Then half, at least, of the machinery which makes the worker an undesirable neighbor is unnecessary, whether we consider his needs or the consumer’s. From the point of view of the latter, this unnecessary machinery is being used in manufacturing abominable trash, or in making articles to take the place of others which were badly made and faded or fell to pieces, or wore out before their time. From the point of view of the worker, much of our modern machinery saves labor which it would be life and health and happiness for him to perform by hand. All the assistance he needs from machinery is a little power to take the place of his muscular energy and to save his strength and vitality for brain work. He wants a machine which shall be his slave as he works out his designs into useful and beautiful articles, not a tyrant which he must “tend” all day long. A small machine is a much better slave than a big one. If the workers should spread themselves out over the country with their small machines, this would not mean the sacrifice of any real good in the present system. Improved methods of transmitting power are making it possible for each community to have a central power plant from which energy may be sent to run the seamstress’s sewing machine, the carpenter’s lathe, the potter’s wheel, and the rug-maker’s loom. Thus the present desire to simplify life and the present dissatisfaction with the flimsiness of the average factory-made article, which create a demand for a smaller and better product, combine with improved means for transportation, for communication, and for transmission of power to make it practicable for small workshops to take the place, to a certain extent, of large factories, and to make it possible for the producer of household stuff to become a desirable neighbor. The shops that are springing up all over the country in connection with technical schools show the advantages of labor under good conditions. In addition to the students’ workrooms there is usually, in connection with these schools, a shop where men are employed to make furniture and other articles for the institution. The demands of instruction make it possible to equip these shops with apparatus which would otherwise be too costly. Such places offer a man pleasant conditions for work, a stimulus to mental activity, and an opportunity to see the direct results of his labor. I have in mind such a school and shop. There, one day, the girls of the cooking class served orange ice and rolled wafers to the engineer and the carpenter. I felt sure that, good as the ice and wafers were, they tasted better to the carpenter because they were passed on a tray he had made, and to the engineer because he had made the tins on which the wafers were baked. There is a satisfaction in seeing the products of one’s labor in actual use.