South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1918-01-08
Determining the Length of Working Hours
BY GARRETT p. sERvIss.

The war has been teaching some
facts about the human machine
that will be useful when peace
comes. Fortunately, a man is a
machine that thinks about itself,
and consequently is able TO do its
own repairing, and to judge for it
self how long and how fast it ought
to run. When a motor burns it
self out by running with no oil you
cannot kick the poor, innocent ma
chine for its stupidity; but when a
man is guilty of equivalent foolish
ness he ought TO be kicked.
Now, one of the things the war
has been teaching is about how
long, at a time, human muscles can
keep on doing their best work. In
the munition factories over in Eng
land they found that when they re-
duced the number of hours Of work
from 60 to Sc per week the total
output per week increased nearly
10 percent, while the rate of out
put per hour increased as much as
% percent This was in the case
Of the heavy work.
When lighter work, done by
women, was reduced from $50 TO
so hours per week, the total output
was also notably increased" From
these observations DR.. c. S. Sher-
rington draws the conclusion that
there is, for manual labor, a GER
tain length of working week, or
working month, best suited for
satisfactory production in perma-
hence" Just what the length
should be depends upon the kind of
work, and has TO be found out and
measured by the method Of expert
ment. Once discovered, or estab-
lished, by careful observation this
"optimum," or most favorable,
number of working hours per week
or month becomes a valuable asset
to both the employer and the work
er.
The whole subject rests upon the
study of fatigue, a word that has a
scientific meaning differing from its
popular one. In the popular sense
when you are fatigued you are
tired out" and that expression,
like an axiom in Euclid. admits of
no further defnition-you know
what it means though you can't tell.
But the scientific conception of ia
tigue is much more definite. A mus
Gle is fatigued when by its activity
il has produced a certain quantity
of waste, or Of fatigue substances
that poison" it. and thereby more
or less paralyze its action for a
time.
Il is something like the state of
.inefficiency into which the motor Of
an automobile falls when the cylin-
ders get coated with carbon. When
an automobile in that condition
tries TO climb a hill il knows. or
would know if its automatism ex-
tended into the field of intelligence,
what fatigue means in both the sci
entifc and the popular sense.
There is fatigue Of nerves as well
as Of muscles, and IL is the nerves
that convey the impulses from the
brain TO the muscles. But a nerve
RECEIVERS from fatigue much more
quickly than a muscle. Fatigue
also affects the brain. the center OF
the nervous system, but whether
the whole brain ever gets simulta-
neously into a state OF fatigue is
doubtful
Every body must have noticed the
effect Of "a change Of the subject Of
thought or attention when the mind
seems 10 be tired or dulled-in-
stantly the mind brightens up as II
its current had been switched from
a clogged Into a free channel. OF
from a group of fatigued cells 10 q
group OF fresh ones. But the mind
can certainly tire the body out
whether or not il is ever itself tired
out
When the length OF the workins
period affects a large number oil
| persons working together at tn,