July 30, 'An article on the fascinating subject of "Comfort in work' appeared in a recent issue of the London "Times." This is an intriguing topic, for we all spend a large part of our lives in work. We may play and we need sleep, but we must work, and if our work is disagreeable we are in fa bad case. There is an Industrial Fatigue Research Board at! home and this body has been investigating the muscular strain necessary in wheeling a barrow of bricks. They wanted to know what was the economical method of transporting a certain quantity of brick a given distance, That is, the most economical in physical energy. They employed the most up-to-date scientific and mathematical methods to determine thi question and, when they had finished their labours: and had the formula nicely typed with x squared and b cubed, they proceeded to instruct the navvy in his job, "T6 their surprise they found that he had long ago solved the equation for himself and they had nothing to teach him about the easiest way of doing hard work. This result is, really, as instructive as would lik the navvies, at meal time, discussing the wisdom of the bespectacled savants who came to teach them how to wheel bricks Their comments would be punand to the point, We suspect that most of the scientific gentlemen who desire to find newer methods of doing: the tricks our grandmothers taught us when we were young, will find that they have been as did the friends of We have often been puzzled, when lucky enough to dine in a first-class restaurant, at the terrifying list of calories and proteins attached to each item on the menu. We want good digestion to wait on appetite and health on both but have no taste for a mathematical repast, After all, who discovered that bread should be eaten with' butter, porridge with milk (and sugar if you be a Sassenach, not! otherwise) and roast pork with: apple sauce? We have seen a Chinese barrowman eat a meal consisting of boiled rice and salted cabbage—a food deficient, according to the dieticians, in all the properties needed for body-building and yet he wheeled, his load weighing over 400 Ib. for twenty miles, over a roa that was like a' ploughed field before he lay down to sleep on the earthen floor of the inn in which we endeavoured to rest for the night. There are more things in heaven and in with than are dreamed of in the scientists philosophy, And yet there is a great deal that is attractive in the title ly sure that the navvies were, at least, as happy and as healthy jas the men who pitied them. To be sure they would have liked rise in their wages that they! might have an -extra pint of beer when the day's work was done. But the scientists would, probably, not have objected either had their remuneration been increased. The working' man—ff we may use a hackneyed and inappropriate term for manual workers—is not an unhappy man unless work fails him, Then he is, in his own phrase, "up against it." But in this he is not singular. The clerk who faces dismissal through no fault of his own. The business man who sees hit {trade slipping away from "The journalist who cannot find an opening for his talent. Do these suffer less poignantly' than the out of a job workman?
trow not; if anything they Jare in worse case than he.
Leaving aside the problem of Ino work at all we come. back to the question what is it that gives lus comfort in our work? And answer, unhesitatingly; an interest in it, The missionary, who is an enthusiast in his ealling, faces discomfort and isolation that would drive a navvy frantic and is happy through it fall. Doesn't the New Testament speak of certain people who were "addicted" to the ministry? They were so in love with their work that, like secret topers, they slipped off to it at every opportunity, We have known Jdoctors who were like that; {their wives had to drag them out lof their study. There are even lerazy journalists who cannot keep from scribbling but, we must confess, these fellows usually find the editor an un—4 sympathetic man, 'A round peg {in a square hole cannot be comfortable but even such a predicament has its compensations. As long as stopping the square hole brings remuneration, to buy bread and butter withal, it is tolerable. Though a job may not be congenial there is satisfaction in doing it well. Therefore the unfailing recipe is, whether you like your work or hate it, do it so well that no one can find fault with it, Then, if you are not happy you will, certainly, not:
miserable and, imperceptibly, [you will find yourself taking pleasure in so doing.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.