The writer has found this enormous difference between the first-class
and average man to exist in all of the trades and branches of labor
which he has investigated, and these cover a large field, as he,
together with several of his friends, has been engaged with more than
usual opportunities for thirty years past in carefully and
systematically studying this subject.
The difference in the output of first-class and average men is as little
realized by the workmen as by their employers. The first-class men know
that they can do more work than the average, but they have rarely made
any careful study of the matter. And the writer has over and over again
found them utterly incredulous when he informed them, after close
observation and study, how much they were able to do. In fact, in most
cases when first told that they are able to do two or three times as
much as they have done they take it as a joke and will not believe that
one is in earnest.
It must be distinctly understood that in referring to the possibilities
of a first-class man the writer does not mean what he can do when on a
spurt or when he is over-exerting himself, but what a good man can keep
up for a long term of years without injury to his health. It is a pace
under which men become happier and thrive.
The second and equally interesting fact upon which the possibility of
coupling high wages with low labor cost rests, is that first-class men
are not only willing but glad to work at their maximum speed, providing
they are paid from 30 to 100 per cent more than the average of their
trade.
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