no value to the printer's art then. The skill was not
available to operate and maintain it, nor was the need of the public
sufficiently developed to make it of use. Similarly the automatic
telephone exchange would have been of little value thirty years ago. The
knowledge of telephone men was not sufficiently developed to maintain
it, telephone users were not sufficiently numerous to warrant it, and
the public was not sufficiently trained to use it. Industries, like
human beings, must learn to creep before they can walk.

Another factor which must be considered in determining the allowable
degree of complexity in a telephone system is the character of the labor
available to care for and manage it. Usually the conditions which make
for unskilled labor also lend themselves to the use of comparatively
simple systems. Thus, in a small village remote from large cities the
complexity inherent in a common-battery multiple switchboard would be
objectionable. The village would probably not afford a man adequately
skilled to care for it, and the size of the exchange would not warrant
the expense of keeping such a man. Fortunately no such switchboard is
needed. A far simpler device, the plain magneto switchboard--so simple
that the girl who manipulates it may also often care for its
troubles--is admirably adapted to the purpose. So it is with the
automatic telephone system; even its most enthusiastic advocate would be
foolish indeed to contend that for all places and purposes it was
superior to the manual.

These remarks are far from being intended as a plea for complex
telephone apparatus and systems; every device, every machine, and every
system should be of the simplest possible nature consistent with the
functions it has to perform. They are rather a protest against the
broadcast condemnation of complex apparatus and systems just because
they are complicated, and without regard to other factors. Such
condemnation is detrimental to the progress of telephony. Where would
the printing art be today if the linotype, the cylinder press, and other
modern printing machinery of marvelous intricacy had been put aside on
account of the fact that they were more complicated than the printing
machinery of our forefathers?

That the automatic telephone system is complex, exceedingly complex,
cannot be denied, but experience has amply proven that its complexity
does not prevent it from giving reliable service, nor from being
maintained at