tless, but not an impossible one.

We apparently believe that the workingman has no chance to realize life
through his vocation. We easily recognize the historic association in
regard to ancient buildings. We say that "generation after generation
have stamped their mark upon them, have recorded their thoughts in them,
until they have become the property of all." And yet this is even more
true of the instruments of labor, which have constantly been held in
human hands. A machine really represents the "seasoned life of man"
preserved and treasured up within itself, quite as much as an ancient
building does. At present, workmen are brought in contact with the
machinery with which they work as abruptly as if the present set of
industrial implements had been newly created. They handle the machinery
day by day, without any notion of its gradual evolution and growth. Few
of the men who perform the mechanical work in the great factories have
any comprehension of the fact that the inventions upon which the factory
depends, the instruments which they use, have been slowly worked out,
each generation using the gifts of the last and transmitting the
inheritance until it has become a social possession. This can only be
understood by a man who has obtained some idea of social progress. We
are still childishly pleased when we see the further subdivision of
labor going on, because the quantity of the output is increased thereby,
and we apparently are unable to take our attention away from the product
long enough to really focus it upon the producer. Theoretically, "the
division of labor" makes men more interdependent and human by drawing
them together into a unity of purpose. "If a number of people decide to
build a road, and one digs, and one brings stones, and another breaks
them, they are quite inevitably united by their interest in the road.
But this naturally presupposes that they know where the road is going
to, that they have some curiosity and interest about it, and perhaps a
chance to travel upon it." If the division of labor robs them of
interest in any part of it, the mere mechanical fact of interdependence
amounts to nothing.

The man in the factory, as well as the man with the hoe, has a grievance
beyond being overworked and disinherited, in that he does not know what
it is all about. We may well regret the passing of the time when the
variety of work performed in the unspecialized workshop naturally
stimulated the intell