The habits of the people are not disturbed, because they do everything at the same hour as before, by the clock.

Habit is evidently a tremendous force which must enter into our computation of problems of human behavior. The long discussion about setting the clock ahead-it has now continued over two years-shows that our custom must not be disturbed. When we look at our watch preparatory to leaving the office, the time indicated should be the hour at which we are wont to leave. We must not be obliged to reflect upon whether we will leave an hour earlier than has been set by habit. If the routine is not disturbed the usual series of acts for that hour will run its course and the desk will be closed.

We have said that habit makes movements exact and "sets" them, and that it lessens fatigue. We are now ready to state its second practical advantage. Habit first reduces and then eliminates the attention with which acts are performed. These acts will then become essentially reflex. Automatic actions and the handicrafts afford the best illustrations of this advantage. So helpful is absence of atten

tion to automatic acts that when it is given to them they are disturbed. It is a matter of common knowledge that attention to our manner of walking across a ballroom makes our gait awkward. This has been illustrated in one of those little doggerels that so often represent the psychological observations of the layman:

"The centipede was happy quite,

Until the toad, in fun,

Said, 'Pray, which leg comes after which
When you begin to run?'

This wrought his mind to such a pitch,
He lay distracted in a ditch,

Uncertain how to run."

In the handicrafts, also, skill is not associated with attention to the delicate muscular movements, and the impor

tance of habit in the moral and social virtues is too well known to require extended discussion. A recent report from an unexpected source, however, adds greatly to the significance of ethical, social, and industrial habits. A committee of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education estimated the relative importance of the various factors that make for success in engineering.' Over 5,000 practising engineers participated in the investigation, and knowledge of fundamentals and technic was rated at about 25 per cent. The remaining 75 per cent was accorded to various qualities into which habits of one sort or another enter. It has long been observed that engineers, when selecting young graduates for their employ, inquire quite as much whether the applicants are leaders in college and in social service as about their technical qualifications. They want subordinates who have acquired habits of leadership which will fit them to handle men; and they are of the opinion that these useful habits, if they are foreign to the earlier life of the young men, cannot be readily adopted in the course of the work. Ethical habits are evidently quite as significant for efficiency as those that are physical.

Childhood and youth are the periods for fixing both intellectual and ethical habits. If a boy of seventeen has not learned that accurate facts are essential to correct reasoning, if he does not know the difference between facts and assumptions, it is doubtful whether he will ever make the discovery and acquire the habit of investigating; and in adult life, to turn briefly to the ethical side of the subject, one cannot successfully adopt manners and forms of behavior to which one has been unaccustomed earlier in life, cannot give the appearance of having been to the manner born. The efforts of the nouveaux riches to simulate refinement, for example, would be pathetic did not their contentment with the grotesque result give a touch 1 Engineering Education, vol. 7, p. 125.

of humor to the outcome. Dress, manners, and house furnishings all betray the humble origin, which is made vulgar by the attempt to conceal and forget it. Early habits of primitive taste and behavior are too firmly rooted to be eradicated. And one proof of this is the gratification of these people with the result. Not the slightest doubt of success clouds their satisfaction.

Some people, on the other hand, in adult life become aware of the terrible handicap of habits against which they are struggling. "Could the young but realize," says James,1 "how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying: 'I won't count this time!' Well, he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve cells and fibres the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing that we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out." So strong is the grip of habit. Success or failure in life is being settled before the boy and girl are old enough to appreciate the meaning of their actions. A good quality of brain-tissue is made inefficient by its tremendous handicap; and only later, if ever, when the hold is too firm to loosen, does the man or woman realize what might have been. The formation of habits should look toward the future that they may become the allies of our mature purposes and aspirations instead of their enemies. In early childhood this is largely the business of parents, but in youth and early maturity it should be the chief concern of the individual.

'Principles of Psychology, vol. I, p. 127.

Resolutions and moral or ethical principles should be determinedly put into action, at once and on every occasion. Letting ideals ooze out in vapid sentimentality produces only a tiresome, ineffective prater. Some men, for example, are mightily concerned over wrongs done to working girls in all factories and stores except their own. Many get their moral contentment by weeping over sin. They go on an emotional spree periodically, and they enjoy the orgy. Virtue oozes from every pore, and they bask in its sublime feeling; but they do nothing. The habit of emotional vaporization satisfies their longing to do good.

Inability to act may become a habit as truly as can action itself. The writer has an acquaintance who for ten years has had a scholarly book ready for publication, but he cannot let it go. He is oppressed with the fear that it will not be up to date, that there is something which he will find if he waits longer-and hunts. It is doubtful whether the book will appear during his lifetime. Some people, again, are always making resolutions—always promising themselves to begin to work vigorously, tomorrow, always waiting for a great and perhaps conspicuous opportunity to do a social service, always preparing to break a bad habit; and then, as the habit of postponement becomes fixed, moments of anguish come, followed by periods of elation, as emotional virtue again soothes the mind. These people are rich in purposes, resolutions, and plans, but they never cross the Rubicon and burn the bridges. They are always vacillating between determination and doubt, between hope and fear. Inefficiency is not infrequently caused by this habit of indecision, and the disastrous effect, in this instance, arises, curiously enough, from the very qualities of habit which in other ways are serviceable. It is this advantage and disadvantage of the same features of habits that make their outcome so important for efficiency. This may easily be shown.

Habit, we have said, first diminishes the attention with which acts are performed and then eliminates it. This is, of course, a great advantage in acts which should be mechanized. Its limitation, however, should not be overlooked. Repetition makes perfect, but it perfects only that which is repeated; and the perfection consists solely in "setting" serviceable movements, after the elimination of those that are useless, or with mental processes in bringing information to mind of which we are in frequent need. It enables the physiological machinery to run without friction. Short cuts are formed in the nervous system. The route from eye or ear to muscle is shortened by eliminating the cerebrum from the circuit. Lower reflex centres are called into play and the brain is relieved of the burden of overseeing these activities. After the simpler movements have become mechanized they may be combined into more complex actions, and in this way highly involved reactionsystems may be organized. Release of the brain from the direction and supervision of certain activities is a tremendous advantage, because it is left free for things that cannot profitably be made habitual.

Illustrations are not wanting, however, to show that some acts should not be made habitual. One of the speakers at the Tuck School Conference on Scientific Management1 said that he found the proprietor of a large printinghouse answering telephone-calls. When asked if a boy at the telephone would not save him time for more important things he agreed, but said that he could not let go of such details. "I am constantly doing things which I have no business to do, but I can't get away from them," was the way in which the proprietor of another large establishment admitted his subjection to inefficient habits. These are only illustrations, but they represent the wasteful methods of two men engaged in business. Probably they are typical. Of course men differ in their bad habits as well as 1 Tuck School Conference on Scientific Management, p. 245.