One of the questions asked was: ``How do you make the most of the wages paid your men?'' As subsidiary to this general question three other questions were asked: ``In paying them do you base the amount to be received by each man upon a fixed salary? By some of the men upon actual output--commissions or piecework rates? By some upon a combination including profit-sharing or bonus?'' The answers to these latter questions were not uniform even among employers engaged apparently in the same business and under very similar conditions. Some reported that all the methods suggested were used in their establishment. Factory hands were employed on piecework or on a premium or bonus basis where conditions permitted; office assistants <p 143> on fixed salaries; department managers upon a combination including profit sharing. The results reported, however, were far from uniform. The astounding feature was the diversity of opinion among successful managers of employees. By various houses one or more of the systems had been tried under apparently favorable conditions and had been discarded. On the other hand each of the systems was advocated by equally successful business firms. In judging of the relative merits of fixed salaries as compared with other methods the experiences of individual firms offer no certain data. The relative merits and demerits are best disclosed by a psychological analysis of the manner in which the various devices appeal to the employee's instincts and reason. _When wages are based on commission, piece rate, or a bonus or premium system, the stimulus to action is constantly present. Every stroke of the hammer, every sale made, every figure added, increases the wage. The wage thus continuously beckons the worker to greater accomplishment_. <p 144> All other considerations lose in importance, and the mind becomes focused on output. The worker is blinded to all other motives, and invariably sacrifices quality unless this be guarded by rigid inspection. The piecework or task system thus influences the worker directly and incessantly without regard for the particular instinct to which it may be appealing. Every increase in rate adds directly to the means of self-preservation, of social distinction, and of the accumulation of wealth. _The worker with a fixed salary or wage does not feel as continuously the goad of his wage. It is less in mind and does not control his attitude toward his work. The man on a fixed salary, therefore, will not produce so much_.