He Sawed Wood.
Once there were seven sawyers, and each had a cord of wood to saw.
Said the first sawyer: "This wood is green, and the saw sticks in it. I will go away and wait till it gets dry." He did so.
Said the second sawyer: "This saw is dull, and I can never saw a cord of wood with it. I will tell the master to have it sharpened, and then I will saw the wood for him." He did so.
Said the third sawyer: "This wood is knotty, and will be very hard to saw. I will ask the master to change it for straight wood, which I will gladly saw for him." He did so.
Said the fourth sawyer: "This wood is hickory, which is twice as hard to saw as oak. I will ask the master to swap it for a cord of oak, and then I will saw for him." He did so.
Said the fifth sawyer: "It is very hot to-day. I will wait till it gets cooler." He did so.
Said the sixth sawyer, "I have a headache, and will wait till I feel well." He did so.
The seventh sawyer had green wood, and knotty wood, and it was hickory. He also had a dull saw, and a headache. The day was hot for him too.
But he sharpened the saw and set it, so that it flew through the knotty hickory, and did not stick at all. The exercise drove away his headache, and the perspiration cooled him off.
At the end of the day the master gave him the six other cords of wood to saw.
Dewey's Delight
At the close of his autobiography Admiral Dewey wrote a characteristic paragraph: "A gratifying feature of the rank of Admiral of the Navy, which Congress had given me, was that I was to remain in active service for life. While I lived there would be work to do."
This gallant desire of the Admiral's was fulfilled. He was kept at work-worthy and honorable work, work suited to his tastes and to his great abilities. An idle life would have killed him.
How many there are who, far from sharing Dewey's delight in "active service for life," look forward to nothing else so eagerly as to a life of inaction! When duty is all done, their pleasure will be begun.
Of course we know that it is not so. The primal curse is not the curse of labor, but of drudgery. Labor, of proper kind and in due measure, is one of man's greatest blessings. Dewey was right.
Years ago John Willis Baer had in his office in our building a roll-top desk, with, on top of it, an extension full of pigeon-holes,—about forty of them. He took it into his head one day to do away with that desk and install in its place a broad table containing a few drawers. He asked me if I would not like the desk and the set of pigeon-holes on top, and I jumped at the chance. The desk had a few more compartments than the one I had been using, and there were about forty additional pigeon-holes. I was enraptured, as Mr. Baer knew I would be.
Since that time, I assure you, those pigeon-holes have been full. What has slipped into them no one but an editor can realize, because no one but an editor knows the vast variety of stuff that an editor has an opportunity to accumulate—is compelled to accumulate, almost. Indeed, an editor's life is a running fight against the onrushing waves of written and printed paper. Letters, manuscripts, papers, clippings, programs, cards, proofs, memoranda, schedules, engravings, books—the flood is endless and insistent.
And pigeon-holes are so convenient for it! At the end of a long, hard day, with a desk still discouragingly littered with all sorts of abominable stuff, and with your stenographer, however willing, yet needing to go home, a happy thought takes possession of you—the pigeon-holes! You rapidly classify that mass. Unanswered letters pop into one pigeon-hole, unread manuscripts into another, memoranda of articles to write into a third, memoranda of articles to ask for into a fourth, and so on.
There is so much virtue in classification. The pigeon-holes absorb it all with so much alacrity. Your desk looks so clean and neat when you are through. You shut it up with satisfaction. And you open it the next morning with equal satisfaction. It is bare of all reproaching litter. No tasks awaiting you stare you in the face. Your mind accommodatingly passes by the fact that they are hidden away in the pigeon-holes. You enter upon the day with a light heart.
Once this pigeon-hole trick is learned it is easily repeated, till it soon grows into the pigeon-hole habit. The pigeon-holes become crammed. Before long they will hold no more. Then it is the turn of the drawers, and they also are crowded. Then some fine day you wake up to the fact that the entire desk is full of postponed duties. In dismay you haul out the contents of a pigeon-hole. With growing dismay you examine it, and discover accusing dates upon the letters, and note the memoranda that should long ago have been attended to. Oh, the day of reckoning comes to every culprit of the pigeon-hole! Well for him if he grits his teeth, sets himself to clearing out those traps for sloth, and, after they are cleared out, resolutely shuts the roll-front down over them and throws the key out of the window!
That is what I intend to do. No more pigeon-holes for me! No more pigeon-holes in my desk—or, if I retain them, they shall be used not for tasks but for tools. And, more than that, no more pigeon-holes in my mind. For it is as easy to pigeon-hole a duty in the mind as a letter in the desk.
Work Is Not Everything.
A Boston workman was whitewashing a ceiling. He gave impartial attention to the wires and the thermostat of the automatic fire-alarm. Calmly he brushed away, ignorant of the disturbance he was exciting in the delicate contrivance.
His whitewash brush had summoned the fire department. The automobile engine rushed from the engine house ten blocks away. A Protective Department automobile rushed after it. A district chief in his red car with the gong sounding vigorously dashed along the congested streets.
They all pulled up at the quiet building and asked for the fire. Led by a mystified janitor, they went poking from room to room, from floor to floor. No flame, no smoke, no smell of fire. At last they came to the room where the workman was whitewashing the ceiling, and at once perceived the cause of the alarm.
The workman did not turn his head, but kept on brushing. "Don't you see you are operating the fire-alarm?" they shouted indignantly. "What alarm?" the workman asked, continuing his labors. And' through all the colloquy that followed he did not rest his brush or even turn his head.
From this little story it ought to be easy to perceive that industry, even the much-applauded "unremitting industry," is not enough. Industry ought to be remitted long enough to permit the worker to do a little thinking on his job.