If the worker goes home too tired each night, the first method of remedying this condition is to provide rest periods during the working day--to set aside time in which he may recover his proper and normal working strength. One method by which this may be sometimes done is by shortening the working day. This permits the worker to get into better condition either before work, after work, during a lengthened noon hour, or during the “second breakfast” and “tea recess” of many European organizations. The supposed advantage of this plan is that it gives little or no jolt to the working process. To this we might answer, as circumstances vary, that it does give a jolt, because speed must be increased in order that output should be maintained; or we might say that the jolt is really needed. The disadvantage, in some cases, of shortening the working hours is the effect upon the entire industry in the vicinity. This is a feature to be considered, for in the long run maximum prosperity is dependent upon largest outputs. There can be no doubt that in most cases it is advisable and profitable to shorten working hours, but how and when this is to be done is a serious problem. In our own office, our stenographers work every other Saturday till 1:00 P.M. only, and the alternating Saturday they do not work at all; that is to say, we give them a holiday of Saturday afternoon and Sunday every other week, and all Saturday and Sunday the other weeks, besides their regular two-weeks vacation in summer. We find that we get more and better work as a result. No plant, operating under the measured type of management, that we know of, has ever regretted shortening its working hours. It may be that the working hours formerly existing were so long that shortening the hours was the only immediate adequate remedy. The danger in shortening hours is that, if the whole problem is not thoroughly studied, the worker may not be sure of the same or a larger wage for work which he is able to do in the shorter time. Fatigue elimination is fundamentally the duty of the management. The worker cannot afford to pay for the fatigue elimination, directly or indirectly. Let the short hours be planned for and assured, but make sure before introducing them that everything is in such condition that wages can be maintained or raised. This is a matter requiring study of actual records and not “guess,” “personal opinion,” or “judgment.”