PLEASURE IN WORK

Hokitika Guardian, 16 September 1929, Page 8

PLEASURE IN WORK

Speaking to tiie Society of Chemical Industry at Manchester recently, its president, Dr. Arthur D. Little, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, threw some cold water on a prevalent fancy (says the “Times”.) Machine tending might lie admitted demoralise and deaden th e worked endowed with imagination and initiative. But not all workers are so endowed. There are those who prefer repetitive work which is easily learned and makes little demand on the intelligence. His statement is confirmed by a new German book. Inquiries made among working class students at Frank furt show that more than half enjoy their work, and fewer than one-fifth admit that they dislike it. It is hinted that this might be quite as large a proportion as enjoyed work in the golden past, when all work was handicraft and therefore, as men are prone to fancy in these machine-ridden days, a natural form of self-esteem. The question must be considered.from twoi points of view. The first takes in the work alone. It must indeed be monotonous to go on doing one small operation for a number of hours every day; but many people like monotony—it save them thought and responsibility. Few manual occupations are absolutely mechanical and lacking in variety, and in most "ases a spice of change and choice, combined with simplicity, leaves the energetic worker all the fresher to make, independent and pleasurable use of his leisure. Such workers are spared the exhaustion familiar to those whose daily task makes' such, heavy demands on their brains and their initiative that outside their work they can have .but a restricted life. Bride in the finished tiling, again, is not forbidden to the “ hand.” If the thing made is bad and the workers know it, then indeed the work, taken by itself, may well be irksome ; but when the thing is good there is reason to believe that the honest workman, however humble, takes a pride in what he and his fellows have | made, just as a poor man who has given a shilling or two to a public object— j the preservation of a cathedral or the: purchase of a park—takes a personal pride in the good work. The other point of view is really the juster, because it regards not the work alone but the conditions under which it is done. There can be no question that in present times the life of the factory offers amenities and pleasures forbidden to^