The mal-employed intervals of an otherwise valuable worker are often due to ignorance of conditions or sheer inability to meet them. In an interesting study of bricklaying one of the modern school of efficiency engineers found that most bricklayers kept their bricks too far from the point on the wall where they were to be laid, and that a long and wasteful carrying movement resulted. If the time occupied by this lost motion could have been eliminated and simply given to resting, even without doing any work, good would have resulted; these periods were hence intervals of mal-employment The engineer eliminated them easily and simply by bringing the pile of bricks within a few inches of the wall. It is easy to say, “Why, of course, any one would think of that!” Only no one ever did think of it. A large proportion of the most valuable inventions and discoveries have been of this character. Some one has remarked that in the earliest stage of an invention people say, “It won’t work;” later they say, “It may work, but it won’t be of any use.” Finally; when it is usefully running, they say, “What of it? Everybody has always known about it!” We don’t do these obvious things because they are elements in a series of acts that have grown to be habitual. We take care of them subconsciously. Also, they take up so little time individually that at first thought it seems foolish to try to improve or eliminate them. Suppose one does a useless, or even an injurious thing that lasts but three seconds? If he does it just once and then stops, it would doubtless be folly to change it. If, however, like the bricklayer’s useless and tiresome motions, it is repeated hundreds and thousands of times, the matter stands on quite a different footing. It is probable that all of us are habitually doing certain things in ways that involve, without our realizing it, elements of this kind, either mechanical or mental. Many things that we are doing by laborious repetition, wearying ourselves and using up valuable material, might be made to “do themselves” if we only knew how to utilize tendencies and forces that are all about us, unsuspected. One of the forces, for instance, is the desire of every person to do that which will give him pleasure. If the things we want done can be done in accordance with that desire, we can get others to do them for us. The classical example of the boys who whitewashed Tom Sawyer’s fence for him will occur to all. There is deep philosophy in this. I have known librarians to exhaust themselves by trying to get newspapers to publish what newspapers never would publish, while the reporters besiege others for items which they know will be just what they want. The rules of some libraries--both those for their public and those for their own assistants--all seem to run up hill--to “rub everyone the wrong way,” while those of others seem to get themselves obeyed without any trouble.