Stenographers, of course, have been included in this speeding-up process. We read that “in measuring production of this kind several systems are in use. One is that of measuring production by the square inch, with a transparent celluloid, but in most cases a cyclometer is used, which is attached to the machine and records the number of strokes.” Production is counted by “points,” each “point” being equal to a certain number of strokes, and pay is given accordingly. 250 strokes are deducted for an ordinary error and 1275 strokes for an error on the envelope. 10,000 strokes are added for “a perfect desk,” that is one on which, every minute of the week, every implement is so placed as to permit of the greatest speed. Medals and vacation allowances are given for records, and contests are held—though, as to these last, the expert admits that “as a general rule, office contests are not to be recommended. Spurts of speed of any kind are bound to have their reactions and the contest is often succeeded by a certain amount of lethargy after the goal has been won. [Italics mine.] But for clearing out an accumulation of work or to rouse the office force they may be very effective.” One rubs one’s eyes and wonders whether he is reading about America under the highest standard of living ever attained or England at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Stenographers share in the high standard to the extent of from $1250 to $1700 a year. [Pg 56] VI It would be possible to go on almost indefinitely listing our by-products. For example, having everything from furniture to buildings always of the latest is doing away with a whole range of human emotions. When I was at Yale in 1898 I lived in a new dormitory then one year old. Twenty years later when I went back to see what memories the old place might bring to me, I found that the dormitory had been torn down and replaced by a “modern” building. Our schools and their furnishings, altered or rebuilt every few years, make an Eton or a Harrow look painfully shabby perhaps and “unprogressive”; but the boy who sits at the same desk where Shelley or Byron or Chatham or Gladstone or Wellington sat, or lives in their rooms, will dream dreams and gain an inspiration never afforded by the latest efficient furniture from Michigan. It is the law of compensation at work, and what is gained is not always better than what is lost. So far, what has been gained under the high standard is mostly material and what has been lost is mostly spiritual.