I owe this word _mal-employment_, in its contrasted use with _unemployment_, to William Kent, a member of Congress from the city of Chicago. In a recent interview, Mr. Kent gives it as his opinion that the sin of the day is waste--the expenditure of effort for naught or for positive ill. Of course, when we get down to details there is difficulty or even impossibility in deciding whether or not a given man is mal-employed--we may leave out of consideration here all persons engaged in criminal occupations. For instance, Mr. Kent considers that the small army of men engaged in the manufacture of champagne are all mal-employed. Whether we agree with him or not depends somewhat on our predispositions and our points of view. Many parents, in earlier days, thought that when children were at play they were mal-employed; most persons now regard this form of employment as necessary and beneficial, although Dr. Boris Sidis thinks that the same interest now employed in aimless play may be used to carry the child onward in the path of individual progress and development. How about the vast number of persons occupied in amusing or trying to amuse the public--employees of theatres, recreation parks, and so on? Many are well employed; some are doubtless mal-employed. Among persons that we should all agree are mal-employed are all those writing books or plays that are morally harmful, as well as those concerned in publishing such books or producing such plays, and, for the moment, all who are reading or witnessing them; persons engaged in manufacturing or distributing useless or harmful products; all who do work of any kind so badly that inconvenience or harm results; unnecessary middlemen whose intervention in the process of distribution only impedes it and adds to its expense. Anyone may add to the list by taking thought a little. If all these mal-employed persons should suddenly lose their positions the result would be beneficial to society, even if society had to support them in idleness; if they should all turn their attention from mal-employment to beneficial uses, how incalculably great a blessing they would bestow upon mankind! It is every man’s business, it seems to me, to inquire whether he is well employed or mal-employed, and if the occupation in which he is engaged is generally beneficial to society, then whether all those under his orders are well employed in carrying out its purpose.