contribute to the prosperity, strength, and greatness of the nation, and even more to the enjoyment of the people. Expenditure for such things would form a part of a rational system of consumption. But it is important that all such enjoyable consumption should be regarded in its true relation to the problems of the national life upon which our individual lives depend in the long run. To forget their relation to the joy of work and to think of them as ends in themselves, unrelated to the larger problems of life, is to diminish our own value to the nation and, to that extent at least, endanger the position of our posterity.

CHAPTER XL

LUXURY

Different classes of consumers' goods. Consumers' goods have been divided into four classes, according to the kind of desires which they are designed to satisfy. They are necessaries, comforts, decencies, and luxuries. This, however, is at best only a rough classification. It may seem fairly easy to distinguish between necessaries and comforts, and there are doubtless many cases where goods are easily classified; but there are also many line cases where it is difficult to determine whether the good in question is a necessary or a comfort, or even a decency. Another difficulty which tends to obscure the distinction is found in the fact that no one, however poor, confines himself to necessaries. Part of his expenditure will go for comforts, part for decencies, and part even for luxuries. Again, no one, however rich, can avoid the buying of necessaries and comforts.

Necessaries. In a general way we may define necessaries as all goods which are required for the maintenance of physical health and strength, not only of the mature man but also of his family and even of his young children. In discussing what used to be called the iron law of wages, it was said that the natural wages of labor are made up of those things which are necessary in order that the laborer may maintain his health and strength and reproduce his kind, so as to maintain the supply of labor without increase or diminution. Aside from the unwarranted use of the word natural as applied to this rate of wages, it would be impossible to say that such wages would consist entirely of necessaries. It is quite possible that the laborers might demand luxuries and forego the gratification of