their employment; but who will say that even these, in common with all laborers, have not been greatly benefited by these inventions? Aside from the gain to the farmer from the improved plough, and the saving to the poor, by the use of stoves, in the expense of fuel, and the conveniences in cookery; the increased demand for cast wares furnishes employment to a great number of laborers in the manufac ture, transportation, and sale of these commodities, and in the erection of the buildings and machinery necessary for carrying on these several occupations.

$795. But if the use of machinery, by increasing the productiveness of human labor, be injurious to the com. munity, the same objection will lie against all improvements which have similar effects; and this would bring us back to the uncivilized or savage state, in which we should be under the necessity of satisfying our hunger by hunting, and of clothing our bodies with the skins of the beasts of the forest.

CHAPTER VI.

Division of Labor.

§ 796. We have seen how the different kinds of industry contribute to the production of wealth; and how industry is assisted in this production, by the employment of capital and the natural agents. It will next be in order to consider the advantages of a division of labor. By division of labor is meant the separation of the different trades and occupa tions from each other, and the employment of each individual exclusively in one kind of business, or in the performing of a single operation.

§ 797. Without a division of labor, we can hardly con

cation of cast iron to some of its most useful purposes. § 795. What would be the effect upon the industry of a country, of giving up the use of machinery?

§ 796. What do you understand by division of labor? § 797. What

It is this arrange

ceive the existence of civilized society. ment, which, perhaps, more than any thing else, causes the difference between civilized and savage nations. In the latter, each individual supplies himself with all the neces saries he enjoys; whereas, in every civilized community, it is common for each person to labor at a single employment. In general, the farmer is nothing but a farmer; the manufacturer nothing but a manufacturer; and the merchant nothing but a merchant. And it is each one's confining his labor to one branch of industry, that renders it in the highest degree productive.

798. Suppose a farmer, besides cultivating his land, should undertake to build his houses and barns, make his own ploughs, carts, hoes, spades, and other farming utensils; shoes and hats for himself and his family; also his chairs, tables, and other household wares. It will readily be supposed that he must labor to a very great disadvantage; and that he will be poorly furnished with the necessaries of life. He must have as many sets of tools as there are different kinds of articles to be made. These would cost a large sum. And then he must use them many years before he could manufacture an article with facility and despatch. Probably he would never be able to perform half as much labor in a given period of time as he who pursues a single occupation.

§799. Hence the labor of a farmer is most productive when he applies himself wholly to the cultivation of his farm; because what he produces over and above what he wants for his own consumption, will buy more of the other necessaries than he could make in the same time with his own hands. The division of labor, is not, however, carried to the same extent in agricultural as in other kinds of industry; the farmer often finds seasons of leisure in which he may profitably employ himself in doing things which appropriately belong to other trades. Still the general prin ciple holds good, that each branch of industry is more prof. itable when carried on separately, than when it is united

is the effect of a division of labor upon society? Upon industry? §798. Illustrate the consequences of a union of the several occupa. tions. 799. Show how the labor of a farmer becomes most product

with others in the same hands, because a greater amount of value is created.

§ 800. By this division of labor, the actual wants of every member of the community are better supplied than they would be if each should attempt directly to produce or manufacture all the necessaries of life. Every person, en. gaged in any occupation, wants a portion of the products of other trades or employments. All are equally depen. dent on each other. Hence it is for their mutual interest to supply each other with those things which they do not produce for themselves. The wants of all may thus be more promptly as well as more cheaply supplied. If the farmer should break his plough or his scythe, he may very soon procure a new instrument from the manufacturer or the merchant; whereas, if his proper business should be suspended until he could supply the place of the broken instrument with his own hands, he must suffer a material loss.

§ 801. Not only is labor rendered more productive by a separation of the different trades, but its productiveness may be still farther increased, by proper economy in the application of labor. For instance, a chair maker does not finish each chair before he begins another. He usually commences by "getting out the stuff," as it is called, for a large number, and preparing it all for the lathe; the pieces are then all turned; next they are all framed together; and lastly the chairs are all painted.

§ 802. But where a number of men labor in the same manufactory, it would be still better economy to assign to each a distinct operation: to one, the preparing of the tim ber; to another, the turning; to a third, the framing, aud so on to the finishing operation. Not only can a greater amount of labor be performed in this manner; but there is also a great saving of capital by this arrangement. If each laborer were to perform all the several operations, each

Ive when limited to the business of cultivation. § 800. Are the wants of all persons better supplied by each one's working at one kind of business? Give an example. § 801. By what economy of labor may the productiveness of industry be farther increased? Give an instance. §802. By what subdivision of labor might a still greater amount of products be created? What effect has this arrangement

must have a complete set of tools and machinery. In some kinds of manufacture, these would require a great outlay. But by the division of labor above described, one set of tools would be sufficient for the whole.

§ 803. To illustrate the benefits of a division of labor, Dr. Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, cites for an example the manufacture of pins. One man draws out the wire; another straightens it; a third cuts it; a fourth points it; a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business; to whiten the pins is another; and it is a trade by itself to put them into the paper: the whole labor, he says, consists of about eighteen distinct operations. He states, that in a small manufactory, where ten men only were employed, and where, consequently, some of them performed two or more distinct operations, twelve pounds, or about 48,000 pins were made in a day; the labor of each being equal to the making of 4,800 pins. But if all had wrought separately and independently, and without experience, each would probably have made no more than 20 pins in a day.

§ 804. The great increase in the quantity of work which may be effected by a division of labor, is evidently owing, in part, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman. A person working constantly at the same employment, or upon a single operation, for a number of years, will become more and more skilful. A common blacksmith, who manufactures the various articles in his line of business, cannot make half as many nails in a day as a lad of sixteen years of age, who has labored but a year exclusively at the manufacturing of this article.

§805. Another advantage of a division of labor, consists in the saving of time usually lost in passing from one sort of work to another, and in acquiring a handy use of tools to which a workman has not been accustomed. A man pursuing the several occupations of farmer, blacksmith,

upon capital? § 803. Can you illustrate the advantages of the division of labor by the pin manufacture? § 804. Why can a person laboring at one employment, or upon one operation, produce morc than when his labor is not thus confined? § 805. What disadvanta

and cabinet-maker, must needs lose time in going from shop to shop, and from his shops to his fields. And in the transi. tion from one to the other, there is more or less loitering, as the attention is not readily fixed upon a new object.

§ 806. Again, the invention of labor-saving machines, and the improvements which are from time to time made in them, owe their origin, in most instances, to the division of labor. When the attention of, a man is kept steadily upon a single object, he will be much more likely to discover some easier mode of attaining it, than when his attention is divided among a number of objects. Persons most skilful in any business, are commonly those who, after a long and steady application to that particular business, have contrived some improvement in the manner of performing it.

§ 807. There is yet another and an important advantage realized from a division of labor. In some kinds of busi. ness, many things may be done by persons of little ex. perience, and by women and children, whose labor costs much less than that of experienced adult males. In the manufacture of books, for example, it would not be good economy to employ men exclusively whose labor would cost from one dollar to two dollars a day, when boys may be employed to set and distribute, and to ink the types, and to dry the printed sheets; and females to fold the sheets, and sew them into books; who will perform an equal quantity of labor in these operations, for fifty cents a day. The same economy is practised in the manufacture of cotton and woollen cloths, paper, &c., and to some extent even in agricultural and commercial business.

§ 808. But the division of labor is often limited by una voidable circumstances. When the demand for any product is small, the highest degree of productiveness cannot be at tained by a division of labor. For example; labor in the manufacture of pins is most productive when each of the

ges attend the passing from one kind of business to another? § 806. Are inventions, to any great extent, to be ascribed to the division of labor? How do you account for this? § 807. What other advantage is realized from a division of labor? Give two or three examples of the economy of employing women and children. § 808. Is there any limit to the division of labor? Show the effect of a limited de